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Metal screeched as the mechs below Rouge clashed once more in their violent dance. She leaned on the railing, feigning disinterest in her surroundings. Like any good pilot, she'd come here to study her future opponents, nothing else. She certainly wasn't hoping to hear the gossip of the crowd that had formed, ears only metaphorically perked for any mentions of thievery or unexpected activity in the wasteland behind the city's borders.
She spared a moment of focus to the poor saps below her. One mech sported a brand new yellow coat of paint while the other pilot couldn't afford such things and had their mech impress with its patchworked chassis. Both pilots had started within the last year, both had a win rate below 40%, and both were terribly boring people—she'd gathered more than enough information about them to be certain of that. Someone else could've predicted who would win this fight, but she wasn't interested in that.
It didn't matter who won and moved on to the next round. It didn't matter because Rouge had never lost before and didn't intend to start now.
Her mech—a hulking, black and red monstrosity—sat in the bay together with the others who would fight later tonight. She didn't like leaving him there, but if she wanted to catch the latest hot gossip, she actually had to go out there and socialize.
Today, she hadn't gotten what she'd wanted. It left a sour taste in her mouth, like someone had stolen her intel, even though she knew that wasn't how it worked. Some days people just simply didn't have anything interesting to talk about, as frustrating as that may be for her.
At least this puny fight wasn't the true highlight of the night. She just wanted the prize money.
She thumped her hand against the arm of her mech and said: "Ready to go, big guy?"
He didn't reply—because mechs couldn't talk. If they did, they'd get violently disassembled because people still feared Eggpawns, even though that Empire had long since fallen.
A moment passed, and with the faintest hydraulic hiss, the plating over his chest opened. Rouge wasted no time climbing inside, pulling herself up with familiar motions. She settled in his insides—which wasn't exactly comfortable, but would get the job done—leaned back, and got ready to enjoy the show.
Omega stepped into the ring to the faint sound of meatbags slamming their hands together. He wasn't sure if they were cheering for him or for his opponent—a weak, inferior construction in ugly green—but he also didn't care.
The future loser of this match stepped further into the center and pathetically attempted to impress him by posing like a fool.
"YOU ARE INFERIOR," he shouted at them, "I WILL TEAR YOUR ARMS OFF AND CRUSH YOU BENEATH BY HEEL."
They replied something, but Omega didn't care enough to listen. He'd already studied their previous matches and had long since concluded that victory would be, yet again, certain. He didn't listen to anyone weaker than him.
The world around him turned quiet, thick with anticipation. The announcer let them sit in it, and Omega only waited with his attacks because he didn't want a 'disqualification' to be the end to his winning streak.
Only once the silence became unbearable did the announcer finally give the go-ahead.
The other mech—referred to as Viper by the meatbags—wasted no time in charging forwards, but Omega easily dodged. He retaliated with a fist to its side, sending Viper flying.
It crashed against the ground, sending minor tremors through the ground and Omega aimed a kick at its head before it could get up again. It rolled out of the way and grabbed his leg instead. He could've easily kept his balance, but he chose to fall forward anyway.
(In his insides, Rouge banged her head and cursed.)
His shoulder collided with Viper, successfully trapping the mech below him. It scrambled at his plating, its misformed, metallic claws leaving scratch marks in his brand new paint.
He had just gotten Rouge to repaint him.
"YOUR EXISTENCE IS A BLIGHT UPON ME," he told it, "YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS."
Omega twisted his torso and grabbed the offending arm hard enough that the metal deformed beneath his hold. Viper's struggles got more furious now, but Omega had already won.
Ignoring his struggling opponent, he turned and pinned it down with his knee instead, still holding onto its arm. Then, he pulled.
The mech jerked as the pilot lost control of it. Its arm came off at the shoulder, leaving behind a viscera of scrap and cables. Omega rose to his full height—holding Viper in place with a foot now—and triumphantly threw the arm across the arena.
Silence—save for the whirring of his own fans and the overheating of the broken mech below him—reigned again, at least until the announcer declared him winner once more. The crowd erupted in noise.
