Disclaimer: I own nothing of the Sonic franchise.

...To Accuse...

Remington thought it was just him being lead to Komi and Teri's work stations, but looking behind him, he saw he had Shadow and Brass in tow, with Rykor, taking up a spot near Saffron and Julie-Su. Komi sat in her high back chair with Teri scrolling through a spreadsheet on her monitor before stopping, and looked to the purple furred echidna. Reaching into her small black hand bag in which Remington could still smell the crisp leather it was still so new, she pulled a green back U.F. credit note from it, and handed it to Komi. Komi in turn added her own credit, and placed both tenders into her swear cup. Komi then turned her head to her left to look to her husband.

"Rem, this shit doesn't any make sense!"

Remington nearly laughed, and Julie-Su nearly choked from her seat with Komi's high voice.

But looking to his, he saw that Teri had not joined in, her gaze fixed on her far left monitor of the two she had, her face straining with a muted anger. Looking past Remington, she breathed in and said, "You should go first, Komi."

Looking to his wife, Remington saw her swallow, and nodded.

"To begin...right now, nothing in her regular accounts has moved since this morning."

Remington eyed her, then looked to her monitor. "Regular?" he inquired.

Nodding, Komi said, "She has fifteen accounts that primarily circle around her casino, with a new one she had created for, what looks like, a clothing line she is starting with Honey. All of this I had gotten from her C-P-A, Ms. Breezie."

Taking her pencil with her left hand, Komi then tapped the eraser on the screen at an account titled Generosity. "I want you to keep an eye on this account here, okay Rem?"

Remington nodded. Then Komi went to a tab on the internal G.U.N. browser and clicked on it. A full line of accounts with names marked with black and red markings in an unorganized order popped up. Komi pursed her lips with this. "These are her other accounts that the Intel Center over at Empire sent us." She then looked to Brass, he was one step down from them, leaning up against the wall near his office with Rykor standing on the other side of his office door behind him.. "They are all overseas accounts, except for a few."

Remington saw Brass nod to her, like he had already known, his face wrangling with an echo of disappointment that made Remington narrow his inner focus from it. "Go on, dear," he said impassively to her.

"Okay, so I started from a week ago, and there were only maybe seven accounts that are active, with not that many sums of money in them." She then tapped the upper most one. "The black text means the accounts are still active."

Scanning the headers of the account names, he focused on the underlined bold letters of one named Oberon Analytics, noting it had a hefty 400,000 credits sitting in the account. The rest of the six accounts had amounts not nearly as much, but enough to have bought a few air-cars back on Echindaolopis without taking a loan out for the rest. The accounts were all black—still active.

"Okay, just seven," he said, nodding to Komi.

Clicking on an icon on the tab, a calender came up to where she clicked two months back to nearly February of Earth's date. The screen blinked before a longer spread sheet came up, this time having a multitude of red accounts mixed with the seven black accounts."And these are her closed ones in red, all of them were from around a month back being closed," Komi said with a subtle bit of confidence, yet her voice had strained some. Sliding her pencil over she tapped the amounts that showed a negative symbol next to varying amounts, all under 40,000 credits, he observed.

"You see these amounts, right?"she quizzed again, and Remington nodded. Here, Komi pulled out a writing pad, her elegant hand writing with addition and subtraction equations scribbled on it, many with circles around them. "So, she has been dumping the amounts of those overseas accounts into that Generosity account I just pointed out, then closing those overseas accounts soon after."

Remington wanted to arch his brow, but staved off the notion with another nod. "Okay, I'm following you, dear."

Moving her mouse, she clicked on the tab she had gone from, brought up the Generosity account, opened it, then worked the calender on the tab back to four months. Black and red transactions populated instantly on the screen. "So, this is something sly, if you ask me, Rem—" She pointed to a bolded red transaction that appeared to happen about an month ago "—this is actually her winnings account."

He narrowed his eyes for a moment before turning to his wife. "Winnings?" he asked. "It looks like she is shoving money out of it.?"

"That's because it's not her winning, it's her customers winning at her casino."

Remington's eyes went wide at this. "Oh," he tried not to fester as his former law enforcement self started to step up from his soul. "How have you confirmed this?" he asked.

