O'Harlan's Smeltery, tomorrow midnight.

We shall discuss your daughter's future.

Come alone.

Cordially,
Dredge Izzvanus

"There you are! Been looking all over!" He looks a little sheepish. "I heard about Charity... er.. I mean, Hope. Sorry I wasn't there. Most of my contacts at the police are... well, they died in the Fallout. But I've got something you should know...." finally sensing the tone.".... er.... am I interrupting?"

"What, what are you-" He snatches the note off of her and reads it.

"'Dear Gullible, Please walk into my trap, Signed, The Bad Guy.' You're not really going alone, are you?"

"Screw the police, they've always been hopeless in this city. But at least let me come with you. I can watch from a distance, and I may have only one tenth my speed but I have something that I can match this guy with."

Fireball outstretches his hand and reveals the red, green and blue Chaos Emeralds. "Auh?" He smiles broadly. "And you know what else? There's three more IN THIS CITY! He's probably got them himself."

"All right, but you could, like, wear a wire or a hidden camera or something?... Or easier still you could, like, telepathy message us if something is wrong. You can still do that, right? We'll be close by." He tosses an arm around Antipode's shoulders, for the sake of irony.

The atmosphere was solemn in the group as Antipode led the way down the dark deserted commercial street. There was no movement, save for the slow blinking on and off of the Tower lights shining high above them.

A psuedo-flash of dark light alerts her to his presence on the far side of the shop, crouching in the shadows and coiled like a spring, ready to pounce at a moments' notice, his cloak billowing in a nonexistant breeze.

He had leapt onto another rooftop and now had a view of the building itself, he could see Nyte, but not the other guy. He had had to stop himself pouncing in when he saw the glass explode. Nyte would be furious if he had charged in prematurely. But he wasn't going to let her down like he had at the bank robbery.

He glanced over at Antipode and the troops, further down the street and scowled darkly.

Hey didn't always play well with other and non-superpowered were likely to get in the way.

He manifested his three Chaos Emeralds in his hand. There was only a couple of things he could do with them, it'd be more useful if he had them all. They were glowing slightly, there was more Emeralds nearby.

"Tenner says 'bad guy' has them," he said to himself.

He watches NyteShade run and leap. Action! He runs to the edge of the building, a telephone wire runs between here and a building the next block over on the other side of the street. He tries to ride it with his Light Speed Boots but its cold, the line is not in use.

~Oh well, have to do this the old fashioned way.~

He takes a few steps back, runs, jumps, lands on the wire, and balances, grinding his way along by the curve in his shoes. He surfs to the opposite building where he springs off, runs down the side of the building, plummeting towards earth, and right before he hits the ground leaps forward and rolls, providing a faultless landing and plenty speed as he smashes through the back door of the building Nyte and Dredge occupy.

The woman staggers and drops to the floor, not understanding what's happening to her, why she would suddenly feel so weak. A terrible chill spread through her skin, radiating from the flesh wound in her shoulder.

He pulls another bullet out of his cloak and tosses it to the floor, where it bounces with a ping and rolls to in front of her, where she can get a good look at it. It gleams in the low light of the store - it isn't the bullet itself, but rather what it's made of.

"How? How did you know?"

She rocks back and forth on her knees with a low moan, showing the first real pain she's show for quite a while, at least to anyone outside her family.

She gives one more gasp before her eyes slide shut, sleepily and she goes limp in his grip, drained. Her heartbeat stumbles, the pulse in her throat, against his hand weakening considerably, almost falling into nonexistance.

Fireball, disorientated from the pulse in his head, gets back to his feet with a fresh set of anger. He sprints and tosses himself and Dredge's legs, forcing him to fall to his knees with the momentum of the lunge, then flips back into the air, spinning around and rapidly inflicting a a kick to the head.

He slams back in, the door swinging wildly, as he drops to his knees at NyteShade's body, he lifts her head and shoulder's so she's sitting up.

"Oh god, what's he done to you? Can you hear me? Where the hell is the bloody 'Pode and his army?"