After another round of mingling with the general populace that attended the matches today, Rouge headed home. Or rather, Omega headed home while she crawled back into the cavity in his chest. Seeing a mech fly or walk around the streets wasn't a common sight, but it was by no means rare, either. Seeing a mech moving while his pilot sat on his shoulder, though?
That would raise alarms Rouge would rather stay quiet.
Their home stood at the very outskirts of the city, already halfway into the wasteland. She'd always loved the bustling of the inner city, but out here living undetected was much easier. No neighbors to steal from also meant no neighbors to snitch on her autonomous 'mech'.
Even just going to the fights was more attention than she wanted. Working in the entertainment sector with Omega was the easiest explanation for his existence, though. Certainly easier than sneaking her way into a construction business or trying to fool the city guards into letting her join their ranks. At least this way nobody questioned why she 'had' a 'mech'.
"Great job out there today," she told him once they arrived, even though her head still throbbed a little. She'd already seen the scratch marks and knew he'd be upset about that, and she really didn't want to participate in their honed tradition of screaming at each other tonight. Not when they still had bigger plans.
"I WANT TO EXPLODE SOMETHING," Omega told her, his optics trained on the ugly marks all over his plating.
"I know," Rouge briefly patted his arm before quickly moving out of immediate grabbing distance and turning towards her room, "I just need to quickly change first."
Omega clearly wasn't happy about that answer, but that was just too bad. Rouge refused to spend more time than absolutely necessary in her pilot suit. She'd had it personally tailored after meeting Omega—which had cost a fortune, by the way—but that had been years ago by now. It no longer fitted her right, but Rouge also refused to pay that same sum again for a garment that wouldn't even stand the test of time.
(Not to mention that she'd been charged extra to accommodate her wings. She'd been too excited about this long term con to pause on that, but if someone tried the same thing again today they'd get a taste of her heels.)
She slowly peeled herself out of it and tossed the piece of fabric into the nearest corner where it would remain until their next match in a few days. They could sign up for more frequent fights—hell, they could even go pro and enjoy bigger cash prizes—but she'd rather keep a low profile. Even ignoring Omega's whole situation, getting information and the occasional jewel from people was much easier when she was nothing but a random nobody to them.
Plus, she reasoned as she grabbed her set of practical clothing, if more people knew about her, someone might put two and two together, and she really couldn't have that. She pulled on her pants—much looser than her pilot suit, but still snug around her hips—and methodically checked each pocket. Some were empty, some contained useful tools, and a special few that she'd touched up until she could be sure they wouldn't tear on her held some of the most precious items she owned.
Next came her shirt, long-sleeved and skintight without restricting any movement, just as she liked it. Over that a looser jacket that she could zip closed if the winds continued to pick up. Then, different gloves with little secrets sown into the insides and finally, a belt with tools already attached and a pouch of more self-made explosives than she'd hopefully ever need. The last two things missing were her backpack—already filled with some snacks, water, and other necessities—and her respirator—in case the air quality suddenly dropped—which she grabbed quickly enough from their place right behind her door.
Actually, that wasn't entirely true. She might be done now, but Omega wasn't.
She made quick work of accessing her hidden safe. It opened with a gentle hiss and the familiar, fantastical rainbow light of her treasures greeted her. Most people had only heard of them as rumors, fewer people have seen one, and even fewer yet were in the possession of one. But Rouge? Rouge had meticulously collected more than anyone else she was aware of.
Chaos Shards. The true treasure of this world.
Each one shone a brilliant color, emitting a weak glow that grew stronger the closer it came to another shard, and despite their irregular shapes that alone made them one of the most valuable accessories to date. And yet that wasn't the only reason Rouge was so drawn to them. On top of their mystical glow, they also radiated a strange power. The possession of even just one shard made her more agile and dexterous, drastically increasing her stamina alongside her strength. Multiple enhanced her abilities even more.
Rumors had it that before the rise of the Eggman Empire, the Chaos Shards had formed seven gemstones that would grand their owner incredible power. They'd disappeared after the final fight against the empire had been lost and now, decades later, Rouge was left to pick up the pieces.
