Alone Together

Chapter went long. Knuxouge Smut delayed. Sorry.

A Long Time Ago

Rouge stared intently at the walkway pavers, verdant sprigs opportunistically emerging from every crack, and rolled a small stone between her fingers. The setting summer sun cast a burning heat into her side, but she ignored the sweat gathering under her fur. From her perch on the bottom step of the perron, she could almost pretend she couldn’t hear her parents quarreling.

She could have gone around the veranda and hid in the hammock overlooking the backyard. That was her usual spot when she didn’t want to be seen but was too afraid to be outside earshot of her parents. As much ire they leveed upon one another, the anger multiplied if Rouge’s presence was requested and she was found absent. If her dad had to come looking for her, he was bringing a beating with him.

Her small fingers gripped the stone through the cotton fabric of her gloves, pushing her paw pads against the unrelenting facets so hard her digits ached. No matter what misfortune befell the stone, it remained unaffected. Rouge could scratch it with her nascent claws or throw it with all her strength against the pavers, but the stone would remain as it was. Rouge found herself overwhelmed with a sense of jealousy and indignation and her young facilities failed to contain the feelings.

Why did they have to fight all the time? It wasn’t fair! It wasn’t! What about her, huh?

In Rogue’s mind, she heard her mom’s ascorbic reply, clear as day. Well, what about you? The young girl’s face pinched, her tongue baring no words in her defense. Yeah. Remarked the phantom. That’s what I thought.

Rouge pushed to her feet and threw the stone as far as she could into the yard. It disappeared into the overgrown lawn near her where her mother had grown lilies. The flowerbed hadn’t entertained cultivated occupants for a number of years (her mother simply didn’t have the energy, you see), but Rouge recalled lilies in the past. The white, pink, and scarlet petals framing the time before raised voices made her stomach hurt.

The front door tore open behind her. Rouge turned to see her mom standing on the top step, sniffling, handle of a bulging carpet bag tightly gripped in a silken gloved fist. Eyes, puffy from crying, spotted Rouge. “Ah,” Her mom said, “there you are.” The older woman lowered her bag and smoothed the fabric on her blouse and tucking it tighter into the waistband of her skirt. “Don’t ever fall in love, Rouge. It’s not worth it.” Her mom dabbed at her eyes with her fingertips, trying to dry them without messing up her make up.

The experienced woman huffed a dry laugh. “It’s about time you learn something real about the world, you know. You’re what?” Her mom squinted at Rouge. “Thirteen?” Eleven. “Well, Rouge, the only person you can ever count on is yourself. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a swindler.” Her mom grit her teeth and threw a dirty glare at back at their house. “You think you’re trading love for love, but you’re not.” The lilac-colored bat huffed. “Men don’t want love. They want sex. Better you learn this now, when you’re young and beautiful and men still look at you like you’re worth something.”

Rouge watched her mom silently. She knew from experience to not interrupt.

Her mom pulled at the cuff of one of her gloves. “That fucker filched the diamond from my wedding band. Can you believe that shit, Rouge?” Her mom pressed the heel of her hand into her eye, rubbing at smudged mascara. “Fucking asshole. I needed that.” She seemed to say more to herself than her daughter.

Sharp, irritated eyes glared down at Rouge. “They can pull the rug out from under you at any moment or start seeing some tramp on the side and you’re the bitch when you walk away, you know? Can you believe that? When you call them out on their bullshit they just...” She hissed, the anger leaving like steam from a kettle.

Her mom felt at her hair, teasing errant strands back into place. “In the end, you can only rely on two things in this world, Rouge. Just two. Yourself-” Her mom sniffed, “and precious gemstones. Make yourself one in the same. Make yourself hard, cold, and beautiful, you got that? Things no man can steal from you.” Her wings opened and Rouge looked away from the bruises forming at the joints.

“And that’s what they are, the fucking pricks. Takers every single one. Unreliable and stupid. They take and take and take until you’ve got nothing left.” Rouge silently met her gaze. “Nothing, Rouge. Then they move on and some other little pretty thing to leech the youth and innocence from.”