With that, she clicked on another tab on the top of the browser, exploding a picture shot of a brown colored bobcat woman, her face wide with delight and shock, and Rouge standing beside her, the bat's own face plastered with the same look, both holding what looked like an oversized check between the two of them. Remington noted the amount was north of 20,300 credits. Komi, however, tapped on the date that the large writing showed on the "check."

"March twenty-second of this year," she said.

Placing his hand close to his relaxed lips, Remington gave her another nod, in which Komi clicked back to the Generosity account screen. Komi then guided her eraser to the amount.

It read $–20,300 of April 2nd.

"Okay," he observed, his gravely voice easing out. "So, why over a week apart?"

Brass this time chimed in after a moment. "It's a check hold. What's the amount?"

"Over twenty-g's," Remington replied evenly.

Brass cocked his head, his eyes widening, and gave a decrescendo whistle. "At that amount, I'm surprised it didn't take longer to clear. Oh man, I need to play at her joint."

"I bet her loss is also being used as a tax wright-off to hid any of her illicit income," Remington observed with cocked head to Brass.

This made the human's cheeky smile vanish when the impact sunk in of Remington's hunch in Rouge also engaging in tax evasion. When Remington had been a Constable, it was his Plan-C if he couldn't get a crime syndicate member on murder or racketeering charges...he went for their tax payments. Or lack there of. It's what got Ebony deeper in the boiling kettle of trouble with him.

Remington smiled passively at Brass with a knowing twinkle in his eye, but then followed Komi's eraser down to another line that was in black. It marked a 22,462 on the account as a deposit with the date being almost two weeks before the bobcat woman in jeans and a conservative white blouse had won. "Interesting," he said dryly.

"Oh," Komi interjected, "it gets better." And before he could blink, she exited out of the Generosity account, and reopened the longer list of accounts with many of them marked red as closed. After a moment, Komi found what she was looking for and tapped it with her eraser. "This account was closed three weeks after she made a deposit from it to her Generosity account—the full amount."

Remington now stared at the account report before finally nodding. "Alright, we established that," he confirmed. Then he turned his eyes to Komi once more. "But where has the money she had in the original account come from before she closed it?"

Komi raised a finger. "Oh, hold that thought, Remmy."

Roving the mouse curser to another tab on the browser window, she clicked it to open, and another spread sheet of account names appeared. In this instance, however, many of the names had L.L.C. next to them. Komi had them assorted by dates, Remington noting they went back for close to two years.

"Have you ever heard of a nineteen year old acquiring and starting a casino on her own?" Komi asked, but Remington saw she had said it for everyone, her eyes on the screen. He looked around the room, finding all eyes on them, with Julie-Su turned in her chair looking up with Saffron doing the same.

Brass on the other hand hadn't seemed to move. Shadow, however, did, and doing so to get behind Remington where he was still crouched on his haunches. Crossing his arms, the black furred and suited hedgehog gave a deep sigh. "Yes, some of us do know," Shadow said evenly. "We've used her as an asset back in the wars." Remington saw Shadow's eyes become withdrawn some, looking down and off before he added, "And she and I have worked together closely in the past."

"Well," Komi continued, "these are shell companies I've pulled up. Shell companies that didn't exist until she got her casino—I'm guessing—off the ground."

Remington kept his eye on Shadow to see him nod with this. Feeling astir something pointing to a conspiracy, but banishing it before it scribbled on his face, Remington looked back to Komi's screen. "Let me guess, these shell companies were fronts for...?"

"More like these things here on Earth they call hedge-funds. And their deposits came all from overseas." Komi then went back to the banking accounts tab and clicked on the calender to bring the date search back two years. The ledgers seemed to explode with red header accounts. "Rem, she's been doing this for a long time, and it's what's been keeping her casino up and running until about six months ago."

"How so," Julie now asked, her arms crossing under her chest.

Komi cocked her head. "Well, to start, she's closed nearly all her shell companies, and off shore accounts, and she's been transferring the monies into her—well, I don't know really how to say this—her legal accounts. This Generosity account that she is using to fund the winnings from people who happen to strike it lucky at her casino? Well, that's how she is purging the money from her ill-gotten gains from essentially laundering money from what me and Teri can only see as some sort of criminal organizations."

"Any of these companies legit?" Remington asked carefully.