And what brilliant pieces they were. Their raw, uncontrolled energy drew her in, and a lesser woman could waste away basking in their glow, forever enthralled by their strange energy. Rouge wasn't content with just finding some of them, however. She wanted them all.
That goal still sat in the far distance. She knew for a fact that near countless shards still littered the wastelands and the ruins of the old world. She also knew of some individuals who had been quicker than her and got their grubby little hands on some of her treasures, and she knew there'd be even more she didn't know about.
Still, it wouldn't be any fun if this were easy.
Her next target was one of the aforementioned ruins; an old military base that had been one of the last to fall and contained—according to the ever-elusive V and their team of detectives—something that Chaos Shards reacted to strongly. She didn't know what had happened first, the supposed fight that resulted in those mystical gemstones being broken into shards or the fall of that base, but either way it wouldn't be surprising for a shard or two to end up there. Something about their inherent energy drew them to places that have, or at least once had, some sort of significance and that place would definitely qualify.
Rouge grabbed a small handful of shards, the one hidden inside her glove reacting to the increased proximity with a faint warmth, and quickly sealed the safe again. She'd spent a fortune on whatever material magic had gone into this safe, but once it was close her shards no longer reacted to all the ones still contained within. In other words, they'd also be undetectable to anyone else. (Leaving the ones in her clothes unprotected still posed a risk, but one that was much smaller at least.)
With her treasures save from prying senses, Rouge finally left her room. Omega stood right outside and gave her one of those looks that meant he was very fed up with her.
"Here you go," Rouge said and extended her hand with the luminous Chaos Shards.
"YOU HAVE TAKEN FOUR MINUTES AND FIFTY-TWO SECONDS LONGER THAN AVERAGE TO CHANGE," Omega accused, but still opened a part of his chassis.
"Oh, stop complaining," Rouge chided as she gingerly placed the shards into the space that had opened up, "we've got a big one tonight, I've gotta make sure everything's as it should be."
The chassis closed again as Omega somehow incorporated the shards into his power supply temporarily. While actual ammunition was nearly impossible to come by, Omega hardly needed that when he could shoot condensed energy from the shards instead, not to mention all the enhancements to his movement and processing speed—which already had most people beat without a chance at a comeback.
Once he finished his set-up, his chest opened once more and Rouge climbed back inside, eager for their real adventure to start.
After a few minutes of flying, Omega landed somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Rouge quickly got situated on one of his shoulders instead now that nobody was around to call their bluff.
The wasteland looked as it always did—a giant, desolate scar covering most of the planet—but at least the sky wasn't entirely covered in clouds and smog tonight. This place must've been beautiful once, before it had been stripped of its resources and flooded with pollutants until it had shriveled up and died.
Omega continued his flight and as Rouge held onto the handrail on his shoulder, she watched the scenery pass them by. The terrain rose and fell, intercepted by the occasional dried riverbed or lake. She spotted movement here and there and the occasional hint of green poking through because despite Eggman's best efforts, nature was hard to kill for good. It still left a burning hole in her chest.
Anger had accompanied Rouge for as long as she could think. Anger at her parents, anger at the world, anger at the human who'd left it in this state and then went and died before she could give him a piece of her mind.
She'd never met anyone who carried it like her. The people she met got angry, sure, but it wasn't the same. Her anger had been honed to a point, a sharpened weapon—a multi-tool, really—that she used freely and often to get her way. Nobody else did.
At least it had seemed that way until she'd met someone out here. Omega. Some broken down egg-robo that she should've brought to the nearest expert for decommission and a hefty payout. Someone whose eyes gleamed with the same sort of rage she carried deep inside, concealed from most onlookers.
His anger wasn't the pointed dagger hers was. His anger was a blunt weapon and Rouge quickly discovered she liked nothing more than seeing it at work. And tonight would be one of the biggest shows in quite a while. Once they arrived at the military base—technically, they'd called themselves G.U.N., but that name was as ridiculous as it was on point and Rouge refused to use it—she'd go in and find whatever cluster of Chaos Shards had hidden in there and then Omega would blow the whole place to pieces.
