Rouge the Bat

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**Rouge the Bat** (ルージュ・ザ・バット, *Rūju za Batto*), is a fictional character and deuteragonist from the *Sonic the Hedgehog* series. She is a mobian bat, a treasure hunter, and a renowned jewel thief working as a part-time, all top-secret government agent and spy for the President of the United Federation, and an agent on loan for the Guardian Units of the Nations. Rouge has a weakness for jewels, like the Master Emerald and Chaos Emeralds, which she always obsesses about. As a government agent and spy, Rouge is trained in combat, stealth and infiltration, and possesses both super-level kicking power and flight. She also tends to get involved in illegal activities, as she has an affinity for adventure and gems. Rouge later joined Team Dark and began working directly under G.U.N. along with Shadow the Hedgehog and E-123 Omega.

Rouge is in short, an enigma, as her motivations are always in question. In truth, she is usually just out for herself. She is smart, sassy and seductive, and knows how to get what she wants. Once she has a target in mind, she always goes for it, regardless of the costs. Beneath her ditsy exterior though, she is a calculating realist and her motives are always mercenary in nature. Regardless, she is loyal to her closest friends and has more than once helped Sonic the Hedgehog and his allies save the world.

"*Stand back, kids... ...and let a **professional** handle this!*"

—Rouge the Bat, *Sonic X* #2.

## Appearance & Biography

*Voice Actor*: Kathleen Delaney (English), Rumi Ochiai (Japanese), Marie Lenoir (French), Domitilla D'Amico (Italian), Lies Visschedijk (Dutch), Simone Brahmann (German), Nurit Banai-Corne (Hebrew), Not Known (Hungarian), Not Known (Finnish), Not Known (Korean), Lena Meieran (Norwegian), Not Known (Polish), Not Known (Romanian), Not Known (Russian), Anita Sajnóg (Poland), Not Known (Serbian), Amparo Bravo (Spanish) Not Known (Swedish), นงลักษณ์ ฤทธิ์เรือง (Thai), Not Known (European Spanish), Not Known (Latin American Spanish), Not Known (Brazilian Portuguese), Not Known (European Portuguese), Maureen Herman (Latin Spanish)

### Biography

Rouge is a smart, sassy and seductive mobian bat.

She's a treasure hunter who specializes in jewels, and always gets what she wants.

She might appear to be a ditsy at first blush, but she's a calculating realist who acts on her mercenary instincts.

### Appearance

Rouge is a mobian bat with white hair, orange-tan skin, teal eyes and endowed female features. She has large pointy ears, small fangs, a bare muzzle with a small black nose, a short tail, and a pair of black wings on her back. Only her head appears to have hair/fur. Her short white hair flares out at the back and she typically wears blue eyeshadow, as well as pink lipstick. Her typical attire consists of a black skintight jumpsuit, a pink, heart-shaped chestplate-like top with white trim, and tall white gloves and boots with pink cuffs. The boots are high heeled and feature hearts on the toes.

#### Possible Future

* Hair Color: White
* Skin Color: Orange-Tan
* Eye Color: Teal
* Age: 18
* Birthday: March 16, 1983
* Height: 110 cm. (3' 7")
* Weight: 200 kg. (440.9 lbs.)

## Personality

Rouge is an enigma whose voluptuous and daring attitude turns any man's head. Her policy though is that duty comes first, but she has a big interest in jewels. Her figure, speech and behavior masks her true identity. She is very secretive about everything and very little has actually ever been disclosed about her. She would often switch sides with either the good or bad to confuse them.

Rouge is a strong-minded young woman. A fearless, ambitious, independent, callous, flirty, very cold, greedy, who most people see as only caring for herself and her interest in jewels, gems and desire for the riches. It is shown in *Sonic Generations* that Rouge can be referred to a temptress, due to her flirtatious and selfish ways. Her carefree and playful attitude can be fun to other characters, like Sonic. She has a lot of pride and will fight dirty when facing a formidable opponent, such as Knuckles (when it comes to strength; hindering his sight) or Tails (when it comes to flight; intoxicating him). She can also show a bashful side, such as the time Knuckles saved her life from falling to her doom and became very embarrassed before disguising it with disgust and outrage. Especially in regards to thefts. This is especially evident when, after witnessing the Master Emerald being stolen, she refers to the one stealing it as a thief despite the fact that she herself had stolen it from Knuckles earlier, something Knuckles even noted by saying "Look who's calling who a thief!", and in Grand Metropolis stage when she calls robots energy thieves.

