Hello, everyone. Welcome back, and here we are onto Part Three. I had originally intended this project to be a three part act, but seeing how this is turning into a lengthy work, I've decided to place this into a four act novel. It should help the pacing better. The lead up has now come. All I can say is, hold on for the ride as we begin to crest the top of the roller coaster.

Disclaimer: I own nothing of the Sonic franchise or other properties detailed in this novel. This has all been strictly for fun and learning to craft.

Please review and leave a favorite.

Part Three: A Game of Ex-Patriots.

Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: "Whom shall I send, And who will go for Us?" Then I said, "Here am I! Send me."

Isaiah 6:8

14: A Withdrawal of Species and Morals

(Species: A form of hard currency.)

Her reflection stared back at her, both sets of her eyes unseeing at the passing world as her head was leaned up against the Hell Hound's rear passenger window, her black cybernetic eye's red glow being the focal point of her dwelling attention.

What did she mean a gift?

Her inner-question was answered when her father's deep voice resonated from her the very gift Lara-Le had given her—her repressed memories of him from the tyrant that was her half-sister. Her half-brother—his son being the one driving them through the blocks of Station Square.

But it's a good hurt.

Julie tried to blink, even though her eyes were watering between the coming setting sun in front of them, and her heart shuttering from Lara-Le's words, but she was only able to give enough effort to sigh within herself to give her soul some breath. Luger's answer to her, an moment that her heart surrendered to that it in fact had happened, was when she had asked what the sun looked like, now this Time...this Zone's sun hanging lower as the day began its close on this Earth.

She needed Knuckles. She wanted to feel him beside her, having his mittens clasp around her arms, holding her anguished soul at bay, to have his physical warmth wrap around her instead of the torment she was wallowing in. She could even take him nestling up within her soul with his loving warmth inside her armor she always kept up against others...even her friends.

But all she could feel of him was a cold indifference, almost in shock, like he too was starring at himself through the reflection of her own soul, and not finding himself when he had.

Like they had both been betrayed by one another, the confusion of why wrapping itself around them, holding both of them hostage to one another.

"Yes," came Shadow's passive tenor voice, nearly breaking her thoughts. "That's the best picture we have of him right now." He held a pause, his black quills with their red accents visible as he was jostled ever so slightly from the Hell Hound taking its time over the bleached concrete street. Julie hadn't even seen what street they were on. "Yes. We took down four last night. We think there is a connection with what's left of the Jackal Squad."

Breathing in, Julie felt her chest rise with her power armor carrier restricting it some. Her H&K carbine was slung around her, the barrel pointed towards the floor with the fore-grip riding between her legs, away from Saffron, who was sitting next to her. Julie could feel her good friend's eyes on her, possibly seeing her reflection in the window.

"Yes—ah, wait one, Whisper." Shadow's voice rose just enough as he turned his head some. "Turn left in three blocks, Remington."

Remington's own passive voice eased in the black sedan. "Gotcha."

Julie felt them come to a stop, her eyes now tracing the cracks and pitting of the concrete below them with a solid white line separating them and the next lane.

And to her relief, Knuckles finally answered to her.

That's not me. I'd never talk to you like that.

Her own came like a trickle of a whisper. "I know, 'hon."

Shadow's head turned to look to her between the door and his seat. There was a flash of worry...caring from his red eyes. She could see he had one of his ear-pods in his right pointed ear. And apparently Whisper had asked him a question that made him look back out the front windscreen. "Okay. I guess we're even with this..." He trailed off, but then his voice returned as if he was offering a rare smile. "Ah, I guess I should have you go after Jackals more, then, if this doesn't make us even." Another pause before he answered, "Just be careful. Pack your weapon." He then nodded with his quills lifting from the outside his seat. "And give Tangle my best. Good-bye, Whisper. And happy hunting."

His right elbow bent up as his hand retrieved his ear-bud, Julie hearing the clap of the lid closing on the holder a moment later.

The car lurched some, the street moving faster beneath them when Remington applied the accelerator. Still, Julie kept her gaze fixed, though the world around her moved, her eyes not tracking on anything. She caught the reflection again of her purple hue of her right eye. It reminded her of Knuckles' deeper, violet eyes when they would peer into her, looking for answers to his own questions through her. If he was being lied to by those who had supposedly cared for him. If she trusted him. If she truly loved him. And all those questions had been answered with a resounding yes! from her own lips.

I need you to go be the sum of all of those who cared for you...who loved you, came her voice, repeating Lara-Le's words to her.

Strong, phantom hands felt as if they held her at her back. They felt large. Warmth. Giving security in their touch to her. And within a glimpse of her dark cybernetic eye, she found the dark brown hues of her father's, his smile to her from the dream the night before as he held her over her crib, giving her a promise to a future that had now seemingly abandoned her...a future she felt ashamed that she seemed to have surrendered to her nightmares.

But it's a good hurt.

His deep voice was like a spear of hope that only gouged at her heart instead of lifting it.

And Lara-Le's voice echoed back to her, nearly making a tear spill from her cybernetic eye.

Julie...I feel I've gained a daughter that I never had.

She tightened her grip on her weapon, feeling her double barrel blaster trying to crush against her thigh from her body swaying against the door from the ride. But it wasn't from her command. No, she felt her hand being squeezed by another. Straying her eyes down, just the blink she gave almost looked as if her white gloved hands had twin spikes forming from them. Like Knuckles had his hands over hers, giving an affirming clasp to hers, to energize her for the possible fight they were driving towards.

Looking up, a red eye was drawn to her between the front seat and the frame of the car. Shadow...his eyes had again mended her soul once again to become one just through his reassuring, yet, his resigned constance ride with his own passenger. It was like he had breathed in to her soul, resurrecting her warrior spirit that was still very much guided by her Knuckles still living inside her.

Like both Shadow and her Equal had found a common understanding. A common purpose.

They need you at your fullest, babe.

And she nodded to them both.

A rube of small fingers came at her cybernetic elbow, the synthetic nerves coming alive and feeding the feeling of caring and warmth shot to her mind. Looking over, Saffron's eyes were wide with sympathy and asking. Julie nodded her answer, closing her eyes with affection, opening them to a charging stare.

Her inner-comm link chirped with Brass' voice. "Fist to Chaos, any change to the Sit-Rep?"

A moment later, Tower's voice came through her mind. "Stand-by, Fist. We're coordinating with Station Square P-D. You may be getting some help."

"We copy!" came Brass' reply.

The car slowed, Julie now looking to Remington. He looked as almost uncomfortable as she, if not worse. Given that the Hell Hound had been designed to give both Mobians—Islanders, Julie—and humans a car that could be accommodated for both, the space for her, Saffron and Shadow giving them decent leg, arm and tail room, Remington had to have the seat almost completely forward with the peddles at his feet raised, yet he still looked cramped with his body compressed in his plate-carrier, magazine pouches and gear webbing from his over hanging chest rig, along with his battle-belt, his pistol strapped on his left thigh. What seemed to really restrict him was how he had his own H&K 612 placed beside him in the seat next to the center console. He'd propped his weapon upside down, the black, slightly curved energy cell locked in, the square receiver and trigger of his 40mm ultra plasma launcher facing down to the floor with the blasters barrel emitter like a nub under it.

But that wasn't what made his face beam to her with discomfort when he looked to her after the he made the Hound come to a stop at another red light. She could see his eyes were lit with anger, allowing hers to become quizzical to him with a firm expression. But he turned his head away...before he launched it back to her hard, yet, sympathetic visage:

"Y'know, Julie...your Equal—our Guardian—would have beat the fuck out of that Knuckles for saying the shit he did to us!"

Saffron squirmed with his hot comment. "Yeah! He'd would've reduced him to pulp if our Knuckles had been there!"

Remington then shot his seething look to Shadow. "No offense. I know he's fought with you guys...but our's would've never acted like..." He then inhaled as if to calm himself before he asked with a still aggravated tone. "Is he always like that?"

Julie could see Shadow had turned his head to Remington, but couldn't see what expression he gave. Shadow's voice told her how he felt when he spoke with a monotone that seemed he had been ashamed. "Not most of the time. Just when he's flustered about something he can't control or handle."

Julie felt her own Knuckles stir inside her. She felt him glower some, as if the excuse didn't sit well at all with him. She thought to tell everyone in the car what their Knuckles had said to that Knuckles that Lara-Le had brought; the Knuckles still at Clip. Remington's look to her was her release.

"You guys should have heard him," she said with an offensive tone.

Remington kept his eyes to her. "Oh...please, I'd like to hear our Guardian's opinion of him."

She couldn't tell if he'd understood what still possessed her soul, or if he was goading her. But she answered anyways with the same charged voice. "That he wasn't going to let that Knuckles talk to me like that!"

