Through the Looking Glass: Chapter 7-B
Seventh Dream
Rouge found herself in a wooded vale this time. She recognized the forest as being that which was on Angel Island, and the instant she saw this she knew that Banjo had managed to get away from the robots that would have attacked his home.
Indeed, the honey bear was sitting off to the side, looking up at the stars that twinkled above them with great beauty. Rouge noticed this too, and then she looked down at the honey bear and noticed how different he looked in the moonlight.
"So you made it out of there after all," began the bat as she walked over to him.
"Yeah," replied Banjo as he gestured towards her. "I got four of my friends out of Showdown Town, too."
"Oh, did you?" asked the bat s she sat down, leaning back against the same tree that Banjo was leaning over. "That's great!"
Banjo nodded. "We still haven't found the Master Emerald yet, though..." he added. "We're camped here for the night, so once we wake up we're going to look for it..."
The former G.U.N. agent nodded as she brought her knees up to her chest. "Don't worry about that yet, Banjo," she said. "I'm just glad you didn't end up like the Lord of Games or Gruntilda."
Banjo nodded at this. However, when the full meaning of her words hit him, he turned around, shock written on his face as he scooched slightly to the side.
"You mean he's got L.O.G. and Grunty?" asked the bear, his blue eyes wide. "Are they okay?"
Rouge nodded. "They're okay, although I wonder why you asked about Grunty," she said. "L.O.G. seems like a really nice guy, too. It's too bad we were all behind bars... And as for Grunty, her rhymes really were as bad as you said the were. And they got on Shadow's nerves so badly that I ended up having to shove her into the bars with my foot over and over again."
The honey bear rubbed his chin in thought. "Let me guess," he said. "You two are in the same cage, and she's been reduced to merely a head again."
The bat nodded as she leaned closer to her ursine lover. "Pretty much," she said. "It's easy to kick her around like that, you know?"
Thinking about how he, Mumbo, Humba, and Bottles had all played catch with Gruntys head after their second adventure, the bear chuckled. "I know what you mean," he said.
The two of them looked up to the night sky shortly afterwards, letting the silence speak as Banjo draped his arm over Rouge's shoulder.
"It's such a beautiful night right now..." she said. "I wonder why I never cared to venture out of the base just to see the stars..."
"Yeah, these stars are beautiful..." said Banjo. "I wonder... how well do you know this place?"
Rouge shrugged. "I'm not sure," she replied, her gaze still inspired on the stars. "But it's a real lovely place, that's for sure. I think Knuckles got lucky that the Master Emerald was situated here. I mean, it's a lovely island..."
"Hm, I dunno," replied Banjo with a shrug. "I guess it's because I've lived close to a mountain all my life, but I find this place to be a little too... well... woody..."
The bat raised her brows in curiosity as she heard this. "You lived by a mountain?" she asked.
"Yeah," replied Banjo. "They call it 'Spiral Mountain', where I live. I live in a small house close by, too. It's a nice place; it's by itself, mosty, and it's quiet. I'm sure you'd love it there..."
Rouge shifted slightly where she sat, looking up at the stars intently. "Well, I do suppose it would be a great change from city life where everything moves way too fast..."
The bear nodded, clasping Rouge's hand in the hand that was not draped over Rouge's shoulder. With eyes shining of sapphires, the bear turned to look his lover straight in the eyes.
"You know, Rouge..." he said softly in a voice that made Rouge swoon slightly. "I... I feel really... well... like something's wrong with me right now... and... I don't know..."
Rouge scoffed at this idea, her head revolving on her neck as she laughed softly. "Oh, come on," replied the bat as she playfully shoved Banjo in the chest. "You've gotta give yourself a little more credit than that, Banjo! You've been doing wonderfully in the area of small talk so far!"
Banjo nodded, pulling Rouge closer to his person as he did. "Thanks, Rouge," he said, taking his other arm around the bat's body. "It's just I've never felt this way towards somebody before..."
"Not even Kazooie?" asked Rouge as she melted into Banjo's embrace.
