Rouge the Bat botches a heist, makes a friend and definitely won't go on to see the kid as her little brother. No sirree, not even a little bit.
Or: Rouge tries to convince a child that stealing is cool and more people should do it.
Fandom: Sonic the Hedgehog
Rouge the Bat knew in her heart that one day she would be a master criminal. She might be small-time now, but one day her name would be at the top of every Most Wanted list, and a poster of her would hang on the wall of GUN headquarters. For now, however, she was a teenager stumbling through the forest, arms tied behind her back and wings tangled even worse—she'd tried hitting a truck on the road, figuring it would be easier to grab its cargo in transit rather than letting it get locked away, and one of the guards had flung a bolas at her. It was all she could do to control her landing well enough to roll through it and avoid seriously injuring herself.
A bolas, she thought, honestly, who does that?
She would have liked to take a moment to sit down and figure out how to untangle herself, but as she struggled to her feet by the side of the road, she saw an ornery-looking badger hop from the rapidly approaching truck and stride towards her menacingly. He didn't even miss a step as he landed, and Rouge took a moment to pout at the sheer unfairness of it all. As it was he had a baton in one hand and a pair of handcuffs in the other, so she had turned for the forest and run as fast as her sensible shoes would carry her.
So she found herself crashing through the woods, wings starting to get sore and unable to pause for breath for fear the badger would turn out to be right behind her. She hopped across a stream and then cursed herself—wasn't there something about how you were supposed to walk through streams, so they couldn't track you by scent? She put that thought to one side and carried on, not sure what direction she was headed except that it was vaguely uphill.
Through a gap in the trees, she saw a cave in the side of a nearby hill. It might have been atavistic, but it struck her as a perfect place to hide. A quick glance back over her shoulder told her that her pursuer was still on her trail, but far enough back that he might not see her go in, and before she knew it she was hiding behind a stalagmite and trying to get her breathing under control. She was pretty sure it was a stalagmite, those were probably the ones that came out of the ground.
"Who-who's there?" came a voice from further into the cave. Young, she figured probably a boy, and obviously frightened.
She turned to look into the darkness, and saw a small figure crouched hiding behind their own stalagmite. She figured they were some kind of mammal, but beyond that she wouldn't want to guess. Still, whoever they were she couldn't have them giving the game away. She replied in a low voice, "I'm being followed. Hush for just a moment, will you?"
The figure was silent. Rouge thought she saw them nod.
She looked back at the mouth of the cave, and sure enough the badger from earlier went running past. She waited for a long moment, and then breathed a sigh of relief when he didn't double back to check the cave. It seemed she'd given him the slip. That just left her with her obliging host.
"Thanks for keeping quiet", she said into the darkness.
"I'm hiding myself", they replied, "I thought you might be from my old village, come to chase me away again."
"No, nowhere around here." She tried to wave them over, only to get a sudden and painful reminder that she was still tied up in the bolas. She struggled against the rope, but that only served to make it dig in tighter. "Oh, come on!"
"L-let me get it", said the voice. Rouge considered for a moment, and then nodded. They came forward gently, and as they approached Rouge could see that they were a young boy, (she gave herself a point for a correct guess) a yellow-orange fox (another point! she was on a roll) with two tails (huh, didn't know that could happen)
He reached out hesitantly, but paused before actually getting a hand on the bolas. She nodded encouragingly, and the fox set about the tangle of knots with a quiet intensity. In no time at all she was freed, and she could stretch her arms and wings until they made a series of deeply satisfying pops and cracks. "Oh, that's so much better. Nice work, fingers."
The kid froze, in a way Rouge couldn't help but recognise. A gal in her profession had to get good at reading body language—real good, real fast, or else she'd wind up in real trouble. She'd hit a weak spot, and now she was on a countdown to figure out what it was before she accidentally hit it again. Then the gravity of the situation hit her – this kid wasn’t just hiding from bullies after school. You didn’t need a cave in the middle of the woods for that. He was running away from home, and until she’d stumbled into his hiding place he’d been completely alone. Rouge didn’t consider herself overly sentimental, but it was hard not to feel bad for the little guy.
She tried again, putting just a little more charm into her voice, "Hey now, I wasn't making fun."
"Y-you weren't?" asked the kid in a tone of such sincere disbelief it made part of Rouge just want to wrap him up in a blanket and tell him things were going to be OK.
