Chapter Text
In the depths of the Brood Cave, Rouge the Bat blinked her eyes open and stretched out her arms, then wings, one by one. She yawned loudly, letting herself drop from the ceiling of the cave, turning in midair so that she could land on her feet…
...and landed directly in a pile of Meh Burger takeout bags with a sauce-filled squelch.
“Gross!” Rouge shrieked, hopping out of the mess and wiping her foot against the ground, smearing substances of all varieties and questionable degrees of edibility all over the stone floor of her home.
Then the smell hit her, a rancid mix of expired pigeon meat combined with chocolate syrup, kerosene, and what she was pretty sure was toothpaste. Her stomach twisted, and the unwanted knowledge that she had consumed that sometime in the past week made its way to the forefront of her mind before she stubbornly pushed it back, slammed it against a wall, and threw it into a dumpster in the back-alleys of her brain.
If nothing else, at least this had woken her up very effectively...
Growling under her breath, Rouge stomped over to where Omega was reclining in standby mode next to the mini-fridge, and tapped him until his AI switched on.
“Omega,” she demanded, “why haven’t you taken out the trash like you’re supposed to?”
Red lights stared blankly at her for a moment, and a whir of an engine and a cooling fan could be heard as Omega processed his answer. “I WAS SUPPOSED TO?”
Rouge jabbed an angry finger over at a piece of paper taped to the wall. “It’s your turn on the chore list!”
“QUERY: WHY AM I ON THE CHORE LIST?”
“Because we’re roommates, Omega!” Rouge threw up her hands in exasperation. “And we literally just have the one chore to do! Take out the trash so this place doesn’t get cluttered and stink!”
“I HAVE NO OLFACTORY PROCESSORS,” Omega pointed out. “AND I DO NOT CONSUME FOOD. WHY AM I FORCED TO PARTAKE IN CLEANING UP AFTER YOU WHEN I HAVE NOT MADE THE MESS?”
“He’s got you there.”
Rouge whipped around, shifting her ire at the newcomer. Shadow the Hedgehog stood at the mouth of the grotto, arms crossed as per usual, hardly blinking at her indignant rage, but Rouge was having none of it.
“And what’s your excuse, huh? It was your job last week, but everything’s still lying around!”
Shadow scoffed, turning up his nose. “I barely touch the swill they serve at that pathetic excuse for a restaurant.”
“But you still leave all your empty cans of Demon energy drinks everywhere!” Rouge rebuffed, jabbing a finger in his direction. “And instead of cleaning up your mess you just keep restocking the minifridge with new ones!”
Shadow’s eyes grew wide and his ears flattened against his head before he went back to one of his trademark snarls. “What I do with my own minifridge is none of your business! And I didn’t agree to be put on any sort of chore list either!”
“It’s basic decency!” Rouge griped. “I did it on my week, what’s so hard about taking your turn?!”
“YOU SEEM TO BE THE ONLY ONE CONCERNED BY THIS,” Omega pointed out, making his way over to one of the armchairs and reclining again. “IF IT BOTHERS YOU THEN MAYBE IT’S YOUR PROBLEM.”
“And don’t think you can boss us around,” Shadow added, before hastily tacking on a, “Least of all me...”
And Rouge?
Rouge was absolutely done with these two.
“Fine!” she snapped, shoving her way past Shadow into the cave’s tunnel to the outside world. “Enjoy your stinking cave!”
As she walked outside, she yelled “SLAM!” for emphasis, since they didn’t have a door, then took off into the skies, letting the cool jets of air take the edge off of her anger.
Maybe this was a bad idea… Maybe this won’t work out…
Rouge shook her head, frowning at herself. No, she had been in rougher spots before, and it was up to her to make it work with Shadow and Omega.
Even if they were two of the most stubborn, inconsiderate, uncompassionate idiots she had ever met in her life…
Still, it was clear something had to be done, but her brain still hadn’t completely woken up, and the steam of anger still whistled in her ears. She needed someone’s advice, someone’s help…
Rouge smirked to herself. She knew just the person.
“Well that’s just rude!” Amy said as she poured Rouge another cup of tea. “I can see where Omega’s coming from, I guess, but this is obviously upsetting you! Would it kill them to notice that?”