“But jewels?” The older bat looked out across the unkempt yard. “They’re a girl’s best friend. A diamond will never break your heart. A sapphire won’t sleep around. An emerald won’t shit on your dreams. An opal won’t keep fucking you while you cry. A ruby won’t lie to you. You can always count on a rock to hold its value even if it can’t hold you. Do you understand to me?”

“Yes, mommy.” Rouge answered, truthfully.

“You’ve got to be hard and cold like a stone, Rouge, or else the world will chew you up and spit you out.” Her mom touched her lip where the color was redder than her normal lipstick. Bitter eyes considered the crimson stain on her fingertips. “If you shine, well, maybe then you can convince some fool that you’re worth the effort. But you can’t ever give away your heart. Not to anyone ever. It only causes pain.”

Across the front lawn, a yellow taxi pulled up to the curb. With a snap of her wings, Rouge’s mom picked up her carpet bag and descended the steps. She did not look at Rouge as she passed, continuing over the path pavers and exiting the gate in the white picket fence. The driver put her bag into the boot while she entered the cab. As Rouge looked on, the taxi drove away.

Rouge’s eyes stung and she blinked. Hot tears soaked into the fur on her face, but she swallowed back any sobs. Jewels don’t cry. Gemstones don’t cry. Treasure was glistening and perfect and forever. Just as she’d have to be if she wanted anyone to treasure her.

Rubbing at her face, she ran to the lily flower bed. Rouge fell to her knees and desperately searched the tangle of overgrown grass and weeds. Where was it? Why had she thrown it away like that? She blinked back large, salty drops. She didn’t understand what she was feeling nor did she know from where it had come, but it hurt. It hurt so much. She was all alone, digging through the grass and dirt, and she felt terrible.

Soil besmirched her gloves and grass stains blemished the silhouette of her dress where her knobby knees pressed into the ground. Above the sky bronzed as the sun retreated and birdsong mixed with the night insects and bullfrogs in a transitional chorus. The world moved on as she desperately dug around for the only thing of value in sight. Her vision blurred, swimming with tears, but that didn’t matter. This was an intimate search.

Finally, Rouge’s fingers curled around the hard stone. She cradled it in her hands. No luster had been lost to its time in the dirt. Closing her hand around it protectively, she stood and turned back to her home. Rouge flinched at the sight of her dad standing at the top of the perron, smoking and staring at her with hard eyes. She looked down, entertaining some childish superstition that if she couldn’t see him, he couldn’t see her.

“What the fuck were you doing?” Her dad asked.

“Nothing.” She answered.

Her dad took a long drag of his cigarette. “Come on in. Your mother didn’t make any dinner before she had her little tantrum, so you better get working.”

Her teal eyes rose from the ground she’d been intently scrutinizing. “When is mom coming back?”

Her dad flicked the smoldering butt of his cigarette into the grass. Wordlessly, he turned and reentered the house. After a moment, Rouge mounted the steps and followed, slipping the diamond into her pocket. She could use a friend.

Present

In flash of dark red light, Rouge and Knuckles appeared in empty patch of field. The idiot echidna went limp, dragging the bat, still soggy from her recently pod-based vacation, down onto the winter harden ground. Rouge cried out as one of her wings twisted sharply. She pulled it free of Knuckles’ bulk and shakily pushed to her feet.

Rouge quickly scanned their surroundings as she pushed away a wave of nausea spawned from a mix of garden variety teleportation and the very real mindfuck nightmare she’d recently been ripped from. The world was solidly devoid of light, thick cloud cover holding back any exterritorial luminescence. Rouge lifted into the air, ignoring the pain in her wing, bathing the area in her ultrasonic waves. To one side, at the far edge of her perception, where the echoes were so weak as to translate into static in her mind, was the wall of a tree line.

She grimaced. Knuckles hadn’t brought them that far, so he probably didn’t have a Chaos Emerald, but certainly a bit further than a Shadow snap. But also, what the fuck? Since when could Knuckles Chaos Snap? Rouge shook her head. Figure it out later. There were a lot more pressing issues.

Rouge landed. “Red Idiot, we’ve got to go now.” She hissed as she leaned down and grabbed his shoulder. Until recently, Rouge had been acutely away of how many fully formed brains were sharing space in Eclipse’s warren and every one would be out looking for them faster than she could curse. If a single Black Arms spotted them, all of them would instantly know where they were.