Rouge is also at times a government spy who works for her own good. Rouge has a great obsession for jewels or even anything else that shines or glitters. She has been known to seduce people with her attractiveness to get what she wants (such as kissing Tails in *Sonic Battle and Sonic X*). However, she has, on occasion, shown that she can be heroic, care about others, or, at least, have some degree of morality. In the final events of *Sonic Adventure 2*, she helped save the planet. In *Sonic Heroes*, she jumped between Shadow and Omega's fight as the mediator. In *Sonic Battle*, when Shadow was injured and needed a place to stay, Rouge helped him. In *Shadow the Hedgehog*, she did other laudable things, such as rescuing a Chaos Emerald from the doomed mainframe, destroying the evil monster Black Bull, and assisting Shadow in defeating Black Doom as well as showing concern for Shadow's welfare at the end of the game. She also doesn't like hearing Omega constantly talking about vengeance.

Recently, she has been seen less selfish, as can be seen by her actions towards Shadow in *Sonic the Hedgehog* (2006) and *Sonic Rivals*. However, as shown in her portrayal in *Sonic Free Riders*, which couldn't care any less that her robot team member broke down and even went on to insult it as well.

## Relationships

### Friends/Allies

* Team Sonic
	+ Sonic the Hedgehog
	+ Tails the Fox
	+ Knuckles the Echidna (friendly rival)
* Team Rose
	+ Amy Rose the Hedgehog (arch-rival)
	+ Cream the Rabbit
	+ Cheese the Chao
	+ Big the Cat
* Team Chaotix
	+ Vector the Crocodile (rival)
	+ Espio the Chameleon
	+ Charmy the Bee
* The President
* Christina Cooper (The Secretary)
* G.U.N. (employer)
	+ Commander Abraham Tower
	+ Agent Topaz (best friend)
	+ Team Dark
		- Shadow the Hedgehog (best friend)
		- E-123 Omega (close friend)
		- Hope Kintobor
	+ Spider Troupe
* Scarlet Garcia
* Mister Stewart
* Mister Tanaka
* Rotor the Walrus
* Relic the Pika
* Fixit the Robot
* Silver the Hedgehog
* Blaze the Cat
* Shade the Echidna
* Avatar
* Freedom Fighters

### Neutral

* Team Hooligans
* Emerl
* Dr. Julian Snively

### Rivals

* Knuckles the Echidna (friendly rival)
* Vector the Crocodile
* Amy Rose
* Babylon Rogues
	+ Wave the Swallow

### Enemies

* Eggman Empire
	+ Dr. Eggman
	+ Bocoe
	+ Docoe
	+ Bokkun
	+ Eggman's Robots
		- Egg Spider
		- E-Series
			* E-70 Noizi
			* E-91 Lady Ninja
		- Metal Series
			* Metal Sonic
* Biolizard
* Metarex
	+ Dark Oak
	+ Black Narcissus
	+ Pale Bayleaf
	+ Yellow Zelkova
* Black Arms
	+ Black Doom
	+ Doom's Eye
	+ Eclipse the Darkling
	+ Dark Arms
* Solaris
	+ Mephiles the Dark
	+ Iblis
* Walter Naugus
* Ifrit
* Nocturnus Clan
	+ Imperator Ix
* The Time Eater
* Dr. Eggman Nega
* Dr. Wily
	+ Wily Robot Masters
* Infinite
* Scourge the Hedgehog
* Fiona the Fox

## Powers and Abilities

Rouge is one of the strongest female characters in the series. Swift and powerful, she has proved herself to be a force to be reckoned with in terms of physical abilities, having defeated several powerful foes on her own.

Rouge has significant amount of raw strength, especially the lower parts of body. Her kicking power has several times been able to match Knuckles' punches, though she at times struggles against some foes such like the Metarex. With her legs, Rouge can break up virtually anything, defeating a R-1/A Flying Dog with one strike, and destroy large parts of titanic robots. Her arms are fairly strong as well as she can carry the Master Emerald in both hands. By utilizing her wings, Rouge is as well capable of flight.