"Nah. That's a pretty common nickname in my line of work. I thought it would suit you, but if you don't like it I can drop it." Calling burglary her line of work might have been putting on airs, but the kid didn't need to know that.
The kid huddled in on himself, but looked up at her with a cautious kind of hope "So it wouldn't mean I was... weird?"
She was starting to get a worryingly clear idea of why the kid would want to avoid anyone from his village. Those two tails might have just been a curiosity to her, but from the way the kid had a hangup about seeming unusual, clearly his old neighbours hadn't been so tolerant. "Not at all. In fact, I bet a little fella like you could go far."
He nodded, and for the first time she could see determination in his eyes. "I don't mind where I go, as long as it isn't here."
Rouge thought of the many times she had heard that story. Most people who skipped town and headed out on their own were a fair bit older than this kid, and certainly bigger. There was only one thing for it. "Well, you know, I'm headed to Sunset City. How about you come along with me, and by the time we get there we'll have figured out something for you to do?"
"Th-that sounds great! I'm, uh, my name is Miles."
"Pleased to meet you, Miles. I'm Rouge."
"That's a pretty name."
"Aw, thanks sweetie."
Miles was quiet for a long moment before shyly asking, "So, uh, what's Sunset City like?"
"It's where I'm from, originally. Imagine Casino Night if everyone turned it down just a notch or two." At least Sunset is less depressing during the day than Casino Night is, she mused, that place is just plain shabby if it isn’t lit by neon.
"I've never been there, either."
"Well, I don't think you'd like it. But Sunset on the other hand, that’s like a little slice of the continents right here in the islands; folks come there from all over. Some people say you can get better Chun-Nanese food in Sunset City than you can in Chun-Nan itself." Of course, the people who said that were mostly from Sunset themselves.
"Wow, I never met a human before! Are they as tall as everyone says?"
"The adults are, they’re mostly around five or six feet. When they're kids, they're not any taller than no-uh, most people."
“Wow. How come they’re so big, anyway?”
Rouge internally chuckled at the way the kid seemed to think she would be an expert, and then wondered if she had been the same way at his age; peppering anyone older with questions just because as someone older, presumably they knew everything in the world. Probably, she concluded. “Well, there’s an awful lot of different kinds of people in the world, right? Someone had to be the tallest.”
He looked at her with stars in his eyes, and she took a moment to bask in it. As it turned out, being admired felt pretty good.
“Anyway”, she continued, “It looks like that guy from earlier has really passed us by, so it should be safe to make a move.”
“Why was he after you, anyway?”
“Well, he works for a bank. Long story short, I tried to pull a heist on one of their trucks, and all I got for my trouble was that lousy bolas.”
“A heist?"
“Robbery”, she explained.
“You-you’re a thief?”
“Yep! First time I ever tried something that big, but I guess the only way to learn is to do it.”
He glanced towards the back of the cave for a split second before turning back to her “You’re not gonna…”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what you have in this cave, but whatever it is it’s yours. I don’t take from people, I take from stores and things like that. Big ones, not just a couple of ordinary folks running a grocery.” She wasn’t sure herself how much of that was due to bigger companies being able to survive the theft without being hurt, or how much of it was because mom and pop wouldn’t have that much worth taking. She liked to think the balance leant more towards the former than the latter, but if she were honest with herself it was impossible to say for certain.
“But don’t people work at big stores?” he asked.
“Well, yes, but the store will still be there whether or not it’s missing some perfume, or a little cash from the register, or a crate of those little pink cupcakes I snagged from a warehouse. It’s like taking one or two apples from a tree, the tree itself is fine.”
“How many cupcakes fit in a crate?”
“Honestly, not as many as you’d think. The packaging is a real killer.”
Seemingly prompted by their discussion of cupcakes and apples, Miles’ stomach rumbled. He glanced once more towards the back of the cave, and then looked back up at her. “You, uh, you want dinner?” he asked awkwardly.
“Kid, I just said I don’t take anything from people, and from the looks of things you need all the food you can get.”
He shook his head, “If we’re going to Sunset, then we can get more on the way, right? We can split what I have left now, it’ll be fine.”
She was more touched than she would want to admit by this show of generosity from someone who, best she could tell, had basically nothing. She nodded, not fully trusting her voice, and Miles walked quickly back further into the cave.