It may not fix anything, but it sure as hell would feel satisfying. She couldn't wait until her and Omega's anger blended into a beautiful cacophony, fueled by the Chaos Shards who had as much right to be furious about their fate as they had.
The telltale tingle all over her skin made Rouge pay closer attention to their approaching surroundings, and sure enough, she could see a building on the horizon, surrounded by the remnants of what must've once been a lively forest. Now, all that remained were the rotting corpses of the trees.
Not like the building itself fared much better. During whatever assault had spelt its end, it must've gotten quite damaged, and time hadn't been kind to it either. The walls had more than a few holes in them, and even from their position in the sky, Rouge could tell debris littered the ground, even at the parts that hadn't fully collapsed yet.
Omega touched down and Rouge jumped off his shoulder. Sure, she could've flown the way herself, but she'd rather conserve her energy. She might not be aware of any settlements close to this place, but that didn't mean nobody else had the bright idea to come here, and Rouge would hate to not be at her best when fighting for her prize. Besides, loose clothes always bothered her when flying.
By now Omega has had more than enough time to scan the air, but he'd remained quiet. Ever since he'd found a high concentration of some hazardous spores in another building they'd raided, Rouge preferred to play it save and wait for his judgement. His silence was sign enough that she didn't need to put on her mask, but it still hung around her neck, ready to be pulled on at a moment's notice.
Exhilaration shot through Rouge as she stepped towards one of the broken walls. It wasn't the same thrill that accompanied entering a building and stealing from someone living, but Rouge still fundamentally, deeply loved it.
A thick layer of dust covered every surface on the inside, and when Rouge looked back, her own footprints stared up at her. Further up ahead, more walls had been broken—either intentionally, or just as a result of this place wasting away—but the residual light from the night couldn't penetrate the building particularly far.
Rouge might be able to see just fine outside on most occasions, but even her eyes weren't of much help in pure darkness. She pulled off her backpack and pulled out her flashlight.
Once her backpack was securely on her back again, she turned to Omega and said: "Turning my light on now."
"ACKNOWLEDGED," he replied back not a moment later.
Unlike her, Omega truly didn't need any light to still be able to maneuver through any given space. Something about his sensors and being able to generate visuals out of data she couldn't process. That said, he appreciated sudden bright lights about as much as she did—which meant not at all—so she'd long since taken up the habit of quickly calling out before flooding his senses with light.
With a soft click, her flashlight turned on and Rouge had to squint for a moment until his eyes adjusted. The place looked just about how she'd expected it to. Signs of whatever battle had taken place everywhere, from the floors to the walls to the ceilings, old decaying furniture alongside unidentifiable rubble that must've come from the building itself, all covered in that same layer of dust that had greeted her at the beginning. She'd been to more places like this than she could count.
Still, she proceeded with caution. As similar as this was to other places, no to abandoned building died the same way. One had a surprise gas leak waiting for her, another a floor would collapse with the right about of weight, the list went on.
The further she got into the building, the stronger her Chaos Shards reacted. V really hadn't been kidding about this. They didn't react quite as much as they had when she'd opened her safe, but it wasn't far off either. Either the military had been collecting shards here just as she did now decades later, or a truly enormous shard had founds its way here. Either way, this was the jackpot.
Eventually, behind doors that had once upon a time been secure, she found a staircase going down. She needed to go down there. She wasn't sure if it was the shards pushing her or her own intuition, but she knew the treasure she'd been looking for would be down those stairs. Ignorant of the fact that the other set of footsteps had fallen quiet, she set her first step onto the—
"ROUGE," Omega called out and she froze.
The incessant need to go down there already persisted, but Rouge pushed it aside and turned towards her partner instead.
"UNPRECEDENTED ERROR," he told her and Rouge quickly glanced around.
When she couldn't spot anything amiss—well, amiss for a building that's been slowly rotting—she asked: "What's wrong?"