Rouge is a trained thief and a master of stealth. She has several times been able to follow Sonic without being noticed, snug unnoticed inside the Crimson Egg, and could lead a squadron of soldiers through Eggman's base without detection. Rouge is also very proficient in martial arts, enough to go up against Knuckles the Echidna hand-to-hand, and Amy Rose with her Piko Piko Hammer. She is also a renowned professional treasure hunter around the world.

Rouge has demonstrated proficient computer hacking skills as she was able to get access to the data on the Space Colony ARK. Rouge is also, like all the characters, able to survive the vacuum of space without oxygen.

### Physical Abilities

Rouge possesses enormous physical strength that rivals that of Knuckles the Echidna's. However, whereas Knuckles' strength lies in his upper body, Rouge's lies in her lower body, particularly in her legs and feet, giving her enormous kicking power. With her kicks, she can shatter boulders, slice through metal, or even leave dents in thick steel walls. She can even split her opponents in half with precise kicks and create small earthquakes to trip opponents by striking the ground.

With her wings, Rouge is able to achieve flight and can glide by using her wings to manipulate her descend. When flying, Rouge can move as fast as Knuckles' gliding, but not as fast as Sonic or Shadow can run. Nevertheless, Rouge possesses an innate quickness, making her fast on her feet and can reach super speeds when running, though she is still not as fast as Sonic, Tails or Shadow.

Rouge has proven herself to be quite acrobatic, precise and agile, on both the ground and in midair due to her government training. She is able to perform all kinds of actions and movements while in midair effortlessly, grind on rails and as well perform several types of nimble movements in combat with incredible precision.

Much like Knuckles, Rouge is an expert climber and can climb on any kind of surface, no matter the material. She is also excellent at digging and tunneling through subterranean regions. She is also very experienced swimmer, possibly due to her being a treasure hunter, enabling her to swim with both great speed and skill, and can reach amazing depths.

### Stealth and infiltration expertise

As both a government spy and self-proclaimed "World's Greatest Thief", Rouge has been trained in infiltration and is skilled in the art of stealth. As most times, she uses these skills to pull different kinds of successful heists, and has proven herself as a master thief.

As a result of her training, Rouge can surreptitiously enter enemy-held territory, either through stealth or by manipulation of others, such as when she tricked Shadow and Dr. Eggman into believing that she was willing to help them in *Sonic Adventure 2* when she was send to investigate the doctor, and can hack computers and break codes in record time with successful results nearly every time. She is also stealthy enough to move nearly undetected through even the most fortified of locations, such as Prison Island, Dr. Eggman's various bases or Space Colony ARK and sneak up on people without bringing attention to herself.

### Combat skills

A part-government spy and expert thief, Rouge is one of the strongest female characters in the series. Swift and powerful, she has been recognized as a force to be reckoned by both allies and foes alike. She is well-versed in a variety of martial arts and has gone through several forms of special training in self-defense. Her skills in combat are so great that she was able to fight the combat-versed Knuckles the Echidna to a stalemate when confronting him on Space Colony ARK.

### Fighting Style

Rouge's fighting style focuses on a form of kickboxing, a style she has derived from her special combat training. Thus, she rarely using her arms or fists in combat. In battle, Rouge primarily fights her opponents using a large number of skillful and specialized kicks to strike blows. Using her agility in line with her training, Rouge can perform moves such as high kicks, side kicks, spinning kicks etc., striking her opponents with deadly precision and efficiency, and can even send her whole body spinning through the air with her feet first, turning herself into an all-piercing spear.

Rouge can also complement her fighting style with her flight abilities, allowing her to take her fighting techniques to airborne opponents and allowing her to launch aerial kicks and strikes at her opponents.

#### Techniques and moves

Most of Rouge's standard moves and techniques revolves around her Kick Attack move where she attacks her opponents with combos composed of kicks. Her special attack Screw Kick enables her to form a "screw" shape into midair while kicking, while her Drill Drive lets her send herself downward, with her feet first, as a spinning drill that pierces through her opponents. Also, her Hip Drop lets her drop onto the ground to form wide tremors that effects everything within its range.

