Return of Maria Robotnik P16

Part 16: Rouge's decision

The same night at Tails place

In a small faint illuminated lab, the young fox tries desperate to stay awake and looks as intensely he can in a microscope. The tables and shelves around him are stocked with papers and empty soda cans. He sighs and looks up, not so far away Amy sleeps silently on the extra chair. She had come to assist him a few days earlier, as she wished to help Maria and to prove to Sonic that she wasn’t useless.
He couldn’t help but smile a little to himself over her persistence to win Sonic´s affection, and he somewhat envied his friend for he had such a loyal girl in his life like her. But he also felt a little sad for her… Since Sonic didn’t return her feelings… But he did care for her, and he did consider her as a good and close friend and he would do anything to protect her from harm.

He once had a deeper conversation with Sonic about Amy, and it gave him a more clear insight of was going on inside of him, as he usually was not that keen to talk about girls.
Unlike other teenage boys at the same age, he didn’t have the same high interest in the opposite gender… Speed and adventurer was his true passion and way of life, he couldn’t bear being slowed down. With Amy´s more dominant and possessive nature, she would most likely try to control him and in the end it would hold him back…

“Found out something little buddy? “ The two tailed fox heard someone whisper. He looks back and sees his friend in blue and Knuckles standing behind him.

“Sonic!” He says, glad to see his friend.
The blue hedgehog hushes him a little and points at Amy, the fox nods.

“Have you figured out something?” Sonic asks as he covers the still sleeping hedgehog girl with a blanket.

“Nada…” He says sad and shakes his head.
“I have looked everywhere and contacted all scientists I know that research aging. But none of it has given me anything useful…”

“Have you tried Eggman? It is after all him who created her I suppose.” The red echidna says.

“I have tried to call him ever since the event at Amy´s house, but he has blocked all my calls. He refuses to speak with me…” The young fox says

“Well Eggman is not known for being a particular forgiving person…” Knuckles says with a grin.

“The only thing I can think up as a solution would be replacing her skeleton with something else. It will be a difficult operation and not forget to mention dangerous… As it seems right now, no one has managed to overcome aging…” Tails says with a slight tone of hopelessness.

For a moment there is a complete silence... The blue blur is the first one to break it.

“Hey what about Gerald Robotnik? When he created Shadow, he made him both immortal and ageless. He must has solved the mystery of aging!” Sonic says optimistic.

“Gosh you are right Sonic!... but… how are we going to get that information? Professor Gerald is long gone… and all his work has been confiscated by GUN.” The two tailed fox says to his thoughtful friend.

“In SA2, Rouge was assigned by GUN to investigate project Shadow… maybe she can help us” Sonic says.

“Don’t expect any help from that bat-girl. Rouge has no interest in helping people, unless there is a shiny jewel or gem at stake.” Knuckles snorts.

“Aren’t you a little harsh Knuckles? I don’t think Rouge is that bad… She has helped us out a few times before…” Tails tries and picks his cell phone.

“Yeah when her own life or interest has been at risk! She only cares about herself…” The red echidna growls.

“huh…?” Amy mumbles tired in the background.

“Try calling her anyway, it won’t hurt.” The blue hedgehog asks.

“Okay Sonic” Tails dials her number into the phone and waits.


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Same night somewhere else in the city.

In front of a laptop the white bat sits and tabs, in the background a radio faintly breaks the silence. The table she is sitting at is stuffed with notes and photos… mostly of a yellow mobian girl of an unknown subspecies.
She grabs one of the images and studies the person intensely.
“Who and what are you?” She mumbles to herself. She picks up a cup full of tea and takes a sip.
“Why did Eggman create you and how?” She whispers frustrated and stirs in her tea.

After the robots had broken into the Baby Sam stock, Rouge had been assigned by the government to investigate what Eggman was up to. So far she had no clue, other than a mysteries mobian girl had been recorded and she most likely was a artificial lifeform because of her abnormal fast growth.

Suddenly the phone rings, she picks it up and a looks all surprised when she sees on the display who is on the line.

“Tails?” She asks in wonder.
“What does he want? He has never called me before…” She pushes the button to answer.

“Rouge the Bat here.”

“Hi Rouge. Good you are home. We really need a favor of you.” The young fox asks.

“What kind of favor?” the white bat asks a little doubtful.

“We need Gerald Robotnik's files, especially his notes on his research and experiments.” Tails says.

“This information is highly classified! I usually don’t do that kind of things for free, as there is a large risk for my side…” She says a little tired as she leans back in her seat.

"Please Rouge, it is very urgent that I get them! Someone we know is very sick and might die if I don’t get them!” The fox begs.
There is a silence for a moment

“What? Who is sick? What is going on?” The bat asks seriously.

“A friend of us, named Maria, has a disease that makes her skeleton age much faster than usual. If we don’t do something fast her bones will crumble and everything inside of her will simply fall apart, that will result in a long and painful death… and that is not something that will happened within a few years… we are talking about months…” The fox explains seriously to the speechless bat…

Rouge gapes for a moment not knowing what to say. She didn’t like the idea of putting herself at risk for a complete stranger, but she also felt kind of bad by just ignoring this. When she looks down at the table, she sees the photos and gathers herself again.

“That girl we are talking about, is it the yellow one with blonde hair that was at Amy´s house?” The bat asks.

“That’s the one.” Tails sighs as he disliked the idea of again having passing this confidential knowledge.
The bat smiles a little to herself as she gets an idea.

“Let’s make a deal Tails, you give me everything you know about this Maria, and I will try to go to my boss and get those files.”

The fox hesitates for a moment before answering.
“….okay…. but there is really not much more to tell” he sighs.

“Just inform me” Rouge grins to herself.