"MY SCANNERS ARE FAULTY," he told her.
"Air quality?" she asked immediately, already reaching for her mask.
"AIR IS BREATHABLE," he stated, and Rouge took his word for it, "MY SCANNERS ARE DETECTING FAINT SIGNALS THAT ARE IMPOSSIBLE."
"Like what?"
"A LIFEFORM."
Rouge's grip on her flashlight tightened.
"Some wild animal that got lost?" she asked, already knowing Omega would've identified it as such if he could.
"NEGATIVE."
"A human or mobian?" she asked again even though she knew what the answer would be. They'd encountered other treasure hunters before and also the occasional person determined or reckless enough to try to make a life out here.
"…NEGATIVE."
Rouge moved her flashlight until its cone covered the entire staircase, which suddenly seemed a lot less inviting. Omega hadn't said the signal came from down there, but she could still take an educated guess. "Why the hesitation?"
"IT RESEMBLES A MOBIAN BUT ISN'T ONE," he replied, and Rouge couldn't quite shake the feeling of suddenly being protagonist of one of those horror stories she liked to read on occasion.
"Understood," she told him anyway, mind made up despite the danger they were about to walk into, "you go first."
Omega didn't argue. They never argued on missions, not when working as one unit would be curial to their success. Besides, she knew him well enough to know that he was no less curious about this anomaly than she was. He headed down the stairs without hesitation, and Rouge followed.
Surprisingly, after going down for what had to be multiple floors, they encountered a door. An intact one.
"Step back," Omega told her after a few moments, and Rouge did just that.
He took a few steps backwards—Rouge made extra sure she'd brought enough distance between them—then activated his thrusters and shot forwards. The metallic bang reverberated through Rouge's bones, and she'd fully expected a second one to follow moments after. It didn't, though. The door hadn't been knocked down and collided with the ground. It still sat where it was before.
Granted, there was a decent dent in it, but by all accounts it should've been on the other side of the room by now.
Slow, dawning dread settled in as Omega stepped back to repeat the procedure. Not the dread of some unknown cryptic boogeyman haunting this place, but the aged, tangible dread of history. Whatever was behind this door, it's been behind this door since before the Eggman Empire rise and fell. It's been put there by the military. This wasn't some wild predator or desperate scavenger, this were the remains of something that had happened long before her birth.
When Omega slammed against the door this time, it gave.
Rouge wasted no time in shining her flashlight into the newly revealed room. Before she could take in any other details, her eyes were drawn to the center of the room. A long, transparent tube towered over everything, filled with a sickly green liquid and—
Instinct had Rouge stepping back, almost sending her stumbling. Inside the tube was a person.
"Omega?" she asked into the silence filled only with the hum of machinery from up ahead.
"UNIDENTIFIED LIFEFORM HAS BEEN LOCATED," he confirmed, sounding about as aghast as she felt.
"They— it looks mobian to me," she found herself saying as her brain tried to process whatever this was.
"THEY ARE NOT," he replied and stepped further into the room.
Rouge followed him despite the churning in her stomach. He no longer left any footprints—and neither did she—so the room had likely been sealed shut entirely. Maybe some part of the walls had given away, which had then led to V picking up the signal. That would explain why nobody else had found it yet, despite the pull of her Chaos Shards being uncharacteristically strong.
Was that related to this corpse? Was that why Omega hadn't been able to…
"Omega?" she called out, and his head swiveled in her direction, "Are they alive?"
"AFFIRMATIVE," he replied.
"That's fucked," the words left her mouth before she really thought about them.
"AFFIRMATIVE," he replied again, then turned back to staring at the machinery hooked up to the— the tube. The tube with a person in it that was somehow still alive.
Rouge took a closer look at them. Despite what Omega had said, they sure looked like a normal mobian. Black fur, interlaced with a red pattern, a head adorned with quills. They'd even been placed into the tube with gloves and shoes and all. The closer she got to them, the more her shards reacted. Whatever their deal was, the shards apparently recognized something about him as their own.
