What's Mine is Yours... What's Yours is Gone

Chapter One

The Commander stared blankly at the two mobians before him, unsure if he had heard them correctly.

"Uh, Commander Tower, sir?" Rouge asked, waving her gloved hand in front of the man's bi-coloured eyes.

Slowly he blinked and looked over to the bat who looked quite concerned. Her teal eyes, though still wide with disbelief, held more worry for her zoned out superior than anything else. Her wings were twitching in apprehension. She stood beside her partner Shadow who, despite himself, also held a hint of surprise in his own ruby eyes.

The two G.U.N. agents, considered by Tower to be the best of the best, had looked absolutely mortified when they walked into his office ten minutes ago. They were both shaken quite a bit. When he had asked them why they were back so early (and they were early considering the fact that they were supposed to be scouting out an Eggman base...), it had taken them a few moments to break from their shocked states. When they had recovered, they had told Tower what happened and how they hadn't even had to force their way into the base.

All the robots were offline, every trap and defence mechanism shut down, as if done so on purpose. It had seemed like a trap to the two experienced agents, but they had carefully made their way deeper into the seemingly abandoned base. Although, it wasn't quite "abandoned" in the sense that they thought at first...

...

Rouge stumbled back out of the room, a hand to her mouth. "Chaos!" she cried out.

The red striped hedgehog spun around to face the distraught looking bat at her exclamation. They had been searching this base for mere minutes, yet everything about it seemed wrong. It was dead silent, the only sound coming from the light buzz of the electricity being used to power the place. No robots. No traps. What was happening here? Even some of the other abandoned bases they had scouted out still had defence measures in place, but this had none. It was as if Eggman had wanted them to break in.

After a few minutes of walking in the still halls, they had stopped to look around a few of the rooms but had found nothing... until now at least.

"What's wrong with you?" he asked, unable to shake the annoyed tone from his voice.

Rouge looked really pale. With her large ears flattened against her head, she simply pointed at the door to the room she had come from. While, ordinarily, Shadow would have found this frustrating, something about his partner's expression made him feel uneasy. Cautiously, he stepped up to the door and pressed the button beside it. When the door slid open, Shadow froze.

Eggman's body lay slumped against the far wall, a spattering of dark red smeared the metal behind him, making it glisten in a demented way. The red was darker against the red of his suit as it dripped down from his drooping head. By his hand lay a gun. He appeared to be leaning beside a computer terminal – the main computer of the base, Shadow assumed. A soft glow was emanating from the screen, but he paid it no mind. The gruesome scene before the Ultimate Lifeform didn't fit, like something wasn't right with it. It just didn't add up. Why would Eggman kill himself? Or was that even what had happened?

He turned to Rouge with a horrified expression.

"We need to inform The Commander."

...

"He's dead?" Tower asked in incredulity.

"I don't suppose The Doctor could survive a bullet to the head, Commander..." Shadow muttered sarcastically, but the usual bite wasn't quite there; he was still trying to process it all himself, it seemed.

"I don't believe it..." he breathed out.

The white bat shook her head. "Neither could we, but it's true."

"But... why would he kill himself? Surely, there has to be a reason."

"Maybe he just got tired of losing," Was Shadow's response.

Rouge glared at him for a moment, but she too eventually gave in and sighed, "Who knows what was going through that maniac's head... For all we know, this could be a trick."

Thoughtfully, Tower placed a hand on his chin. "Would he really do something so elaborate though?"

"It's possible. He is one for the eccentrics, after all," Shadow pointed out. "He always has been."

After a few moments of silence, Shadow thought back and remembered a detail he hadn't thought much of when they were there. The computer. There was electricity running through the building, yet that was the only screen that was on. There had to be a reason why that screen was the only one working. Perhaps they could hack into it, find out if there was anything they could note about his disappearance and why he would do such a thing. It couldn't possibly be a crisis of conscience they were dealing with here, right?

"We could try to see if there's anything in his files, anything that could tell us why he would deliberately shoot himself or if this really is some sort of joke. The man went missing for six months, there's bound to be some explanation for this," He suggested.

Rouge and Commander Tower eyed him.

Rouge perked up suddenly. "He's right, there could be something there."

"Well," the Commander declared, standing from his chair. "We certainly aren't going to find out anything by sitting here! Take me to exactly where you located his base."

"W-wait, are you sure you want to see that, sir...?" Rouge asked nervously before clearing her throat. "I mean, it's quite a mess in that room... It just seems so weird that a foe as formidable as Eggman would just kill themself with no reason – this has to be some sort of sick, twisted joke. It could still potentially be dangerous there too, we didn't scour through the whole place either so-"

"We'll take the risk! I want to know what's on that damn computer."