Remington returned his face to the front, cocking to crack his neck from the anger that she was positive they all felt, with Shadow's being questionable. He made the car lurch a little harder this time as the light had turned green for a little longer than he had seen. Or had it been his temper hitting the accelerator pedal? She didn't know, but either way, the old Remington she had saddled up with back at Echidnaolopis had returned to duty as Constable. This time, however, it wasn't against the Dingoes, the Legion, or Eggman.

But still an old enemy, and looking to be aligned with a new one.

Remington turned to Shadow when he got them at speed with traffic. "Does Whisper have all she needs?" he asked.

She saw Shadows' quills turn with his head. "I sent her the picture Julie had uploaded from her memory. I'm having her go search through some of the Jackal Squad's known areas of operations, and old safe houses."

Julie spoke up this time. "Sounds like she's dealt with them before."

Shadow's head turned inside the car towards her, then nodded. "She lost a few friends when she was with the Diamond Cutters between Eggman and the Jackals. Plus, they got betrayed by one of their own."

Remington looked to him, then to Julie, with an understanding tone from his eyes to which she said, "I'd say we have something already in common." Dr. Finitevus' face came to her mind. Then, Lien-Da's.

Saffron leaned forward in her seat. She seemed to be the only member comfortably strapped in the Hell Hound with barely any gear strapped to her. Julie kept smirking every time she saw the hilt of Saffron's small pistol strapped in its holster around her chest and electronics gear package. "I hope she's careful, especially if she finds Mogul," said Saffron.

Shadow nodded. "She's good with her trade craft. Damn good sniper...very patient."

Remington gave an worried sigh. "I just hope she can get to Mogul for us and fast."

But Shadow gave a murmured sigh to this.

"I'm afraid that the Jackal Squad might have already gotten to him...if it's the same Phantom Ruby he brought with him that Infinite had before I killed him."

Remington only looked on before he directed his attention back to the street before them, giving Shadow a single nod. Saffron just sat in her seat looking out before looking to Julie. Then both exchanged worried looks. But at the moment, they needed to focus on the here-and-now, both thinking that the Destructix were possibly on their way to get the very ruby that Shadow had just spoken of.

Remington flipped his left turn indicator on, sliding the car in to the left turn lane. Julie sighed with it, feeling her trained Legionnaire self awaken once more. Yet, there was a primal charge that mated with it. One in which she felt the love and familiarity of...Knuckles. It felt as if he was sitting with her, grabbing what had been her natural left arm, to give her that squeeze, that tug, that she wasn't alone—nor he—in the fight.

She turned her head back to her window, seeing her reflection beam back to her with the surging fortitude in her eyes this time. It became more transparent when a taller, black SUV pulled beside them at the white intersection stop line.

And it took her back to last night. Her dreadlocks and hair became sore from when she was pulled down by the jackal that Shadow killed with his chaos burst of energy from his hand to the jackal's back. The same one she had almost shot in the head when she was on her back. Or the Jackal she shot square in the chest that was marching up to kill her when she was slammed to the ground.

Her memory then flashed when she and Shadow were clearing the long dark hallway to the outside, Shadow taking point with his 1911 out, her covering their rear and sides. Then to Central City's night life in the streets from the club, her eyes searching, her cybernetic left eye flicking between her natural vision to thermal, zooming it in and out...looking for the Islander with the black furred tuft ears. Lynx—Lightening. Her mind tried to search through her memory, seeing if she had caught even a glimpse of him.

But she could only remember the black SUV from that night, the white skinned hand of human woman only visible as it closed the door was the only thought that had been birthed from looking up to Brass in the black SUV beside them.

She caught his worried stare too...feeling it was because of her.

Rykor kept his eyes looking out the windshield as best as he could from his low, yet spacious confine of the passenger seat. He could see over the front dash and passenger door enough that if he saw a threat, he could engage it with is own H&K 612 carbine slung between his legs that barely hung over the edge of the seat. The only thing annoying him at that instant, however, was Brass' worried gaze down to what he knew was the Hell Hound, and the beeping chime that indicated he, nor Brass, had their safety belts on. His heart beat ticked up once more, this time from the weight of the silent question Brass had scribbled across his face that Rykor was also asking himself.

What did Lara tell her that could have waited?

But his own answer came to him when a surge of anger blossomed from how Knuckles brandished his arrogance in front of everyone trying to find a girl. Just the thought elevated his heart rate more, finding himself questioning the plan ahead past the red-light of how he and Brass were going to approach and lay wait for the Destructix to initiate their plan. And that point racked up his foreboding anxiety more as whatever they called a plan his team had cobbled together wasn't much of one.

Brass turned his head to him, the light still red, but his lips forming a dry smirk.

"You know, I feel I need to put you in the back in a booster seat. You're so short, it's like you're a kid."

Rykor kept his even stare out through the window, but he raised his left hand and produced his tan-gloved middle finger to Brass.

He gained a heavy chuckle from the Lt. Colonel, pressing on the gas as the light turned green. "It's comforting that 'fuck you' is a term of endearment to all service members, no matter what country or branch they serve."

This gave Rykor a reason to release his doubts and frustrations, and give a laugh to Brass. "Just don't put me in time out or some shit."

Brass returned his gaze back over to the Hell Hound, his own laughter fading from it. Then, traffic started moving, and he pressed the accelerator, and the SUV pressed on with a lurch. "How's your tummy, there, Bruiser?"

His tummy felt as if it were being pressed against itself while spinning from the inside no thanks to the plate carrier, sandwiching him tightly against his black GUN shirt and burgundy furred-body. He had his dreads scattered over his shoulders to keep them from restricting his head movements from being caught between his back and the SUV's seat, minus the lone severed dreadlock at the back of his head. Looking over to Brass, and seeing Remington make the left turn on the street they were now crossing, he felt his stomach knot up some, but it wasn't from the ulcer.

"Better," he replied, keeping his voice light. Focused. "Thanks for that."

"Anytime, brother," Brass said, Rykor catching him look over his shoulder as the Hell Hound disappeared from around the brick building they passed on the corner of the street. "Like I said, I'm surprised the rest of you don't have ulcers, or something worse."

As did he. There was a comfort riding with him. Part of it was Brass; the human had been very open despite his hardwood of a front and demeanor. It was something that Rykor responded to quickly when they landed in Empire City, Remington taking the lead, as he had when Finitevus had christened him by manipulation from Eggman's Egg-Grapes to be the Grandmaster of the Frost Legion, and Rykor taking to Remington's side as the non-commissioned officer—like he had also been hexed to do thanks to the Albino echidna. It was that uncompromising demeanor that attracted him to Brass the most from the U.F. delegates that met them upon landing at Naval Station Sullivan. He felt their were brothers on that plain of professionalism that felt it extended beyond that. Like two patriots from two differing countries and societies that had a mutual respect and understanding of who they had become because of the cause they took in protecting their people and their way of life. But in Rykor's capricious circumstance, and really what was left of their kind, Brass' cause in the patriot game had become his. After all, their path for survival had been offered to them by those not wanting to take advantage of them, but offering of help. It had been a welcomed surprise for them.

But Rykor's biggest surprise came a week later when Hugo Brass presented him captain's bars. He still hadn't gotten used to being an officer. Brass, at the moment, was his best example to follow; he liked that the Lt. Colonel didn't have that polished, high brow demeanor. He possessed that knuckle dragging leadership that Rykor was all to familiar with.

"Is Captain Su alright?" Brass asked, making the reason for Rykor's knot in his stomach twist tighter.

He had braced himself for the question as they neared the next intersection. It felt like he was asked to betray his tribe, but he knew that feeling was nothing more than an imposter to the allegiance to his current charge. This was his tribe. A new family as he saw it. And one he felt he was creating...and one he felt he had been keeping a girl from.

He opened his mouth to answer, but he stopped himself when his mind wanted to blurt out the one thing on his mind:

What did Lara-Le say to her that upset her?

When he had Climbed into the SUV he was now riding in before they left Clip, he could see the streaks of tears that had fallen from Julie's eyes. He had also noticed that Shadow was close to her...like the hedgehog was guiding her back from something.

"Yeah," he answered with a dry confidence.

But Brass seemed to glance at him with a skeptical query. "You sure? She seems flustered. Almost angry?"

Rykor couldn't help himself when he answered with hesitant bite in his tone. "Well, your Knuckles needed to stay in his fucking lane."

But Brass' counter was even. "Hey, you kept Julie in hers." He sighed as if he had instantly regretted on treading where he just did. Rykor had been ready for it, knowing that his reprimand to the former private he had trained had not gone unnoticed. "Does she and Rouge have a history from your time?"

He gave a reluctant nod, but turned to him. "She'll do her job."

"You sure with that? We really don't need an operator going in when her head is somewhere else."