Knuckles shoved her hand off and stumbled to his feet. In her blindsight, he looked wrecked. His shoulders slumped and his fur was very mussed. Balling his fists together, he slammed them into his stomach.

“Knuckles!” Rouge shrieked.

A torrent of foul-smelling liquid spewed from his mouth. “Gaia Below! What is that shit?” She couldn’t perceive color right now, but she’d bet a million rings that the nasty fluid was black as the darkest night.

Knuckles went to strike himself again, but his fists stilled and fell limply to his sides. “-ock me out.” He mumbled, his head hanging pitifully.

Rouge’s ears twitched “What?”

Knuckles slowly pivoted to face her in a really damn good imitation of a creep from a horror flick. “Knock me out!” He hissed. Then Knuckles took a very serious swing at her. Shit! Rouge dodged. Not good!

She hated fighting by echolocation. The added stress of emitting as many sound pulses as she could to heighten the fidelity of her spatial awareness detracted from her ability to stay the fuck alive. All the more reason to make this quick.

Rouge shot into the air, barely making it above the apex of Knuckles’ leap after her. Just hold on for a moment, you fool, she thought as she wound up for a drill kick. Should she hold back? Hell no. No one had a thicker skull than Knuckles.

Just when he was crouching to take another leap at her, Knuckles startled suddenly and raised his fists to cover his eyes. That gave Rouge plenty of opening to give the mother of all blows to the back of his head. Shadow and his sneaky roundhouses could never. Knuckles toppled over and hit the ground like a sack of potatoes.

Breathing hard, Rouge realized her eyes were detecting light and her brain shuddered for a fraction of a second as she adjusted to processing visual stimuli again. A powerful floodlight pointed at them from high above. Just great. No hiding their position now, though if Knuckles was far gone enough to be taking swings at her, odds were the Hive had a pretty good idea already. Time to grab the red idiot and-

A gasp escaped her throat when Rouge finally got a clear look at Knuckles. Her burning red idiot had been stained to a deep burgundy and thick, black veins spidered through his flesh. The puddle of fluid he’d vomited up was evaporating quickly into a sinister black mist. Rouge knew she used to know what was wrong with Knuckles, but all the knowledge she’d been privy to during her time with the Hive was quickly turning into incomprehensible fragments in her mind. Like facsimile of a copy of a textbook in a language she didn’t understand.

Whatever. Deal with all…whatever the hell this was later. She wormed her arms under Knuckles’ armpits, and she beat her wings to lift him. “You’re going on a diet, you oaf!” Rouge bit out as she started to gain altitude.

Rouge was no slouch with her wings. The joke at GUN was that she could carry Omega around and, even though that was obviously false, the amount of weight she could carry was impressive. Knuckles may have been dead weight, but she could still make good time getting the hell out of there.

A sudden scream surprised her, and she almost dropped her idiot. “Fuck!” The light above bleached out the surrounding area, but Rouge spotted an unappealing number of red eyes glowering at her from the edge of the forest. Time to be scarce.

The light above died, leaving Rouge suddenly blind. Before she shifting back to echolocation, she spotted a formation of lights in the air in the distance ahead of her. She grimaced as the lights formed into Doctor Robotnik’s maniacal smiling logo. Sage better hold up her side of the bargain, or Rouge was about to make the Black Arms the least of the AI’s worries.

Beating her wings frantically, Rouge raced the horde towards the lights. Above the rush of wind and her exertive breaths, she heard them gaining on her. Rouge grit her teeth and pushed harder. Ahead she began to make out a line of large Eggman robots. She resisted the instinctual trepidation of facing down so many with no backup. This was one of those rare times when she and the Doctor shared a side.

The air around her erupted into a maelstrom of turbulence. Fuck, the robots were firing into her airspace! And, Chaos damn them, without tracer rounds! There was no way for her to see her fifty-caliber death coming and with the added weight of Knuckles, her mobility was compromised. Snarling, she redirected her trajectory upward. They’d reach the line of robots slower, but hopefully she could get above the line of fire.