He jumps down to the ground and rushes for the door, trusting his team to follow. He bursts into the room to see Nyte unconscious, and he can't decide whether to be concerned or outraged. "What happened?!"

"That guy did this?"

"I reckon I can carry her there in about 20 minutes, or I could hunt this guy down. It's your call." He looks at Arjen expectantly, then knocks away a rifle that one of the SCPD men carelessl had pointed in his direction.

Fireball's eyes narrow as he thinks of Dredge. His attacks seemed to go right through him. Dredge had barely registered Fireball's existence. He turns to Ryan.

"Newbie, get up on the roof and see if you can see any sign of where 'Bad Guy' might've gone, I'm gonna search the area."

Addressing the SCPD. "Anyone see which way he went?"

Ryan follows orders not without a scowl directed at the fox. He's not sure how Fireball gets off on shouting demands, especially since he's not even an SCPD officer.

Besides, Ryan was going to check the roof anyway. And just to flex some muscle and prove to Fireball that he has a little more authority, Ryan tells all units to spread out. "Report anything suspicious. Particularly a shadow-ed hedgehog with crazy red eyes, forget the ambulence, Pops will take care of it."

He throws a wry smirk in Fireball's direction and scales the latter of the closest building, hopping up the roof. He seems calm despite the situation. If this happened about a year ago, Ryan would have been the one freaking out, and Fireball would have been calm.

Ryan closes his eyes and focuses on the inky blackness behind his lids. Then he opens them, and the world warps into swirling spirally images. He sees Fireball as a mass of bright energy in somewhat of a bodily form. All around him, less bright are the SCPD officers taking their position.

The world itelf is bright with chaotic energy. Dredge's energy should appear much brighter if he's anywhere near considering the strength he's shown so far.

He silently thanks his mom for this new ability.

In the industrial district your choices are large, well-lit roads, designed for trucks and lorries to drive through easily, or any of countless large, shadow-filled buildings with a myriad of hiding spaces.

It was becoming rather obvious that Dredge wasn't sticking to the roads. If he wasn't hiding, he had at least two Chaos Emeralds, he could have used the Chaos Control.

Fireball turned around, his search of the immediate area had given him nothing, and headed back the way he came to join Ryan on the roof, keeping his eyes peeled for any sign all the way.

He closes his right eye again, focusing entirely on his left. He sees the energy trails that Fireball has left behind and he sees everything else just as before in this surreal light, but he can't seem to find Dredge.

"Do you know if he can use 'Chaos Control?'"

"I wouldn't be surprised. According to the 'Pode he's a Chaos-user and I'm pretty sure he's holding a couple of the Emeralds."

Fireball watches Ryan squinting like he's failing an eye test. "When did you get Second Sight?" He asks, matter-of-factly.

His right shoots open, then, and he points at an area down below. "There! He used Chaos Control right here."

Excitedly, "What? Where? Can you see where he controlled to?" Fireball moves to Ryan's side and looks in the direction he is looking.

He hops down from the building and runs into the spot where he estimated that he saw the chaos energy used (he's using normal vision now). "Here! Now while I'm using Second Sight, you carry me. I'll tell you were to go, but you gotta be listening." He closes his right eye again, and soon he shouts excitedly once more. "It goes that way! West I think!"

"You'd better be right about this!" Fireball releases and begins rolling towards Ryan. As he reaches him he stands up under Ryan's legs, lifting him up onto his shoulders as he dashes in the direction the young hedgehog was pointing.

Upon being lifted to Fireball's shoulders, Ryan lost concentration on the trail, so after having a moment to enjoy the speed, the hedgehog concentrates again, and surreal world re-shapes again and more easily this time.

"It's going in between buildings with a lot of stairs-cases and fire-escapes. Get ready!"

"Was-"puff"-born ready!"

Oh well.

Like a masterfull acrobat (with a few slips, but well recovered), Fireball navigated the jungle of steel and brick magnificently. As they emerged from the tangle, Ryan pointed out that the track was about to curve, but also said that they need to keep to the roofs.

"Where-"breath "-now?" Wheeze.