Both Teri and Komi shook their heads. "Thanks to the I-I-C and Cheyenne Mountain, all our search requests came up with hardly a legitimate hit...except for four."

"And those are?" Remington redirected.

Komi tightened her lips, and said, "Those came back as classified."

Remington not only heard, but felt the deep sigh come from behind him. He thought to look to Shadow, but instead caught Brass' solemn stare away from everyone, his eyes seemingly at the closed door to Tower's office. And Remington felt the impulse to go and knock on that very door.

Instead, he inhaled his suspicions away and offered up an even voice to the gathered Ops Center. "Okay, right now you have uncovered that Rouge has been using her casino as a front for some really shady people—and now she has been closing those accounts as of recently. Statute wise, we have the beginnings of a major criminal conspiracy case against her, and we can use this information to have her flip on the people she was working with—"

"'My bat problem?'" Julie-Su announced with a sneer, quoting Ebony Hare from last night.

Remington shot his pointed finger to her with affirmation to what she had brought up. "Exactly! She's been going straight, closing these accounts, and dispersing the money to people who won against the house at her casino." He smiled with this. "Julie, I should've badged you when you worked under me for the E.S.T."

"I hope the captain's bars will do," Brass said with a slight chuckle, though Remington could see there was still a hurt in his visage.

"Careful, they don't go to her head," Rykor scoffed with his own chuckle. It garnered a side-eyed look from Julie.

"And so," Remington went on, looking back to Komi's screens, "Rouge has made some people very worried with her doing this...and I'm sure they are seeing her as a loose end."

"Like Ebony," Shadow said flatly.

Remington nodded to him. "And the Destructix who found him were his bargaining chip to help get her out of the way." Swallowing the dryness in his voice, he then asked, "But any transactions as of late that we can trace?" He let his voice take a step down to drive home their main goal " Remember, we aren't looking to arrest her...we are trying to save her."

His gut began to sink when Komi shook her head. She then looked to Teri-Lu with a worried, pain laden expression that softened her voice. "Your turn."

Teri's high toned voice announced to Remington's left after a moment of what he knew was her bracing herself, one he knew all to well when she was flustered. "So, Ebony had been using her services to move moneys in and out of his import-export front."

"Any chance what he's really doing?" Shadow asked.

Teri shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine, except buying and selling old Eggman junk."

"To whom?" Brass then asked.

Again, she shrugged. "Whoever was depositing their credits into his black accounts before he sent them to invest in Rouge's casino."

"How long has he been dealing with her?" Shadow asked next.

"About a year and a half...until she shut down the accounts they both were using. Looks like she sent his money back without her fifteen percent fee that she never increased from when she started this enterprise of her's, from what me and Komi both gathered."

"When was that?" Remington asked.

Teri arched her brow, her red-fur reflecting from the white monitor. "Six months ago. His was the first she closed."

And Remington shook his head with a tightened jaw. "And she had no idea that he was from our Mobius. What he is capable of."

"But that's not the big issue, Constable," Teri said, Remington noting her using his old title. It made his stomach knot. She then clicked on a windowed tab that brought up a screen on her second monitor.

His eyes went wide when he saw the name of the first account, rage boiling in his voice. "Deser-Ra shipping?" He then looked to Teri, who only nodded with her own angered sadness flooding in her eyes.

"Deser-Ra!?" Julie said with a loud, shocked voice. "I knew her. She was—"

Remington nodded harshly, "The E-S-T officer who helped uncover the Lemon Sundrop lab that Ebony had taken over back on Echindaolopis." He then swallowed. "And she was killed at her post when Eggman hit the city a year and half later."

Remington felt the color fade from his muzzle, finding Komi and Teri's had as well. He eyed Julie's shocked face between Komi's monitors.

"Well, Rem, this asshole has been using E-S-T officer's names as his fronts' company names," Teri breathed out with anger.

Remington turned his head back to Shadow. "Hey, wanna go back and tune-up that piece of shit a little more with me?"

The hedgehog gave him a trite nod with his focused red-eyes. Remington figured Shadow may not have known the officer's whose names were being wrongfully mocked in a criminal conspiracy...but a wave of understanding matched between them of the injustice taking place, and what needed to be corrected with physical violence to one Ebony Hare.

"Rem!?" came Komi's chastising voice. She then softened it, looking to him. "Focus, dear. You're better than that."

