Chaos Born

Small Beginnings and Large Endings

Rouge and Knuckles sat awkwardly side by side in the hallway, waiting their turn to see the doctor on, quite possibly, THE most uncomfortable chairs.

Rouge was still livid with her two teammates for discovering her pregnancy before she did while Knuckles was still in self-denial, hoping that it was just Shadow and Omega playing a stupid prank.

Of course, Shadow didn't normally do pranks...

"Echidnas typically have one offspring at a time, right?"

Knuckles was startled out of his thoughts by his wife's anxious question. 

"Yes, usually," he quickly replied, "What about bats?"

"One. Usually. Twins are uncommon."

"Odds are in our favour then," Knuckles nodded, shuffling on his white plastic seat and watching nurses rush around heavily pregnant women who were being escorted to mid-wives.

"Wait..." Rouge suddenly gasped, "you said that your species hatch from eggs, don't you?"

Knuckles nodded again. 

"Tails called it mono...mono-something."

"Monotremes," Rouge murmured, as though quoting a text book, "Egg-laying mammal like a platypus."

"Except echidnas don't have duck beaks," Knuckles felt the need to add, not liking to be paired up with a platypus, of all animals. He then felt the vice like grip of Rouge's hand on his arm, squeezing the iron muscles underneath his pelt.

"Knuckles," she hissed, her teal eyes wide, "tell me straight, am I going to be laying an egg?"

"What?" The very thought almost made Knuckles splutter and laugh but he kept a serious disposition for Rouge's benefit. "No, you're not an echidna."

"But you are."

"Only women echidnas produce eggs, Rouge."

"But I'm just saying," Rouge pressed, "does the fact that you're the father," she paused, "- which I assure you, you are - does it have any bearing on if I lay an egg in however many months time?"

Knuckles creased his brow and slowly shook his head. 

"Don't think so," he muttered.

The wrong thing to say.

"You don't think so?" Rouge demanded, squeezing his arm again and allowing her talon claws to sink a little deeper.

"Well, do lady bats make the right materials to grow and lay an egg?" Knuckles asked hurriedly.

"Of course not," Rouge scoffed, perfectly aware that bats were mammals - the only species of flying mammal (not counting Tails), in fact, something she was immensely proud of.

"There you are," Knuckles assured her, "If Shade ever decided to have children, she'd lay them as eggs first, whatever their species."

Rouge cracked her first smile. 

"Even if her children were, just for example, hedgehogs?"

"Yeah. Hedgehogs hatching from eggs," Knuckles grunted with a smile of his own, "Now there's something."

"But let's face it, what are the chances that Shade and Shadow will start getting romantic with one another? Shadow doesn't do romance."

"I know Shade is taken with hedgehogs but I think she was more interested in Sonic..."

Rouge gave a knowing chuckle. 

"Oh, every girl has given Sonic a good look at some point, believe me," she sighed with a fond smile, "Why'd you think Amy's so protective and trigger-happy with her hammer? Lucky girl..."