#exploring Rouge's perspective throughout the games where team dark first met!!!

[generic-sonic-fan]

Team Dark Week: Together/Journey

Summary: Rouge recalls some memories of her unlikely journey to becoming the leader of Team Dark. For @teamdarkweek.

2125 words, no content warnings

---

“Hey, Rouge!” Amy waved from the sidewalk.

Rouge landed next to her. “Hey, hun. Sorry not sorry for being late.”

“I figured you would be, so I didn’t worry.” Amy smiled. “How’ve you been?”

“Busy. Now come on, let’s get our pampering on.” She gestured to the nail salon.

“Straight to the point! You’re a girl on a mission as always.”

They entered the salon and were brought over to the pedicure chairs. After removing her shoes, Amy jumped into the cushioned chair and stuck her feet into the pool of hot water below. Rouge followed suite. She activated the massage function and slumped back into her chair. The last mission had been particularly. . . eventful. The massage was doing wonders for her aching wings. 

Amy spared no time describing her latest conquest- a massive haul from her favorite consignment store. Rouge was content to sit back and soak it in, occasionally opening her eyes and glancing whenever Amy had a picture to show of the outfits she’d put together already.

“What about you, huh?” Amy asked. Before Rouge could reply, though, she continued. “How are Shadow and Omega doing?”

Rouge pouted. “How am I supposed to know?”

“Uh, I don’t know, they’re your friends?” Amy shrugged.

Fair point. “They’re off doing their own things.”

Amy twiddled her thumbs.

“You really associate them with me that much?” Rouge asked.

“Well gee, I didn’t think it was that bad of an insult!” Amy replied.

“That’s not what I meant.” She took a breath. “Just that, it only felt like yesterday. . .”

—

“I’m an independent contractor. IN-DE-PEND-ENT!”

“If you’re going to accept my offer, that is going to change.”

Rouge bared her fangs, then turned herself away from the bars of her cell, giving a “hmph!” for good measure.

“GUN agents do not work alone. We can’t risk losing communication with an agent on a vital mission.”

“Vital mission? What ‘vital mission’ are you going to send a jewel thief on, hmm?”

“Might I remind you where you are right now?” The officer paused, presumably making some grandiose gesture at the cell around her. “If you don’t accept our offer, you’re going to be serving jail time.”

“Not for long.” Rouge mumbled. 

“In maximum security, if you keep that up.”

Rouge covered her mouth. “Oops. Silly me.”

“So make your choice. You can stay in here. . . or you can work with us.”

“Alone.”

“You will be assigned a team.”

“No, I won’t. Not if you want my expertise. You sound very desperate if you’re begging for a known thief to join your cause.”

“Indeed, command is desperate, to consider a thief who’s actually been caught.”

Rouge hissed. “Then why don’t you go find a better one?”

The officer paused. “I-”

“Because there is no better one. Do you know why? Because I work alone. I don’t let anybody slow me down. So go ahead and let me rot in jail, if you’d like, but if you want me on your side you’re going to give me what I’m asking for.”

She looked over her shoulder to see the officer looking down. Her grin faded, however, when he tapped a button hidden under his shirt. It was then that she noticed the tiny wire sneaking up to his ear. A voice spoke from his earpiece, but even with her ears swiveled towards it she couldn’t make much out of it.

The officer looked up again. “Fine. We won’t pair you up with anyone, if you agree to be implanted with a chip that will track your location.”

“An implant seems like a lot of work. Why don’t I just have it, I don’t know, sewn into my clothes right here?” Rouge turned around and tapped her chestplate. 

“That isn’t secure-”

“Do you think I’m going to strip on the job?”

The officer stammered a bit, before shaking his head. 

“That would be very unprofessional. Now come on, get me out of here. And get me talking to who’s really going to be in charge of this mission.”

The officer grabbed the keys from his belt and unlocked the door. 

—

For calling himself a genius, Rouge had easily talked her way into becoming essential for Dr. Robotnik's little mission. The “Eggman” wasn’t all he was cracked up to be, pun intended.