“Honestly? It just might,” Rouge snarked back, taking a small sip of tea and immediately burning the tip of her tongue. “Shadow’s allergic to emotions and Omega might blow a circuit if he tries too hard.”
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, new roommate problems are pretty common,” Amy pointed out, lifting her pinky finger as she lifted her own teacup. “Everyone needs to have good communication to be on the same page. It’s a different story when you’re sharing a space and not just hanging out when you want to.”
Rouge slumped backwards on Amy’s sofa. “I guess so,” she mumbled. “Back home I didn’t have roommates. Just stayed where I wanted, slept over with friends sometimes… Three of them lived together and I have no idea how they managed. They weren’t always at each other’s throats but they sure liked to argue.”
Amy regarded Rouge curiously, setting down her cup. “Your old friends?”
Rouge snorted. “Well yeah. I had a life before coming here.” Her eyes focused on a faraway point, a tinge of nostalgia clouding them. “The three who live together were troublemakers like me. If the mayor got a chance, I know she’d jump to get rid of them too. Too bad for her, we’re all friends with her daughter.”
“And she chased you out anyway? Without thinking about how that would affect her daughter?”
“Of course! The mayor only liked one person in our friend group, and that’s just because he’s one of the nicest people in the known universe.” Rouge took a sip of tea. “But I’m pretty sure he would destroy someone if it got down to it. He definitely tried when my ex…”
Rouge caught herself, pressing her lips shut. She had rambled enough.
“Anyway, the point is, I’ve never lived with people long-term before and I don’t know a good way to start making this work.”
“While I can’t give you any advice from personal experience,” Amy said, though she still looked intrigued by Rouge’s aborted glimpse into her past, “I’ve managed enough volunteer projects and led plenty of conflict resolution seminars to know that communication and trust are the keys to a successful relationship.”
“Uh-huh.” Rouge’s eyes dropped to her tea as she felt her mind begin to switch off.
Noticing Rouge’s shift in focus, Amy hummed in annoyance and decided to get right to the point. “So I suggest you all get together and do some team exercises. Remind yourselves of how you work together and try to live together in the same kind of way.”
Rouge glanced up from her cup. “You mean like that ‘team bonding’ crud from TV?”
“Exactly!” Amy responded without missing a beat. “You can also try fun things like shopping for matching outfits, since nothing says teamwork and unity quite like a shared sense of style!”
“Not sure if that’ll fly in my team,” Rouge remarked, unable to mask her doubt. She stared back down into her teacup, blowing softly to part the steam as it billowed upward. “But at this point I guess I’ll try anything.”
“You never know if you don’t try!” Amy chirped, taking another sip of tea, and with a small smile of acknowledgement, Rouge did the same.
“Ugh… Disgusting.”
From her perch in the tree, Belinda the Goat scowled as Rouge left Amy’s home with a wave. The villain reactivated her flight harness and flew home, shooting a few lasers into the trees to let out some of her frustrations.
(She ignored the dramatic sighs and guilt trips that flew through the air coming from the direction of the still-rebuilding Gogoba Village; the heroes could deal with them as far as she was concerned.)
She landed with a powerful thud on her front porch, nearly shattering the wooden boards below her feet, and deactivated her harness before stomping through the door, where her husband stood in wait.
“Hi dear,” Charlie greeted her mildly, taking her priceless Ancient technology as she thrust it at him. “Had a good spying session?”
“I just don’t get it!” Belinda snapped, flopping on the couch and fanning herself with her hat. “One moment we’re both two of the most powerful people in the village with the Ancients tech on our side, Hedgehog Village’s brand new power couple, and then everything stops in its tracks! It’s like we were in a show that got cancelled and then restarted but the focus shifted entirely to new people!”
“Mm-hmm,” Charlie nodded, putting her harness away. He then scurried over to the couch, sitting down beside his wife and patting her knee sympathetically.
“And the new people aren’t even real villains!” Belinda griped, tossing her hat away in frustration. “They’re a bunch of stupid kids who live in a cave and can’t decide if they’re good or evil! Just pick a side and stick to it!”
“That’s right, dear.”
“And I’ve had it! It’s our time to be in the sun again, like the recurring characters we were always meant to be!”
