"Father, E-123 Omega is about to break down the front door."
You choke on the coffee Stone had prepared for you as Sage tells you that, frantically changing the monitor to the security camera and sure enough, there is the ornery red robot smashing his metal fists into the front door of your secure facility.
"I don't need this right now!" You roar, sending a hoard of badniks towards Omega while also sending messages to your martially inclined lackeys to make it to the front. Omega may tear through the badniks, but Canaan and Rusty should be able to at least keep him occupied enough for another to land a finishing blow.
"I'm sorry doctor, if we knew you were in such a state… well Omega would probably still insist we come."
That familiar voice is worryingly close.
Spinning the chair to face the voice while raising your Egg Gun, you call out. "Sage! Lock down this room and run an inventory on everything in the base!"
Your sights land on exactly who you expected.
Rouge The Bat, Master Thief, Master Spy, Master Treasure Hunter, and certified jewel addict, lounged on an ergonomic chair not ten feet from you, her legs kicked up as if she didn't have a care in the world. A smirk was on her face as if she didn't have a care in the world even as you pointed your armament at her.
"
Rouge," your voice comes out as a growl, not bothering to ask how she got into your base, knowing she would never tell you the real answer. "What are you and Omega doing here, I've already bought enough trouble this last month, I don't need the two of you poking your noses into my work as well just to break things or cause me trouble!"
"Why Doctor, I'm hurt!" She adopts a clearly fake shocked expression and presses a hand to her chest, gasping. "Can a girl not break into the secret lair of a would be world conqueror without alerting any of his security or even being seen by his constantly on guard daughter?" She leans up and gives a wink at the lens on the monitor. "Cute kid by the way doc."
"Rouge," you try to keep your voice calm as twin emotions of pride and rage roil inside of you. "It has been a long week and you've broken into a place I am keeping not only safe for myself and my work, but for my child and the first thing you do is mention her so as to casually remind me of the danger your presence puts her in."
You aim your gun for the bat's head and she seems to understand exactly what kind of scenario this is.
"Now you've brought one of my rogue creations to my doorstep in an effort to keep others from helping me while we have this chat so let us chat, batgirl. What. Do. You. Want."
Her eyes are flicking to the side but you don't take your eyes off of her, trusting Sage to warn you if there is anything truly dangerous in the room with the two of you.
"Well I have to say I didn't expect this level of overprotective father from you," she sits up and gives you her undivided attention. "But if we're going to cut right to the point fine. You've seen Shadow, something is wrong with him."
You snort at that and lower the gun. Yes, you had seen Shadow not only aligned with alien invaders, but you had seen him get his butt handed to him by The Restoration twice over now.
"Yes I've seen him and how he's acting as just a puppet for Doom, what of it?"
"You know just as well as I do that Shadow would
never have worked with Doom before The Shattering," her wings flap as she moves over and pokes you in the chest. "Something that alien fiend knew just as well after Shadow destroyed him, but now the Black Arms are back and Shadow is under their control!"
"And while dealing with the Ultimate Life Form may be dangerous, if The Restoration has proven anything it's that Doom is not using Shadow to his full abilities." You smirk at the overly emotional bat.
"
Exactly," she presses. "Doom has the entirety of the Black Arms in addition to Shadow, so why is he
just sending Shadow to try and deal with us? Because he's not just focusing on us!"
She produces several photos, grainy but clear enough to show Black Arms attacks on regions clearly
not of the Green Hills. Alien warriors clashing what appear to be knights in armor, an alien gunship half submerged into the ocean, and several Black Oaks clashing with some unidentifiable demonic creature.
"Doom isn't just trying to take us here, he's attacking everywhere and you know what he's looking for."
"The Emeralds." You bring your hand to your forehead and massage it, a headache brewing.
Of course Doom would not be sitting idle in this new world, the Black Arms searching the world over for the gems to allow the Black Comet to make landfall and begin the process of turning this world into another cattle farm for the aliens.
"Exactly and there is only one person close enough to Doom that we can possibly manage to flip, but we need to catch him." She presses on. "If we can manage to capture Shadow, I think I might have a way to help him restore his memories."
Rouge
??? + ??? = 101
Eggman
88 + 22 = 110
Bare Failure
You narrow your eyes at her. Something about her words rings false, but you're not sure which part. She sees you narrowing your eyes and speaks rapidly, "Fine! It's not a perfect guarantee that it works, but even if it doesn't, depriving Doom of Shadow can only be a good thing!"
She does have a point. The massed forces of the Black Arms are powerful, but Shadow is a force of nature all on his own AND he does know Starline has an emerald so taking him off the board would be a good thing.
"You never do anything out of the goodness of your heart Rouge, at least not for me." Leaning back in your chair, you stare her down. "What are you getting out of this?"
"I'm getting my friend back." She stares right back at you, emerald green eyes unflinching. She does then smirk and look to the monitor behind you. "But to get Omega on board for this plan, I
did have to promise that he could tear through your base while we negotiated and that he'd get to beat you up a little."
A walkie talkie comes to life on her belt and the robotic voice of Omega comes through. "ROUGE, DID YOU INFORM THE DOCTOR I WOULD BE DESTROYING HIM?"
The bat sighs and takes the walkie, changing the frequency briefly while looking at you. "You look like you're not doing well already, so I can probably talk him down to fighting your robots if you're up to it. I saw you had a Metal Amy and Metal Sonic, that'd probably be enough?"
The nerve of this bat!
"So you get your friend back and Omega gets to break more of my machines, what exactly am I getting out of this?" You press.
"My wonderful talents of course!" She smirks at you. "Not permanently and there is no way I can get Omega to actually work for you, but as long as you let him fight some of your robots he's not going to cause problems for you beyond that."
She holds a hand out.
"Deal?"
Your Response?
[ ] Deal
- You gain Rouge the Bat as a temporary hero unit until such a time you manage to free Shadow the Hedgehog from Doom's clutches.
- You will have to assign at least one Metal Power unit to keep Omega occupied each turn. This will prevent them from doing National Actions, but not taking Personal Actions.
- Rouge will hand over what information she has on the Black Arms and expects you to make some progress on it. She also gets you're trying to get your Empire back though.
[ ] No Deal
- Rouge and Omega leave.
- Omega will roll every turn to attack some badniks or potentially interrupt a National Action a Metal hero is assigned to.
[ ] Negotiate
- Write In (This has to be something Eggman in his current state would approve of and has to be approved by the QMs)
AN: So yeah, Rouge. She's here in your base. Neat.
There is a 6 hour voting moratorium