But the small black-and-red hedgehog that followed him, Project SHADOW. . . now that was much more of a challenge. It was the sort of challenge that sucked her in, like trying to crack a bank vault or figuring out how to bypass GUN security systems. No person had ever caught her attention like this before. 

She needed to know more. She wanted to pick his brain about all the things she was seeing in his files. That was a stupid idea, of course. She couldn’t afford to get chummy, not when he was her mission. 

—

“Where is Shadow?” Rouge asked as Sonic stepped into the observation room of the ARK.

Instead of a quip, she saw Sonic stiffen. He shook his head. 

A sort of breathless gasp passed over not just her, but the entire room. Tails, Amy, Knuckles, even Eggman, to some extent. They wandered over to different windows of the observatory. 

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a star shooting down towards the surface of the planet. She froze. 

(If she didn’t look, it wasn’t real.)

Sonic tapped her on the shoulder. She exhaled, tried to paint a normal expression on her face, and turned to him. 

In his hand was one of those golden rings Shadow wore around his wrists and ankles. 

—

The golden band, an inhibitor ring, as she knew it to be now, sat on a shelf amongst her most prized jewels. 

—

Her heart stopped when she saw Shadow in that pod. Even when bullets started flying, she couldn’t get her limbs to work. 

“Shadow!” She cried as he tackled her out of the way. 

“Stay here.” He replied.

She looked over to see the source of the gunfire- some sort of fancy new Badnik model. Shadow lept around the room to avoid its fire. 

“MUST ERADICATE ALL EGGMAN ROBOTS!”

Now that didn’t make any sense. Eggman’s newest and best robot wouldn’t have a destructive streak like this. And the fact that it was currently attacking Shadow, the person that was in the pod, and not her, the intruder trying to steal that person in the pod, meant that-

Shadow charged. The robot put away its miniguns and pulled out a wicked pair of claws. Rouge jumped and flew between them. 

“Hey, hold up!” She screamed as she put a palm on each of their chests.

To her surprise, both parties actually listened.

—

They exited the basement of Eggman’s base. Shadow, now amnesiac. And E-123 Omega, a robot now out for revenge. 

As they exited out into the blue skies and palm trees, both stayed in the doorway. 

Rouge turned back, but any demand for them to hurry up dried on her lips when she saw Shadow’s face.

He blinked. Rubbed his eyes. Blinked again. Stared up into the great big sky above them, as if it might swallow him whole. His quills shivered as the warm breeze blew past him. 

The robot shook too, the metal plating clanging against itself drawing her attention away from Shadow. Behind the glass of his optics, his apertures expanded and shrunk three or four times before settling on a size. There was another noise, besides the wind, something whirring within him. Some sort of cooling fan, maybe.

Rouge was sure that Shadow’s metaphorical cooling fans were going off as well. 

An Ultimate Lifeform and an Ultimate Robot. Both looking like they were about to short-circuit after a ray of sunshine hit them. 

Something in Rouge’s chest clenched, making it difficult to breathe. She pushed it down. “You two ready?”

—

“Thank you for retrieving the Ultimate Lifeform.” The commander said to her. 

Rouge wasn’t looking at him. She was looking at Shadow, who was bristling under the attention of four technicians that were poking and prodding at him.

“All in a day’s work.” She replied. 

“And the capture of Robotnik tech is very impressive. Now that you’ve got it following your orders, order it to accompany the technicians back to the clean room so that it can undergo-”

“I DO NOT FOLLOW HER ORDERS!” Omega snapped. “I FOLLOW NO ONE’S ORDERS!”

“We know, we know,” she made a calming gesture to Omega, not that it’d do much, as she’d learned recently. “He doesn’t work that way. I’d suggest-”

Three GUN soldiers brought their rifles to their shoulders and pointed them at Omega. 

“You didn’t inform us that this one retained its autonomy!” The commander said pointedly. 

“Hey, HEY! Put those down!” Rouge ran in front of Omega. “He’s not gonna hurt you as long as you’re not an Eggman robot! Right?”