Rykor still gave him a nod. "She does her best under pressure with her temper fired up." He looked to Brass, and gave a confident smirk. "There's a reason why I call her Tempest—"

"Along with Private," Brass added with his own smirk. "I guess you trained her?"

Again, Rykor nodded, but with a more satisfying face. "I was her training Sergeant for her post-augmentation evolution in training." He saw Brass give him a quizzical eye. "After we Legionnaire get our first cybernetics wired into us, we go through our basic military indoctrination course after we've spent a year getting used to our new augmentations and codings." Rykor gave a broad sneer of a smile from the memory of the rose pink-furred echidna standing with confidence, but he could still see her foreboding nervousness under her fur. "And that was where she met me."

"How much of an asshole where you?"

Rykor's face grew tighter with his smile. "Total." Then, a memory flooded back to him. One with pain, and blood, and Julie's young violet eyes looking down at him with panic. "And she saved me because of it."

Brass strayed an eye from the street to him. "You have my attention."

Rykor's voice came out gingerly, his past memory clouding his voice. "I was assisting with a patrol unit learning to set an explosive device to trigger an ambush against one of the alien races we frequently targeted to get supplies from. I had Su's class in tow to watch and observe." He swallowed, more so to chase the phantom pain that crawled up his back and touch his severed dreadlock that he still had the white cap over to shield his old wound. "I'm not sure how the explosive was touched off—I wonder if one of the young Legionaries had accidently triggered it from still not being used to their augmentations—but I got blown forward when me and the patrol unit walked back. I was still conscious when I hit the ground on the Zone pedestal we lived on, and in so much pain that I couldn't trigger the nerve-dampener in my systems to cease it."

"How bad?" Brass asked.

Rykor turned his head to the right, showing the white covering over his dreadlock. "I almost bled out from my open spin, plus the fragmentation lodged in my back. Julie-Su was the first to me—the rest of her class was in shock from the explosion and seeing the patrol I was assisting nearly all getting killed. But..." He smiled with the thought that came. "Su pulled up her Legion robe and got out her aid kit–" He looked to Brass, feeling his own IFAK being more of a lumbar support as it pushed at the small of his back from it secured at his belt. "—individual first aid kit as you call it—and she began placing compression bandages on my wounds. Hell, she even pulled some of the hot fragments out of my back to place more bandages on me." He could still feel her young hands pressing on his back and dreads to this day. "From there, she had to shout at the others her class in order to break their shock to give them orders, plus activated her internal-comms and got the word out how bad things were."

Brass stared out the windshield for a moment as they passed through the next intersection and block. "Sounds like she's a born leader."

And Rykor could only nod to him, holding back not only who Julie's father was, wondering if Brass was either read up on the family feud between the two Guardian houses, or to Rykor, the secret he had been keeping from Julie since she found the now exiled echidnas' return to the Twilight Cage—all of them that go around.

"I noticed you don't have all that hardware that Captain Su has, yet, you were with the Legion."

It seemed he wasn't going to escape his past with Brass' questions. But he forbade himself to lie to the man who he felt a close kindred with their chosen profession. "Julie's Equal—Knuckles—got his mind twisted like me and Remington."

"I'm aware...from the same guy we think is behind Rouge's kidnaping."

Rykor nodded. "Well, when our Knuckles was Enerjak, he began to right the wrongs as he perceived...and in do so, he undid—removed our augmentations."

And with it, my memory inhibitor, he confessed to himself. He felt the pang of guilt seep from the knot in his stomach.

"How was that adjustment?" Brass asked next, his tone with mild shock.

"Honestly," Rykor began, steeping his thoughts, "liberating." He saw Brass stray his eyes once more to him, his face mute with understanding. "Like I was reborn and vulnerable, but free from the codes...like my soul was actually mine."

Yet, he felt Teri-Lu's nestled inside his—as his was to hers. Something that they both knew but were their keeping Soultouch from others...scared to hurt Julie that they were complete, and she was still a drift with hers.

What did Lara tell her—

A light turned red, and Brass stopped the SUV with four cars between them and the intersection. Brass flipped the blinker to indicate a left turn.

And Rykor's heart turned to the left inside him. When do I tell Julie about her father? Her mother?

He had told Lara-Le when he felt sure that his memories were in fact his and not a manifestation of his inhibited unconsciousness bleeding from the wound Enerjak had ripped wide open.

Tower's voice interrupted his thoughts through his ear piece.

"Iron-Fist—Chaos."

Brass shot his left hand up to the his intercom button wired between his radio and his own ear-piece, and pressed the talk button. "Go for Iron."

"Stand-by for a possible redirect."

Rykor turned his head and found Brass looking at him, both sharing their apprehension to one another.

"I hate in-flight rigging, Bruiser."

"Sir, a silent alarm just went off at Regions Trust on the south side of town." Teri-Lu's steadfast voice gave Lara-Le a tide of energy with an undercurrent of dread. Lara could see Teri was back in her E.S.T. fur and skin under her blue long sleeve blouse and black pants, her headset being the missing piece she had reclaimed as she spoke in it. "Sir, they're dispatching two units from the south precinct to check it out."

"I copy, Teri," Tower acknowledged with a cool tone. "Komi––Teri, keep your ears to Station Square's dispatch call center and keep relaying it up."

"You sure it's going down here?" Teri asked with a matching coolness.

Lara caught Tower's nod from the corner of her eye. He then went back to the phone receiver that had been resting on his shoulder. Looking down to Lara, he gave a stiff frown from over his grey mustache before speaking into the black phone. "Chief, we're sure it may be a diversion," he stated. Lara's heart waited with the silence as she could hardly hear the other party on the other end. Tower cocked his head an inch before saying, "I copy, sir. How fast do you think you'll have your Special Response Team spun up?" Another pause, another tightening of Lara's throat. "Forty-five minutes? I guess not bad for short notice and shift change."

Lara glanced back to the TV monitors on the wall of Clip. It reminded her the few times she had been to Haven where the Brotherhood—with her former and now deceased husband—watched over Angel Island from their network of cameras. Now, she was seeing the inside of Station Square's banking institutions as they began to close on a Thursday. Thus far, nothing seemed amiss.

"Yes, two teams. We've narrowed down to two possible targets: First Federation Bank, and Empire Central Credit Union."

Lara waited again, scanning her eyes behind her to see Knuckles standing, holding up the rear wall with his back, his arms tightly crossed, along with his face. What dreams she had that he would be her son vanished with the bitter anger he and Julie had thrown to one another...a fight Lara knew would have never happened between them.

Because he isn't your son...

Knuckles shifted in his stance, one that was alien to Lara that her son would've found uncomfortable in his being. It had taken much of her strength to calm him down when he found out Rouge had been taken. What she had left seemed to be vying to keep him from doing anything rash, and keeping herself from giving out orders she had adapted well in doing since...Enerjak.

"I copy," Tower announced with a brighter voice. "Teri will be piped in to your comms." Another pause. "Roger, we'll have you in our pocket. I'm trying to get a Q-R-F spun up from Amanda..." Lara could feel Tower hold his breath. "No joy. I do have a team heading out to those possible target locations. Your officers should be coordinating with a Lieutenant Colonel Brass, and a Major Remington, along with Shadow..." A pause before he confirmed, "yes, that one."

Lara could still see Shadow's red eyes look to Julie. It haunted her for reasons she hadn't fully embraced. Perhaps a shared understanding between them? After all, it was Lara-le that had recommended to Tower that Julie be paired with Shadow. She knew Julie had been around their Shadow back on Mobius, and from how Blaze and Silver described how this Earth had some parallels with their Mobius, Lara had hoped Julie would find a way to release her pain...to let go of their Knuckles.

But she's still soul-touched...

Her own heart clutched against her chest from the echoed pain of Locke's touch leaving hers. If it hadn't been for Wyn, she would have fallen and not recovered between finding Albion destroyed, and Locke giving his all to save their son.

Maybe it was merciful that the nineteen year-old girl hadn't felt the agony of Knuckles' touch leaving her? Or is it a curse?

"We'll keep in touch, and be safe," Tower said before hanging up the one phone on the large table as she shook herself to return. He then looked down to the work stations of Teri and Komi. "Alright, ladies, you'll be in direct contact with Station, so Teri, you will be talking directly, now, with their dispatch. Komi, you'll be patched into their Command Center when they get it spun up."

"What will I be doing?" Komi asked, pulling her top draw out on the right side of her desk and retrieving her own head set.

"Coordinating Sigma's movements with them, and theirs to us. Just need you to relay information."

"Why don't we share our frequencies to the P-Ds?" Teri asked with a matter-of-fact tone.

Tower gave a smirk before he gave a frown. "We are running a secure encryption with our comms thanks to Julie being plugged in." He strayed an eye to Lara. "It's for her neuro-safety.