For a moment, he looked inside her, finding the person she wanted him to be, before he closed his eyes to her and nodded in concession to her moral standards of him. Opening his eyes, he let his measured voice reappear. "Okay, so what else has Ebony done?"

Teri gave a slow shake of her head. "Same-ole—same-ole, Rem. Tax violations—wire fraud. And he is sitting on a small fortune with it."

"What about last nights dealings?" Shadow then asked.

Teri raised a finger. "That, sir, is what is really weird about this."

Looking to her, Remington said, "Go on, Ter. What did you find?"

He saw her throat tighten, her eyes going to Komi, who then nodded to her. "We'd found the accounts he had the money transferred to. It came out to forty grand total after we double checked our math."

Remington nodded with this. "Well, the shitbag wasn't lying on that to us," he said, casting his eyes behind him to Shadow, who nodded slowly to him. The hedgehog's eyes were still focused under a tight gaze. Still alight with something Remington couldn't discern.

"But," Teri said, her voice almost cracking, "it's where the funds came from that isn't right."

Remington eyed her, beckoning her to go on. She did, only after she looked to his wife for reassurance. "All the funds came from an account that belongs to Rouge."

"What?" Remington seethed with shock. "Which account?"

Here, Komi gave him the answer:

"Oberon Analytics—"

"Say that name again!?" Shadow nearly blurted out under a festering voice.

It had shaken Komi, her voice resonating with it. "Um...Oberon Analytics."

Shadow shot his face over to Brass, who was now coming off the wall, his eyes equal in surprise. Shadow then took a step back, planting his thruster shoes to the brown carpet and twisted his body to Tower's closed door. Brass was also on his feet, stepping up to the Teri's and Komi's work station, his own shock plastered on his face.

"Abraham!" Shadow shouted. A few seconds and the thudding of Tower's footsteps saw his door opening, flooding the dimmed Operations Center with his office light. Red eyes to grey eyes met. "We have a problem!"

"I know!" Tower proclaimed with steel in his voice. He then looked to Teri. "Miss, Lu, please turn one of the monitors on the wall to channel six."

Teri did as he had instructed, sending the command to the TV from her desktop computer with a few mouse clicks. The upper left TV's screen changed to a human woman, her yellow shirt almost the wrong color for a live broadcast outside of Rouge's casino, her lips moving from the muted television, a microphone with the number 6 held under her lips. Teri began turning up the volume.

"...It appears, George and Jayce that Rouge has been creating, well, a Rouge to the people of Station Square from what we got from the release of some bank information that was given to us from an anonymous source—"

Remington stood, taking a few steps backwards to stand beside Shadow, who was very much staring a burning hole into the television screen. His white gloved hands were tight fists clenched at his sides.

The televison screen cut to two other humans, a man on the left and a woman on the right, sitting behind a wooden news partition. "And what are the banks' accounts telling you, Ann?"

The screen then cut back to the reporter at Rouge's casino. "That Miss Rouge might have paid for her own abduction from last night—"

Teri muted the televison, then said aloud, "What parsha shit!"

"Agreed, Miss Lu," Tower said. He then looked to Shadow. Both human and hedgehog exchanged hard looks. "Oberon Analytics?" he questioned, but Remington could hear from his tone it wasn't a seeking question.

Shadow gave a heavy sigh. "I thought it was closed."

"Apparently not—"

"It never was," Komi cut in, clicking back to Rouge's overseas accounts, adjusting the date query to the current week. Only seven accounts remained, all black, and Oberon's account having the higher amount of funds. Komi then clicked on the account itself, and it brought up the account data. "But, she's basically kept it stagnant until about a month ago."

Shadow stepped forward, Remington following him. Studying the screen, Shadow pointed to a large withdrawal of $245,556 with the receiving account named Forsyth Horizon. "That's a Gun account that Sigma uses." Remington saw the transaction date was from September of the year before. Seven months. "We had set it up along with three other accounts with Rouge."

Remington eyed him. "I take it those are the four classified accounts Komi mentioned."

Shadow nodded.

"It was a cannery trap, if I recall, to sniff out the Jackal Squad's suppliers," Brass said after a moment, looking behind him to Rykor, who was still leaning up against Brass' office threshold.

Tower this time stepped forward. "And we never confirmed that she had closed the account after the Infinite incident?"