“IF THEY WISH TO APPREHEND ME TO OBSTRUCT MY MISSION, I INVITE THEM TO TRY.”

“You heard the robot! Put down your weapons.”

“Agent Rouge, we cannot allow it to simply roam free with its programming still intact.”

“Then I’ll get Sonic’s little squirt to evaluate him! Now put those away before he takes it as a challenge.”

The commander gave a gesture to the soldiers, and they lowered the rifles from their shoulders, only barely.

“Okay, good. Now let’s sort this out-” Rouge said.

“Rouge.”

Rouge whipped around to see Shadow being dragged led off by figures in white.

“Let him go!” she flew after him.

She grabbed his wrist and stopped the senior technician from going any further. 

“Agent Rouge! Explain your behavior at once.” The commander shouted.

“I won’t let you take him away!” She shouted back. “I won’t let you take either of them. They saved my life. They saved everyone from Metal Overlord! I’m not gonna let you dissect either of them- you owe them that much!”

“Both present a danger to everyone in this room if not evaluated.” The commander hissed. “Are you willing to put your reputation on the line for them?”

“Yes!”

The answer shocked her even coming out of her own mouth. She let go of Shadow’s arm and turned to find the commander with his hand on his chin. 

There was nothing left to do but double down. “We’re a team. Team. . .”

All GUN units needed a unit name. ‘Team Rouge’ would probably get an objection from the other two. ‘Team Jewel’ was too cliche. She looked between the two, then down to herself.

“Team Dark.” She said. “We’re Team Dark. We’ll get evaluated together, thank you very much. You’re welcome for our help in saving the world.”

The commander lowered his hand. “Very well. I’ll consider it. Guards.”

As the soldiers swept around them, she now found herself shoulder to shoulder with the hedgehog and the robot. 

She was never doing this again. She wasn’t liking being on this end of the equation, the one with no negotiating power, especially not on the behalf of two unstable superweapons who could decide at any point that she wasn’t worth their time. If she continued like this, she was going to end up dead or in someone’s prison cell or-

“Thank you,” Shadow whispered to her. 

She looked at him. He met her gaze. She glanced back to Omega. He met her gaze, too. 

Any regrets she had were gone as they were escorted down the hall. 

—

“Uhhh, Rouge? Rouge?” Amy waved her hand in front of Rouge’s eyes. 

“Hmm?”

“You, uh, kinda stopped talking.” Amy explained. “You were saying?”

Rouge took a moment to blink the rest of the memories away and remember where she’d left off. “Oh, nothing. Just how it only felt like yesterday since I stuck my neck out for those two idiots.”

“That’s a little mean of you to call them that.”

“And now we’re friends. So much so that it’s the first thing people like you think of when they see me, apparently.”

“Oh.” Amy relaxed.

“It means we’ve got work to do! We’ve got reputations to maintain, you know.”

“A reputation for what? Being broody loners?”

“That’s more Shadow’s speed. And besides, I doubt he has this problem.”

“Knuckles asked him how you were doing yesterday.”

“Well, Shadow’s always the more sentimental of the team. Omega certainly wouldn’t tolerate it.”

“. . . Tails didn’t even have to ask Omega about you guys before he started talking about what you were up to the last time you left him for repairs.”

“Really?”

Amy nodded. 

“Well,” Rouge looked down at her lap, “then I suppose everyone knows.”

“Knows what?”

“That we’re better off together.” 

Amy’s eyes lit up. “Awwwwww! See? Aren’t friends the best?”

Rouge rolled her eyes and whispered to herself, “despite everything.”

[ganymedesclock]

So okay hey y’know what’s a thing that bugs me about Shadow’s arc throughout the games?

The Biolizard and the Black Arms.

Because... two times, there’s the person that Shadow has the actual, justified beef with, and then a second party who is connected pretty directly to Shadow. A peer. 

The Biolizard is Shadow’s prototype, which, considering Gerald, at least before the massacre, was as far from a cold uncaring researcher as possible- this is Shadow’s older sibling. And, yeah, as a prototype organisms, she has some serious health concerns- her tendency to hyperventilate definitely being one of them- but it doesn’t seem like she’s suffering.