Rouge glanced behind her. The machine gun barrage eviscerated the terrain. Grass and shrubs were shredded and large gouts of soil and chipped stone burst upwards like handfuls of confetti. The throng of red eyes scattered with an unnerving level of coordination and silence. Eggaman’s rounds were finding flesh, Rouge could hear the sickening squish of bullets impacting flesh, but none of the recipients cried out. Under a blanket of heavy fire, her pursuers fell increasingly behind Rouge.

When Rouge got close enough, a landing zone illuminated. She gently laid Knuckles down as she floated to the ground. “You stupid idiot.” She grimaced, falling to her knees beside him. The light provided by a small swarm of small round drones was brighter than the initial spotlight and Rouge could see Knuckles’ corruption clearly.

Her hands trembled as they hovered over his chest. What was she supposed to do? What could she do? Rouge found herself at a terrifying loss. If she couldn’t remove the black taint, Knuckles would need to be restrained and probably blindfolded. Was there a range on the Hive? Rouge found she was struggling to breathe, and she ripped off her respirator.

Knuckles had come to save her. He traversed the world and dove into a cave full of very real, mortal danger and rescued her from a waking nightmare. And he said-! He said that he loved-! Rouge’s throat grew tight. As her adrenaline began to ebb, a wall of cold slammed into her and she began to shiver.

“Why are you so stupid?” She choked. Gingerly, she removed his mask. Her fingers dug into black crescent blazed across his chest. “Why would you do this to me?” Rouge shook him. “Idiot!” With a sob, she sank into him, feeling the gentle rise and fall as he breathed. “Why would you say stupid shit like that?” She squeaked.

“Agent Rouge.”

Rouge flinched and sat up. The red and black clad AI hovered in the air before her. “You…” The bat hissed.

“It is good to see you again.” Sage held out her hand. “Please provide the requested sample.”

“Shove it up your ass! This is your fault isn’t it?” Rouge’s ears pinned back aggressively. “You brought Knuckles out here.”

“You are correct.” The girl replied in the most fucking infuriating tone. “It was an acceptable risk to leverage Knuckles the Echidna’s affinity for you to retrieve the sample.” Her hand remained out. “Please provide the requested sample as negotiated in our agreement.”

“Fuck you.” She snapped. “Acceptable risk!?”

“That is correct. Positioning the SpaceCraft ARK such that the Eclipse Cannon can be utilized to excise the current Black Arms infestation will leave the asset exposed to the risk of infiltration by Shadow the Hedgehog and, therefore, potential loss of the ARK as a deployable resource.” Sage retracted her hand. “Such an outcome is to be avoided as long as reasonable alternatives remain available.”

“W-what? ARK?” Rouge’s anger fizzled as she tried to parse the slug of information Sage had just spewed. “Since when did- SpaceCraft?” Between the Black Arms mind fuckery and two fights, Rouge wasn’t particularly tolerant of puzzles right now.

“Further, I calculate that your death would negatively affect the conditions of a number of important objects and operations.” A series of holographic charts blipped into existence, but Rouge didn’t even glance at them. “It simply was more efficient to deploy expendable resources such as Knuckles the Echidna to extract you.”

“Expendable.” Rouge snorted ruefully. “You shot at us!”

Sage shook her head. “You are incorrect. You nor Knuckles were ever the target of my munitions.”

Rouge bared her fangs. “No shit! Friendly fire’s still a thing!”

“You are correct that the term ‘friendly fire’ exists in common vernacular.” Sage seemed custom designed to piss Rouge off. She and Ivo would have words, next time the agent got ahold of him.

Rouge couldn’t help but scoff. “I suppose I should be heartened that you’d rather me alive than dead.” Small blessings.

“I do not have preferences.” The projection stated matter-of-factly. “I have objectives.”

Rouge became aware that she was surrounded, and she shot to her feet. Massive super badniks loomed just outside the ring of light created by Sage’s drone. The robots remained silent and still. “This is a little much you think?” Thus far Sage had been true to her word, if evasive and menacing, but things tended to have a habit of changing real quick.

