Through the Looking Glass: Chapter 2-C
Rouge: Chapter 2
Rouge walked into Robotnik's little control room that morning, going over to the doctor. As she did, however, she suddenly heard a harpsichord flourish that sounded from a boombox that was installed into the wall. The harpsichord flourish surprised Rouge greatly, but when a female voice began singing she was all the more jolted.
**Che vi credete, o dee,
Divider fra di voi del mondo tutto
La signoria, e'l governo,
Escludendone Amore,
Nume, ch'è d'ambe voi tanto maggiore?**
When Rouge had finally recovered from the initial shock over the multiple continuo chords and the female voice, she pointed to where she noticed the speakers jutting out of the grey wall. When she moved to speak, however, Robotnik waved his hand, and Rouge was silenced, looking at the doctor with a confused expression on her face as she listened to the music.
**Io le virtudi insegno,
Io le fortune domo,
Questa bambina età
Vince d'antichità
Il tempo, e ogn'altro dio:**
**Gemelli siam l'Eternitade ed io.
Riveritemi,
Adoratemi,
E di vostro sovrano il nome datemi.**
As another pair of female vocalists came in, the doctor saw it fit to cut the tape off there, hitting a button on the remote that effectively paused the music as the doctor turned to Rouge.
"W... Was that medieval opera?" asked the bat, looking towards the speakers at the other end of the room.
"Correction, Rouge; it was Baroque opera," replied the doctor as he crossed his arms in front of him. "They didn't have opera until the end of the Renaissance, and it didn't become an established form of music within the public until 1637."
"Right..." replied Rouge hesitantly, looking down at the ground momentarily. "I wanted to ask you something else..."
"What is it?" asked the doctor as he looked at Rouge from where he sat in the chair right in front of the control panel.
The bat cleared her throat, looking out of the window into the room where Tails was being held before looking back at the doctor. "Well, you know, I was just worried about Tails. Are you sure you know what you are doing?"
"Of course," replied Robotnik, turning his chair. "I'll just have him shoot targets today."
"Well, all right," replied Rouge. The female was admittedly very unconvinced by the doctor's reassurance, and as she remembered the conversation she had had with Banjo the night before she glanced over to Tails, who stood stock still in the center of the room he had been placed in the day before. "I'm just worried is all..."
At this, the doctor eyed Rouge and stood up. "Are you accusing me of unfair treatment?" he demanded, slamming his fist against his chair's armrest.
"No!" replied the former G.U.N. agent, holding her hands up in her defense. "I never said that! I'm just hoping this doesn't get out of hand!"
"Trust me, Rouge, it won't," replied the doctor with a smirk on his face. "I do hope I won't have to dock your pay sometime soon."
The bat moved to reply when she heard the doctor's last sentence. Deciding it would be better to leave it at that, the bat sighed and glanced briefly at Tails in his entrapment before nodding.
"I'm sorry," she replied. "I'll try not to question your motives again."
And with this, she turned around, exiting the room with a soft sigh. When she left, she could have sworn that she noticed a diabolical smile on the doctor's lips reflected in the metal wall.
As she walked down the halls just after this, she couldn't help but think back to the honey bear she had been meeting in her dreams lately. Banjo was so adorable sometimes, and even though she didn't like to admit it, she was beginning to feel rather... comfortable around the bear. She only wished that she could have met him in the real world, even if there was something about meeting a person in one's dreams that was appealing in and of itself.
She knew also that her experiences had to be with a real person; there was no way a fictional character could have such an impact on her as to make her think that somebody calling her 'Ms. Rouge' was actually cute. She had also truly never met somebody so unassuming and gentle as the honey bear she had been seeing in her dreams. She found it absolutely ridiculous that somebody had named him after the musical instrument, but then again the bat knew the same could be said of her mother naming her after an item of make-up.
Rouge suddenly found herself wondering why she was seeing the honey bear in her dreams. She figured the Chaos Emeralds had something to do with it, but even then she knew that the emeralds alone could not superimpose a person into another's dream. So that left her to wonder what else was there. She then thought of asking Banjo if he had any magical objects near him, as she was sure that he must have had something that was amplifying the power of the one emerald that he had. After all,--.
"Rouge, you bitch! Don't think you can come in here and expect me to be friendly!"
It was at this loud exclamation from Sonic that she realized she had absent-mindedly walked into the prisoner's quarters, with only the angry glare of Sonic, Amy, and Cream to greet her. This realization caused the bat to jump back slightly, and her topaz eyes lightened as angry emerald seared her.