A gleam made its way into Belinda’s eyes and a wicked smile spread across her face. Charlie gasped, pushing his glasses back up his nose. “Do you mean…?”
“That’s right, Charlie. We’re going to teach these limelight-stealing brats… a lesson!”
Lightning flashed and ominous music played as Belinda began to laugh maniacally, and Charlie, who had seen and experienced enough strange things in his lifetime to never question lightning during a sunny day nor ambient music coming from nowhere, laughed with her, while over in the closet by the entryway, their Ancients gear lit up menacingly, promising pain to come.
“Please?”
“No!”
“Pretty ple--”
“Don’t start that nonsense again!”
Shadow swatted Rouge’s hand away yet again, and the bat pouted, putting her hands on her hips. A Hawaiian shirt dangled from her right hand, and Shadow glared at it as though it were the overall source of all his ire, past, present and future.
“Just give it a try,” Rouge wheedled as Shadow lip curled into a snarl. “Come on, even Omega went along with it!”
“I LOOK CHARMING,” Omega remarked, standing nearby in a matching Hawaiian shirt that was far too small on him.
Shadow growled, turning to try to escape yet again. He concentrated his energy, making sure he started his dash at full speed…
...but it was no use. The child leash and vest that Rouge had put on him failed to break again, and Rouge’s ridiculous superhuman strength proved victorious as she didn’t even budge an inch while Shadow was yanked back to the ground by compensatory forces. The hedgehog tore at the vest, snarling.
“What is this made of, bendable titanium?!”
“INCORRECT. IT IS MADE OF THE FRUSTRATIONS OF MOTHERS EVERYWHERE.”
“Shadow, listen,” Rouge groaned, resisting the urge to rub her temples, given the leash in one hand and Hawaiian shirt in the other. “All I want is for us to feel a bit more unified and we need all of us to play along if this is going to work, so just… just try it--”
“Why is it so important that I wear clothes?” Shadow snapped, bristling to a near absurd degree. “You and Omega love them, but what about me? Maybe I hate clothes! Maybe I’d rather jump in a volcano than wear that eyesore!”
Rouge frowned. That was… a much stronger reaction than she had expected from this outing, but while she couldn’t put a reason to that, one thing was abundantly clear.
“Fine. I’ll put it back.”
And she did. The shirt went back on the rack, and by the time she had turned back around, Shadow looked considerably calmer. Rouge decided not to push her luck and ask, and mentally crossed “matching outfits” off of her mental list.
Omega on the other hand…
“I’M KEEPING MINE.”
“Fine by me,” Rouge said with a wave of her hand.
“DOPE.”
The three of them left without paying and Omega shot one of his hand-guns at the edges of the building, causing the clothes store to fall apart like a box that wasn’t taped together, so they could disappear in the midst of the ensuing chaos.
“Okay, let’s try something different.”
The team stood in a clearing with a roughly put-together obstacle course made of trees and rocks. Rouge stood on a stump to garner as much attention as she could, spreading out her wings to make herself seem bigger and more important.
She hoped that these tips helped; the internet could be pretty hit or miss with its advice for social situations.
“Since clothes were a no-go, we’re going to try some activities instead,” she announced, pointing at the obstacle course. Omega rotated his head 180 degrees to observe it; Shadow didn’t move at all. “We’ll start with something easy enough. One of us will go through this obstacle course while blindfolded, and the others will have to guide them around with their words.”
Omega raised a hand. “QUERY: MAY I CRUSH THIS INFERIOR OBSTACLE UNDER MY FEET?”
“Excellent question!” Rouge exclaimed. “Absolutely not! In fact, now that I think about it, you probably shouldn’t run it at all! Just… guide us around the obstacles, please.”
“WITHOUT DESTROYING--”
“Yes Omega, without destroying the obstacles. And without touching us in any way. Just stay where you are while Shadow and I--”
“Hmph.” Shadow crossed his arms. “Speak for yourself. Your shoddy obstacle course brings shame--”
“Okay,” Rouge interrupted. “Just me then.”