"Kazooie? Ew!" he exclaimed, making a disgusted face. "She's like a sister to me! I wouldn't think of doing things like that to her even if I was bribed to!"
The bat laughed good-naturedly as she sat on Banjo's lap. "Yeah..." she said.
"Have you felt this way before?" asked the bear.
The former G.U.N. agent's smile fell slightly upon hearing this, and when Banjo saw this his eyes seemed to gleam in some kind of understanding sadness.
"Yeah," she said. "But it was completely onesided. You know Knuckles?"
Banjo nodded, pulling the bat closer. "What about him?"
"Well, I had a crush on him at one point," she admitted softly as her fingers touched Banjo's chest fur lightly. "I dunno. I guess it started with the first time I tried to steal the Master Emerald. After that, I just noticed a lot of things about him; he was strong, he was handsome, and he was devoted to what he did. Only problem was, he was stubborn, angry, and a dimwit."
The bear glanced to the side before looking back down at Rouge. "That's what Kazooie sometimes says to me when she gets angry. A dimwit, I mean."
Rouge shook her head, probably in slight denial. "You can be a bit slow, but I know that for one thing you're usually much sharper than Knuckles ever will be," replied the bat with a slight chuckle. "I mean, I talked about a mad doctor when we first met, you took it as a bad sign. But you waited for me to make a case for myself, and, well, here you are, safe from Eggman's robots. Knuckes? Oh, boy..." She snickered briefly, but this was audible to the bear and he knew something was coming. "All you had to do was say 'someone's trying to steal the Chaos Emeralds' and he'd be after the wrong guy pretty much instantly. He doesn't look into it or anything; he just takes a person's word for it and doesn't budge even if there's strong evidence to the contrary... Basically, if you and Knuckles had switched roles, this world would already be doomed."
Banjo couldn't help but chuckle at this bit of harsh humor against the echidna he had yet to meet. His expression softened soon after, though, as Banjo looked down. "So why didn't things work?"
"Well, for one, there's the problem with his stupidity," she replied. "There's also the fact that he hates me for trying to steal the emerald. And then... he found his own woman or something."
The ursine was quite surprised to hear this. "He found his own woman?" he asked. "But... his bio said he was the last of his..."
When he thought about it a little more, however, he suddenly realized that the bat was right. "It's Shade, isn't it?" he asked.
"Yes!" replied the bat, pointing a finger at him. "When she came along, everything changed. I was right by him to see it, too. Shade... well, she completely changed Knuckles. I think he actually had a little more hope at finding that he wasn't the last of his race after all. And then Shade changed too, for... well, you know why at this point. But by the time our journey ended, I had seen that Shade and Knuckles had... well, they hadn't said anything, but I think they must've hit it off if the way they were looking at each other says anything..."
Banjo nodded. "But that's not the biggest reason, is it?" he asked, trying to probe a little more into why this bothered her so much.
"Well, no..." she replied, her voice hushed from some kind of strange fear. "I mean... well..." Here, she seemed to be falling apart a little.
The bear was silent as he regarded this. "Is it something you don't want to talk about?" he asked.
"No," replied the bat as she hugged herself and pulled herself together. "You deserve to know. I mean, after all, you told me everything and I haven't told you much at all. Well... it happened just before our confrontation with Ix. You know that, right?"
"Yeah," replied the bear. "What is it?"
"Well, I wanted to go with Knuckles' group so I could be close to him," she said, tearing up slightly. "I had known by then that Shade and Knuckles had something going on romantically, so this was going to be the last time I ever planned to be next to him. And you know what he said, Banjo?" The bear shook his head as Rouge looked at him, the tears marring some of her make-up. "He had already started being more openly vehement against my person, even when I didn't do anything. I knew it would reach a breaking point eventually. But I didn't think it would come that soon."
"What did he say?" asked Banjo, his hands going to touch Rouge's shoulders as he looked her directly in the eyes.
Her gaze did not wander away as she said her next few words. "He... he said he'd rather hand the Master Emerald to Ix than travel 'with a slut like me'. And I quote those last few words, too."