Here, Remington saw Shadow's eyes narrow like slits before returning them to a subtle repose. "I went on trust with her, about it." He then leaned forward next to Komi. "Thing is, it seems the account didn't have much funds in it until..." He trailed off, looking further, with Remington seeing his wife slowly scrolling the page up. He then looked to Komi with an honest visage of sureness to Komi. "Like you said, ma'am...a month ago."

"How big are the deposits?" Brass asked.

Komi answered with a heavy sigh. "Like five hundred thousand to eight hundred thousand. The last withdrawals were the five thousand, then the forty thousand that was paid to Ebony's shell accounts."

"What about the withdrawals or transactions before then to Oberon?" Tower asked next.

Komi gave a shrug. "Overseas accounts...some looking like they were to brokers and shipping companies. All transactions to them from Oberon."

"And where did the credits originate from?" Shadow inquired then.

"Well," Komi began, "that's the thing. The money just seemed to appear into the account."

"What do you mean appear?" Julie now asked, Saffron looking on with her just as confused.

Komi's eyes went wide. "That's it...they just appeared on the ledgers. No account name, numbers. Not even routing codes. The money just appeared essentially out of thin air."

"And Rouge didn't know about this?" Rykor quizzed with wide, skeptical eyes.

Shaking her head, Komi relied, "It doesn't appear to be—"

"And she would have come to me if she had," Shadow said with an air of foreboding.

"I'm not so sure, now, my friend," Tower countered softly.

And silence permeated in the Ops Center from it as Shadow turned his head to Tower with a hurtful look at the Major General.

"That sounds like someone is funding a small unit?" Rykor asked. This got a nod from Brass to him.

"And funding that can't be traced," Brass added. "Not to mention Treasury is going to have a field day when they find out that money can just magically appear into an account without a trace of earnings, or backing."

Tower gave a snuff at that, with Shadow giving a dour smile before saying, "Can't believe many want a cash-less society."

"Oh, that's a recipe for disaster and control of financial trust," Remington agreed.

"At any rate," Brass began, "at this point, we really don't have a lead on finding Rouge. All we have is evidence she has been going straight and clean from the money laundering and bogus shell companies she was dealing with. And because of it, it got her on people's radar and was abducted by these Destructix—"

"Don't forget about the Jackals," Shadow added, his tone clenching.

Brass then turned to Rykor. "Right. What you said, brother, about the amount to fund a small unit." Turning back, he eyed Shadow and Tower. "It sounds like they are gearing up and coming back for a little bit of hate and payback."

"Which puts Rouge on their radar as well since she helped us track them down," Shadow said dryly. "She should have closed the damn account!"

Remington popped up with this. "Do you have any old names or contacts that you suspect may know, or could reactivate this Jackal Squad?"

Brass turned to Shadow after Remington's question. "Whisper?"

Nodding with this, Shadow said, "I can call her...get her on a scent."

"How much is that going to cost?" Tower said, eyeing Shadow.

But the hedgehog shook his head. "Perhaps nothing. She'll do it as a favor. Me and Rouge got her partner, Tangle, out of jam during that time. I'm sure she'll gladly sniff this out for us. Especially if it involves the Jackals. She and Tangle are living in Spangola, now. It should make her work quick...but I don't think it will lead to Rouge in time."

"She's got a grudge with the Jackals, I take it?" Julie asked from her chair, leaning back in it.

Her partner nodded to her, Remington seeing a reflection of revulsion in Shadow's red eyes. "Very much. They were responsible for killing some of her team over a year ago. She killed a few herself...but not enough..."

"There's a lot of that going around," Brass finished. "But still, right now, we are dead in the water in finding Mike's daughter."

Remington noted Brass' gruff, hardened voice with the name he said, only to supplement with his own in his head that he was right. At this point, they had no idea where Rouge could be, or the motivations as to why the Destructix, the Jackals, or why Dr. Finitevus were not only wanting her, but working together to use her. "And they can warp ring anywhere in a matter of seconds," he concluded aloud.

His comment got heads turned to him, but he never bothered to look up. He placed his fingers of his right hand under his angled chin at his muzzle and jaw, and stroked it, cradling his elbow with his left hand. "We're missing something?"