As it turned out, he had a little campsite set up – whenever he’d run away from home, he had clearly planned it out as carefully as he could. He reached into a worryingly flat bag of supplies and pulled out two packets of instant noodles, both chicken flavour. As splurging went it was pretty pathetic, but it seemed to be a lot of what he had. A camping stove (it looked human-made, originally, but had clearly been modified since leaving the store) and a pot of water later, and dinner was well on its way. She felt even guiltier when he gave her a clean bowl and hurriedly washed out another for himself before serving.
“Gotta hand it to ya kid, you’ve got it pretty well together. A real nice little set-up. I’ve got a bag of essentials a little way’s flight out in the woods, but did you wanna swing by your crummy old village and pick up anything you forgot?”
“It’s not crummy.”
“They kicked you out, right?" she jabbed her fork at him to emphasise the point, "Sounds pretty crummy to me.”
He contemplated his noodles for a long moment, and Rouge tried not to slurp her dinner too loudly. Eventually he looked up with suspiciously wet eyes and said “I… thanks. And, uh, yeah, actually if I could go over my workshop I’d really appreciate it.”
She quirked an eyebrow, “Workshop?”
“I tinker. You know, with machines.”
People who tinker have a bench, or maybe a shed thought Rouge, but a workshop is for more than that. Aloud, she said “That’s great, kid. That’s a real useful skill, especially in a big city like Sunset. There’ll always be someone looking for a talented pair of hands.”
He preened in the way of any child who’s just had a cool older kid take an interest in their hobbies. It almost made Rouge wish she’d had kid siblings.
“So, tell ya what”, she continued, “I’ll grab my bag, and while you give your old place a once-over I’ll get anything else we’ll need for the journey.”
“Are you going to steal it?” he asked.
“Depends what it is. I have some cash on me, if it’s for sale for a fair price I’ll pay.”
That seemed to mollify him, and they continued their dinner in a comfortable silence. A quick tidy-up later, and they were ready to head out. She was at least able to help him pack his camp away, so she could feel like a little less of a moocher. The evening was rapidly growing darker, but for a bat and a fox that wasn’t an issue. She flapped a couple of times to get off the ground and settled at a low enough height to keep a clear eye on Miles as they travelled.
Then the kid wiggled his butt, and that was when Rouge learned that he could fly.
If the village Miles had grown up in had a name, the kid didn’t share it.
That wasn’t all that unusual in the mobian islands. Most people didn’t travel all that much, and when a village or farm did need a name it was almost always for some distinctive feature or landmark. Hills, beaches, even fields of flowers if the locals all agreed the flowers were pretty enough. A place could spend years as “the village with the red rocks” before eventually becoming capital letters Red Rock Village if enough people took notice of it. In Miles’ case, it seemed that hadn’t happened yet.
Or, mused Rouge as the two of them flew through the evening in a companionable silence, maybe he just doesn’t feel like talking about it. There was a human who’d said something about that once, that the simple explanation was usually the correct one. Ironic, perhaps, for the people who seemed to make everything more complicated than it needed to be, but Rouge supposed a good idea could come from anywhere.
Miles’ ability to fly was a welcome surprise. Just as Rouge had never heard of a fox with two tails, she’d never heard of a land-based mammal being able to take to the skies the way he could. It was certainly helping them make good time across the island, and it would be useful when the time came to head out and hitch a ride back to civilisation. Her eyes drifted back to him as they flew, just in time to see him dodge nimbly around a particularly tall tree.
“Nice flying, kid!” she called out to him.
He started, and then took a moment to collect himself before replying with a disbelieving “Th-thanks!”
Rouge hoped her muttered curses and threats against whoever had made the kid think he was some kind of weirdo were swallowed by the wind. Some of what she said wasn’t suitable for young ears.
After a brief flight, Miles pointed to a village approaching rapidly. The two of them alighted in a field just outside the settlement, and Rouge stowed their bags up a convenient tree. With night approaching she didn’t think anyone would be out for a stroll, but at least she could keep their gear safe from any inquisitive animals that might be nosing around. After agreeing that they would meet at that spot when their respective tasks were over each headed off, Miles to find his workshop and Rouge to gather supplies.
The town had a general store but it had a few too many customers out on evening errands for Rouge to want to try her luck, so she decided to do a little sightseeing. Town hall was a building a little larger and fancier than its neighbours, but not by much. There were display cases around the main hall, showing off pieces of town history like the deed for the initial land grant and a map of the first farms that had been settled almost 200 years previously. One trinket immediately caught her eye, a medal that had been given to the first mayor when the town was established. It was from one of the human countries, one that no longer existed—a historian would have known more about what it was and why it was here, but all Rouge knew was that it would be unique and probably very valuable to the right buyer.