They looked almost peaceful, up close. Eyes closed and body relaxed as they floated in a green liquid that looked cartoonishly evil. Like they were asleep, not like they'd been imprisoned down here for the entirety of the birth and death of an empire.
Maybe they were volatile and dangerous. Maybe this tube was the only thing keeping them alive, if being permanently unconscious could even be called life. Maybe there were a million good, logical reasons why someone was trapped in the depth of a military base in some evil scientist tube.
By all accounts, the reasonable thing would be to simply leave them alone and get out of this place. She wasn't a charity. She didn't go around rescuing people for the fun of it. She could walk away. She could walk away just as she could've walked away when she'd stumbled across a robot, slowly breaking down after decades without proper maintenance.
Besides, the Chaos Shards called to them. She doubted that the first person they reacted to like to one of their own being locked up by a now devastated military was merely a coincidence. She stood at the verge of a mystery decades in the making and while self-preservation urged her to walk away, the same part that had gotten her to start collecting shards in the first place wanted to do nothing more than dive in headfirst.
"Omega?" she asked.
"AGREED," he said, already knowing what her question would be, "RUDIMENTARY SCANS INDICATE A RELEASE MECHANISM TRIGGERED BY THIS TERMINAL."
Rouge made her way over to the tech stuff he'd pointed at. It took her a moment, but she found the right button without too much hassle. "Ready when you are," she called out.
"READY."
She pressed the button.
Ancient machinery sprung to life and she startled at the sudden noise. When she turned back to the tube, the liquid slowly drained from it. As the water level sunk, so did the person contained within. Their feet touched the ground eventually, and as the liquid continued draining, they nodded forwards.
Rouge moved to Omega's side so he stood between her and the tube. She wasn't a coward, but if that person turned out to be dangerous, she'd prefer to have her near indestructible best friend between them.
Even once the last of the liquid was gone, they didn't show any sign of life—well, aside from the heartbeat and breathing that Omega must've been picking up all this time. They simply remained in the now empty tube, forehead pressed against the glass without—
With a soft noise, the glass parted. The front slid up, leaving the person without any support. They fell forward, out of the tube and hit the ground. They still didn't move.
Maybe they'd been in there for too long. Maybe whatever had put them under had taken too much of a toll on their body and they'd remain like this forever.
Except, now that Rouge looked closer, she could see minuscule movement. That was all the warning she got before they exploded into a coughing fit, expelling the remainders of that horrible liquid from their lungs. When they were done, they stared with squinted eyes gleaming with the same deeply ingrained fury that connected her to Omega.
It didn't vanish, but after a few moments the fury was softened by confusion. "You are not G.U.N.?" they asked in a raspy voice that spoke to the amount of time they hadn't used it.
Rouge had a reply about how technically, Omega was a gun, but it died before it could even reach her throat. "We're not," she said instead.
At that, they took a look around the room until their eyes eventually landed on Omega, being the only other one in the room.
"It's over?" they asked next, still lying on the ground.
"CORRECT," Omega replied before Rouge could think about that question for too long.
Rouge would've expected that answer to soothe them, but instead the rage in their eyes hardened and they pushed themselves off the ground. Or tried to, at least. It took them a few tries to get their legs under them, and a few more to properly stand up, but they eventually managed.
"Who won?"
"It doesn't matter anymore," Rouge told them.
Now on their feet, they took another look around the room until their glare got stuck at that horrible tube they'd fallen out of.
"Actually," Rouge saw her chance and took it with both hands, "we came here to trash the place. You want in?"
"Yes," came their immediate reply, voice dripping with the same rage Omega used to level whatever parts of derelict Eggman bases she hadn't fully blown up.
She still had countless questions—as did Omega, no doubt—but those could wait for a little longer. If this person wanted to jump straight into getting the same hollow revenge she and Omega had been chasing by destroying the last reminders of what had come before them, she wouldn't stop them. In fact, once they seemed like they could stand without the risk of falling over, she'd happily hand them some of her explosives.
With her best smile that promised cathartic destruction to come, she said: "In that case, welcome to the team."