Turning his head, his answer came from Shadow's red eyes. From the dim lighting in the Ops Center, they shot Remington a glow of magenta...

The firmness of Mori's hand under her arm wasn't harsh, but the squeeze from his rough, calloused fingers of his burned hand, however, did let her know of the malice he possessed for her. The fur fingers of Lightening, however, were a menacing directive to keep moving forward.

They were pushing her through the corridor from the room they had retrieved her from yet again, Lightening leading the way, with Mori pushing her more out of just being there than physically. She could see the open corridor with the descending stairs to the right approaching as she kept pace with the jackal's and lynx's tug and push. When they rounded the corner, she half expected the open room with the long dinning room to be occupied, but she was met with an open space. The table had been shoved up against the wall, the chairs placed on top of it.

And her eyes widened when she saw the golden jackal before them. He waited with his hands clasped near his belt line of his black suit, his white shirt peaking out. When Mori nodded to him, he stepped to the side, and reached into his pocket, and retrieved a gold ring from his pants pocket. Looking at it for a spell, he placed it on the crook of his index finger, and launched it with his thumb, flicking it end over end—

It opened with a suddenness that made Rouge blink...only to recognize the bright golden glow from when she had been hooded from last night when they killer her security team and abducted her. Her ears twitched uncontrollably from hearing the heavy bass to treble warble when the ring opened wide, the mouth almost becoming floor to ceiling in height, and nearly wide enough that she could maybe go through it with her wings fully expanded spanned out from her back. Beyond it, she could see that a garage was on the other side where the red leather chair and TV should have been, a black van with it's door closed at the forefront instead. Where she could see the light beginning to fade from the day of the curtained window to her right, along with Mori, a brighter day was being shadowed from the parking garage on the other side of the swirling ring. She was about to cross a time zone.

And Lightening and Mori, still with their hands under each of her arms, pushed her forward toward it.

"What else do banks have?'

The question that Remington had posed to the gathered group interspersed around the Ops Center of Clip had come to him more out of his hazy memory to himself than thinking what Shadow and Brass seemed to be denying to themselves about what Rouge had done.

The recollection that came to him had been from the awe of grandeur when he had first stepped foot in the Supreme Echindian Bank, the financial center of the echidna culture on, well, Angel Island, returning them from the Pocket Zone due in part to the events surrounding the first Robotnick's demise— as a result and thanks to their Zone's Sonic and the time shift from the use of the Ultimate Annihilator—brought them back to Mobius Prime. His first visit was during a school field trip when he was just shy of seeing ten, when Echindaolopis was still trapped in the Pocket Zone. And what he saw then, along with bullies pecking at his bushy brows and black hair—Thanks, Dad— had been a hall that almost equaled in height from the vaulted ceiling as wide with marble floor. He felt small at the time—and still did when he went there when he became an adult at sixteen to open his own account. Everyone there had been dressed as if they were going to an Aurorium for worship, but a little less formal. In fact, Remington wondered if his suit he wore now would actually be frowned upon considering how elegant and stoic both male and female Echidna's had dressed back then.

Which led to his former memory's sight peering at the main vault—with rows of locked boxes in gleaming gold back to him when he stopped in the line their teacher had formed, his eyes not able to contain themselves to look to his right–

"Safe keeping boxes," Komi announced for him.

But Brass was quicker to react to her thought.

"You mean safety deposit boxes?"

Remington turned with a small angled yaw of his head to face Brass. "Is that what you call them here? Something to keep your most important things safe because you don't trust your neighbor's fire safety in your apartment complex?" Brass gave a grinning nod.

"Bingo!" Remington confirmed with a slight grin of his own. But then he let his heavy black brows narrow to a thoughtful look, yet conveying a hint of suspicion. It was more in curiosity than trust, but he knew the juncture where they had arrived, the previous exchange of sour, betray filled glances Brass, Shadow, and even Tower—who was still standing behind him and Shadow—had exchanged since they returned from Ebony's attempt at forced salvation.

"It isn't money that they want from Rouge," he began, folding his arms over his dark blue shirt under his open suit jacket. "It has to be what she has." Glances were exchanged between the two humans and Shadow, each giving slow nods to one another. It was a shared hurt of betrayal, and Remington could no longer be gentle with them about it:

"What can you all tell us about the Phantom Ruby?"

