Rouge the Bat

**Rouge the Bat** is a character from the *Sonic the Hedgehog* series. She is an anthropomorphic bat and working as a part-time government spy for the President of the United Federation, and an agent on loan for the Guardian Units of the Nation. A world-famous freelance treasure hunter, Rouge has a weakness for jewels, like the Master Emerald and Chaos Emeralds, which she always obsesses about. As a spy, Rouge is trained in combat, stealth and infiltration, and possesses both super-level kicking power and flight.

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.

## Appearance

Rouge is an anthropomorphic bat with white fur, 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 fur. Her short white hair flares out at the back and she typically wears blue eyeshadow, as well as 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.

## Personality

Rouge is a strong-minded young bat, a fearless, treasure-hunting, who most people see as only caring for herself and her gems. 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 or even annoying for the other characters of the series, especially Knuckles. She has a lot of pride and starts to fight dirty when facing a superior opponent, such as Knuckles (when it comes to power) or Tails (when it comes to flight). She can also show a bashful side, such as the time Knuckles saved her life from falling into her doom and became very embarrassed before disguising it with disgust and outrage. She can also be a bit of a hypocrite, 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!"

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*). However, she has, on occasion, shown that she can be heroic. In the final events of *Sonic Adventure 2*, she helped to save the planet. In *Sonic Heroes*, she stopped Shadow the Hedgehog and E-123 Omega from killing each other, and is seen battling Chaotix and Sonic as liabilities to her quest to finding Dr. Eggman's supposed hidden treasure room. 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.

Recently, she has been becoming 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 depicts her as a very cold and only caring about her and the cash prize suggest that she has not changed much, regarding her interest in jewels and riches. This is proved as she couldn't care less that her robot team member broke down and even went on to insult it as well.

## Weakness

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. Rouge has a stubborn attitude that has put her in mortal dangers, like in *Sonic Adventure 2* where her arguing over the ownership of the Master Emerald nearly made her fall into a lava pool. Also, her spy skills are not flawless either, as she was discovered by a Flying Dog while robbing Prison Island and got imprisoned by Dr. Eggman when she stole the Scepter of Darkness (although she eventually broke herself out in the latter case).

## Relationships

### Team Dark

#### Shadow the Hedgehog

 Shadow... Even if you believe everyone in the world will be against you. Know that I'll always remain by your side. Remember that.
 — Rouge the Bat. *Sonic the Hedgehog* (2006).

The two are teammates and current best friends in *Sonic Adventure 2* and *Sonic Heroes* and often work together during mission stages, but are not seen together outside of duty alliance and do not spend time in one another's presence unless it is business. Nonetheless, Shadow is one of the few people Rouge cares about, other than herself.

In *Sonic Adventure 2*, Shadow saw a comparison to Maria in Rouge and saved her life when she was trapped in Security Hall alongside Andrea. Despite how he later dismissed his actions saying he only returned for the Chaos Emeralds that she had acquired, she suspected that there was more to his reason for saving Rouge than he let on.

In *Sonic Heroes*, Rouge forms Team Dark with Shadow and Omega. During this time, Rouge and Shadow are much closer than they were in *Sonic Adventure 2*; interacting more within Team Dark as partners alongside Omega. Rouge is willing to help Shadow get answers about his past and is shown to have some sympathy for him when they discover the existence of Shadow Androids.

In *Sonic Battle*, Rouge calls Shadow "not bad-looking" and "a prince". She also lets him stay with her at Club Rouge when he is injured during a fight after carrying him inside when he passes out in front of the club. Also, while Shadow is dreaming, an image of Rouge appears and he whispers, "Ally." Rouge seems offended when Shadow doesn't thank her for saving him, but later he thanked her when she told him that she actually rescued him.

In *Sonic Rivals*, after Shadow saves Rouge from Eggman Nega, Rouge tries to persuade him into going treasure hunting with her and suggests the two "take a peek" into their own future using Eggman Nega's device. Shadow declines and the story ends with Rouge still trying to convince Shadow to join her in hunting for the remaining cards.