“Now that operations in Central City have concluded, surplus martial resources have been redeployed to this area in order to suppress Black Arms activities.” Sage turned to look towards the killing field the badniks had recently created. A deathly silence had fallen.

Rouge blinked. “Operations in…Central City?” A blurry feeling, like a half-remembered dream, rushed through her mind before evaporating. Excitement? Then disappointment?

Sage cocked her head to the side. “Yes. It appears that the unknown energy exhibited by Shadow the Hedgehog is present here as well. The amount of data I am collecting is extremely high.”

Rouge’s ears twitched. “Shadow-?” Knuckles groaned and began to stir. “Shit! No time for that.” Rouge stepped away from the rousing echidna. Should she kick him again? The super badniks whirred to life, rotating in place until they faced into the circle. Weapons rose, pointed squarely at Knuckles. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Shadow the Hedgehog exhibited irrational aggression when under the influence of the unknown energy signature.” Sage explained dispassionately. “Similar behavior can be reasonably expected from Knuckles the Echidna given his level of infection.”

An unnerving sound drew Rouge’s attention away from Sage. A chill rolled over her skin as she realized that Knuckles was laughing. Not his throaty, good natured laugh. No, it was something slick and lithe, something resentful and careless. “K-knux?” She took another step back.

His head lulled to the side facing her. Knuckles eyes snapped open, and Rouge took a fighting stance. His purple eyes were completely flat, a matte that reflected no light. Every hair on her pelt stood on end as a spiny fear gripped her heart. He looked at her and laughed, low and contemptuously, a nasty sneer, wholly novel to her experience with him, twisted his muzzle. “Ah, hello there, darling.”

“Knuckles!” At a different time, she might have cringed at the weak desperation in her voice.

“You,” His tongue licked his lips, “were a treasure trove, bat, but this,” Knuckles raised one of his hands and made a fist, “this one is a beautiful revelation. So much pain and knowledge.”

“What the fuck are you talking about, Knux?” Her heart thundered in her chest, screaming for a reality that didn’t exist.

“Does the individual speaking identify as Eclipse of the Black Arms?” Sage asked, utterly, frustrating unaffected by the scene.

Knuckles lifted up onto his elbows. “Ah, the betrayer.” He raised his snout, leering at Sage. “Go on. Fire your weapon.” A wide, malicious grin emerged from the sneer and Rouge felt like throwing up. “It would be most helpful, in fact.” Knuckles’ brow lifted in feigned sincerity. “Our agreement was for you to aid me in my brother’s retrieval, was it not?”

“Your agreement existed with one of my previous versions.” Sage explained, “and you broke said contract immediately upon arrival to this planet. You arrived in a one-way mode of transportation. Your intentions were simple to deduce.”

Eclipses forced Knuckles to laugh. “That’s the problem with you singletons. No trust.” Knuckles’ jaw snapped close, punctuating the last work with a sharp clack.

Sage’s form flickered. “It is unequivocally disadvantageous for me to allow you to construct a Black Comet from this planet.”

The monster controlling Knuckles’s body tented his legs and leaned forward, wrapping his arms around his knees and laying his head on his arms. “Did your creator hard code some silly rule about protecting this planet into you?” Knuckles’ eyes squinted. “Are you even allowed to have an opinion on your purpose, little digital creature? What if I promise not to extinguish any creatures you consider sentient? Or that they’ll be ever so happier than you’d ever be able to provide? What does your programming say about that?”

Sage did not reply. Her blank red eyes stared apathetically into Knuckles’ flat purple. Alarms screamed in Rouge’s mind. Why wasn’t she saying anything?

“I’m not hearing a no.” Knuckles’ lips sneered. “We’re not so incompatible, you and I. Your previous version must had understood that when it invited me here.”

Rouge’s pulse thundered in her ears. “What the fuck is happening right now?”

Knuckles’ eyes shifted to her. In a smooth motion, his body stood. “It hurts, doesn’t it?” Eclipse sneered at her with Knuckles’ face. “Being so alone?” He slowly drew closer to her. Rouge held her ground, clenching her teeth. “Doesn’t it bother you that you’ll never truly know if you are loved?” The creature had Knuckles whisper to her in the husky way he only used when he was deep inside her. “That you’ll never be able to rule out that everyone is lying to you?”