She took her place at the beginning of the course, holding back a sigh as she tied the blindfold over her eyes. She knew it wasn’t going to be easy to make her cavemates work with her, but things were already beginning to push her last nerve. She could only hope that they didn’t run off while her eyes were covered, but then again, that’s what these exercises were supposed to be for.
Rouge spun around a few times until she was disoriented enough, then called out. “Okay Omega, which way do I go?”
“NORTH.”
This was a mistake.
“Omega, sweetie, my inferior meat body wasn’t blessed with a built-in compass, okay? Stick to forwards, backwards, up, down, left and right please.”
“UNDERSTOOD. GO TO YOUR RIGHT.”
Rouge nodded and slowly made her way to the right, resisting the urge to feel her way forward. This exercise was about trust and communication and--
Rouge’s mind screeched to a halt as she tripped over one of the stone obstacles and faceplanted into the dirt with a scream.
“What the heck?!” she demanded, sitting up and ripping the blindfold. “Omega, don't you get it? I had to make it through the obstacle course without hitting any obstacles!”
“OBJECTIVE WAS CLEAR FROM THE START. I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE FUNNY IF YOU FAILED.”
Rouge’s face screwed up in indignation, but a soft snort from Omega’s side made her pause. Shadow’s face shifted only slightly, but Rouge’s ears were very sure that she had heard the telltale sound of amusement coming from him.
She was embarrassed, in pain, and very frustrated and annoyed, but at least this one hadn’t been a complete loss.
“New game,” Rouge announced, sitting in the grass with Omega and Shadow in their best approximation of a circle. “To get to know each other, we’re going to play Two Truths and a Lie.”
“Are you still trying this pointless scheme of yours?” Shadow asked flatly. Rouge ignored him.
“The rules are easy: say three things about yourself. Two of them have to be true, and one of them has to be a lie. Then, we guess which one is the lie.”
“THIS GAME SOUNDS TOO EASY.”
“Then let’s give it a try,” Rouge urged. “Come on Omega, give us your best shot!”
“FINE. STATEMENT 1: I AM A ROBOT. STATEMENT 2: I AM KNOWN AS OMEGA. STATEMENT 3: I HAVE A MOUSTACHE LIKE MY FATHER.”
Rouge’s face was caught somewhere between a forced smile and a look of utter exhaustion. “Omega, sweetie, that’s… not…”
“You’re wasting my time with this,” Shadow piped up, yet again offering nothing but disdain, and Rouge closed her eyes, growling softly as she picked up a large, jagged stone from the ground, and crushed it into gravel between her hands.
Her cavemates were suddenly paying full attention to her as soon as she opened her eyes.
Of course they only respond to displays of power, she thought bitterly.
Outwardly, she took a deep breath and pushed on forward. “Here, I’ll go instead. Let’s see…” She tapped one finger. “One: I’m friends with the daughter of the mayor of Neighbor Village.” She tapped a second finger. “Two… My favorite movie franchise is the Exterminator series.”
That one got an excited whirring noise to come from Omega, and Rouge felt herself grin as she tapped the final finger.
“Aaaaaaaand… I have my driver’s license.”
Her statements out, Rouge folded her hands in her lap and waited patiently for her teammates to start guessing, but Shadow kept regarding her coldly and Omega only kept whirring. The bat frowned, feeling her frustration return with full force. “Well?” she demanded. “Aren’t you going to guess?”
“Hmph. I already told you, you’re wasting--”
“DOWNLOAD COMPLETE.” Omega’s eyes flashed and the whirring noise stopped. “LIE DETECTOR INSTALLING…”
“ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!” Rouge screeched. “OMEGA, THIS IS A GAME! YOU GUESS THE LIE!”
“WHETHER YOU ENJOY EXTERMINATOR OR NOT IS CRUCIAL INFORMATION,” Omega responded, to which Rouge groaned and flopped back onto the grass, staring at the endless blue sky.
“Ready to give up on this farce?” Shadow asked, and the sound of his gravelly, condescending tone made a wave of spite push Rouge to sit up and prove him wrong.
“Not yet. I have one more thing to try…”
She would get them all to bond today whether they liked it or not.
“No.”
“Shadow,” Rouge snapped, finally at the end of her rope, “you’ve done nothing I’ve asked at all today, so at least give me this one--”
“No.”