And, yeah, she doesn’t vocalize, isn’t small and Mobian-like but there is clearly someone home. A mindless animal ruled only by instinct would not be taken as the vehicle for Gerald’s revenge. A mindless animal couldn’t operate the ARK’s systems, much less by projecting them, or use the sophisticated, complex attack pattern that the Biolizard does- comparable to Eggman’s boss robots. Hell, one of the hardest things to do fighting Biolizard is dodge. She’s a really good shot, and the one exploitable opening in her combat is where she needs to stop and hyperventilate with her life support, which, she can’t exactly do anything about.

Hell, you’d argue considering the whole repetition of “power enriched by the heart” that whatever nebulous sources we have in Sonic would state that Biolizard has a soul. She has to have a will and “heart” or how would she be able to use Chaos Control?

Biolizard is smart. And what’s the other thing we see about Biolizard? That video left behind by Gerald- repeating over and over and over again.

The video left behind by Gerald- who tampered with Shadow’s memories and otherwise twisted a quiet, sensitive, traumatized individual into his vehicle for revenge.

This is the one thing we “hear” from Biolizard who is absolutely smart enough to communicate somehow. Who, if we assume she, like Shadow, is synthesized from Arms DNA, would probably have been on some level communicating with Shadow the entire time- considering Shadow’s the one utterly unsurprised when Biolizard warps in to mess them up.

The Biolizard was manipulated and exploited by Gerald just like Shadow was. Much like Shadow, we have no reason to believe she is inherently violent or hateful. There is no good reason to carefully and lovingly deliver Shadow from Gerald’s machinations and kill Biolizard.

“But Clockie, she would’ve killed everyone with the ARK!”

So would Shadow, given he was instrumental in delivering the emeralds to Biolizard in the first place, and literally in the scene leading up to the Biolizard fight he’s calmly looking out the window waiting for the impact.

Literally- Shadow’s realization that this was wrong was a last second incident.

What did the Biolizard believe? What was her perspective on the ARK? She’s so large and heavy- unable to move through most of the facility except by teleporting- did she hide and avoid GUN? Was she captured? We have no idea. But Gerald clearly tampered with her- the presence of the video aligns directly with her appearance.

Just like Shadow, she was acting on his orders. And we don’t know how easy it is for Biolizard to communicate or understand- it might be hard for her to get a grasp on her situation just through eavesdropping on the united Hero & Dark teams.

I could write this entire post on the ambiguity of “Supporting Me” and how much it sounds like a conversation more than a soliloquy. “I know you were supporting me,” and the repetitions/variations on that- who is he talking to, or, rather, who is talking to him? A lot of the lyrical SA2 themes are very straightforwards- almost comically so at times- but Shadow’s themes for that game are... weird. Ambiguous. Distorted. I’m honestly kind of sad they dropped that for his later games, but that’s getting off topic.

Biolizard, in every way, is just like Shadow, and we watch her rip herself apart trying to fulfill Gerald’s revenge with no idea if this was ever what she really wanted. The finalhazard form looks incredibly painful. This is someone who has a body that does not lend itself well to stress-free movement and the tendency to hyperventilate when overexerting herself and she never hesitates to protect herself.

And, for all that? For all of her sharing Shadow’s tragedy? We get nothing. No sympathy. Not even a second thought except “wow wasn’t that a cool boss fight” in Sonic Generations. Shadow calls her an ugly prototype. Her downfall is treated as synonymous to Gerald’s downfall- she’s treated as a mere symptom or face of his revenge.

And this is, quite frankly, so much of how the Black Arms are handled. Shadow finds another messed up branch of his family tree in Black Doom, who is all too eager to do exactly what Gerald did- gaslight Shadow and use him for Doom’s personal vendetta. Only unlike Gerald, Doom isn’t a desperate specter from the past, he’s the patriarch of an entire species. What he’s trying to do to Shadow, he’s already done to all of the other Arms.