In *Sonic the Hedgehog* (2006), Rouge makes an attempt to draw Shadow into a conversation that doesn't involve Mephiles' plan to destroy the world, and at one point she says, *"It's always business with you."* when Shadow ignores her and rejects the off-topic sessions. Although, Shadow also shows he is protective of Rouge's wellbeing. Once, when catching her from a fall after she was momentarily knocked out by one of Dr. Eggman's robots. And again, when he jumps in front of her defensively, after a fake Chaos Emerald explodes. After E-123 Omega reveals to Shadow that he is the one who traps him in the future, Rouge tells Shadow, that she will always be on his side no matter which side he takes, Shadow pauses, then replies strongly replies that he will. Though, in the original Japanese version of the video game, Rouge simply says, *"You always have friends to whom you can rely on."*

In *Sonic Free Riders*, both Shadow and Rouge appear as Team Dark along with E-10000B. Their main focus during the game is winning the treasure and prize money. Unlike in previous games, Shadow seems perfectly content with helping Rouge obtain the treasure she covets. (Note: This is the only time Shadow has appeared in a game with the intent on making money, rather than his usual ulterior motives, although the manual implies that Shadow also joined for the sake of competing against Sonic of who had the better skills.)

#### E-123 Omega

Rouge's second best friend is Omega, who is very loyal to her. She prevented Shadow and Omega from killing each other in *Sonic Heroes*, and soon after they formed Team Dark to help her find Eggman's "secret treasure room". Instead of finding treasure, of course, they end up saving the world, and Team Dark has been a tightly-knit bunch ever since. The two are close allies, and she shows signs of caring for him, such as in *Sonic Chronicles*, where she says she is saddened by the thought of Omega rusting away in Metropolis, and not with her and Shadow "blowing things up". She has sometimes shown annoyance at Omega, saying that he is too serious and that she is tired of hearing him ramble on about revenge and hatred.

### Chaotix

#### Knuckles the Echidna

Knuckles the Echidna is Rouge's rival and the two have been fighting over the Master Emerald ever since they met. Unbeknownst to Knuckles, Rouge has a crush on him, but she would never admit it. She has thus been known to deny having such feelings for him, like in *Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood* where she said he was cute, but not her type. Regardless, she is secretly inspired by Knuckles' determination to protect the Master Emerald.

In *Sonic Adventure 2,* when Knuckles purposely shatters the Master Emerald to save it from Doctor Eggman, Knuckles and Rouge both go looking for its pieces. But during their fight, he saves her life. After the rescue, Rouge and Knuckles share a short moment gazing at each other, before Rouge snatches her hand away and retorts with ungratefulness by teasing that he just wanted to hold her hand. In the end, Rouge gives him the remaining pieces of the Master Emerald and complains that, *"They stink like echidnas do"*, to imply her stubbornness. Needlessly, Knuckles apologies in case if he hurt her, and runs off. Before the scene fades out, Rouge gives a thoughtful smile over her shoulder before also heading out.

In *Sonic Heroes*, they don't have much interaction with each other. At the end of Team Dark's story, Rouge commented that she would go looking for the Master Emerald, "since that irritating Echidna is here." However, in the last scene, she went to Knuckles and coquettishly hinted about going to look for someone else's treasure, then he ran after her.

In *Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood*, the codex states that "there's a sort of unstated connection between Rouge and Knuckles that neither are overly willing to explore." During the game, when Shade the Echidna mentions that she is 4,000 years old, Rouge responds to this by teasing that Knuckles was "always into older women".

In *Sonic Rivals 2*, the two are teamed up. Rouge's reason for this is because she had a mysterious client who told her that if she found all the Emeralds, she would be rewarded, so she believed with Knuckles she might find her client to know exactly who he was. When Sonic first saw Knuckles and Rouge together, he teased them, asking them if they are on a date. Rouge is hostile towards Knuckles and doesn't trust him. She however, supported Knuckles throughout the game but later on deceived him by stealing the Master Emerald by calling him "dashing and daring" in order to distract him. Most recently, in both the first and final cutscenes of *Sonic Generations*, Knuckles and Rouge are seen having a conversation at Sonic's birthday party. They appear to be communicating in a friendly, lighthearted way.