"Oh!" cried the bat, putting her hand on the heart shape of her jumpsuit. "S-sonic!"
"You've got a lot of nerve waltzing in here like that after that stunt you pulled yesterday!" cried Amy from where she knelt beside Sonic. "What did he do to Tails?"
Rouge was taken aback by the yelling from the rose-tinted hedgehog, but she quickly gained her composure and grabbed her gloves. "He... Well, he erased his personality with his latest plot to take over the world."
"Y... you mean... Tails doesn't do anything by himself anymore?" asked Cream from her cell, hazelnut eyes softening in sadness.
"I guess you could put it like that, yes..." said Rouge softly, looking at her gloves as she felt Sonic's glare burn holes into her body. "I--"
"You bitch!" cried the blue hedgehog angrily, being held back by Amy to keep him from charging head-first into the electric bars. "How could you let this slide? How?"
Rouge opened her mouth to reply when she suddenly realized that there was nothing she could say that would be truly correct anymore. True, she could tell them she was waiting for Robotnik to collect the Chaos Emeralds, but that would destroy all of the planning that she had done to this end. So she simply sighed and gave her usual response;
"Profit," replied Rouge with a hand gesture. "You know how things are. But the doctor promised me that nothing too bad would come of this."
"Are you crazy?" cried Amy, pointing to a spot on the wall that Rouge suddenly realized she had never seen. "Then what the hell is this?"
The bat, confused, walked closer to the cages, and then a sight caught her peripheral vision. When she turned around, she was utterly shocked by what she saw.
Mounted on the wall opposite the cages where everybody was, there was a huge television, the length touching from the door that Rouge entered from all the way to the opposite wall, with the height going essentially from the floor to the ceiling. This sight was unnerving enough for the bat, but in very high quality she was able to see Tails standing around, looking at the targets that were flashing by. This was very shocking to the former G.U.N. agent, so much that she backed up into one of the electrical cages, her ears almost making contact with the bars.
"Holy..." she said, awed. "The doctor never said anything about this..."
The kitsune kept listlessly shooting at the targets at a ridiculously fast pace; the bat guessed that the doctor was going absolutely crazy giving the two-tailed fox a ton of commands to follow. Rouge imagined every command, and every command was what Tails carried out. What was more frightening about this was the precision as well as the speed; the fox hit every target that was in sight, and with a speed so frightening it put every G.U.N. agent Roue had ever known to shame.
"W... What...?" asked the very shocked bat.
Finally, the fox stood stock still, the shards of all of the targets the fox had sat down lying scattered on the floor, and complete silence took over the room. The agent was able to feel the strange mixture of anger, shock, and awe that hung in the room's atmosphere, threatening to collapse as she looked at the screen blankly.
"My... My goodness..." she said finally. "I... I'm going to go talk to the doctor!"
With this, Rouge strutted out of the door with such a speed that it shocked Amy and Cream out of their angry stupor. The bat still felt Sonic's angry glare on her back, but she paid it no mind as she moved through the halls to return to the control room.
Rouge was unable to make a dramatic entrance, what with the sliding door to the control room. However, as she walked in with a frown on her face, Robotnik knew that something was up. Of course, he failed to notice Rouge's presence fast enough, for then she was standing on his lap, pointing a finger in his face.
"Do you think I'm stupid?" cried the bat almost immediately, the frown on her face telling all as her finger intruded into his personal space for emphasis. "I may remind you that I worked for the fucking government for several years!"
"Rouge, what is this all about?" asked the doctor, suddenly very shifty as he tried to move around with the bat on top of him.
"I know about that TV screen you set up in the prisoner room!" shouted the bat. "And I know that if you've set things up there, you don't have anything pleasant planned. So you better tell me everything about your plans, Eggman!"
"Ah, see, I'll have to dock your pay if I tell you," replied the doctor snidely. "That, and you called me that ghastly name."
Rouge huffed before turning to the emeralds that were planted in the pedestal. Upon gazing at the gems, however, she suddenly got an idea, and then she slinked off of Robotnik's lap before slyly walking over to the emeralds.
"Well, see, there's a slight problem with that setup," replied the bat. "Because if you dock my pay, I would like to leave." The bat's hand slinked over the Chaos Emeralds that were in the slots as she smirked evilly. "And if I leave, I might just make a pit stop here right before I leave. And I'm sure you wouldn't want these things to leave, would you?"