The Black Arms- who are, seemingly, hypersocial, mentally linked on an incredibly intimate level, and who would be, thus, incredibly vulnerable to exactly the kind of manipulations and attacks Doom lavishes on Shadow.

Once again- the only reason Shadow is our hero, the only reason he’s spared, is because of the people who reach out to him, in past and present. And this is framed as a very narrow thing- sure, most of the routes, especially the dark routes, are noncanon, but it’s still emphasized as a very real possibility that Doom is able to break Shadow entirely to his will.

But again- for the Arms? There is no sympathy. They’re in exactly the same boat as Shadow, as far as carrying out Doom’s orders against Earth, the angle of the True Ending tells us that the Pure Hero route is as noncanon as the Pure Dark route- that at bare minimum, Shadow gave Doom the Chaos Emeralds and put Earth in danger. Hell, even more than Biolizard, you can argue the Arms may have actually had no awareness or control of what they were doing- Gerald’s manipulations just convinces the person that this is what they need to do in a guise they’re least likely to refuse, but consider how incredibly off Shadow acts in the scenes where he’s heavily under Doom’s influence.

And this is infuriating to me not only because Biolizard and the Black Arms are written off, but because- a significant plot thread for Shadow going onward from his decision to turn his back on his history and try to use his power for good is that he has like two friends and is in an incredibly difficult situation to relate to people.

What I’ve seen of Archie’s plot exploring Eclipse and the Dark Arms... also, honestly does not encourage me, because Shadow’s sibling seems to be presented overwhelmingly as a corrupting force, and the heroic course of action is for Shadow to once again fight off his extended family.

Which... if Shadow’s a Black Arm, and the Arms are a hypersocial colony species... is it really any wonder Shadow’s not doing so hot, or why the familial ties of Gerald and Maria meant so, so much to him? Sure, genetic influences only do so much in the realm of the psychological but if Arms aren’t even supposed to be completely alone in their own heads, outside of the freaky subjugation that Doom gets up to- there have been studies that babies will die from insufficient contact. 

I could write an entire different post on the beautiful, beautiful found family feelings I have over Team Dark’s relationship, and how wonderful Rouge and Omega are as stabilizing forces in Shadow’s life (I mean, heck, look at the fact that in some of the worse routes in ShTH they’re there for him- Rouge in particular is your lone ‘get out of jail’ card to help you away from the worst ending)...

...but that’s not to say that he’s fine, and it doesn’t matter if he’s alone.

Nobody’s going to argue they should’ve blown up Earth with ARK, or that Doom was anything but an abusive, tyrannical person who needed to get his miscellaneous appendages out of Shadow’s brain. And I’m not trying to spin this at all to suggest leaving his biological family means Shadow’s Never Going To Be Happy- that’s an awful message to send because sometimes, people really do just need to cut ties with their blood relatives.

What aggravates me is that there’s no satisfactory explanation or even acknowledgement for why Shadow is the one redeemed and not his siblings, when it seems like the only thing that separates them is once again, that people reached out to Shadow.

Which is ridiculous because our supporting cast is packed with people who care! 

Rouge paints herself as only in it for personal gain in contrast to the selfless, duty-bound Knuckles, her rival- and yet even her debut game framed her repeatedly as someone who ultimately is kind, trustworthy, who says things like “Even if the world turns against you, I won’t,” and means it. Hell, in SA2, she was the one who was actively an undercover agent for the forces of good.

Eggman wants to take over the world but god dammit he has standards, he deplores senseless destruction- we see him angrily decry both Gerald and Doom, the former rather personally since Gerald was his hero.

And Sonic? It’s pretty solidly established Sonic will take under his wing and give an affectionate nickname to anything that’s around him for more than ten minutes.

This is not an arrangement of people who don’t care. There’s no actual good in-universe justification for the Biolizard and the Black Arms being met so coldly when none of the amounts of violence they enacted or attempted exceeded Shadow’s.

Also there are so many incredible ways to explore the idea that Shadow is related to a freaking space dinosaur. Literally whatever character you ascribe to the Biolizard, it’d be amazing.