For a moment, Lara-Le and Tower held their eyes to one another before Lara let her voice enter into the room since she asked if she could sit to where she was now. "Is there anything we can do to help, General?"

Tower broke off his gaze to her and scanned around the room. He laid eyes to her lone ex-Legionnaire trooper that was part of hers and Knuckles' security detail. Something the Guardian of this Earth was still getting used to. "You...you're former Legion?"

"Yes, sir!" replied the echidna with the two cybernetic dreadlocks down on either of his shoulders, his Mark 48 blaster rifle slung at his back.

Tower leaned down over the table, picked up a pen and started writing on a notepad by the three large, olive drab colored radio sets. They nearly obscured Lara's view of the television monitors, and almost obscured her view to Komi and Teri.

Ripping the paper off, he held it out for the male echidna to take. "This is Captain Su's log-in. Her station is right down there–" Tower nodded his head over to indicated Julie's desk. "—Log in, and see if you can connect and do the handshake with your augmentations."

"And then?" said the ex-Legionnaire, stepping up to grab the paper.

"Just stand-by in case I need you to patch into security cameras." He gave the paper to the echidna. "What's your name, trooper?"

"Sergeant Bren, sir."

"Well, Sergeant Bren—you've just been drafted to hurry up and wait."

Bren gave a nod and said, "Yes sir," before moving down to Julie's computer and after a moment, shook the mouse to wake it up, then sat in her chair, and began typing, and searching for cables to connect one of his dreads to it—

"Sir!" came Komi-Ko's panic voice. "You seeing this?"

Lara looked up to six television monitors...and saw three black boxes on the left upper two monitors had turned to black with a text reading NO SIGNAL.

For a moment, their was silence before Teri's voice broke it with a panicked tone of her own. "Sir! There is a panic alarm going off at Rouge's Casino—Station is sending four units there!" Teri tapped the ear piece on her headset. "Code three!"

"I thought they closed the casino?" Komi said.

"They did," Tower replied dryly. "Komi, those three cameras that we just lost. Where were they looking?"

For a moment, Remington's dear wife looked to a piece of paper on her desk. Lara was able to see her go down a written list before she found herself standing up. "Um...all three were looking inside First Federation Bank on Fourth Avenue."

It might have been a second, but the beat of time seemed longer before Tower picked up the green transceiver hand-key and pressed the transmit button on the side. It looked just like the phone receiver, but he didn't place it up to his ear, but spoke directly into it.

"Iron...redirect to First Federation on Fourth. We just lost eyes inside it."

Scourge kept his hand under Rouge's right bicep just enough that they looked like an energetic couple hurrying to the bank before it closed.

Checking over his shoulder and between the corner of his eye and the space between his red sunglasses, he noted her wings were relaxed and folded. Her eyes, on the other hand, were fixed and terrified under the cheap designer sunglasses Frog had picked out at some outfit store. So far, their movement from the black stolen executive van, where they thankfully left Mori, hadn't jostled the black scarf from slipping away and revealing the silver necklace bomb that still worried him. Not that he would be collateral damage if it went off, but more so that he wouldn't have his fun with her that Mori had promised him. He never had that chance with the other Rouge's—including the lack luster version he had on Moebius.

And the one on Mobius had been a woman close to his own heart.

But Fiona won it first.

The thought tightened his grip onto Rouge's arm, trying to quicken their pace before the bank started shutting its doors. They had come up Third Avenue's side into an open courtyard that was a depression in part of the city block; concrete steps gave it a half-moon shape that was at least seventy-five yards in breath. Large planters almost as tall as he were staggered in three rows that became less in number and size the further East he looked to his left, park benches pressed up against them with people taking them for a rest or chatting on their phones. With the sun blocked from the tall monoliths of Station Square, he almost didn't need his red-rimmed sunglasses. For a moment, he looked around to see if anyone had noticed them...particularly the kidnaped bat who was starting to give some resistance to his grip. He pushed her forward, there steps becoming more audible.

Rounding a large planter with two poor excuses for trees sticking high from them, their branches thin with leaves from the cool spring late afternoon, the bronze gleam of the facade of the First Federation Bank appeared in front of them. Ten paces later, and checking over his shoulder one last time, seeing no one had taken a care to them, he smirked as his green furred hand reached for the large wooden block to pull the right side double door open.

"After you," he teased, receiving in turn a cocked head and a tempered sneer from Rouge's eye brows and lips. His response was a push of his hand, tightening his grip to let her know he was very much large and in charge of her.

Scourge was torn between wanting their primary plan to work, or to go full bore with the alternate. The primary plan would give him Rouge for a lot longer, before he handed her back to Mori. It would also get them much closer to Regina's plan...and to end the deal with the techno-witch to free Fiona from this Metalvirus that had her placed in a coma.

And in that instant as he stopped with Rouge no more than the five paces inside the bank they walked into, the ceiling to the bank opened to the second story with two large crystal chandeliers, Scourge felt his heart ache for the red-furred fox's actual affection to him. A feeling that made him look to Rouge, wondering if he would just give her to Mori and dispense with his lustful thoughts and return to the only girl that actually cared for him. The one girl that helped get him out of prison.

Bye, you fucking Zone Cops!

He forced his predator eyes to return, hunting for an easy target to in order to summon the attention of the bank manager. To his right was a security guard that Mori had said was only paid to be visible, and nothing else. His light blue uniform shirt and dark pants with a grey stripe running up the leg made that evident. The aged human wearing it, looking as if he was ready for some game night with his friends added to it.

And he wasn't armed.

"I see why you chose this bank," he said to Rouge with a dry voice. "I hope you remember your little password."

"And all I have to do is scream—"

Scourge brought his face close to hers, breathing almost down her well formed neck, reaching into to his inside jacket pocket with his right hand to find the detonator hiding in it. His thumb stroked the top of the safety cap. "And I'll be five steps out the door and far enough away that I won't get caught when your head explodes over that sexy body of yours." Rouge gave a lowered brow to him, her lips tight, holding in her anger and rage. "I'm glad we have an understanding."

His right ear chirped with Lightening's voice from the small ear-piece. "All looks good. No heat towards us."

"Except the bitch beside me," Scourge remarked with a crude mirth.

He heard Lightening give a scoff, Rouge fighting another sneer at him.

Giving a smile, he felt it widen when he spied a female mouse, her fur, grey, her dress a dark blue, her hair nearly black, eyeing the time on the large clock at the far end of the bank. Quitting time was approaching, and the girl seemed naive enough for his needs.

Taking Rouge's hand with his arm wrapped inside hers still, he gave a slight push to make her walk forward to the middle booth towards the teller.

Saffron stuck her brown boot out to brace her from going head-first into the back of Remington's seat. The former Constable gave the obligatory long honk of the horn before the Hell Hound settled back on its suspension from the hard stop. Julie nearly looked to cuss out the driver in the yellow hatchback who decided the yellow light wasn't the go-faster warning, and instead decided to stop short before the red light.

"Do all these Earthian's drive like this?" Julie instead said tersely.

"Earthlings," Shadow corrected with his own scoff. "And I've passed worse."

Saffron witnessed the glimmer of a smile come to Julie from Shadow's remark.

Brass' voice sounded through the sonic-wave clip attached to her right antenna, her talk piece a sturdy necklace that pressed against her throat as the mic. "We copy, Chaos. Shadow, we are coming to you. What's your Pos?"

Saffron watched as Shadow took his left hand and pressed his mic button at the front of his belt for his radio. She quickly reached up and turned the volume on her talk switch down. There was still a slight echo coupled with his flat tenor voice. "Stopped at Tenth and Figueroa."

"Okay, we just turned on ninth to run down to you," Brass said, his heavy voice almost reverberating through her small frame from the radio link.

"Hey, Saffron," Julie called to her. Saffron looked over, finding the pink furred echidna holding her tablet and expanding what she could see as the satellite view of the open block. She pointed to a row of buildings at the right edge of the screen. "They look connected. You think you can get a good view from up there."

Saffron studied it more, seeing that 4th Avenue was a slender one way street that opened up to a four way at the intersection to the south on the bottom of the screen. On the east side of the street was a wide sidewalk, but the west side had a wider side walk that ended into a large open courtyard with three rows of large planters and park benches against them. To the north was a large building that marked the end of the block on the other side of street reading Well Street. Between the row of buildings—and the First Federation Bank—was a funnel from the pavilion that lead to the back end of the buildings and to 3rd Avenue.

"I think so. But that courtyard opening looks odd," she said.

Julie looked to it then frowned. "Yeah, that's a defilade point that goes down to the bank. Think we can catch them there where they may have to fight up hill?" she asked, looking over to Remington.