### Julie-Su

Rouge and Julie-Su have a certain rivalry, as they fought so much more than once for Knuckles, which often resulted in the triangular relationship with fighting harder on one provoked by them. She never made a solid friendship with Julie-Su, and although the two were rivals, Julie-Su never really wanted to hurt herself.

#### Vector the Crocodile

Rouge and Vector have interacted a couple of times in games, usually in an uncomfortable manner. She seems to dislike him and marks him foolish. In *Sonic Heroes* in Team Dark's Story, when Rouge was representative for Team Dark, the Chaotix budged in her way, both started trash talking to each other until Rouge found him foolish and asked for a fight. In Team Chaotix's side, Vector claims Rouge's team as the enemies and their client adversary which lead to a fight.

In *Sonic Free Riders*, in the finals, both seem to have a common interest in winning the prize money when Rouge gets angry that their robot partner breaks down just one race before the cash prize. Cream complains about her behavior, but Vector says that he can relate with her in wanting the money of the Grand Prix, though it is not worth sacrificing a teammate.

In *Sonic Generations*, they don't really interact with each other but they attend the same party and face the same conditions as everyone else. However, when the player gets all Red Star Rings in the Classic version of Spagonia, Vector says, "*Aw man, you got all five Red Star Rings. Rouge is gonna have my hide for this one."*

### Freedom Fighters

#### Amy Rose

Rouge and Amy are generally portrayed as arch-rivals towards each other. Their relationship is similar to Rouge's relationship with Knuckles. In *Sonic Battle*, the two fight several times over Emerl. When Amy called Rouge's house a "dump", Rouge was furious about Amy's comment and the two started to fight over the Emerald Shard.

Their dislike for one another is also apparent in *Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood*; they aren't always bickering, however, as shown in *Shadow the Hedgehog*. When Shadow had saved the world in the last story, Rouge wonders, *"I hope Shadow's okay."* Amy comforts her by saying, *"I'm sure he's fine, Rouge. After all, he is Shadow."* Rouge then looks back at her and nods in agreement.

#### Sonic the Hedgehog

As seen so far, Rouge and Sonic don't really show a dislike for each other, despite him being Shadow's rival and she being Tails, Knuckles, and Amy's rival. Also, despite having some conflicting encounters and standpoints, they appear to be on good terms. In *Sonic Battle*, Rouge challenges him to a battle, if she wins, Sonic will have to get her gems and work for her. Sonic manages to win however, but he did not hold any grudge against her as seen later on. Later, Sonic let Emerl say hello to Rouge, which suggest Sonic somehow trusts her. In *Sonic Chronicles*, Rouge flirts with Sonic and gave him the nickname, "Big Blue". She uses the nickname again in *Sonic Generations* when rescued.

It is worth noting that in *Sonic Generations*, Rouge is one of the voluntary attendees at Sonic's birthday party and that Sonic treated her as all of his other friends, which shows a friendly relation between them. If Classic Sonic rescues her, she tells him to watch out for the Time Eater, then adds that he's not the Sonic she knows.

Although they do get along they sometimes get into fights, like in *Sonic Heroes* when Team Sonic and Team Dark fought in a jungle and in *Sonic Battle* when she kidnapped Emerl to train him to be a thief. He also said her if she did something to Emerl, he wouldn't let her off easily. When Rouge was introduced to Emerl, she gave them an idea to help Emerl, Sonic refused calling her 'a thief'.

#### Miles "Tails" Prower

Tails and Rouge have a friendly relationship but Rouge sometimes adds complications to it. They will usually get along but Rouge will sometimes playfully tease Tails to just get a reaction from him.

In *Sonic Adventure 2*, Tails was basically unaware of Rouge's presence, but this was because Rouge was sent by Eggman to spy on Tails when he was trying to find the President. After that their interaction stopped until the Ark was set to on its course for collision with Earth. In *Sonic Battle*, Rouge would use her charm to tease Tails because she thought it was cute and funny how he reacted. She was however very helpful in Tails' story as she gave him the access card for the Central Computer Room, distracted Shadow, and told Tails how to escape the Guard Robos. Later on in Rouge's story Tails had to stop Rouge from stealing a Chaos Emerald. In *Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood*, while in Metropolis, Rouge would sometimes be snarky with the plans Tails and Eggman would come up with but still show a playful affection for Tails.