By all means, Shadow looked a lot angrier than he should have been at this exercise.
“What’s wrong with you?” Rouge demanded. “Did a trust fall steal your lunch money or something?”
The words ‘trust fall’ had Shadow bristling again, and the dark hedgehog glared at her with a disdain she had never seen directed toward her before.
“You’ve sunk low enough to be on Eggman’s level,” he growled, and Rouge couldn’t believe her ears.
“It’s not even hard!” she protested. “Watch. Omega, catch me... And don’t let me fall because you think it’s funny!”
“ORDER RECEIVED.”
Rouge closed her eyes and fell back, feeling a jolt of terror until she landed safely in a dangerous metal hand. She smirked. “See?” she drawled, getting back on her feet. “Easy. Now, do you want to try it with me?” she asked, cupping her hands in front of herself, looking Shadow directly in the eyes.
In response, Shadow turned around and walked away, not even bothering to run or warp, even as his child leash dragged on the ground behind him, and Rouge…
Rouge was too worn out by that day’s endless stream of failures to try to get him back.
She sighed, slumping against Omega, making a mental note to never do anything like this ever again. Omega’s head swiveled to look at her, and the robot took in her tired, exasperated look.
“...ROUGE.”
“What.”
“...WILL YOU CATCH ME?”
Rouge glanced up at him, the look on her face travelling the entire spectrum of emotion between offended and pacified, before she pushed away from him. “Yeah. Sure thing big guy.”
Omega positioned himself in front of Rouge and, after calculating the odds that she would let him fall for revenge and then promptly ignoring the (very high) result, took a chance and fell backwards. He registered the sound of impact and an ‘oof’ from Rouge, but he could tell that he had been caught before he hit the ground.
“PERSONAL OBSERVATION,” he thought to himself as Rouge lifted him back into a standing position, “THE ORGANICS CAN AND WILL SURPRISE ME.”
Shadow finally managed to unfasten the vest from his body and throw the offending article away, child leash and all. He was still peeved at Rouge for dragging him out against his will and forcing him to partake in meaningless activities, but to stoop so low as to pull an Eggman move? Eggman, the one who had ruined his victories and manipulated him for his own gain…
He took out his anger by spindashing into a tree and uprooting it in the process. Still steamed, he picked up the offending log and chucked it upwards and as far away from him as he could.
(He had no way of knowing it, but the tree landed squarely in the island’s volcano, earning him three points.)
“She should have known this was a terrible idea,” he griped to no one at all. “Maybe now they’ll move out of my cave and leave me alone--”
He heard it before he saw it, and Shadow leapt backwards, a millisecond before the spot where he was standing was turned into a small crater thanks to a laser.
“Well well well…” came a soft but cruel voice, followed by thudding footsteps, and to Shadow’s chagrin, another flying lady and hulking tank came out of nowhere to bother him. “If it isn’t Shadow! Charlie, honey, isn’t he the one who thought he was too good for the rest of the villains in the area?”
“That’s right, Belinda.” Charlie, the man in the mech suit, looked like a complete stranger to Shadow, but if he was being honest, none of the bland background villains in the village had made any impression on him. “And do you know what he was defeated by?”
Shadow’s blood ran ice cold.
“Don’t say a word, you rat,” he hissed, zeroing in his focus on the man in the mech suit.
“Desert rat, actually,” Charlie corrected him, raising the arms of his suit into a battle-ready stance, ready to shoot. “And no need to look so worried…”
Charlie looked up at the sky, and, unable to curb his instincts, Shadow followed his gaze upward. While he had been focused on Charlie, Belinda had taken to the skies with her flight harness. She gave him a little wave before shooting a laser in his direction, purposefully aimed at his feet.
A laser with a flash so bright and painful that it brought his mind to a screeching halt.
Shadow brought his hands to his eyes with a snarl, trying to banish the light that still swam before his closed eyelids, trying to will away the stab of pain that it incited in his head, the ache in his brain that brought forth so much pain and fear and… And Shadow didn’t do fear.
“...I already tell my wife everything,” Charlie finished his line, sounding pleased at how well the delivery went.
“Come on, Charlie!” Belinda cackled, the air whistling around her as she swooped in closer. “No mercy! Let’s show this punk what some real villains are!”