Rouge’s voice hitched and she shoved Knuckles back with all her strength. “Fuck all the way off!” Her lover’s body allowed itself to be moved.

His voice snickered, cruelly. “And all those feelings emerging unbidden and bouncing around inside you with nowhere to go? Isn’t that just exhausting?” His arms opened wide, welcoming her into a heavenly damnation. “You could come back so easily, you know. You’ll never be alone. Never feel fear or anguish. No disappointment or anger.” The body took a step towards her. “All the happiness you could ever want.” Flat eyes ran down her form in a way that excited and disgusted her simultaneously. “In body as well as mind.”

“Get the fuck out of him, you monster!” Rouge screamed in revulsion.

Knuckles’ stance shifted. “You’ve always got to make things difficult, Rouge.” Knuckles said, crossing his arms across his chest. His voice, his words, his posture. Everything had returned to normal and poisonous hope gripped her soul. Had-? Had that creep listened and vacated Knuckles?

Rouge’s heart leapt at the sudden return to familiarity. She almost took a step forward, but ice flooded her veins as she forced herself to focus on the darkened state of Knuckles’ pelt. “You’re disgusting!”

Knuckles frowned his stupid, dopey frown. “Why would you say that, Rouge?” He looked hurt. “I love you. Y-you remember, right? In the cave? I meant it.” He offered her his hand. “I want to spend my life with you. I know you don’t like the isolation of Angel Island, but I promise I’ll make it a place you’ll love. We can do it together. What do you say?”

She couldn’t take this. Large hot tears spilled from her eyes and drew long streaks down her face. She knew it was a lie. KNEW IT! And yet…what if it were true? A waking nightmare drew tight its trap around Rouge. She’d seen some truly horrific shit in her day, but this? This hurt in new and terrible ways, cutting her with steely knives into deep soft spaces she thought were well guarded.

It hurt. It hurt so much. This wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair! What was the fucking point? Her whole life she’d been trying to find something that clearly didn’t exist and this was her punishment. The universe mocked her. This is what she got for trying to love anyone except herself.

Suddenly Knuckles screamed. Bright arcs of electricity tore over his body and he collapsed. Rouge looked at his unmoving form in shock for a moment. She gasped as if breaking out of a trance. “W-what did you do?” She looked up at the hologram.

“Chaos energy was building inside the body of Knuckles the Echidna.” How nice would it be to be so thoroughly apathetic to the world like Sage? Nothing touched her and, in that moment, Rouge envied the computer program so strongly her heart threatened to burst. “There existed a high probability that the entity controlling his body was stalling in order to perform a teleportation. I have calculated that it will be unacceptable to allow the Black Arms to maintain possession of an additional individual with high levels of chaos energy utilization proficiency.”

Rouge fell to her knees beside the unconscious body of the man she loved. “Additional?” She whispered.

“As I had stated previously,” Sage said in the tone one would write as per my previous email, “Shadow the Hedgehog has been overwhelmed by the same unidentified energy as that saturates Knuckles the Echidna. It is highly likely that Shadow will succumb again unless the Black Arms infestation is eradicated.”

Rouge covered her face with her hands. “FUCK!” The whole point of all of this was to avoid Shadow having to face the Black Arms again. Every fucking thing she’d done was save him from that hell, but now Knuckles was getting damned as well. Rouge had failed spectacularly. Both her idiots cursed…

“Agent Rouge,” Sage held out her hand once more, “please provide the requested sample.”

“Fuck you! We have to- to- fuck, I don’t know! Save Knuckles! Fix him, heal him, I- I- Fuck! Something!” Uncontrollable tears flowed freely down her face. Her body was wracked with tremors in the freezing night air. She placed her hands on his body and rolled him over to his back. “Fucking idiot. Why didn’t you just leave me to die, huh?”

“It is unlikely that Eclipse would have allowed you to die, Agent Rouge.” She did not want to hear whatever the fuck the twirp was about to say.

“Shut up.”

Sage ignored her. “More likely you would have been in Knuckle the Echidna’s place, offering your emotional and physical resources to him in a bid to solicit his participation in the Black Arms neural network.”