Knuckles who like Sonic and Amy, had been listening to the whole conversation, grabs the phone in anger from Tails.

“Why are you so **** interested in her? Why can you never do something out of just kindness?” He shouts in the receiver.

“It is nothing personal Knuckie poo, business is business…” The bat simply explains.

“If you are so eager to know about her you could at least tell us why!” Amy says angry now fully awake.

“And I thought you have figured it out already… Fine I will enlighten you… When Eggman´s henchbots robbed the Baby Sam stock, half year ago, the government got suspicious of his true intentions. So they asked me to keep him under surveillance. When I saw the baby, I knew right away there was a connection, so I kept an eye on her the best I could. But since she has more less the whole time been locked up inside of the base, it has been very tricky to define if she is friendly or dangerous. Both I and the government doubt he created a simple mobian without some sort of powers or purpose…”

“I can tell you this that she is half-mobian and half-human, this type of mix can't happens naturally. So she is most likely artificial…”

“You can tell your boss she is friendly, harmless and without powers. She is no threat… She just wants to live her life peacefully.” Sonic interrupts Tails.

“…Okay I'll take you word for it Sonic. Just know this. It is not for juicy gossip I do this, it is for the safety of our country and our world. Eggman can never be trusted… I will go to my boss and tell him what you just said, hopefully he will allow me to carry out your wish.” The bat replies, knowing it was impossible to squeeze more information out of those mobians now.

“Hmpf! Safety of the country, my ass…” Knuckles growls.

“Now if you excuse me I bet you a good night.” Rouge grins to herself and hang up.
She looks down at the table again and looks at a photo.

“Seems I got a small breakthrough. I better write these things down, before I forget them.” The bat grabs a piece of paper and writes a few notes.

“Here we are.” She says pleased and sticks the paper to the laptop's screen.

“And now for those files…” She goes to a large shelf and picks out a small metal box, which is hidden behind some books. She goes back to the table with it and grabs some keys in her pocket, with one of them she unlocks it.
The box is stocked with CD´s and DVD´s in alphabetical order, she looks through and finds the one she is looking for.

“Let’s see I think. It is this one...” She picks it up and inserts it in the machine.

“It is certainly a good thing I always keep a copy of all my cases… some of this information is truly worth in gold… or jewels.” She sniggers to herself and types a password that allows her access to the content of the disk.

“Now let’s see if there is something that can save this Maria…” She says and starts to look through the files.

“Hmmm… that looks interesting.” She says and enlarges an old and very detailed illustration of a green emerald on a string, which obviously has been scanned from an old worn book. She leans a little closer to the screen so she can read the notes on the picture.

“…This emerald is a fragment of the very Master Emerald….. It is called The Soul-Catcher/Soul-stone by the ancient Echidna´s…. they used it to bring their more special and unique members back from the dead… “ She raises her eyebrows in wonder. She looks through the files again and finds a faint coloured photo of it and a document written by Gerald himself, which she starts reading.

“All my attempts to cure my beloved granddaughter have so far failed. I still haven’t figured out a way to transfer Shadow immortality to her. I sadly witness her conditions getting worse for each day there pass, it torments me that I can’t do anything.
I therefore decided to use an alternative way to save her, if I can’t cure her in time…. I recently learned some history about the ancient Echidna society, and among the tales I learned their secrets of reincarnation…
I have searched for while and I have finally managed to obtain the Soul-Catcher. A magical emerald, which possesses the ability of capturing the soul and spirit of the person who carries it if he/she dies, and transfer it to a new suitable body…
I have followed the instructions close on how to create a machine that can fabricate a soulless body, as it is very important the host is alive and at the same time empty.
Unfortunately there is an error in the machine, which I still haven’t figured how to fix… When the machine creates a body, it programs it to match the age of the person’s spirit. All of it seems to work fine, except I have some inexplicable issues with the skeleton….”
Rouge gasps and her eyes widens by this newfound knowledge.

“Oh my god! Is she really what I think she is?!” Rouge says shocked.
Rouge sits down for a moment and just stares in the empty air, trying to gather her thoughts.

“GUN did mention a green emerald on a string had gone missing for over a half year ago, as they at first thought it was my doing…. No this can’t be right… there is no such thing as reincarnation!” She grabs the mouse and scrolls down to the bottom of the document and reads.

“She is back… she is back” Rouge whispers stunned.

“This is gonna change everything… if Shadow finds out… “ She now looks sad and turns her attention to a picture on her table of Omega, Shadow and herself.

“I will lose him forever… no I can’t let this happen.” She stands up and goes down stairs to her bar. She grabs a couple of bottles and mixes herself a drink. She sighs and takes a sip.

“But if I don’t tell him or try to help her for that matter… He will never forgive me…” She says as she shakes her glass and looks at the colourful content, she turns on the radio and listen to the music for a while.

“He talks about you in his sleep
There's nothing I can do to keep
From crying when he calls your name, Jolene”

“Why of all songs in the world do they chose to play Jolene today… ” Rouge growls and change channel.

“And now to the latest news… earlier this evening, the police found a mobian polar bear hanging from a telephone pole, in what they called the biggest wedgie to date! With a length of 1,26 meter it has beaten the record of 0,8 meters! This station tried to contact the mobian and congratulate him with this new unusual record, but he wasn’t willing to let our reporter interview him…”

The bat couldn’t help but snigger to herself when she heard the news.

“Before I take any further action, I have to go see Eggman! I have to get to the bottom of this!” She puts determent the glass on the table and leaves.
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The original Maria Robotnik and the other characters are all copyright SEGA.
Don’t steal this material PLEASE!

If you find grammar errors and stuff feel free to inform me, but please tell me what to correct it with.


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