It was Shadow who sighed first after a beat. "We honestly don't know."

Remington turned to him, letting his face ease into an empathetic calmness. "Do you know where it came from?" he asked.

Shadow was about to shake his head, but hesitated when he closed his eyes, searching inward. "No...but what Ebony had said about this Mammoth Mogul, and how he got here...and our conversation in Brass' office—" He looked up to Brass, then over to Tower. "—I think we might be closer to it's origins. At least where Infinite might have gotten it."

"So," Julie asked with a slight stammer, "where is Mogul."

Remington shrugged his shoulders. "That's an interesting question on its own, considering Ebony hadn't seen him for a few years. Said he failed to show up." He then turned to Shadow. "Your contacts you made mention of. You certain they maybe able to find something with the Jackals? We may need them to look into Mogul on top of that."

This, Shadow nodded. "I trust Whisper with it. She can dig pretty deep, especially with how the Jackal's operated, she knows how they worked." Remington sensed a hesitation from Shadow, more from his red eyes before going on with a guarded tone. "And I'm starting to be convinced they might have gotten, or may have dealt with this Mogul to get the Ruby."

"But that's not the real question we should be asking," Julie cut in. All eyes shifted to her. "Where is the Ruby, now?"

Here, Shadow stepped forward some, but mostly to give Brass a knowing stare. "I think we know." He then looked to his partner, giving Julie an affirming look to her, closing his eyes, some. "Rouge took it after I killed Infinite. I had burned through my energy to end him and I passed out from the exhaustion."

"So," Julie led on, "she's almost the same as ours—"

Rykor stepped from beside Brass' office and snapped out his hand, pointing his finger and eyes to her. "Trooper, you stow that shit right now! We are not here to judge or start a pissing contest with a girl who was brutally abducted last night. Is that clear?"

The tightness of her throat, before her eyes lowered, was all the confirmation not only Rykor, but Remington needed that Julie understood. She nodded with an ashamed expression that faded quickly after a second.

For a moment, there was a hushed silence before Rykor cleared his own throat. "Would she store it in the vault at her own casino? If so, it could already be gone thanks to the warp ring they have."

But Shadow shook his head. "No. If she did, I would have felt it—tasted it. I know what the Ruby's energies feels like. She would store it somewhere off site of her casino—even her home."

" I take it you've been back to see her a few times?" Remington asked.

Again, the hedgehog nodded. "Just once...to see how she was handling everything since the incident."

"And."

Shadow gave a faint shrug of his shoulders inside his suit jacket and shirt. "For her, it seemed she was back to normal, running her casino—"

"Among other things," Brass scoffed this time. "Really not happy with her right now."

"Regardless," Tower now cut in. He then looked to Remington. The former Constable held the Major General's eyes with foreboding thoughts exchanging from one another. "What're you thinking, Major?"

Remington gave pause for a moment before he was sure of what he was about to consider aloud:

"Check the banks that she does business with, and see which ones have these safety deposit boxes for their customers, Teri," he said with an even requesting tone. It was one that he was sure Teri knew all to well coming from him.

But it was both Teri-Lu and his wife that turned and began hammering away at their keyboards, their fingers flying. Glancing up, he noticed Julie and Saffron turned in their chairs and were typing at their stations as well. For a moment, all the men just stood and waited, Brass being the only one leaning up against the wall. Rykor walked over to stand between Julie and Saffron to observe their work.

"I've got three in Empire City," Teri announced after a few minutes of the clanking of keys.

"Three here in Station Square," Komi said.

"And two over in Westopolis," Saffron announced with her high voice.

"Got about four outside of the U.F.," Julie added next, spinning around in her chair.

Remington nodded, staring down at Rykor, then to Teri and Komi. "Okay, let's focus on the banks in Empire City, here and Westopolis for right now. It's the only places we have jurisdictions with where we can try to do something."

"You got an idea or plan going through that head of yours, Major?" asked Brass.

He gave an innocent response with his hand, his eyes widening with a touch of anxiety. "Well, we could try to notify local law enforcement to get eyes and a team on the banks. Give them Bolo's of what we have of the Destructix and tell them to approach them with extreme caution." Remington looked up to the row of digital clocks, their numbers in red, over the six main TV monitors of Clip. It read 1624 over the one that indicated Station Square. "ʹCourse, that's not going to get done real fast since shift change is probably happening in Empire, and maybe here as a well, if not, soon."