When not attacking her opponents directly, Rouge has also been known to use techniques that involves some form of weapon. In *Sonic Heroes* she is shown to use Dummy Rings in her "Dummy Ring Bomb" move to paralyze opponents, and in *Sonic the Hedgehog* (2006) and *Sonic Generations*, she used her "Bomb" and "Bomb Snipe" techniques with her Heart Bombs to damage her opponents.

### Attacks

* Agent Eagle
* Ascending Flight
* Air B. Cracker
* Air B. Shock
* Attack Support 1
* Bat Cracker
* Bat Guard
* Beauty Shock
* Black Wave
* Blast Jump
* Bomb
* Bomb Snipe
* Charlie Kick
* Charm Ray
* Chaos Inferno (Requires Shadow and Omega)
* Climb
* Dash
* Dig
* Distract
* Drill Drive
* Dummy Ring Bomb
* Glide
* Gravity Control
* Gravity Dive
* Grind Step
* Heart Attack
* Heart Effect
* Heart Mine
* Hip Drop
* Homing Attack
* Homing Cutter
* Jewel Storm
* Jump Dash
* Kick Attack
* Kick Dash
* Low Gravity Lv 2
* Plunder
* Quick Ascent
* Rising Knuckle (Requires Knuckles)
* Rouge S. Kick
* Rouge Catch
* Rouge Flight
* Rouge Grind
* Rouge Guard
* Rouge Heal
* Rouge Jump
* Rouge Kick
* Rouge Run
* Rouge Sobat
* Rouge Style
* Screw Kick
* Secret Kick
* Secret Spear
* Shriek
* Silent Size
* Spin Dash
* Spin Jump
* Spiral Dive
* Spinning Back Kick
* Swim
* Strength Support 7
* Tornado Kick
* Thunder Shoot

### Skills

* Flight
* Super strength
* Super speed
* Martial arts skills
* Acrobatic skills and reflexes
* Espionage
* Stealth
* Treasure hunter skills
* Professional thief
* Enhanced hearing
* Wall climbing
* Burrowing
* Computer hacking
* Grinding
* Extreme Gear riding skills
* Hyper-go-on usage

### Miscellaneous Skills

Like real-life bats, Rouge has an excellent and sensitive sense of hearing, even allowing her to hear Espio, who is known as an expert ninja and a master of stealth, when he is in her proximity. Also, as hinted by her move Shriek and some of her moves in *Sonic Battle*, Rouge can make ultrasonic shrieks, just like real bats, to both attack her opponents or leave them disorientated.

Rouge is one of the world's most foremost treasure hunters, as seen during her hunts for the Emerald Shards and the Chaos Emeralds, and her skills on the subject rivals even that of Knuckles'. Rouge has also proven herself asvery talented Extreme Gear rider as seen in *Sonic Free Riders*, where she is able to go toe-to-toe with some of the best Extreme Gear riders in the world. While in midair, she is capable of doing several acrobatic tricks with her Extreme Gear and can as well dash through midair with her Extreme Gear with her wings to pass through shortcuts through the tracks.

### Transformations

#### Color Power

*Main article:* *Color Powers*
By harnessing different variants of Hyper-go-on from Wisps, Rouge can use specific Color Powers to transform into a certain form, such as a drill, a laser or even a planet, each one possessing its own unique abilities. So far, Rouge has been able to transform into the Cyan Laser, Yellow Drill and Indigo Asteroid. However, these transformations require a steady supply of Hyper-go-on to be maintained.

### Weaknesses

Being a bat, Rouge's hearing is much more sensitive than the average human. As such, she can be disabled by extremely loud sound waves.

## History

### Past

Not much is known of Rouge's origins or past, though at some point she gained an obsession with jewels and became a treasure hunter. Rouge spent most of her focus and time on her thievery skills, stealing valuable gems, and purposefully leaving her calling card behind after she escapes.

## Theme songs

The *Sonic the Hedgehog* series have featured several theme songs for the character.

### Main

File:Sonic X OST - Mysterious & Sexy Theif Rouge - Track 21-0
### Other songs

* *Sonic Adventure 2*: "Fly in the Freedom" - Tabitha Fair, Todd Cooper.