"Oh, Rouge, that's terrible!" he said. "And then after you defeated Ix?"
The bat glanced to the side sourly. "After that was when Sonic got captured," she said. "At that point, it was me, Shadow, Knuckles, and Shade against Eggman. And I was still souring over what Knuckles said to me. So..."
The bear picked up on the hint Rouge was trying to give. "So your joining Eggman was more than just over profits," he said.
Rouge shook her head, and Banjo realized that he had taken the hint the wrong way. "Profits was one of the things I joined him for," she replied. "I mean, the Chaos Emeralds? I could always steal them. But the truth is... I wanted to get back at Knuckles somehow before I took off with them. If Eggman had captured him, I wanted to make him suffer for what he said to me. I wanted him to suffer for denying me even the chance to make my peace with him and leave him alone..."
The bat looked up to Banjo, her eyes shining in sadness from her tears. "But... I don't know if it's a good idea anymore..."
"Why not?" asked the bear.
"I mean... everything started happening all at once," she said. "Eggman's treatment of Sonic and his friends... Meeting you... The whole thing with Tooty... It's not worth getting revenge on Knuckles over..." Here, Rouge looked down to the ground. It took a gentle nudge from the honey bear to keep her going. "Banjo... Even with all that... his words still burn me a little... Especially the fact that I would have tortured him out of anger..."
Much like the night before, the bear gathered the sobbing bat into his arms. "Rouge..." he said, softly and sweetly. "We all do things that aren't what we really are when we're angry. It's unavoidable sometimes. Knuckles wasn't right with what he said to you, and I can understand why you wanted to get back at him so badly. But then, all of this happened. I said it last night and I say it again tonight; you're not a bad person. You've got a good heart, Rouge, and I don't think anybody else can change that, okay?"
Rouge nodded, smiling softly into Banjo's chest fur as her tears slowly stopped flowing. "Thanks again, Banjo."
The bear gripped Rouge's shoulders, and then his lips touched hers for only a brief second before he wrapped his arms around her.
"Nothing to it," replied the bear. "I... I can't help it. I think... I think I love you, Rouge. I'd do anything to see you happy."
The bat nodded as she reciprocated the hug, her ears resting against Banjo's chest as she smiled.
"I love you too, Banjo," she said softly.
And much like the dream before, they held each other tenderly. There was no other place Rouge could think about that she would want to be at more.
"Wait, why wasn't that our first kiss?" asked the bat suddenly as she parted from Banjo.
The bear was quite perplexed by this question, but when he thought about it he felt the answer was hard to find. "Maybe I'll ask the writer if I ever meet him in person."
The bat was baffled by this reply. "Writer?" she asked. "What writer?"
Banjo rolled his eyes. "I'll tell you some other time when I can actually make sense," he said simply.
Rouge nodded, not wanting to press that issue.
The two of them simply held each other after this, engaging various pieces of small talk afterwards as they held each other lovingly throughout the rest of the night.
Banjo woke up to see Silver shaking his shoulders to wake him up.
With a groan, the bear sat up, shaking his head groggily.
"Come on," said Silver as Banjo noticed everybody else was already awake, Kazooie still slung over a tree branch where Banjo had placed her the night before. "We've gotta find the Master Emerald!"
"Oh!" said Banjo, jumping up from the ground where he had slept the night before. "I hope we find this place before Eggman does!"
"Knowing how these things work, we'll probably get there right when they need it most..." muttered Trophy Thomas as the bear took Kazooie off of the tree she had slept in the night before.
"I... Banjo, I hope things will be all right..." said Tooty uncertainly.
The older bear walked over to his sister, tapping her on the shoulder lovingly. "Don't worry," he said with a bright smile on his face. "I know they'll be okay."
With this, the younger bear nodded.
"Humba sense big heap energy this way," said the shamaness suddenly, pointing out into the wood.
"Well then, let's start there!" exclaimed Kazooie.
And like that, the group slowly made it way through the rather lush forest of Angel Island on their quest to find the Master Emerald.