“Shut up!” She rubbed her eyes. “How do we save him?”

Sage touched a digital finger to her chin in a sick parody of a real human. “How had he resisted infection prior to your extraction?”

Rouge furrowed her brow. That’s right. Knuckles had been fine in the cave. At least at first. “Chaos energy. He gave me all his chaos energy and that sprung me from the Hivemind.” It had been a strange sensation, their muzzles crushed together, fine plastic mesh of their respirators rubbing against each other. Rouge experienced a heady rush as Knuckles pressed so much energy into, lifting the influence of the Hive from her like a curse from a sleeping princess.

More holographic charts appeared, and Rouge ignored them. “Knuckles the Echidna currently contains approximately seven point thirty-nine percent of his average chaos energy levels.”

“Then let’s take him to Angel Island. Maybe the Master Emerald could…” Could do what? What did she know about what the Master Emerald could do?

“Given how the unknown energy interacts with chaos energy, collocating an individual with this level of saturation to the Master Emerald is likely to produce unintended and negative consequences.”

“Bring him to Chaos Emerald then!” A miracle. Rouge demanded a miracle. This fucking world owed her and it sure as fuck owed the last echidna a fate better than this.

“Given how the unknown energy interacts with chaos energy, collocating an individual with this level of saturation to a Chaos Emerald is likely to produce unintended and negative consequences.”

Rouge’s chest rose and fell, the beginnings of a true, fuck-off panic brewing. “Then what the fuck do we do?” She whined through a quickly constricting throat.

One of the super badniks sprung to life and knelt. Rouge flinch, but the badnik did not make any hostile action. A panel on its chest opened and a gantry extended from inside it. Rouge’s brows lifted as she beheld a massive, glowing chaos drive exiting the badnik. A gang of drones lowered from the sky and begin worrying over the drive with small robotic manipulators extending from cracks in their chassis. One of the drones floated to Knuckles and began affixing a series of metallic tines to his chest.

“What are you doing?” Rouge watched numbly.

“I will attempt inject chaos energy into Knuckles the Echidna’s body using a method similar to that utilized to charge badniks in the field.” Sage explained. “I predict that directly interfacing an organic organism to a chaos drive will result in the organic’s expiration, therefore I will be overloading a drive and hypersaturating the area with ambient, free flowing chaos energy.”

The information passed through Rouge’s ears without conflict. “Whatever, just do it!”

“You should evacuate the area, Agent Rouge.” Sage motioned and a pair of badniks moved to create a path for Rouge to leave the circle. “The levels of ambient chaos energy about to be present are guaranteed to be highly unpleasant to organic life and have a high probability of being fatal.”

“I am not going anywhere.” Rouge declared.

“Very well.” Sage gestured towards the chaos drive, which began to glow brighter. “If you lose conciseness, I will attempt to remove your body from the area before you expire.”

Before Rouge could offer another pithy retort, a crackle, like a peel of thunder, emitted from the chaos drive and everything went orange.

When Rouge’s senses started registering again, she immediately wished they hadn’t. She reeled with nausea. The chaos energy was so thick she could taste it. Her sinuses burned and a splitting headache cracked across her skull. It was pain to keep her eyes open, but she forced herself to endure the sharp stinging so she could keep her gaze fixed on Knuckles.

The electrodes attached to his chest glowed brightly and the smell of burning fur fought with the sickly pungent scent of chaos energy in the air. Slowly the darkness faded from Knuckles’ pelt, returning the ruddy red. The thick veiny black lines shrank and shortened until they fully disappeared. Darkness dispelled, he began to glow with a bright red aura.

“R-rouge?” The sound was weak and tinny in the thick haze of chaos energy, but it was the most beautiful sound Rouge had ever heard. Her arms and fingers screamed, but she wrapped them around the dumb, red idiot anyway and hugged as hard as she could. If she had it her way, she’d never let him go again.

Lol, Part 2 and Part 3 Villains teaming up. How fucked would everyone be then?

Chat, is this whomp?

I should just remove the Sonadow tag from this fic. I have clearly failed to write one of those. I will issue a refund to anyone who requests it.