(Angel Island, fifteen minutes ago)
The soft, deadening snow fell against the ground in a silent scream. I was at the warehouse.
I loaded another clip into my pistol. It snapped into place with a resounding clack, the sound I've come to love, the sound of carnage.
I placed the gun back in my holster and opened the door.
I found myself face to face with a guard, armed with one of the best-looking rifles I've seen in a very long time.
Of course, this would have to happen after I put the gun away.
The guy was a relatively young-looking hedgehog. Probably his first night on the job. Soon to be his last.
He looked relatively surprised to see me, so I took advantage and punched him hard in the gut. Probably too hard. I smashed right through his stomach wall with a meaty splut. I could feel the blood running down my arm.
I let the limp body go, letting it slump to the floor, still dripping. The water reservoirs to the building were next to me, so I cleaned myself off as best I could.
When it hit me. Reservoirs.
I got the siphon hose from the wall. Wonder how much gas was left in the truck…
The center of the warehouse was exactly as I had left it all those years ago. Same empty floor plan, same sterile atmosphere. From my corner, I could see Sonic standing in the middle of a catwalk. An Armani suit completed the image of rich psycho. Shadow, Roland, Tails and Amy all lay in the center. The whole gang, save Rouge. It would have been interesting to know her thoughts at the end of the case to end all cases.
There was an ominous rumble of a semi outside. I took cover behind a crate, watching, catlike.
Through the main doors came a flatbed truck with a two-story bank safe on the trailer. It probably weighed about four tons, but maybe more.
Whatever Sonic had been planning to steal all this time, it was probably worth it.
A lone guard stood on the parapets. I pulled back the hammer on my Prower .44, just in case.
Sonic had gotten Roland to open the safe, and I could see from my place every marketable piece under the sun. Gold, platinum, guns, CDs probably containing more valuable bits of info, and so on. Probably worth a couple bil.
Sonic was distracted, so I took my chances. I was going to kill the guard.
Silencers are supposed to be illegal now, but the law has the chances of a virgin on a submarine of enforcing that one. Of all the gun crimes on Angel, I doubt you'd "hear" three, so to speak. The one I'd picked up in the truck was a beauty, too. Nickel-plated, everything. I screwed it on. Leveling the pistol on my left arm, I held my breath and squeezed the trigger.
There was a sharp hiss as the bullet whizzed from the elongated barrel. The guard slowly slumped backwards into the chair behind him. Had it not been for the bloody smear behind him on the wall, I would truly have thought he was sitting down.
I was still congratulating myself on the shot when in heard the double click of a Raptor 9mm behind me to the right.
Slowly, oh so slowly, I turned around to find none other than Rouge standing behind me, her clothes slightly torn, but her general state more than lethal.
"Nice shot." She lowered her finger to the trigger.
"How'd you get here?"
If a satisfactory reply is a coy little wink, I got a satisfactory reply.
Then the door opened, and another guard came through. "Hey, what the – "
Rouge, not wanting to shoot him, did the more sensible thing, however disturbing. She whirled around, Grabbing the unfortunate weasel in what looked like a soul kiss. In fact, from the slurping noise, I thought it was.
Then I realized what it really was. I could see from the red trickle down the guy's shoulder.
Rouge had torn out his throat with her teeth.
I could hear from her lapping it up that she'd ripped open the jugular. This dude was dead.
He fell to the ground. Daintily, Rouge whipped out a lacy handkerchief and sponged the blood from her already-crimson lips.
Sickening, but not as bad as punching through a guy's stomach.
"That was neat," I said.
She withdrew a small bottle of Scope. "Yeah, but that guy tastes awful." She drained the bottle, swirling its contents around and around.
"Ah, and you are a connoisseur in other living things?"
She spat it all out. "Somewhat."
"Tell me, how do I taste?"
Before she could answer, a whole team of guards, were at our backs, complete with armor (probably pirated from a SWAT team) and all with FN P90's.
Time for some smartassedness. "Dude, just because they use P90's on Stargate SG-1 does not make it a great gun for you. It's a PDW. Meaning it's meant for people not considered to be high-level combatants. I mean, yeah, it does kick some serious rear, but that doesn't – "
Then someone pistol-whipped me and I stopped.