The display cases were latched closed but not locked, and Rouge was pretty sure a place like this wouldn’t have motion sensors and silent alarms hooked up to the curios in town hall. She leaned against the case casually, giving the appearance that she was checking her nails while she snaked the other hand into the case and grabbed the medal. When she had it she moved away from the case, gently enough that it wouldn’t make a noise closing and casually enough that nobody would have much reason to pay attention to her. When the medal was safely tucked away, she decided it was time to go shopping.
In the end, she decided that the town general store was just too much on the mom-and-pop side of the spectrum for her to really be comfortable stealing, even if she was never going back to this podunk little village again if she could help it. She made an exception for a couple of bottles of mango juice she knew for a fact had been marked up pretty heavily; she was familiar with the brand. It wasn’t until she was leaving, bags full of legitimate purchases in her hands and two bottles of juice tucked into her folded wings, that she realised she had instinctively grabbed one for her and one for Miles. She would have shrugged, if not for the need to keep her wings still—the kid deserved a treat.
By that point it was fully dark, and he still wasn’t at their agreed meeting point. She stashed her supplies and then looked back at the village, trying to figure out which building might be his workshop. Little guy must have gotten lost in thought while he was going through his old stuff, she figured, I’d better go make sure his head isn’t in the clouds.
She wandered back into town and started meandering around, trying to get a good look at each house without seeming like she was casing the joint. If nothing else, she hoped the sounds or smells of a mechanic’s workshop would make themselves apparent before she was forced to resort to knocking on doors and asking the locals if they’d seen a boy, about this tall, two tails? Even if she hadn’t known how they treated him around here, that idea seemed unlikely to get very far.
Luckily for her, there happened to be a group of locals gathered around a tavern chatting and gossiping. Even luckier, it had outdoor seating and plenty of people were enjoying a drink and a snack outside on a pleasant summer night. She sat near them with an artificially natural casual air, and tilted one ear to keep track of anything that seemed important. She didn’t have to wait long before one girl, a two-tone grey dog perhaps a year or two younger than she was, ran up to the group with an excited look. “Did ya hear?” asked the girl, “The cursed kid’s back! They caught him creepin’ around his old garage!”
“Ugh!” sneered another local, a pastel green shrew, “What in the world is he doing now?”
“Stealin’!” replied the dog, “He took the founder’s medal from Town Hall!”
Rouge’s blood ran cold as the townsfolk loudly and luridly speculated about the boy trying to ruin their humble village’s good name. She stood up as carefully as she could and headed towards the police station, heart pounding in her chest and guilt heavy on her shoulders. Before heading in, she took a moment to collect herself. Feeling guilty wouldn’t help anyone, but she had to at least see if she could get the kid out of the jam she’d accidentally set him up for. She checked her makeup in a pocket mirror, took a few calming breaths, and strode on in with a touch of sauce in her saunter.
The police station was small, very much in the way of a sheriff's office in one of the old frontier towns. The layout of these buildings tended not to vary all that much in small villages. A front office with a waiting area, a few back offices where the actual work was done, and a holding cell or two—and not much more. For a village this size it was sufficient, and Rouge was pretty optimistic she wouldn’t be dealing with the best of the boys in blue. She was soon proven correct.
The cop at the front desk was a navy blue boar leaning back on his chair and idly nibbling on a donut, well and truly earning any stereotype people ever attached to the police department. Rouge leaned over the desk, giving him a smile and letting him look at her chest. It felt a little cheap (it was hardly a great feat to make most men stare at a pretty girl’s chest, even one who was probably a bit young for them) but it was difficult to argue with results. The cop was so distracted by staring and trying not to be too obvious about his staring that he had no chance of noticing as she swiped his keyring from where it was sitting on the desk.
“I’m here for a visit”, she said.
The cop sat up a little, “What, you mean the freak kid? Wanna see for yourself?” He didn’t sound disapproving of the idea of showing off the boy like a novelty at a funfair.
I’m sorry, kid she thought. Aloud, she replied “Well, I was just passing through town and I heard a heck of a story.”
“A heck of a story is right. OK, you can go on back and take a look at him. Don’t stick your hand inside the cell, though. Safety reasons.”