The background music for the stage Security Hall (titled "I'm a Spy") in *Sonic Adventure 2* and *Sonic Adventure 2: Battle* is generally attributed to Rouge, despite technically having no relation to her. Like most characters, Rouge is associated with a genre of music, specifically smooth jazz/bossa nova/fusion with some feminine sighs thrown in (similarly to how Knuckles is associated with the rap genre). It is interesting to note that the background music in her Club Rouge stage from *Sonic Battle* also has feminine sighing. No other BGM in the game has any form of vocal.

## Etymology

* Rouge may have been named after the jewel, the Rouge, relating to her jewel obsession. Her name could also come from a type of makeup applied to the cheeks (also called "blush").
	+ It is also possible that her name is a pun on the capital of Louisiana, Baton Rouge, due to her first name being Rouge and her being a bat. Her name also means "red" in French, possibly named after Knuckles' color or the fact that red is a color symbolizing love and Rouge is having a flirtatious and romantic attitude.
	+ Another possibility is that her name is a play on the word "Rogue", often used as a synonym for "Thief", mirroring how she often steals other peoples jewels.

## External links

* Rouge the Bat *Wikipedia*
* Rouge the Bat *Sonic News Network*

## Notes & Trivia

* Rouge's theme song, "Mysterious and Sexy Thief Rouge" which is basically a saxophone solo that usually plays when Rouge appears.
* In some cases, there are occasions where Rouge wears her GUN outfit.
* Prima's Game Guide for *Sonic the Hedgehog* (2006) states that there are rumors that Rouge has feelings for both Shadow and Knuckles, although it is unknown how much of this is valid due to the book possessing a large amount of errors and contradictions. It also erroneously says above that in Omega's back history that it was his rampage that unleashed Rouge from Eggman's base.
* In *Sonic Adventure 2* and its re-releases, Rouge's character model features breast physics. This is most easily visible in the brief pause before her intro sequence for multiplayer in the Dreamcast version. This was the only game to feature this trait with her.
* In *Sonic Riders*, Rouge has blue eye shadow on the character select screen and in gameplay but when you see her icon on the race results screen she has pink eye shadow on, very similar to the eye shadow in *Sonic Heroes*.
* Although she told Knuckles at the end of *Sonic Adventure 2* that she was done with jewelry, she is still hopelessly obsessed with jewels in later games.
* Not counting team members in the support class, Rouge has the least team POW moves in *Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood*, with only one.
	+ Also, Rouge is the only character with an Armor-Piercing move that hits all onscreen enemies instead of targeting one enemy. She is the second member of the Shifter class, and the only Shifter class member in Team Dark (Shadow and Omega are both in the Power class).
* In *Sonic Heroes*, while selecting Shadow or Omega to be Team Dark's leader, if you use the first-person camera to look at Rouge, she will occasionally turn her head in the player's direction and wink.
* Rouge and some other characters have a few locations named after them in Empire City, as seen on the street signs of the level's day time stages in *Sonic Unleashed*.
* At one point in *Sonic Battle* while Rouge was around, Sonic says, *"I smell perfume. Maybe Rouge is around."*. This might mean that Rouge wears perfume, or Sonic was only making a joke.
* After *Sonic Battle*, Rouge's design changed a bit, her wings become less detailed and only one color, also her blue eye shadow got darker after *Sonic Adventure 2*, (while becoming lighter again in *Sonic Generations*).
* In *Shadow the Hedgehog*, Rouge's outfit appears to be a purple/lavender color in game, but the concept art from the game has the outfit in its regular black color.
* To date, Rouge has never appeared in any *Sonic* game without Shadow appearing in the same game, cameo or not.
* In her alternate outfit model in *Sonic Adventure 2: Battle* her mid-driff shows her navel. However, in *Sonic Riders* onwards it isn't present. It is also true that Sonic characters do not have a navel (such as Wave and Tikal). Notably, though, Wave, as a bird, and Tikal, as an echidna, both hatched from eggs, which could account for the lack of a navel.
* In *Sonic Adventure 2* Rouge had fangs, but afterwards, they were absent. From *Sonic Free Riders* though, they have started to become visible again.
* One of Rouge's unused lines or quotes (*"Pleasure before business!"*) of *Sonic Adventure 2* is used in one episode of *Sonic X*.
* After *Sonic Adventure 2*, Sega had decided to change Rouge's outfit (explaining why she wore something different in *Sonic Heroes*) to make her look less provocative, but they ultimately decided to change it back as they found the new outfit to be even more provocative than the old one.