Chapter 8

"Holy shit," Jet muttered, staring at the horde.

"So this is where they all were," Wave breathed in awe, her shot gun held limply in her hands.

"What do we do, then?" Jet asked.

"We're going in," Wave said, "I just have a feeling that we need to."

"That's not a good enough reason," Jet replied, shaking his head.

"But Jet-"

"No way in hell."

"What if there are people in there?" Wave demanded. "Huh? What if there's some trapped child in there that doesn't know what they're doing? Or some elderly person?"

"Then they're already dead."

"Please don't talk like that," Wave whispered, her eyes downcast. Jet wouldn't allow himself to loose face: if he did, they would most likely be ripped apart by the hoard.

"Why not?" the hawk suddenly exploded, "Why shouldn't I talk like that? It's the truth, isn't it? Not half a day ago you went around like you were running the shots, emasculating me, and going around playing 'survivalist'. Now it's turned and you're trembling in fear.

"Exhilaration," Wave said, her eyes glinting dangerously in the gray of predawn.

"What?" Jet cocked an eyebrow.

"Exhilaration," Wave repeated, and went on to explain, "All my life I've been using a gun for play, to kill animals for a bit of meat but always with the safety net there. To play video games and read books and learn all these stories but have no substance behind them." She smiled. "But now I'm living it, living the danger and breaking out and away from the safety net. Haven't you always wanted something more... adventurous?"

Jet shifted uncomfortably under Wave's expectant expression.

"Frankly," Jet replied, "No, I haven't. I like my safety net-it keeps me alive."

"Then you're just a giant pussy," Wave growled, starting to make her way towards the hoard. Jet grabbed her roughly by the arm.

"I'm a pussy that's still alive," Jet snapped.

"You'll never go anywhere in life."

"But I'll still be breathing. I don't need to be the hero, Wave. I'm surprised you have to be."

"I don't have to be," Wave said with an indignant tone.

"Then what are you doing?" The true question was on Jet's face: Why are you trying to get us killed?

"I'm trying to make sure people are safe," Wave whispered.

"You're going to get us killed," Jet said flatly, "And I do mean us. I love you, Wave, and I'm not going to leave you alone to fend for yourself." He made sure he looked her right in the eye, "But so help me god, you want to fucking lead me straight to hell, don't you? Are you suicidal or something, Wave? Going in there is the same as having a fucking death wish! You got a death wish, Wave?"

Wave's eyes widened, and she blinked twice before her countenance took a sharp turn. Her eyes narrowed, her beak turned into a hard line, and her eyes glimmered almost sinisterly.

The swallow put her beak right up to Jet's ear and hissed, "No, I don't want to die. But I don't want to be a pussy-whipped little bitch like you, either. I want to live, I want to get out of here, I want to save any survivors, and I want to do it with a style all my own." She pulled her head back and looked Jet in the eye. Her face looked calm, but her eyes scared Jet shitless. "Now," Wave said in a quiet tone that matched her face, "Do you want to come with me, live, and look like a hero, or do you want to hide in a fucking corner and watch how the big kids play?"

Jet glared at Wave.

"I just want to go home."

"Your house is trashed!" Wave looked at Jet like a crazy person, "My house is trashed! Storm's dead, and so are our families! We have no home, no safe place. And neither does any other survivor." She stuck her finger in Jet's chest, "We have nothing."

"I'll go with you," Jet said moodily, "But I still don't think anyone's there.

As if in reply, gunshots could be heard from the other side of the horde, where Casinopolis was. Wave said nothing as she walked in the directions of the gunshots, but made sure she sent him the smuggest look she could.


Knuckles kissed his fist before slamming it full-on into the metal door before him. While it didn't smash the door down directly, it left a large dent. The echidna went berserk on the door, the slamming ringing through the sewers. The rest of the party had their backs to the echidna, the two adults standing with their guns at the ready and Blaze holding Knuckles' gun while he worked with the door.

With a clatter, the metal door rattled onto the concrete floor, bent beyond recognition. Knuckles kicked it out of the way and ushered the others through, retrieving his gun from Blaze.

Rouge was through first, confronted with the mass of stairs ahead. She leaped, taking stairs three at a time and using her unfurled wings for balance. Espio was close on her heels, his balance kept by some unseen force. Blaze, Cheese still perched atop her head, lagged only a little, alternating between two and three stairs. Knuckles quickly overtook her and kept running on, easily catching up with the other adults. Each of them was skilled enough one way or another to avoid tripping up on the stairs, and all of them were wise enough to save their breath for breathing.

At one landing they stopped, Rouge panting hardest. Blaze's nostrils flared as she breathed through them, and no one said anything. The sound of respiration filled the room, and once they had all caught their breath, they continued their climb.