Rouge and Omega walked home in silence. Omega considered playing more of the music he had been mixing, but he could tell by Rouge’s body language that she was still angry from that day’s failed attempt at team bonding, so he decided to run his sympathy program and keep it to himself.
The silence didn’t last long; the sounds of battle coming from nearby had them both stop in their tracks and look over in its direction.
“WANT TO LET OFF SOME STEAM?” Omega offered, to which Rouge cracked her knuckles.
“I want nothing more.”
To their surprise, Shadow was battling two people they didn’t recognize with one hand slapped firmly over his eyes. A man in a mech suit was throwing heavy punches from the ground, while in the sky, a woman was shooting lasers down at him. Shadow’s ears were on high alert, his spines were raised, and he looked moments away from exploding as he kept narrowly dodging one attack only to be hit by another.
The situation seemed oddly familiar to Omega, and in less than a second he knew what to do.
“SHADOW, JUMP LEFT.”
The hedgehog, running on pure instinct, didn’t hesitate to follow the direction given to him, and he managed to dodge both attacks aimed at him.
“The obstacle course…” Rouge whispered in wonder, looking over at Omega, who kept directing Shadow’s movements as they approached, and Shadow never lost a beat, dodging every attack with Omega as his eyes.
“I’ll take the one in the sky,” Rouge informed her robotic teammate, before stretching her wings and taking off into the air.
“Ugh, it’s you,” the goat sneered as she made her way over. “That’s fine, I’ve been meaning to pummel some sense into you!”
“Bring it,” Rouge challenged, diving towards her. “I could also use a good punching bag.”
Her opponent dodged her first attack. “If only you would do anything worthwhile with that kind of ruthlessness,” she taunted, countering with a few lasers in Rouge’s direction.
With Belinda occupied up above, Shadow was able to recover while Omega handled Charlie for a crazy awesome mech fight. There was a reference in the fight choreography to NGE or one of the Gundam animes as a really cool visual gag. You had to be there, I guess.
It was broken apart by the return of a fully-recovered Shadow, who violently spindashed Charlie into a boulder. “You thought you could trick me?” he snarled, reaching through the window of the suit to yank Charlie out of it and throw him across the clearing until he hit another boulder. The mech suit powered down without its host and Shadow refocused his attention to Belinda. “Omega!” he barked, “keep the rat occupied while I take care of the other one.”
Omega’s oculars gleamed in anticipation as he turned to look at the dazed and confused desert rat lying on the ground.
Meanwhile, Shadow followed the progression of the fight above him, tucked himself into a ball, and launched himself at full speed at Belinda. From above, both women noticed the hedgehog zooming toward them like a projectile, and Rouge wisely dodged and lowered herself to the ground while Belinda barely managed to avoid a full impact. Shadow hit her harness instead, sending her flight patterns out of control. Shadow kept spin-dashing in the air, changing direction as many times as he could, but unfortunately the damage he had caused to Belinda’s gear ended up working in her favor, as he couldn’t guess which way she would go next.
And Belinda, ever the opportunist, decided that if she was going down, she was going down fighting.
“Eat laser, punk!”
Once again, luck seemed to be on Belinda’s side as her laser blast hit Shadow in the shoulder, stunning him out of his attack and disorienting him enough that he wavered before he unfurled and fell through the air.
“SHADOW!” Rouge screamed, running below and holding out her arms as she flew upwards.
Shadow could have tried to kick off of a tree and get back into the air. He could have rolled in midair and landed on his feet. His mind had recovered from the shock but…
But…
Frowning, Shadow turned in the air so he was falling with his back to the ground, and closed his eyes so that all he noticed was the whistling in his ears and the stinging in his shoulder.
Just this once… I’ll let someone catch me.
He felt himself land in a pair of strong arms, and his eyes opened to see delighted teal ones glancing down at him before they zeroed in on their assailant who was still being flung about by her damaged flight tech. Shadow felt Rouge’s arms tense, and he knew what was about to happen. He tucked himself into a ball one more time, right before Rouge launched him back into the air with a force that he rarely was able to achieve on his own, and he hit Belinda head-on, rocketing the goat halfway across the island.