### Scourge the Hedgehog

Rouge also had been in a flirtatious relationship with Scourge the Hedgehog, when he was still known as Evil Sonic. He was quickly drawn to her, not only because her intention was to steal the Master Emerald, but because she was physically appealing to him. Rouge also appears to have flirted with him, though only likely to gain his assistance. Whatever relationship might have been between them was reduced to strictly business after he transformed into Scourge and she broke up their partnership.

### Friends/allies

* Avatar
* Classic Sonic
* Classic Tails
* Emerl
* G.U.N. (employer)
	+ Comandante Abraham Tower
	+ Dr. Julian Snively
	+ Spider Troupe
	+ Team Dark
		- Andrea Tower
		- E-123 Omega (close friend)
		- E-10000B (formerly)
		- Hope Kintobor
		- Shadow the Hedgehog (boyfriend)
* Fixit the Robot
* Freedom Fighters
	+ Chaotix
		- Charmy Bee
		- Espio the Chameleon
		- Knuckles the Echidna (Ex-boyfriend, friendly rival)
		- Mighty the Armadillo
		- Ray the Flying Squirrel
		- Saffron Bee
		- Vector the Crocodile
	+ Freedom Fighters
		- Bunnie D'Coolette
		- Miles "Tails" Prower
		- Nicole the Holo-Lynx
		- Omochao
		- Rotor the Walrus
		- Sally Acorn
		- Sonic the Hedgehog
	+ Team Rose
		- Amy Rose
		- Big the Cat
		- Blaze the Cat
		- Cream the Rabbit
		- Cheese the Chao
* Geoffrey St. John
* Locke
* Nigel Acorn
* President
* Relic the Pika
* Secretary
* Shade the Echidna
* Silver the Hedgehog (Son)

### Rivals

* Knuckles the Echidna (friendly rival)
* Julie-Su
* Amy Rose
* Wave the Swallow
* Nicolette the Weasel
* Fiona Fox

### Enemies

* Babylon Rogues
	+ Jet the Hawk
	+ Storm the Albatross
* Biolizard
* Black Arms
	+ Dark Arms
	+ Black Doom
	+ Doom's Eye
	+ Eclipse the Darkling
* Destructix
	+ Fiona Fox
	+ Scourge the Hedgehog
* Dr. Eggman Nega
* Dr. Finitevus
* Dr. Wily
	+ Wily Robot Masters
* Eggman Empire
	+ Dr. Eggman
	+ Badnik Horde
		- Metal Sonic
* Feist
* Hooligans
	+ Bark the Polar Bear
	+ Bean the Dynamite
	+ Nack the Weasel
* Iblis
* Ifrit
* Infinite
* Mephiles the Dark
* Nocturnus Clan
	+ Imperator Ix
* Solaris
* Time Eater
* Walter Naugus

## References

1. ↑ GUN: Guardian Units of the Nation, Codex, *Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood*
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Sega of America. Rouge the Bat. *Sonic Characters*. Sega of America. Archived from the original on 5 March 2005. Retrieved on 26 October 2017. “Rouge is a world-famous treasure hunter who loves jewels. This fearless female bat is full of sex appeal and knows how to get what she wants. She has a bit of a crush (though she would never admit it) on a certain red echidna that we all know and love. She is secretly inspired by Knuckles' determination to protect the Master Emerald. She has a weakness for jewels, especially large jewels. When she sees one that she wants, she always goes for it, no matter the personal cost. Although she looks and acts like she hasn't a care in the world, her mind is always active scheming. Once she has a goal, her motives are always mercenary in nature.”
3. ↑ Rouge the Bat, Codex, *Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood*
4. ↑ Cite error: Invalid `<ref>` tag; no text was provided for refs named `SCTDB`
5. ↑ *Sonic the Hedgehog* #151, "Chaos Emeralds Are Forever"

***Sonic the Hedgehog* characters**