They all knew they needed to get to the final landing, the one at the very top. Before that, there would be no getting out.

In the darkness each was trapped with their thoughts, bound to each other only by the sound of breathing.

Rouge's mind flashed back to her high school days, days filled with douche bags that could only make 'that's what she said' jokes, could only bother her, could only deserve this horrible tragedy that befell Station Square.

No, that wasn't right. Rouge truly hated no one, was only annoyed or angered by them. No living creature deserved this catastrophe, but more importantly, she didn't deserve this catastrophe. Out of all the shit she had had to deal with, this was the worst she had ever had to fuck with.

Thank God for my luck, Rouge though bitterly as she bitterly ran on.

Behind her, Espio thanked any and all gods he knew, glad enough his family-mother and father and siblings-were far away, back home in another country. Station Square, hell the Federation, was supposedly a great country. It was, too, at first. It glistened and shone, dipped in platinum and safe in a plastic casing. It was a wonderful country-that is, if you were a native. Hell, even if you were a native and didn't look it you had to be careful of the racial zealots.

He was lucky, lucky enough to have a gift with accents and languages, lucky enough to be able to blend in so well. But not quite lucky enough to get a job, to make a living, to bring his family to see this world so beautifully packaged. It was because beneath all that shiny packaging it was a disgusting product, full of flaws that may have been worse than the ones back home.

Damn this land of double standards, flytrap that it is, Espio thought to himself.

The red echidna thought of childhood, of the happy times he had always had with his little sister Tikal. They had no family, both of them abandoned at an orphanage, had no friends, and no one but each other for the longest time.

While Tikal had protested at first, she understood the necessity of Knuckles' taking up stealing. She never helped him to go stealing, but she had been the one to find Espio for him, and Dust-on-Wind, the one to find the three of them a place to stay on occasion. As much as Knuckles wasn't so fond of admitting, Tikal did most of the hard work. He was just a common thief.

Blaze found herself reflecting her current situation. She had no parents, both her siblings were dead, and a Chao wasn't much for family, no matter how smart it is. She wasn't all the way through high school and wasn't likely to go to college at this rate, assuming she survived this nightmare.

The cat hated the fact that she had let Cream and Tails die. She figured she wasn't responsible for her parents' deaths, she wasn't even there when they went. Blaze couldn't be sure, though, that she couldn't have helped, maybe even called 911. But the phones weren't working that day, that wouldn't have mattered one way or another.

There was still Cream and Tails. Marine was doomed from the start, if Blaze's guess was correct. There was no way she could have prevented the bite, unless she called ahead. But Blaze hadn't known about the bite before hand, and she couldn't have warned her friend. Cream could have been saved, though, and Blaze knew it. All it would have taken was a firmer 'no', or something else. This situation was a life-or-death one, Blaze knew, but she couldn't bring herself to say 'no', to take authority, like Tails had demanded her to.

And what of Tails' demise? Blaze didn't think she was the one who pushed him to the monster, but she could have at least tried to keep her brother alive, to keep him until he turned into a monster himself.

He was already a monster, and she knew it.

Blaze had killed Tails for her own selfishness, and she was slowly becoming aware of the fact. She hadn't put the bullet in him because she was afraid of his becoming a monster, she took him down because she didn't want more criticism.

His eyes still got to her, accusing as he had fallen despite their lifelessness, and she hated him for it.

They stopped at another landing, each of them panting harder than before. They kept their words and thoughts hidden in their labored breath, each wondering whether or not continuing would bring them to a death of gunfire and being eaten, or whether they would be freed from this hell.

Blaze let herself drop on one of the steps of the next flight.

"I need... to sit," she panted, and she felt one of the adults sit next to her. It was Espio, and Rouge plopped down on her other side.

"Are you all right?" the bat asked. Blaze replied with a grunt.

"That's not an answer," Rouge said, and repeated her question, "You all right?"

Blaze thought a second and sighed. "I don't know if I am," she replied, "I should feel like shit, but right now, I'm just relieved that I don't have to worry about two little kids."

"Two?"

"There was a young rabbit with Tails and I earlier. She got bit, and turned into one of those monsters," Blaze explained.

Rouge's eyes widened a little. That explained the cat's unwavering speed when she had killed Tails.

"Was she a friend?"

"She was my little sister."

There was silence as Blaze stood up, her breathing returned mostly to normal.

"I'm ready to continue," the cat said, starting up the stairs again. Knuckles was right behind her, with Espio and Rouge behind him.