Saffron could barely see the former Constable shrug his shoulders, but Shadow leaned over and offered his hand for the tablet. Julie passed it to him; the hedgehog studied it, then nodded. "Yeah. We just need to block the rear exit to Third avenue somehow."

Remington piped in. "See if we can get Station Square to help on that end. Maybe want to have someone to block traffic in and start getting people out."

"That may spook them before we can get into a good position to ambush them," Shadow observed.

"And they may have an over-watch on the back end to warn them," added Julie.

Remington was about to throw his hands up but the light turned green, but the car in front hesitated before it moved. "Well, we need to do something to try and limit the exposure of civilians."

Julie looked at the tablet still in Shadow's hand then tilted her head towards her cybernetic lock. "Okay, lower your radio volumes." Saffron made sure hers was still down, Shadow grabbing his and turning it down. When Julie spoke, Saffron could hear just a small ounce of her voice through her antenna. "Iron—Tempest."

A quick second before Brass' voice came through faintly. "Go for Iron."

"Sir, come down and hook right on to Well Street. Approach from the North, and we'll come from the South. We can set a hasty L-Shape around the courtyard depression. We may get the high ground over them."

"And if they fight?" Brass countered.

"There isn't much cover at the top of the stairs," Shadow pointed out, announcing it his radio.

"The bottom does. We just may have to beat them to it," Julie said over the air.

Then Tower's voice came over. "You'll have to choke up on them at the bottom if you can. But if they break contact, they will be going through a choke point out to Third Street, or Well."

"We can funnel our fire down there," Rykor said over the air.

Then Shadow pipped into the conversation. "Except we don't know how many tangos we're going up against, how many civilians, and we still have that hedgehog and lynx that can run fast to deal with."

Remington came to a stop at a red light, along with the conversation for a spell. Eyes darted around the car, Remington looking through the rear view mirror to Saffron. She then spoke up.

"If I can get eyes on, I maybe able to point them out, but those tress in the pavilion area are going to be a little hard to spot them."

"Not to mention they may have eyes as well," Julie noted, reminding Saffron of the danger of Predator Hawk, or Flying Frog may be there. She then looked to Shadow. "What's your observations? You live here...we'd just arrived."

Shadow let his face go mute before curling his lips and biting at his lower lip. "I don't know. We're going up against a team that has a plan, and we are just reacting to it."

Saffron gave him a smile. "Gee, you'd fit right in with us."

What expression Shadow had, which wasn't much, disappeared under a silent glower. But he released it, then nodded to Julie. "Let's try your plan."

Julie bowed her head, then looked to Remington. "Rem, sounds good?"

The light turned green, him nearly slamming on the accelerator. The Hell Hound's hydrogen powered super-charged V-8 barked, but never roared as it sped past Eight avenue. "Yeah," he said with a determined tone. "Let's set up an L-Shape on that courtyard. Saffron?" he called out.

She sat up in her seat to lock eyes with him in the rear view mirror. "Yeah, Rem."

"We're going to depend on you for the over-watch, again."

She smiled, wishing her Charmy was her to see her. To be on her right wing like they had when they fought Robotnic on Mobius. "Can do, Constable."

Shadow nodded, then pressed his radio talk button at his belt. "Shadow—Iron...hook right onto Well Street, find a place to park before Fifth and go proceed on foot."

Saffron heard Julie's internal mic click on from her cybernetics. "Sir, I suggest me and Shadow be the lower hook to the L-Shape. Let you, Constable and Bruiser be the base of fire on the east side?"

Brass' voice clicked on after a moment. "Sounds good to me. I've got a feeling we'll beat you guys there thanks to this traffic."

Remington looked down at the LCD monitor at the center console of the Hell Hound and started pressing through the options. "I thought this car has party lights?"

Shadow looked to him with a confused expression. "Party what?"

"Party lights? You know, lights and sirens? To get people out of our way to get through traffic?"

Shadow gave a moment thought, his face almost offering a smirk to Remington. He then touched through the screen and found the emergency light options and pressed an icon. Flashes of blue and red faintly reflected off the back window, the popping of the relay switches audible next to the back of Saffron's head.

"Yeah, just no sirens," Shadow said.

Remington pressed a horn looking icon on the screen, and found another icon and pressed. Jamming his fist at the horn, it gave a loud burp noise instead of the trumpet he gave the yellow car two blocks back. "This work?"

Shadow only nodded before Remington pulled out into the open oncoming lane, and pressed forward.

Dawn Schmidt wasn't having the best day at her job as a teller at the First Federation Bank, but in fifteen minutes she hoped that would change when Mister Broden started locking down the bathrooms, then announce to the guard to lock the doors and only let the last customers finish their business before he let them out to close out the day.

Her morning had started with coffee being spilled on her white blouse shirt and dripping down her black skirt when her fingers didn't get a solid grip on her coffee mug before she left her apartment. Twenty minuets later, and with a small temper tantrum at herself, she had slipped into her dark blue dress she reserved for dinner dates with her friends, and aspiring male companions if they weren't turned off by her shy nature. Five minutes late to her post as the middle teller, yet thankful Mister Broden understood that calamities do happen even if it wasn't a Monday; and, she had to deal with doing hand-counts of U.F. credit cash to customers who had been locked out from an outage with the debit card system. To her comfort and lessening her anxiety, Mister Broden had smiled at her, and laughed with a twinkle in his eye, "Hey, now you know what it was like some two-hundred years ago to do actual counting and banking."

To be honest with herself—and this being her first bank job that she felt she got by a slim margin due to her shyness almost casting her out of the running—Dawn couldn't have asked for a better bank manger from all the horror stories she had heard from her time at Empire University. Eight months out of college on a full ride scholarship playing bowling, and striking it well there, life seemed to slow from the hustle of learning and practicing to nail the dreaded seven-ten split at the lanes. She still played, though now out of luxury rather than competition. Life and earning an income was her new play.

Dawn thought of service after college, to do her part for the U.F. After all, they took her and many like her when Eggman started his rein of tyranny on the Islanders, his fingers touching her home in Green Hill...a home that now was almost a continent away.

Where she lost her innocence, and like so many like her...her parents.

If anything, she should sign up to help the Restoration, to help Amy Rose and Jewel. Her degree lay in finance and accounting, an easy field where she can be in an office, to let her introvert self thrive, and give back by balancing sheets, and spending other people's money for a good cause. But she needed to start somewhere...and Mister Broden had given that chance.

Pay your dues, I guess—

"Hi, there," came a voice that intruded her thoughts. It sounded oddly familiar, and became more so when her blue eyes laid on a green hedgehog wearing a black leather jacket that was open to two large scars that looked like gashes from being cut by something sharp and broad. "Can, I help you, sir?" she asked with her offered professional smile. It faded when she gave the slightest glance to a figure she knew well from the television, and the ongoing search for. Her neck was wrapped in a black silk scarf, the ends hanging down to obscure her broad chest and cleavage, and the pink heart of her black outfit. A broad brim hat obscured most of her white fur ears, along with the sunglasses obscuring her eyes. What frightened Dawn wasn't that she couldn't see the bat's eyes under her sunglasses, or her expressionless lips, but it had been her posture that sagged some, and not from a feminine slouch, but of a tired weight and exhaustion. And fear.

Ques she had been shown and trained to look for when she went through her two week orientation to be a bank teller.

She saw the hedgehog's hand go to the small of the bat's back and give the woman a slight nudge. For a moment there was silence, with Dawn's smile waning to stay as one.

"Yes..." came the woman, her voice timid, her wings sagging low at her back. Her lips seemed to never form a shape when she spoke. "I need...to retrieve an item in my safe deposit box, please."

Was she sure it was the same woman that was kidnaped last night?

Bat. Outfit.

"Um," she stammered, feeling her shyness and discerning confusion gripping her. "Are you okay—"

"Hey, you look cute," came the green hedgehog, his smile more of a grin, his eyes coming over his red rimmed sunglasses when he dipped his chin down. "Would you like a role in a movie?"

His voice had an air of invitation...disarming. She swore she had heard it before, but from the television or other media, not close up as now. Like she had been expecting him to have a cobalt fur color and not a dark emerald. "A movie?" she questioned, holding the same disarming voice as he.

The hedgehog turned to the girl to his left and gave a knowing smile. "Why, yeah. You're looking at the new starlet of her own movie—Rouge the Bat."

Dawn blinked from this, shock now coursing through her that livened her anxiety more. She wanted to look to her right, to find Mr. Broden, to search out the balding, portly caucasian man in the three piece black suit with his white shirt, finding her right foot begin to inch toward the foot-pedal that would trip the silent panic alarm.

"Um, that can't be...she was kid—"

"Oh!" festered the green hedgehog, "you believe everything those reporters and what Smilebook say?"

She turned her head back to him. "Excuse me?"