She nodded and headed through the door the cop gestured to, putting just a bit of sway into her walk to keep him distracted. He was bound to notice the missing keys eventually, but every moment that passed before that happened was better for her.
There were only two cells, and only one of them was occupied. Each had a door of black iron, with a barred window set in it about head height. He was sitting on the bed, idly kicking his feet and staring dejectedly at the wall. She didn’t have to be a mind reader to know what kind of despair must be going through his little head. The worst part was the way he didn’t seem at all surprised; as if it was just the way of things for him to get blamed for something that had nothing to do with him.
Well, that won’t do, she thought. She put her face up to the barred window on the cell door and whispered "Psst! Hey, Fingers!"
Instantly his eyes lit up, "Rouge!"
"Hey, sweetie. Brought you a little something." She tossed the keys through the bars, and the kid grabbed them out of the air. He made quick work of his shackles, and before she knew it he was squeezing his way through the bars on the window. She had to give him credit—she wouldn't have thought he would fit.
“I’ve decided I like the nickname after all”, he said as he landed.
“Good to know. Fingers it is!”
He noticed she had something tucked under one wing and asked, “What do you have there?”
She smiled and replied, “Well, you know how they were saying you stole that medal? I may have paid a visit to town hall while you were getting your gear, and I may have taken a souvenir while I was there.” As far as she was concerned, by getting arrested for its theft he had basically earned the darn thing.
“Huh! I figured the mayor just lost it, and he didn’t want to admit it in front of everyone.” She passed him the medal and he clipped it to his chest. Like many accessories in the Mobian Islands, the medal was designed to clip conveniently onto a tuft of fur. The kid took a moment to admire the medal, turning this way and that to let it catch the lone light in the corridor. Rouge privately thought it clashed with his yellow-orange fur, but he seemed to be enjoying himself so she let it go.
“Nope! And seeing as you got in trouble for taking it, I figure it’s only fair if you get to keep it for real. Now I think of it, where is your stuff?”
He looked back up and told her, “It’ll be in evidence storage. But, uh, that’s also the regular storage so try not to spill anything.”
“Good point, I guess I don’t need to smell like furniture polish all the way to Sunset City.”
The kid chuckled briefly and replied, “I guess that’s what you’d call cleaning up your act.”
She gave the gag a brief “heh” and then held up the keyring, which had a lot more keys than she would have thought such a small police station would need, and pondered “Now, if I were the key to the supply closet, which one would I be?”
“Try the green one?”
She did, “Nope.”
“The red one?”
“Nada.”
“The green one again?”
“Why would it-” there was a click from the lock, “Huh. Must’ve just been stuck the first time.”
Fingers spun in the air and shot up peace signs like he’d just won a competition.
She smiled indulgently, “Yeah, yeah, good instincts. Probably would have been here a while before I thought of trying the ones that didn’t work a second time.”
The evidence room, despite doing double-duty as a supply closet, was surprisingly neat and well-organised. One mostly empty rack of shelves stood on the left-hand wall, and Fingers immediately zipped up to a bright red backpack. When he put it on, it made a slightly worrying series of clanks and crunches, and he dipped a little in the air until he got used to the weight. The right-hand wall was everything Rouge would have expected to find in a supply closet. She took the opportunity to grab a roll of duct tape, on the logic that you never knew when you might need some, before turning back to the evidence shelf. As she had thought, this little village didn’t see much in the way of high crimes, low crimes or any sort of misdemeanour. The shelf was caked in dust, and so were most of the few items scattered on it. There was nothing of any particular interest, save perhaps a tall glass device that Rouge recognised and she hoped Fingers didn’t, and even that was too dusty for her to want.
The kid sneezed as some of the kicked up dust went up his nose, and as if prompted by the (tiny and adorable) noise, they both heard the cop out the front cry “Wait a minute! Where are my keys?”
“I think that’s our cue, kid. Exit, stage right!”
The two took to the air and flew through the fire exit and into the sky, rolling and giggling as the impotent cries of the pig behind them faded into the distance. She took a moment to look back at the nameless village, Fingers hovering briefly beside her until he stuck his tongue out at it and turned back to continue onwards. After a brief stop to collect their bags from the tree, the unlikely partners in crime took off into the night, and nobody from that village ever saw them again.
In the years to come there would be plenty who would wish they could say they had never seen them, from diamond magnates to museum curators to a certain doctor and his bold blue nemesis. But those are stories for another time.