As the ascended this time, Blaze was easily taking three steps at a time, keeping ahead of the four adults with her. She let her shame and anger at herself move her body and give her strength as Cheese perched uneasily on her head. All there was was the sound of hurried steps that echoed throughout the stairwell, pounding against eardrums and heartbeats.

The cat made it to the top first, accidentally using the rail to try and go up another flight of stairs and running into concrete.

"Fuck," she hissed, retreating from the wall.

"Where's the door?" Rouge asked, looking around in the dark.

"Should be over here," Knuckles said, feeling his way along the wall until he came to a handle. He opened the door quietly, and whispered, "Over here."

The other three went through the door the echidna had opened for them, Rouge slinking out first, followed by Espio, Blaze, and Knuckles respectively.

"Go right," Knuckles whispered to Rouge, and the bat obeyed, heading to her right with a hand against the wall until she could go no farther, stopped as she was by a wall.

"There's a door along the wall in front of us, and I don't think it's an emergency door."

Rouge grunted in reply and felt for the door, finding it after a few minutes and quietly pushing it open.

An alarm screeched at them, and each party member had their own curse to say for the fact. The bat slammed the door open and burst out of it, the other three right on her heels.


The two brothers said nothing, each letting their guns speak for them in barking tones. Silver resisted the urge to close his eyes as he shot, and was scared of the gun's bucking. Shadow, on the other hand, was calm and composed, his eyes only half shut as he unloaded bullet after bullet into the horde that had invaded the casino.

Both of the hedgehogs had taken cover behind a row of poker tables, shooting around at the zombies as they approached. The backpack full of ammunition was at their feet, making it easy enough for them to reload when either of them ran out of bullets.

Shadow was leaning on the table, his stomach flat against it and his elbows resting on the table. He shot deftly, getting several head shots and hitting zombie flesh almost every time. Silver followed his brother's lead, using the table to steady his trembling hands as he shot, improving his accuracy greatly.

A gunshot replied to one of Shadow's.

The hedgehogs thought nothing of it, each of them figuring that they had imagined it, continuing their onslaught. Zombies continued to fall, some dropping like sacks of concrete while others struggled until more lead was packed into them.

One of the tables near the brothers made a cracking noise, like a large wooden stick breaking. Shadow noticed it then.

There was another set of gunshots.

The elder hedgehog stopped his younger brother, and another gunshot cracked, barking out its existence.

"There's someone else!" Silver cried happily, dropping his gun and almost leaping atop the table to join the others. Shadow grabbed him by the wrist.

"We've got to get low, and continue to deal with them. Do you understand?" Shadow kept Silver's eyes commanded with his ruby ones. Silver nodded, picking his gun back up and ducking below the table with his brother.

The barking of gunshots filled the casino, and heaps of undead were everywhere. Silver carefully inched around them, his elder brother simply shoving them aside. After a while, the hedgehogs could hear a couple of voices behind the gunshots, but they were too preoccupied with their own survival to notice the youth in the voices.

"There they are, Jet," a female voice called aloud, and another gunshot sounded. A zombie fell right across Shadow and Silver's path, causing the brothers to jump in fright.

Shadow looked up to see a bloodied swallow wielding a reddened shotgun in her hands, her eyes fierce as she shot the zombies between them. The brothers, as well as the green hawk that seemed to be accompanying the swallow, helped to clear the path of the undead, finally finishing the job with a large, purple cat.

"Are you all right?" the cold-eyed swallow asked, lowering her shotgun expertly and looking Shadow in the eyes.

Shadow nodded. "Yes, thanks in part to you." He held out his hand, "Shadow the hedgehog." The swallow took the offered hand and gave it a single, firm shake before releasing it. Shadow indicated his brother, "This is Silver."

The swallow nodded her head in recognition. "I'm Wave, and this is Jet." She put her hand around her boyfriend's hip.

Jet flashed a weak smile before his stomach gargled obnoxiously. He blushed slightly, the red hidden by his jade feathers, and he shifted uncomfortably.

"Uh, do you have any food?" Silver asked, looked at them with a worried expression.

Wave shook her head. "Not much," she replied, "Mostly ammunition."

"We have some," Shadow said, "But we're running low on ammo. Shall we stick together?"

"You want to trade food for protection?" Wave asked. Shadow nodded.

"It would be safer with more of us," he said.

"I'm all for it," Jet said. Wave agreed.

"Silver?" Shadow asked his little brother.

The younger hedgehog gave a weary smile and said, "As long as I'm not cooking."


AN: Hey there all. A few things-school's starting up soon, but as I said, I'd like to finish this by the end of summer, and I definately plan to do it before fall starts. About the story itself, I did have the conversation between Jet and Wave reflect part of the book Malice. Thanks for reading!