He leaned on the wooden counter with his right arm, wishing there had been a partition separating them more. "It was a movie shoot that those carrion eaters and paparazzi fell for as a real thing." He stopped and turned his head to Rouge. She was still holding an expressionless face, but Dawn saw her body slouch some...like her time was either being wasted.

Or she was uncomfortable, altogether.

Dawn's foot settled on top of the panic alarm—

"May I be of service?" came Mr. Broden's friendly voice from behind her. Looking up and over her right shoulder, she felt her tail relax, never noticing it had stiffened the whole time, her round grey ears doing the same.

"Mister Broden...Rouge is wanting to access her safety deposit box," she said with a distilled voice. Straying her eyes behind her, she saw her bank manager's face sharply turn from professional to a subtle alarm.

"I'm—" the man's voice had a quizzical degree to it. "—surprised to see you safe, Miss Baton." Silence lived for a second between the four. "The news said something that your abduction had been a scheme, or something—"

Dawn followed Rouge's head when the bat looked to the green hedgehog, her eyes obscured from her sunglasses. Still, Dawn's foot lay on the panic alarm, waiting to press it fully—

"A scheme?" Rouge said almost with a murmur.

The hedgehog nearly flew his hands up. "Damn it. Some one from the film crew even leaked the script!" He let his smile leave, but he seemed to place his best professional mannerisms out front. "Like I was telling this cute girl—" he darted his attention to her with a friendly smile. "—which we do have a small part for a cute girl like you for—" He turned his attention back to Mr. Broden. "But we are shooting a movie with Miss Rouge here as the main star." He cocked his head. "I'm the main producer." He then looked to Rouge, her face still turned to him, Dawn noticing her lips fighting to give him a sneer. "And we need something she wants to use as a prop for the movie."

"We—" Dawn heard the hesitation from Mr. Broden as he seemed to also be fighting with discerning if they were being sincere, or if Rouge was under some sort of duress. "We can do that." He then looked to Rouge. "Do you have your safe deposit key, Miss Baton."

Dawn saw the movement from the hedgehog's left hand to Rouge's hand; like he had squeezed it, but not for comfort. For moment, Rouge looked to her producer, and lifted her hand up, producing the gold-plated key in her gloved hand. "It's just Miss Bat, sir."

George Broden, the human that Dawn looked up to as almost a father figure turned to his watch on his right wrist, then looked up to the large clock embedded on the far wooden wall from them, then tilted his head with a worried look. "Well, I guess you came in just in time. If you will accompany me to the vault, I can assist you."

Dawn looked to the clock as well, noticing that the whole affair had only eaten five minutes. It felt as if a long hour had slithered by.

She followed Mr. Broden with her head and eyes as he walked towards the swinging wooden door from the teller area, watching him closely the whole time. Rouge and the green hedgehog walked away as well, falling in behind the short human, but not before George had turned to Dawn from the few meter distance he took, gave her a worried, stern eye to her, and pressed his finger on his round nose.

And with the cue she was hoping for, she stood on the panic alarm with her black shoe.

Tower felt dread pile up over him when he witnessed Teri-Lu place her finger up to her headset and pressed the ear piece. She then turned behind her to him. "Sir, dispatch said a panic alarm just went off at First International Bank."

He tightened his jaw. "Well, this crew doesn't have all the electronics blocked." He looked to the blank squares on the screens. "Just our eyes." He then looked to Komi, saw her own posture tensing the further the situation was unfolding, wondering if having her in her position while her husband was going into harm's way had been a mistake. "Komi, anything on live feeds from outside the bank."

She shook her head, looking up to him. "No, sir."

He felt his back was straining as he was standing, hunched over the comms desk, giving Lara-Le a side glance, seeing her muted, pensive expression, though tense as well. He picked up a hand-set for the middle radio that was land-lined into Cheyenne Mountain. "Commander Topaz, anything on your end to get eyes on that street?"

The response from her static filled voice was almost instant from the speaker. "No, General. We're trying to tap into Station's CCTV feeds, but they are also down."

Bren, the former Legionnaire echidna piped up from Julie's station. "I'm getting the same from businesses that I can find access to, sir."

Which meant there was a sophisticated counter-measure in play, but it hadn't stopped the panic alarm. Tower could only guess that the panic alarm had been an analog, point-to-point wire circuit that hadn't been upgraded to digital. At any rate, it had given them full confirmation that whatever was happening, it was happening as they watched.

He lay the hand-set to the middle radio down, and picked up the one for his main comms to the teams. "Constable—sitrep?"

Shadow responded to Tower's question with a terse voice. "We're stuck in traffic near seventh avenue."

And what was causing the back-up kept staring at Remington seemingly captivated by the flashing blue and red lights as he blocked the intersection during his failed left turn onto Seventh Avenue. The reason for that the white skinned human male in the grey coveralls to do so being the small compact car in front of him jamming up the other lane, both blocking the intersection. All Remington could do was give the man a contemptuous stare that wasn't nearly as hard as the one Shadow currently gave the man. The girl in the compact car was unaware as she seemed to keep chatting on her phone.

Remington jammed his palm into the horn, giving the Hell Hound's burp from the police package.

"That's not gonna give the mouth breather additional I-Q points, there, Rem."

The brown echidna turned his head to Julie, giving her the drawn look of no shit.

The oncoming traffic cleared from the intersection, a neon green colored car flashing his lights at him. Yanking the wheel hard to the left, he gave the Hell Hound's V-8 a little mixture of air and pure hydrogen and it kicked forward, darting left around the black van. Yanking the wheel to the right three revolutions, he pushed forward over the open street and down the block when he straightened it.

"Iron, sitrep?" came Tower's leveled voice through his ear piece.

Passing stopped cars and box trucks on his left, keeping to the left lane, Remington almost snorted when Brass responded over the radio:

"Just turned onto Wells, from eighth."

A car in front of them wove into the right lane from seeing the lit up Hell Hound, Remington keeping his foot even on the accelerator, knowing he was going to be braking at anytime. Sixth Avenue's lights were red. Traffic beside him on his right was still stopped as he passed it.

"TOC copies," Tower announced. "Be advised, First Federation Bank's panic alarm just went off."

Remington grabbed the toggle for his radio on his vest with his right hand. "Any word on Station Square's finest?"

A moment passed between the tone chirp and Tower. "They're about thirty-mikes to target. You'll be onsite before them. There are a few uniforms down there trying to discretely block the two intersections."

Remington scoffed with that. "Shit. It's going to tie us up more," he said, not keying up the radio when he did.

"Just keep going," Shadow said, his face matching his hardening voice. "Drive on the sidewalk if you have to."

Remington shot him a raised brow, but he had, in fact, thought to do that.

But he had to place his foot on the brake, finding he was five car lengths short of reaching the next intersection. He scanned left to right. Blocked.

"Fuck!"

He looked to Shadow, the black hedgehog's lips were tight with his jaw. Looking behind, he caught Julie's eyes, finding her dark cybernetic hue more pronounced with her anxious, frustrated face.

His began to match.

Rouge hoped her stiff posture and responses had the affect she needed. She hoped the girl-mouse had hit a panic alarm. She hoped the bank manager walking in front of them might turn and call for the guard.

No. Scourge could kill him and maybe me.

He was still close to her, his strides matching hers as they followed the bank manager to the vault. The heavy door with the wheel was round, almost how her vault in her casino was shaped. Except hers wasn't this large. She could see the recessed locking bars evenly spaced around the vault's door as they passed it and walked into the vault itself. The ceiling had gold tiles interspersed with the large, warm yellow lights that reflected off the dull bronze floor. Oddly enough, it didn't give the a harsh flare of brilliance to the open room where a wooden table lay at the center of it.

When they turned into it, she saw the safe deposit boxes off to her left constructed as the banks wall in five rows, the doors to them varying from large at the top of a pattern of eight by five inches at the bottom. Since hers was in the B section, the box her heart was not wanting to open would be an eight inch by eight inch.

The bank manager stopped their trek at the rectangular oak table, it's feet and base looking large and heavy enough to need four strong human men to lift, or even push, to move it. She stared at the carvings, keeping her posture and mood evident that she was not comfortable. Yet, she also may be playing into Scourge's story of her now being a starlet. But she wasn't that cold and heartless. Especially in the past few months. Had she covered herself with a mask she had picked up along the way of her criminal endeavors that people will just assume she was this way?

"The box number, miss Baton?"

She looked up, casting her eyes to Scourge, finding that his hand was reaching into his inside jacket pocket...to the detonator to the bomb that was still concealed in the black scarf.

"B–Oh–Three–Two," she said with a distilled quietness.

The bank manger smiled, before taking out a piece of paper and reading down it. He then asked. "And your phrase for me to retrieve it, Miss Baton."