"And the way things are since the wars," Tower said, "there probably isn't enough man power to handle that request."

"Much less with who they maybe up against," Julie dryly added. "They may not have a chance against them."

For the moment, silence once again filled the Operations Center of Clip.

Rouge had no choice but to step through.

The opened portal from the golden swirl of the large ring held up her fear like the dangling hostage she was. The tug and push from the strong hands of Mori and Lightening had been the forced exhibition of her body being compelled to move.

Stepping through, she felt the instant weird relief from departing the heavy musky dinning room of where her captors had held her, to the cool, yet tempered breeze of the parking garage. The sun was still high, as she suspected, but here was a damp atmosphere that lingered with ozone and car exhaust.

Before her, the van's door snapped open.

Scourge was kneeling at the opened passenger doorway, a wolfish smile on his face, his black leather jacket halfway zipped up, his red sunglasses perched atop his pointed eared head. Nestled between his index finger and thumb like he was brandishing a trophy was her key to the safe deposit box. Feeling the concrete floor come through the shallow heels of her white boots, she tried to dart her eyes to the right, to take stock of her surroundings, to desperately find where they had staged themselves to take her further—

Her heart seized to stone when the welder's goggles were pressed over her eyes. It started beating again when the heavy ear muffs snapped over her head, and made her new reality silent in the new darkness. Then she became weightless when hands picked her up off the ground, her wings pressed up against the bodies of Mori and Lightening to restrain her further before she felt more hands exchanging her stiffened body, forcefully, and slamming her into a padded seat, almost jamming her tail from the force and the unpreparedness of the action. From there, and imprisoned inside the darkness with her pounding, fear engulfed heart, her own arms were forced firmly onto what felt like armrests, becoming restrained to them with what she felt were zip-ties being cinched over her bare forearms.

She felt the engine start. She knew where they were taking her. She could only pray that Knuckles—Shadow—anyone— could find her. The sudden jolt from the acceleration of the van under her seemed to have left her hope behind.

"It's just the hedgehog with the speed ability?"

Shadow felt himself shift from asking the question, turning to Julie-Su with his pensive, seeking eyes.

"No," she answered him. "Lightening can also move almost just as fast as Scourge, or you."

His left eye became swollen with apprehension that he saw Julie had caught.

"What about the rest of this gang?" Brass then asked.

Shadow heard Remington take in a breath. "Simian may or may not be there, depending how low key they are wanting to look. So, if anyone out of them is running the op on the ground, its either Lightening or Scourge." He then sniffed at the air. "Predator hawk or Flying Frog—" He shrugged to Tower. "—I can't remember Frog's actual name—but Predator would be there, maybe flying for their over-watch."

"That could also expose them," Shadow observed. "People here instinctually look up thanks to Eggman and the Black Arms."

And Remington nodded to him. "So it maybe Frog, or Predator, at an obscure vantage point."

"Could they just warp ring in and get what they need?" Saffron asked.

Shadow looked to her from his perch above with Remington and most of Clip. "Maybe. Then we're just chasing ghosts at this point."

"Not necessarily," Tower edged in. "It depends on the bank. If its an old style bank—or at least the practices the bank engages in—the bank manager has a key that must be used at the same time the customer uses theirs. It's a security addition so no one can go in and steal some one's goods if their key happens to get stolen."

"Our banks were the same," Remington pointed out. "Even had passwords that the safe keeping holder had to present for the bank manager to allow the vault to be opened."

"And Rouge would use that," Shadow confirmed. "She had a thing for operational security, especially for herself."

Brass nodded with this. "And I can tell you where she got it from."

"We'll talk about Mike later, Iron," came Tower to Brass. "For right now, I'm going to make some calls and get some camera feeds up, and see if we can monitor the police radio traffic. We may not have a place, or even a time table for when, or if, this crew is going to hit a bank with Rouge possibly in tow" General Tower looked to Remington. "But if your hunch is correct, we can at least, possibly, be there to greet them."

Tower then turned to Shadow, the hedgehog feeling himself stiffen from the firm stare Tower now gave him. "Time to get geared, everyone. Teri—Komi—lets get this Ops Center spun up." He then looked to Brass. "And let's get a plan together."

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