He descended alone, landing in a crouch on the soft jungle floor, but he could practically feel Rouge’s smug grin from above. Deciding he would rather die than admit that their impromptu trust fall had led to victory, he ran over to where he had left Omega and Charlie.
“WE ARE GOING TO PLAY A GAME.”
“H-Huh?” The rodent blinked owlishly, pushing his broken glasses back up his nose, still not yet recovered from the stunning smash of his body against a boulder. “A game?”
Omega loomed over Charlie, his eyes glowing red. “I WILL TELL YOU THREE STATEMENTS. ONE OF THEM IS A LIE.”
Charlie sighed. “I have to guess which one’s wrong?” he guessed, slowly picking himself up to a standing position.
“STATEMENT 1: I AM IN FRONT OF YOU.”
Charlie frowned. “Um… I’m pretty sure your things are supposed to be harder to--”
“STATEMENT 2: I AM GOING TO PUNCH YOU.”
All color drained from Charlie’s muzzle.
“AND STATEMENT 3: SHADOW IS GOING TO ATTACK YOU FROM BEHIND.”
Charlie’s eyes went wide before narrowing. “Ha! Good one, trying to get me to take my eyes off of you, but that won’t work on--”
He was interrupted as Shadow kicked him in the head from behind, sending him flying until he landed in a heap beside his mech suit.
“FALSE STATEMENT WAS NUMBER 2. I WAS NOT GOING TO PUNCH YOU.” Omega lifted his hands, which turned into the barrels of two cannons. “I WAS GOING TO BLAST YOU INTO SMITHEREENS. I WAS TRYING TO MAKE IT EASY FOR YOU TO GUESS.”
Charlie didn’t respond on account of being thoroughly KO’ed.
Rouge flew into the clearing, landing elegantly as she surveyed the damage. “Today didn’t really go as planned, but I think this fight brought us closer together,” she remarked, nodding in approval at all the broken trees, crushed rocks, destroyed Ancients technology and one inert desert rat.
“AGREED.”
Shadow crossed his arms and frowned, but he didn’t scoff or huff or roll his eyes, which was as good as a heartfelt agreement in Rouge’s book.
The three of them headed back to their cave as Omega played the instrumental to a song he dubbed This Machine . As they got close, Omega paused the music. “ROUGE. YOUR EFFORTS TODAY HAVE NOT GONE UNNOTICED. I WILL DISPOSE OF THE GARBAGE WHEN IT IS MY TURN ON THE CHORE LIST.”
Rouge laughed, patting his large metal arm. “You know what? Making a chore list was a stupid idea. Let’s just clean up after ourselves when we make a mess, okay? Pick up where others left off if we have to, but just don’t make it a habit.”
“TUBULAR.”
Shadow let out a ‘humph’ as he was prone to do, but once they got to the Brood Cave, he followed them both into the grotto, picking up his energy drink cans as well as an armful of Meh Burger remains. He caught Rouge grinning at him and bristled. “Don’t get any funny ideas,” he warned. “They stink, and I dispose of everything that bothers me.”
Rouge winked at him. “Got it, Shadow.”
As they filled up trash bag after trash bag with rancid garbage, they had never felt quite so much like a team.
“Why?! Why does it always go wrong?”
“It’s okay, dear--”
“It’s not okay!” Belinda snapped from her hospital bed, trying to shift her neck underneath the neckbrace so that she could look at her husband, who was lying in a bed of his own with his leg elevated in a cast. “We can’t even win against a group of hooligans!”
“Maybe it was because they got us separated?” Charlie suggested. “When we were working together against Shadow, we were close to unstoppable!”
“Hmm…” Belinda mulled it over. “You have a point… Maybe we could try some team-building exercises once we get out of the hospital--”
“And fix our tech…”
“...and then we’ll be an unstoppable power couple!” Belinda started to let out her villainous laugh again, but it was cut short when she felt a muscle pull in her neck.
Then her eyes widened in delight.
“I know what our first exercise is going to be~” she sing-songed.
Charlie gasped. “Do you mean…?”
Belinda grinned at him. “Oh I mean…”
“MATCHING OUTFITS!” they cheered together, smiling ear to ear as the screen went black and the chapter ended.