Knuxouge - Clipped Wings

The One Where Rouge Gets Hurt

Knuckles and Rouge had been hanging out together when Eggman's newest robot attacked. They had been hanging out a lot more since Rouge joined the good side; well, mostly. She still had trouble resisting herself around the chaos emeralds, but for the most part she was a wonderful addition to sonic's team. So naturally, when Eggman's robot of the week started beating up on the habitat of some local wildlife, she was obliged to help stop it.

Eggman's robots were a lower caliber than they used to be. Either he was getting old or going soft. Sonic was convinced that he only kept sending robots as a hobby, and goodness knows he needed one. So the cycle was simple: Eggman makes a robot, attacks some low-risk area, the team destroys it. Everyone else seemed to never get tired of fighting, but Rouge was beginning to find it monotonous.

Knuckles and Rouge followed the sounds of robotic metal on trees, going as fast as they could. "I've got an aerial view of the machine. It's an ugly one," Rouge said aloud to Knuckles, who was running below her as she flew. 

"Since when are Eggman's bots pretty?" He shot back. Soon he could see the machine too; it was huge, with treads on the bottom and chainsaws for arms. It's tiny head turned to identify where the biggest trees it could cut down were. A wave of small woodland creatures were running away from the monstrosity and past the heroes.

"Hey!" Sonic's voice came from behind them, and he was instantly seen running alongside Knuckles. Tails caught up by air, next to Rouge.

"We've got to get this buttbot out of the woods. Tails, Rouge, you distract it and lead it to the rocky caves area. Knuckles can take care of any animals or trees that need attention, and I'll run ahead to the caves and make a trap for the badnic! Got it?" Sonic briefed his team, and they all nodded in response.

"What about Amy and Cream?" Rouge had to ask, even if she already knew the answer. 

"Protecting the base," Sonic replied curtly. Which was just code for 'I don't want Amy to get hurt, and Cream is a literal child'. Sonic had been unbearably protective of Amy since they had officially gotten together about a month ago. Rouge didn't like being the only girl on the team; she felt it reflected poorly on the strength of females in general, not to mention it made her seem like more of a brute compared to the two homebodies. She didn't comment on this.

Everyone split up to do their designated jobs. Tails and Rouge flew low around the bot's face, catching his attention. The bot swung his roaring chainsaws at the two aggravations. Tails was nearly chopped clean in half. The flyers expertly dodged the robot's attacks, seemingly flying in random patterns while they drifted in the direction they wanted to go. Finally the robot gave up trying to destroy the scenery and focused on destroying Rouge and Tails.

"Let's get out of here, botbait!" Tails yelled to Rouge, and they both flew as fast as they could towards the designated meeting place, the rocky caves. The chainsaw robot was on their heels the whole way there.

It hadn't taken Knuckles long to straighten out the trees and check the nests of critters. The robot hadn't been active for more than 5 minutes before the team had shown up, so the damage control was minimal. He decided to follow the bot and help destroy it once they got to the caves.

As the trees thinned, the forest opened up into a valley. On the other side of this valley were the rocky caves. Sonic had crafted a pitfall just in front of the caves so that the robot would trip and crash onto the unforgiving rocks. Rouge slapped a palm to her forehead. This would usually work, but this robot had treads instead of the usual legs— Sonic clearly hadn't looked at the bot too closely before rushing to make the trap. His confident face fell as Tails and Rouge led the bot out of the trees and Sonic got to see the machine's mode of movement. The team would have to fight this bot personally instead of trapping it.