She had come in to visit the bank a few months ago and make a deposit into the account she had to one, pay for the box, and two, add to her escrow for the taxes that she knew she was about to pay a larger sum at the end of the year. With it, she had decided to change the phrase she was about to give. Scourge's determined eyes he was giving her behind his red sunglasses left her no choice but to give it. She only hoped the Latin she learned that night at her table with her father's memory scatter on it was still with her. As was he.

Her tongue danced with it as her lips moved.

"Tertia Optio..."

Lightning had found a spot to lean up against on the black granite wall of the large building that was at the north of the open block across Well Street. Looking left to the East, he saw a police officer crossing Well Street and coming to the white walled corner of the department store he had gone in to purchase the very same tan long jacket he now wore about a month ago when he cased the bank Regina had figured Rouge had used to hide what The Bride, and Mori, wanted. His blue gloves held a newspaper, his left side weighted down from the slung carbine that hung under his buttoned coat.

"A panic alarm vas tripped," came Mori's voice in his right pointed, black tufted ear.

He took in a breath, feeling it charge his lungs and blood. He thought to smile, but instead, he left his post from the wall, and began to walk to the intersection to cross it, speaking as if talking to himself.

"Police just showed up. One cop. Looks like he's stopping people from entering the street."

Looking over his shoulder as he came to the crosswalk, pressing the button with his blue gloved finger to activate the walk sign, he saw the white shirt, yet black panted police man–a brown furred bear—waving people from around the corner, stopping pedestrians from going down the intersection. He could see the bear's sidearm on his heavy black belt as he crossed the street before making his way down the eight steps into the open courtyard.

Mori's voice came back into his ear as he unbuttoned his coat. "Prepare to execute ze alternate."

Lightning spoke casually in the open through his hidden radio transmitter that was deep in his tall, tuft-black pointed ear. "Comitatus. Positions."

He now placed himself by one of the large planters to the north, keeping his vision up and to the north. The cop was going to be his first target, his Raiju Clan upbringing and training dictating what would be his course of action. He also looked up, seeing if he could see Predator Hawk, but quickly turned his head down before looking down the lone opening between the bank and a three story building with a coffee shop at the bottom, the steps etched into the wall went up. He now waited for the other six of the Comitatus to arrive, three of them Raiju Clan Lynxes, and three of Mori's jackals.

And here, he wondered how Scourge was feeling from the initiation of the alternate plan.

His pointed ear twitched from Lightning's voice. His blood felt warm as it roiled up inside of him. Yet, he didn't hear if The Faker had been spotted.

The fat bank manger in the black three-piece suit had used his master key to open the door to expose Rouge's safe deposit box. Taking both of his hands, he pulled it out, turned around, and placed it on the wooden table and slid it toward them. The straps on the white canvas backpack seemed to grow heavier over his shoulders.

"There you go, ma'am. I'll be outside of the vault door when you are ready to replace the box back in its slot."

He eyed Rouge, but kept his head straight. She smiled wryly then nodded, Scourge's heart slowing with it. But he caught the bank manger's eyes—stern, untrusting—before he turned and walked out of the vault.

Lifting his sunglasses atop his head, he faced Rouge. The girl was stiff, her face expressionless, but he could see she wanted to cry. He couldn't blame her...he was about to rip open the very sanctity she had been hiding...from a supposed friend. Course, he had his own experience with that. Why this was easy for him the third go around.

"C'mon," he said almost dryly to twist the knife he could see she was withering with in her heart, "let's get it over with."

Brass felt he was making better progress than Remington. He was coming past seventh with a green light and a clear road. It helped that Well Street had only one direction. Two more blocks and they would park and get out on foot.

The plan Julie-Su had made at the moment was the best they could probably do. He didn't like the idea that their quick reaction force was still maybe twenty–twenty-five minutes out. He hoped that was even wrong. But then again, hope was not a plan of action.

He heard a mechanism snap into place from the passenger seat, straying a glance to Rykor, finding the burgundy echidna had folded the stock on his H&K612 open into the locked position. Brass still felt his jammed between the side of his cummerbund of his plate-carrier and the door. He felt his pulse quicken, along with his breathing to only be stymied from his armor restricting his lung expansion. He felt his body sweating from underneath.

Then his thoughts went back to Julie. He truly hoped Rykor was right. He hoped that she would perform from the state he had seen her in from the Hell Hound's backseat. It also triggered the conversation he had with Remington—

The brown echidna's voice bit at his ear.

"Hey, Bruiser. Remember that time Enerjak came to Echidnaolopis the first time?"

Brass' eyes went to Rykor, who had a smile that bordered on a frown. Rykor reached down to his own radio toggle and pressed the key-up button with his thumb. "Yeah. I do. Where were you during that?" the echidna replied with a bit knowing sarcasm in his voice.

A pause from the tone chirp before Remington's voice returned as if he was chuckling. "Um, I was on the ground when the Legion advanced in with him, fighting people who looked kinda like me with the Dingoes at my side. What about you?"

Remington could see the burn in Julie's eyes as he looked at her from the rearview mirror.

"Well..." came Rykor's now brighter sarcastic voice. "I think I was with those guys who looked kinda like you. I think we might have...I don't know, shot at each other, then?

"In fact, I think there was someone else there, too."

Remington could see Julie's eyes burn hotter, though her cybernetic eye was devoid of emotion. He stilled keyed up his radio. "Oh, do tell."

This time, Julie let her anger bare out when she activated her cybernetic radio, her seatbelt the only thing keeping her from launching at him from her seat. "It was me! Okay!? If was fucking ME! I was right there next to Enerjak when he invaded Echidnaolopis!"

She leaned forward, pressing her scathing face to Remington, her inner-radio still keyed up, nearly feedbacking into his own earpiece. "What are you getting at, Rem!?"

He keyed up his own radio. "Well, seeing as we're probably about to pop our gun-fighting cherries soon in this city that isn't ours, I figure I just might put some things into perspective."

"Like what!?"

His eyes met hers in the mirror, but he didn't key up his radio he spoke. "That you're good for this?"

Her answer was the snapping of her stock being locked in when she folded it open, her eyes predatory. Scathing. Charged for bloodletting.

But then Remington realized after broadcasting his little tirade, and his heart sinking with it, that Komi had probably heard everything he just said.

"Oh, he maybe on the couch tonight after that," Rykor said, his voice devoid of mirth.

But Brass' brows were still high. "Ah, why?"

Rykor gave a sheepish frown. "Komi. She gets a little stressed when he talks about the past three years. Enerjak brings up bad memories."

"He seems to like it," Brass observed, also observing the traffic slowing to a stop before Sixth Avenue. Then the conversation from his office returned. "Did you actually shoot at Remington back then?"

Rykor only gave a bow of his head, his eyes scanning the street in front of him.

"Was the Legion that hardcore?" he asked.

"Total true believers," Rykor answered with a dark undertone.

Brass then asked his next question as he waited for traffic to clear. "That thing Remington had said about spousal murder being rare with you echidna's...was that true with the Legion?"

Rykor answered with a nod, Brass wondering if he was stepping over a line with the echidna he felt was becoming more of a friend. "What about assaults, or rape? Were those issues?"

Here, Rykor shook his head. "No. We hardly had those, even with how hyper-aggressive we could be."

"Why is that?"

Rykor turned to him, his face even with sincerity and clear fortitude. "Because all we knew was the cause. And we were all armed and trained killers by the age of fourteen."

Rouge placed the key that Scourge had placed in her hand when the teller had asked for it in the locking mechanism. She kept her thumb and index finger from turning it, eyeing Scourge, waiting for more time to pass, hoping it would just be the few more seconds needed for someone to get to her. If they were coming.

If...

But his naked eyes to her narrowed...and she turned the key. The lid from the long rectangular box opened from the lock's release.

There it lay, wrapped like an abandoned newborn in a heavy white cloth that matched the canvas backpack Scourge slung off from his back. She could feel it now, exposed once again from the last time she had touched it over eight months ago before she placed it in the box it lay in now. Or when she picked it from the pile of grey ash that had been Infinite...her eyes casting to Shadow's limp body after he had passed out from the chaos blast he unleashed on the demented black and white jackal. Not even Infinite's mask survived the power surge Shadow had fed back through the Phantom Ruby to burn Infinite from the inside out. The sunburn she received before she found cover behind an ancient stone pillar had finally faded almost three weeks after she had returned home...a week before she had placed the Ruby here in the bank.

But the feeling she had when she picked it up from the scattering ashes of Infinite from the wind, the feeling of guilt that surged through her when her fingers wrapped around it. It was as if the Ruby had looked inside her, and touched something from within. It had made her drop Shadow's inhibitor rings beside him.

