That's Why The Lady Is A Bat: The Rouge The Bat Story

You have to be kinda sassy if you're named after something you'd find in a make-up kit so would you be surprised that Rouge the Bat is just that?  No? Huh, well I won't bother then.

Rouge can come off as selfish, chauvinistic (yes, women can be chauvinistic too) and materialistic but this is merely a shield behind which the true Rouge hides.  Rouge learnt from the tender age of six months after spending her early days clinging on blindly to the underside of her mother, or father, or someone they knew from his golf games on the Sunday how to make cuckoo clocks in a small Bavarian village known as Handzenkneezen Bumfse-Daizë.

She wasn't that good to be fair, developing a sense of claustrophobia from having to work inside those small clocks and getting shot out every half hour to slam into the side of the wall wasn't helping her either.

For a while she thought about running away, but then realised after screaming, losing control and throwing her hands up in the air.  (Yes, in that order.)  That the best thing to do... was to do just that.

Surprising huh?  Rouge the tramp (spot the irony there) wandered the streets for a number of years before she was befriended by a talking hamster, whose hypnotic dance moves have nothing to do with this story, and they began a life of crime together robbing the great museums of all their valuables.

Did I not tell you he was a master thief? He was you know. After a while Rouge began to fall in love with this hamster, who went by the name of The Scarlet Hampsternel.  In time she found the best way to woo him, she stole his heart. This was a bit of an issue, as it was part of his circulatory system and, let’s face it is rather essential.  So it was little surprise that her hamster love was not too impressed when he woke up to find himself dead. In time she studied and became the ferocious and staunch master thief she is today but even THIS hides a rather softer side. 

So, with her future secured by wealth Rouge could retire? Hell no.  She was addicted to the thrill of stealing, the adrenaline rush which comes from riding the knife edge between success and failure.  Though, admittedly it caused a great number of pairs of pants to be ruined by slashes.

Rouge knew it was wrong, so at some point she cut a deal (one of her favourite words incidentally) with the Government to gain amnesty from her crimes to become a part-time kung-fu fighting special agent bat; and lets face it, outside of Gotham there aren't too many of those about so they snapped her up.

In the Sonic universe, the once jewel-obsessed treasure hunter first appeared in Sonic Adventure 2 and has been kind of a staple of the Sonicverse since. She's caused quite a stir as well with Amy Rose and Knuckles for two, as well as developing a "special" relationship with Shadow the Hedgehog. Despite sounding at the time like she was at least in her mid-twenties she's actually 18, though the English manual of Sonic Heroes listed her as being 17... a lady lie about her age? Preposterous!

Rouge can kick serious @$$ and look good doing it - what's worse is that she knows she looks good doing it. She has many contacts, gizmos and assets; the most noticeable of which is her, er, 'assets' which for some reason best known to SEGA anatomically speaking put even the most well endowed game heroines to shame.

Rouge is one of Shadow's true friends and isn't exactly on the side of good or bad but rather out for herself. A gun for hire (without the gun) or alternatively with the gun as GUN seem to have acquired her services somehow. That's a lot of guns. Dang, we'd better warn the fan boys now!

In Sonic Wrecks Rouge is one of the few characters to have avoided a severe pasting from Metal Sonic - it can't possibly last.  She seems to have buried what ever hatchet she had with Amy - and not in her back, which is probably for the best as ArchangelUK doesn't want to write a comic with catfights every five minutes. Meow, saucer of milk for table three - etc.

Instead Rouge has taken to reconnaissance on the activities of the Robot Legion, a task that she performs with composite skill and attentiveness... until something shiny comes into view - or Knuckles.  Yes, Rouge is still after Knuckles, sigh.  She also wants revenge on Metal for what he did to poor old Omega, so of an evening she actually sneaks back to her post to try and hunt down Lt. Eggma - but we didn't tell you that.

Rouge is one of the less active characters on Sonic Wrecks, but with an influx of strange dreams and her role as Shadow's somewhat odd looking conscience she'll be around a fair bit yet -  or WILL she? Someone's looking for Rouge as well...