We were dragged to the center of the warehouse floor to join the rest. Sonic's Van Heusen cufflinks glinted in the light like the barrel of a revolver. How like the man who wore them.
"Well, Knux, I'd give you and everyone else here a farewell speech, but I did that already." He snapped his fingers. "Kill" was the only word thereafter.
"Wait!" said I, loudly. "Can I just wash my hands and have one last smoke?"
"Fine," said Sonic in a bored voice.
I went over to the sink and turned it full on. I struck a match.
"Wait," said Sonic hesitantly.
I ignored him, letting the sink fill up.
"Put that match out!" yelled Sonic.
My only answer was to throw the match in the sink and run like hell.
The explosion physically lifted me off my feet as I grabbed Rouge, Roland and Shadow, violently dragging them into the abandoned safe.
"What'd you do?" yelled Rouge.
"Poured gas down the pumps," I said simply.
All of the fancy weapons were fully loaded, and we silently passed around the more practical ones. I found myself holding a SPAS-12 shotgun, plus my Prower .44. Roland had an MP5K "Mini" in his hand, and Shadow had opted for a CAR-15 single-shot assault rifle. Rouge had two of her old Tech 9's.
"So now what do we do?"
"Well," I said hopefully, "we can hold out here until – "
I was cut short by the whiz of something that passed unbelievably close to my ear. I whirled around to find two smoking holes in the side, one on each side of the safe.
A chill raced up and down my spine as I realized. Railguns. They had railguns.
For those not familiar with one of life's more lethal hand weapons, a railgun is a handy device that uses a high-power magnetic charge to propel a barb made of depleted uranium forwards with super-high velocity and force. In layman's terms, it's a really big gun that fires really big bullets that pierce everything.
Another rail ripped through the walls of the vault, clipping my coat as it did so.
Railguns are powerful and accurate, but slow. Which means we had one option. Run like hell.
I related this to my merry men, and we were off.
The sounds! The throbbing ka-pow of my shotgun, the brawly brrrrrrrrrt of Roland's submachine guns, the blam blam blam of Shadow's rifle, the taktaktak of Rouge's pistols, and the zzzzzzzzzap of the railguns. Tails and Amy, useless to us, still lay on the floor, trying to avoid being pierced by a uranium rail.
I spotted a laser sight tracing my chest. I followed the beam to see a suited thug lowering an RG at me. A couple blasts from my .44 put him down. Three other laser sights were on me. I kept running.
I heard the hiss as the rail stabbed down into the floor in front of me. I changed direction, and four other barbs like it whizzed to the spot where I would have been.
I saw a guy without armor leveling a rail at me. I let my hands take over as the shotgun did its work.
Four more guys ran through the doors. I flipped over to the guy's body, grabbing the railer, zipping off the one shot at the newcomers.
There was a thud as the rail took all four down for the count. And I kept running.
Time had ceased to have meaning. I pulled out my .44, ripping off shots in the hope of stopping the advance of the rails. More had come. Rails buzzed around like angry wasps, only missing by a fraction. I snapped more of the fat red cartridges into the shotgun and opened up, one hand working the trigger, the other the pump.
Only a few were left. I switched the shotgun on the auto and emptied the magazine. I heard a scream. Dimly, I realized it was me.
And that was it. I put two more guys down with my .44 and that was the end. I let the shotgun fall from my hands as I joined Shadow, Rouge and Roland in the middle of the room.
Roland was giggling, an effect I had last experienced in the Robco lobby. "Does it feel this good after every gunfight?"
"Yeah," said Shadow. "Better than smoking, huh?"
"Hell, better than drinking," I chimed in.
"Better than sex," finished Rouge.
We all just looked at her for a second, then burst out laughing. We had done it, we were alive, it was all over. Life should always be so simple, now we could take what was in the safe, and we could – we could do – anything! We all stood there, just too happy for words.
That was, of course, before the grenade fell in our midst. Right in the middle of us all.
