A week slipped by, then two. Rouge continued to slug grimly away at the tests; every now and then, Shadow or Omega would help her just a little with the busywork, but only when Rouge herself had already chosen the procedure and learned how to do it.
Finally, Rouge came exploding into the rec room one morning, looking gleeful.
"I've got it!" she whooped. "I found the thief's identity! It's Caddie!"
"Wait, the new agent?" said Shadow, looking up.
"Yup!" Rouge waved a bundle of printouts in Shadow's general direction. "I might have known. I took that Caddie over to my place to learn lockpicking when she first got here and I was showing her the ropes, and I bet she set her greedy little sights on my fam'ly jewel! Boy, I'm going to give her something to think about. And here she was acting all innocent and normal around me all this time!"
She turned to storm out the door.
"Hang in there," warned Shadow. "You can't just sail off and accuse someone like that. Are you sure your tests are accurate?"
"Oh, positive!" said Rouge confidently.
"But what about the window? Espio said nobody could have gotten in unless they could fly."
"Ladder, hun," retorted Rouge, rolling her eyes.
"There were no ladder marks under the window."
"Fine then, a grappling hook!"
"There were no grappling marks on the windowsill."
"Why are you so hung up on defending Caddie?" Rouge folded her arms. "I know what my tests say. You got any better ideas?"
Shadow shrugged uneasily. Omega looked over from where he was codewashing a spy bug.
"Analyzing all possible scenarios presented by the environment," he intoned, "the possibility of a squirrel presents itself."
"The what of a what?" Rouge looked at him blankly.
"A squirrel," said Shadow, picking up the thread. "That's a good point, actually. A squirrel might have been interested in a shiny object like that jewel. And it could easily have run along those thin branches that led right up to the window, and slipped in through the crack. You never did find any fingerprints besides your own, remember? Maybe the thief didn't wear gloves, maybe he just didn't touch the window at all because he was tiny."
"And so the squirrel knocked over that vase while it was stealing my jewel?" Rouge pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Well, I suppose a squirrel wouldn't know to be careful like a proper burglar. That would make sense."
"There you go," said Shadow.
"But the tests, then?" said Rouge, waving the printouts again. "How do you account for the tests?"
"Did you check the DNA against squirrels?"
"Well . . . nooooo . . . I only did human DNA comparison. Didn't think to test for squirrel blood, for Pete's sake."
"Understandably," said Omega seriously. "However, it is possible that the DNA is in fact a squirrel's, and Agent Caddie's DNA is simply the closest human equivalent. Squirrel blood could be mistaken for human blood, through a small misinterpretation."
"Of course, of course," said Rouge, nodding. "It all makes sense now. So then what do I do, put up a reward for capture of squirrel with large jewel?"
"It may not be necessary," shrugged Shadow. "If it saw your jewel through the window, it was probably a local squirrel. It might even have lived in that tree by the window. Is there a squirrel nest in that tree?"
"I don't know, we could check," said Rouge. Shadow shrugged and got up to start for Rouge's house.
"Or," continued Rouge, "we could do it the easy way, and you could just give me back the jewel now."
Shadow stopped and turned to look at her blankly. She swung from foot to foot, her expression coldly patient.
"Don't fake disbelief," she ordered at last. "Exactly how stupid do you think I am?"
Shadow winced and glanced at Omega, who looked like he would very much like to power down and escape this situation.
"If you've lost it, I'm going to be extremely ticked," continued Rouge. "Give it over now, or I'll ransack your quarters."
Shadow looked like he was going to protest absurdity for a moment, but then he gave up, sighed, and held out one hand resignedly.
"All right. Let's have it, Omega."
Wordlessly Omega slid open one of his internal compartments, the one where he sometimes stored Chaos Emeralds. Carefully he picked out the missing heart-shaped jewel and handed it to Shadow, who handed it silently to Rouge in turn.
"So, it was with Omega all along," said Rouge flatly. "While I was staying up till four in the morning trying to figure out who had taken it."
Shadow shrugged slightly, not looking up. Omega, his role in the tableau finished, retracted the compartment and rapidly powered down. He earned a dirty look from the abandoned Shadow, but Rouge was entirely focused on the hedgehog anyway. She had a pretty good idea of who the mastermind was.
"Real clever," she said tightly, folding her arms. "Reeeeeal cunning of you two. I see just what you did. Chaos Controlled into my house, swiped my jewel, and tried to pin the crime on a squirrel to save your own hide, eh?"
"Did you figure that out all by yourself?" asked Shadow drily.
"Yes, actually. Just now, when the test told me for the thousandth time that it wasn't human DNA. I suppose you sacrificed some innocent squirrel for that blood?"
"No. We used the samples from a wildlife forensics kit."
"Well that's just great," drawled Rouge. "So you've had your fun, and no squirrels got hurt, is that it? Nice to know that no squirrels suffered because you were bored and fancied a stunt. Pity the squirrels."
"We needed to get you invested in learning forensics," replied Shadow, meeting Rouge's glare defiantly. "Nothing else worked, so we decided that having one of your jewels on the line would be a suitable incentive."
"And who asked you?" The question was deathly calm.
"Nobody. We assessed the situation and took the initiative."
The answer was deathly calm too—but it far from satisfied Rouge. Her eyes were narrowed by now, her head tilting forward and her wings and ears folding back. Faced with a stance all too similar to his own characteristic aggression display, Shadow didn't flinch.
"You were going to fail. Team Dark does not fail."
"Oh?" Rouge drew back, her eyes blazing. "Don't they?"
"Get a hold of yourself. You have your jewel back, and at least now you'll be able to pass the final exam."
Rouge snorted scornfully and turned away.
"Maybe I'll fail it. Just to spite you."
"Rouge!"
The door slammed. Shadow twitched slightly at the sound and glared in that direction, but soon sighed and turned away resignedly to thump a fist against Omega's side.
"She's gone. You can wake up now, Benedict Arnold."