And it made her fly away from him when she saw his eyes opening, looking to her before she turned her back on him—

Scourge slammed a metal case on the table beside the safe deposit box and opened it. A cavity had been cut out from the black foam. Without care, ripping what dignity Rouge had left just from the act of stealing the Ruby from Shadow in the first place—that guilt the Ruby had exposed—Scourge grabbed it from the safe deposit box, unwrapping it from its cloth nest—

The magenta glow burst from the cloth cover, bouncing rays off the gold ceiling and refracting back to them. For the moment, both she and Scourge where swallowed in the Phantom Ruby's memorizing radiant, erasing what thought she instantly had to reach into his jacket pocket and grab for the detonator to the bomb around her neck.

His eyes. Their cunning hues of malice and menace had disappeared. The Ruby was looking inside him as it had her eight months before, searching for an inner truth Scourge had that he'd kept away from himself. It had happened to her. Shadow's kindness, seeing something in how he pursued his mission with something that haunted him as his guide. His charge. From how he moved, to how he thought. He had touched back to her father...and the Ruby had ignited her memories further. Like it had called a passenger in her soul to finally sit beside her as she traveled her journey of her life.

But to what?

With a haste that wasn't because of the diminishing time, but the echo from inside him, Scourge placed the glowing Phantom Ruby in the pocket carved out for it in the metal case, and slammed it shut...like he had forced his inner thoughts closed before they took hold of him.

He latched it.

He stuck the case in his bag and cinched it closed with the belted straps.

He slid the pack over his back behind his green quills and over his black leather jacket.

And his focused eyes of lust and anarchy returned like he had raised a veil from his face.

He had returned. And not saying a word, he grabbed her left arm and guided her almost forcefully out the vault, speaking, but not to her.

"Coming out."

It seemed Remington struck luck when he slid the Hell Hound into a single parking space, nearly putting the tires over the curb. Julie had braced herself with her knee at the back of Shadow's seat. From her vantage, she saw Shadow's right ear twitch, his face darting to a spot on the brown granite wall of the building beside them as if he had heard something...felt something come from the direction he looked.

Whatever it had been, it called for him to unholster his 10mm 1911 with a light attached under it, clicked the thumb safety off before wrapping his thumb behind the beaver tail of the grip to pull the slide back slightly. Julie glimpsed the silver casing pulled back from the chamber, as did he. He released it, tapped the back of the slide with his hammered left fist, re-engaged the safety, and reholstered his 1911, clicking back the hood of the holsters retention device.

She looked to Remington, he had watched the whole act as she and Saffron had. "Rules of engagement?" he asked the hedgehog.

Shadow held his answer, Julie unable to see his eyes if they were focused, or narrowed. His voice showed they had been the former. "If you see a jackal, armed...do not hesitate. You put them down. They will either be black and white in fur, or possibly a golden brown."

Remington gave him a nod before he looked to her. She nodded to him with drawn eyes, her hand tightening on the pistol grip of her H&K 612.

Looking to Saffron, he asked, "Your electronics package on?"

She nodded. "I'll turn the cameras on, now."

As Saffron fiddled with her chest rig with the small cell-phone size control module and screen just above her holstered pistol, Julie reached inside herself into her augmentations, tapped into her software, felt through her internal program and reached into file that she had to access through her inner-voice print and neuropathic signature. It asked her if she was sure to activate it, and with a mental tick, she said yes. She felt her nervous system change in rhythm, along with her heart rate. Her brain activity seemed to slow some before her cybernetic eye and arm, and her internal nodes and programs, synched with her body's change. Sending her thoughts to key up her internal-comms from her cybernetic dreadlock, she measured her voice has plain as possible.

"Bruiser...I just activated my combat mode."

Rykor's voice replied to her just as flat. "Roger. Mind your chemical balance with it."

She smiled, hearing her old sergeant still giving her caution. The combat program deep inside her would limit the release of endorphins and adrenaline through her body, keeping her senses from becoming hyper-focused, limiting the effects of tunnel-vision and sensory overload when her body and mental acuity struggled between flight or flight. The instinctual training from over the years between the Legion, Remington's EST, working with Knuckles and later the Freedom Fighters, and the last year or more back in the Twilight Cage had pushed her mind and body to be the very warrior she was now. Her combat experience had honed her warrior soul much sharper.

But her combat mode kept everything from going over the edge of surreal, aided in her endurance by limiting her body's natural chemical dumps from the evolutionary ingrained, primal survival instincts, and with it, kept her focused in the fight. She just had to make sure that the program didn't restrain too much of her body's needed chemicals from making her pass-out.

She saw Remington's nod. He knew what she had done. He had always been respectful to have her in the mix with him. Always respectful of her love to Knuckles.

Remington stuck out his gloved hand into a fist to her, his eyes going to Saffron then back to her when he did.

"For Knuckles," he said, his eyes firm. Readied like he had been from the other times he stepped into the breach for their people, her beside him. Knuckles beside her. She felt her Guardian stand to the occasion, yet, only inside her, once again.

Remington's jaw tightened:

"It's crunch time!"

She closed her shooters gloves into a fist and tapped his. Saffron connected her black gloved hand to theirs.

And Shadow touched his fist to theirs, looking to Julie, a feeling of understanding and remorse coming from him to her. It made her heart release something...something she didn't understand. It felt as if Knuckle's had done it and not her.

Shadow turned his eyes to Saffron...then to Remington. They all nodded to him. He had become part of their tribe. And they to his.

All four then chorused together.

"It's crunch time!"

Lara-Le could hear the words in her head, her heart welling from it, though she fought her tears from coming. She read Remington's lips when he said her son's name. Read his, Julie's...and Shadow's lips when they said her son's call to fight that at times she would shake her head to. Looking behind her, seeing this zone's Knuckles still holding his back against the wall...she wished very much he would say it. Would be there.

But he's not your son—

"Iron-Fist!" came Teri's voice, "Constable's team is on foot."

A moment came and went before Brass' heavy voice returned. "We are about to park a block down and be on foot, soon."

Lara looked to Tower. "Ask Julie if she can pick up any type of radio signals or jammers. She has that capability."

Tower nodded, picking up the phone looking handset and squeezed the key-up button. "Chaos—Tempest. Can you scan the radio bands? See if there is something that doesn't belong?"

Julie's voice came through the speaker. "Copy, Chaos. Scanning now. I'm tapped into Saffron's video feed right now."

Lara could see they were as well. Two monitors on the wall had the feeds of a few of the bank's, replaced by a full screen of Saffron's chest and head camera strapped to her. She just came out of the Hell Hound and closed the door, following Remington around the driver side and squeezed between the front of the black sedan and white van before following behind Julie, the pink echidna's tail swaying with her running legs, her carbine doing the same as her hips moved counter to it, her double barrel blaster looking as if it was barley hanging on to her webbed belt.

"Secretary to Ghostrider," came Teri once again, "your camera feed is good."

Saffron's voice chimed in, her breath a little labored. "I copy. Will be airborne, soon."

The side eye he gave the teller through his glasses as he pulled them down bordered on scathing. Yet, something in Scourge's being, instead, told him to give the mouse girl a genuine smile. The command that came to him felt more like a compulsion than an act, or a vulgar play to the young woman, even knowing it must have been her that activated the silent alarm.

To the bank manager, he didn't even feel like to deliver a sneer at him as he turned his head around and faced the two large bronze double doors.

What the fuck did I just touch and put on my back?

The questioned stewed in him as he kept his arm under Rouge's arm as gently as he could, walking to her left. Looking to her, instead of finding the white fur of her head, the peach skin of her muzzle, or her endowed chest and sleeveless arms, he caught a flash of Fiona. Her red and brown fur had been combed and cleaned, giving her a shine from her arms, her chest and legs covered not in her black leather halter and pants, but in a blue gown. Like she had become a proper queen to his now destroyed world. And her almost with it.

Two blinks from his eyes returned the scared woman walking stiffly beside him, her bat wings tense some, her face tight with fear. He knew what was going through her mind. Was she done? What was in store for her now?

They walked to the three long steps, minding their feet when they climbed up them. He was about to push the door open, only noting the blue uniformed guard was nowhere to be seen.

Oh, well.

As of now, the primary plan was still in motion, with him and Rouge executing their part. At the moment, it appeared they were going to walk out scot-free with Regina's prize.

But he still couldn't shake the feeling that had come over him when he picked up the Phantom Ruby and held it. What had it stirred inside him? What had it uncovered that he didn't know about of himself.

Before he could reach for the wooden handles on the door, Predator Hawk's voice filtered into his right ear, almost making him stop cold.

"The black hedgehog is here...with help."

It was Mori's voice that made him freeze his hand at the large wooden door handle, making his blood course faster in his veins, charging his muscles, readying them for speed.

"Alternate iz in place. Prepare for blood."

Again, please review, and thank you for reading.