We were too shocked for words. We just stared, dumbly, at the ominously smoking hand bomb at our feet.
And Roland did the most amazing thing I've ever seen. Without at word, he simply jumped onto the bomb, just as the hissing of the five-second fuse ended.
There was a muffled pop, like a firecracker exploding underwater. Roland gave one last sigh, and then his head sagged forward onto the filth of the warehouse floor.
In unison, we looked up. Sonic was standing there, on the catwalk, a look of vengeful hatred written in every blue quill.
Choking back tears in my eyes, I raised my pistol. To my left, I saw Shadow and Rouge do the same. Without a word, we emptied every bullet of every magazine of every gun we had left. No longer were we just defending ourselves. This was a hate crime in the strictest sense of the word "hate".
To my grim satisfaction, I saw that Sonic didn't die right away. The first few bullets took him in the legs and arm. Giving one last scream of despair, Sonic sank to his knees as everything else truly ripped him to shreds.
I looked up at the grisly scene a moment longer. I turned my attention back to Roland the Mongoose, the one who was dying to live.
I turned him over, trying not to look at the carnage of his chest. Wierdly enough, a look of dreamy apathy was written on the hero's face.
I told you. I really am sentimental sometimes. This was one of those times. "Roland, I'm sorry. You don't deserve this."
He looked me in the eye and smiled. "I told you. It was worth it."
I smiled back. I understood.
Roland's grin faded a little. "It hurts, Knuckles."
The tears flowed from my eyes as I loaded the .44 one last time. "I know, Roland."
I lowered the hammer back on the gun, placing the barrel's end against Roland's temple. I gave him one last smile. "It's worth it, right?"
"Yes. Entirely worth it."
"Then godspeed, Roland the Mongoose."
And I let the hammer fall.
Silence reigned after the gunstroke had ended. Slowly, birds began to sing, softly. The sun began to rise. It was going to be a rare beauty of a day on Angel Island.
I rose. "Shadow?"
"Yeah?" came the choked reply.
"Get Tails and Amy out of here. Rouge, go with him."
They went. I sat down, lighting one more cigarette. This all made me want to quit. And not just smoking.
The click of a revolver behind me stopped me. I whirled around, my gun out.
Rouge stood before me. "Lotta money there, Knux."
I stared at her. Had none of this meant anything to her?
"And like you said, Knux, one splits better than two."
I leveled my gun at her, and she leveled hers at me.
(Angel Island, Now)
And so here we are.
It had all come down to this. Just me and her, and her and me. We were the only two left.
Her eyes bored into mine, and I just glared back as we paced around one another, seeking a weak point, waiting to see what the other would do.
My options were slim. If I were to duck and roll to the left, could I take out her leg? Or would she cap me first? Another option was to weave to the right and shoot her gun hand. Or I could just stand and fire, and hope that she would respond fast enough.
But there was another option.
I'd seen more than enough in the last two days to last a lifetime. I wanted to stop. All of it.
There was more than enough money there for two to live for life. With that much, we could even bring Shadow along, as long as he doesn't bring Amy or Tails.
And Rouge. Hard to say it, but I did care about her. Even though she stole from me repeatedly. And even though I left her on the highway.
And so I opted for a choice I would never have made otherwise. I let my gun slide out of my hand to clatter on the floor. "I don't want to fight you, Rouge."
"What?" came the surprised reply.
"As I see it, you either shoot me, or you don't. Simple as that."
"But why – "
"And you could take the money. Or you could let me come with you."
"I don't understand – "
"I'll make you understand!" I practically screamed. "I love you, Rouge! And I want to keep that! I haven't felt happy like I could since the good old days!"
I saw a flicker of emotion. Rouge probably did have a Shrine.
"You remember? Being innocent. Having a life worth fighting for. It's not gone yet."
Her resolve hardened. I wondered what she would do.
I put my hands in my coat pockets. "Do what you think is best."
So that's it. That's my story. I've told it, now I'm done.
What happens now? I can only guess. What happens now is entirely up to her.
A smile rose to my lips as I recalled what this had been for me in the first place.
The case to end all cases.