The doctor sighed before shaking his head and standing up.
"All right then," replied the doctor. "I was thinking of having that fox shoot a young adult in the head, but after hearing this I think you'd rather take care of her."
Robotnik then walked over to a small radio transmitter that he kept by the microphone. He paid no mind to Rouge's shocked expression, instead turning to the window to look out into Tails' cell. Slowly, he picked up the transmitter, and pressed the button.
"All guard-bots, there has been a change of plans," said the doctor stoically. "You are to bring the she-bear to the control panel, right this instant!"
The doctor then placed the transmitter down and nodded to Rouge. The bat's arms were still stretched over the emeralds, but she finally took them off as they noticed the sliding door open. Four guard-bots, as Robotnik had called them, came in holding a teenage bear with shackles. As Rouge moved around the pedestal, she saw that the bear had very dissheveled blonde hair and dull bluish-grey eyes, and the red shirt she wore betrayed the fact that the captive was a woman. The instant Rouge laid her eyes on the she-bear, the bat felt all the shock melt into a great feeling of pity on the creature that looked listlessly at the ground.
"All right, Miss," said Robotnik to the bear. "I've decided not to kill you. Miss Rouge here will be your guardian. And you better thank her when you two are alone; it took her a good amount of convincing to change my mind."
At this, the guard-bots let the she-bear go, whereupon she crumbled to the ground. Rouge had knelt by her side in an instant, and the feeling of pity that had begun surging in her heart only swelled as she looked down at the bear. No doubt something horrible had happened to her, and even as the guards left the room she looked down at the bear, stroking some strands of blonde hair away from the bear's face as she looked into fear-stricken eyes.
"It's going to be all right," was Rouge's reply to these looks as she helped the bear into a carrying embrace where the bear's face was looking over the bat's shoulders.
The bat carried the bear out of the control room, the bear saying nothing as Rouge carried her. For the first time that she could remember, Rouge had really regretted applying her sea-blue eyeshadow that she usually applied each morning, mostly because it brought a bitter sting to the tears that she was crying then.
Some time later, Rouge had brought the mysterious she-bear over to her quarters, where she sat on the ground, simply staring listlessly ahead of her. The feeling of pity within the bat was slowly beginning to be worn down, what with the circumstances. Rouge had not really tried to talk to her all day, however, instead preferring to attend to other duties throughout Robotnik's base before turning her attention to the stranger she had unintentionally (though she was thankful for the intervention, thinking about what would have happened if Amy had not pointed out the TV's presence to the bat). The bat stood at the door, and seeing the bear sitting on the ground, she knelt down, getting on her hands and knees in front of her charge. Instinct was telling her to slap the teenager hard, but something about the bear's presence in the room convinced Rouge otherwise.
"Hey, are you all right?" asked the bat.
The bear gave Rouge no response, instead staring ahead of her without seeming to notice the bat's presence. To this, Rouge simply shrugged.
"I'll take that as a yes," she said, extending her hand out to her charge. "I'm Rouge, by the way. Rouge the Bat."
And once again, the bear didn't seem to notice the presence of the bat-woman right in front of her. With a raised eyebrow (and everything in her mind telling her not to slap the poor girl senseless), she simply stood up and walked past the bear.
"Well, if there's anything you need, just let me know," said the bat. "I'll try to make you more comfortable here. I'm sorry this had to happen to you. So if you've got anything you want to say, you can tell me; I'll keep it a secret."
Rouge moved over to her bed, hoping to get a quick nap.
"I... I don't know... who I am... And nobody... wants to tell me..."
Rouge stopped right as she had placed her right knee onto bed. The bear's voice was more hoarse and deep than any female voice had the right to be, and the quality of it disturbed the bat greatly, so much that she looked to the only other person in the room.
"I... I've been hurt... as long as... I can remember..." Rouge could have sworn she heard tears being emitted, and the initial disturbance wore away almost instantly as the bat stepped off of the bed. "It's been nothing... but non-stop pain... Don't try... I can't..."
In a split second, Rouge was on her knees, holding the bear in a tender hug. The nose of the mysterious bear found itself buried in Rouge's shoulder, and the bear simply broke down in tears.
"There, there," said the bat, patting the back of her companion as she spoke. "Don't worry. Nothing's gonna harm you, and if they do, they'll have to answer to me. That's a promise."
The bear simply nodded into Rouge's shoulder and continued to cry. The agent simply hugged the crying bear against her, letting the tears soak into her white fur as she closed her eyes pensively.