*"There hasn't been many response's lately… I'm beginning to think that they didn't make it. Stuck in this room… where are those voice's coming from? Damn it Gersch, why did you go in there? At this rate, my invention will prove futile if I'm just trapped. I can't imagine the horrors that are happening around the world… we're running out of time…"*
Facility 259, codenamed (Ascension).
"What the hell happened here?" Knuckles asked as they passed through the burning forest, the flames blazing and flickering, dancing in the soft breeze of wind that had come from the withdrawal of the rain.
"Forest fires seem pretty suspicious at this kind of time… not that you would notice, Knucklehead." Sonic taunted Knuckles.
"This forest path did lead up to that asylum, I'm sure it did…" Tails said aloud to the two. "Don't know why we haven't reached it yet."
"Why would you, like how often do you visit insane asylums?" Knuckles asked Tails, getting Sonic's attention as he focused his eye over to the kit.
"I don't visit it, just see it a lot from above in the tornado, looked like a pretty strange place." He answered.
"Well it does have strange people." Sonic said, as they all seemed to agree on that.
The forest path continued on through the burning trees, as they came to an even more scorched part of the forest, the trees haven been burnt till they were black. It presented a clear view towards the asylum, just yards ahead of them.
"Finally here." Sonic said as he rushed forward, letting his friends walk forward by themselves.
He stopped in front of the entrance, a small arch reaching over as there lay large piles of rubble blocking the way. He frowned, seeing the rubble that had reached quite high, but also noticed the window beside that was shattered, with broken glass lying on the floor inside.
He smiled, as he carefully avoided the sharp shards of glass as he pulled himself inside the building and leaping over the glass.
Tails and Knuckles just got there; noticing him enter through the window, then having Knuckles just punch away at the rubble until it broke apart into even smaller pieces of what it already was.
"Show off." Sonic mumbled as he walked even further into the dark room he snuck into. Very softly, he heard the slight whispering of a voice, but shrugged it off as looked into the room.
Nothing but a few posters on the wall, with a vending machine lying against the wall. "Juggernog? What the hell is Juggernog?" He read aloud, grabbing a perfectly intact bottle of the strange substance. "Huh, says that it's a chemically enhanced energy drink with an awesome taste to boot, but I've never heard of this before…"
He twisted the cap off the bottle, taking a small sip as the drink washed an overwhelming amount of taste onto his tongue, letting about a quarter amount of the liquid to enter his stomach. He gurgled as he dropped the bottle on the ground, licking his lips as the drink made him dizzy.
"Whoa, that stuff is strong… but at least it did have a good taste to it." He muttered aloud as his two mobian friends entered into the room from the door to the right.
"What are you doing Sonic?" Tails asked his often daring brother.
"Just having a drink, man this stuff does taste good. Tails, you should have some, and you too Knuckles."
"Oh yeah?" Knuckles exclaimed, walking over to the machine and shaking it until another bottle of the strange Juggernog dropped into the tray. He grabbed it and popped the lid off, taking a huge drink as he finished the entire bottle in one gulp, throwing the glass aside as he burped loudly.
"Eh, I don't see how… whoa…" He said as he began to sway to the side, holding his stance with an arm on the wall. "I feel strange… what was in that?"
"I don't know, but it taste's good, right?" Sonic eagerly asked the Echidna.
"Sonic, I don't think we should be drinking something we don't know a thing about just because it taste's good." Tails tried to explain to the hedgehog. "It could be something poisonous; besides, we have a job to do here."
"Hey Tails, you should have one too, since we all did but you." Sonic inquired his two tailed friend. "It does have this certain… ding to it."
"What the heck does that… never mind that, I'm not thinking that we should be wasting-"
"C'mon little buddy, It's not gonna kill you." Sonic tried persuading him.
"Okay, I'll try it, but I'm not going to like it just because you want me too." He agreed, while grabbing another bottle as Knuckles punched the machine. He had to struggle a little removing the cap, but then he popped it off as he took a light sip.
He felt a rush of adrenaline run down his spine, his tails stood straight up as his eyes went wide. He felt a sudden pulse of pain as it subsided quickly, leaving him standing there a little confused of what happened, not having tasted anything.
He said while thinking. "I feel a little different after drinking that, did I mutate from it?"
"You're still the same as ever, from head to toe." Sonic assured him.
"Good, now let's go find what we're looking for." Knuckles bluntly expressed.
"You mean who we're looking for."
"Whatever."
They looked to their right, walking into the room beside with a frightening chair in the middle. It had been coated with blood that seemed to have been from years' worth of torture, a human arm sitting in the metallic strap of the chair.
"Tails, this isn't looking to be a PG adventure for you." Sonic said to his brother, who grimaced at the sight of the dismembered limb.
"Gross, what kind of asylum does this?" He asked aloud.
"Maybe an insane one?" Knuckles answered.
The sound of dripping distracted Sonic as he looked away from the two, wandering into the next room beside the one they were in, blocked by a sofa covering the stairway. He didn't bother moving it or climbing over it and decided to go the other way, where the door was open.
He walked through as his friends followed behind, looking beadily around for signs of anyone or anything. The room had two doorways excluding the one they came through, one leading into some sort of intersection, and the other leading into some sort of shower room.
"Eh, it looks pretty abandoned here. I don't think we're going to find that person here." Knuckles exclaimed, being impatient.
"C'mon, we've only been in here for two minutes, let's look some more, didn't come here for nothing." Sonic reassured his red rival.
They walked through the shower room, seeming water pouring down through a crack in the ceiling and a noticing a huge hole in the wall that led to some sort of cave. They walked forward through the room, coming to another staircase, this one unblocked as they walked up.
The room above was pretty empty, a few bookcases and another destroyed wall that lead into some other area. The most interesting thing in the room was a weird switchbox that hung by the wall next to the balcony. It was painted red and its small light on the side was grey, no power circulating through it to give it life.
"Man, there must be some sort of power switch nearby, should we turn it on?" Knuckles blurted out in the silence.
"No, we're still looking."
"Alright then."
They crept over into a hallway, leading into the kitchen. The door was locked, as Sonic struggled with the knob trying to open it. Just then, they heard a voice, someone laughing.
"Everyone be quiet, someone's in here…" Sonic whispered.
He stared through the small crack on the doors frame, seeing inside the kitchen where a disfigured body lay on a wooden table. He then saw a person walk by the door, closing in on the body after grabbing a large knife from a kitchen drawer and raising it up and bringing it down as a gruesome "chop" was heard.
Sonic saw the man's face, he was mobian, a fox. His face had a small scar underneath his right eye and his iris was green. The fox smiled, gazing over at a radio on one of the tables that suddenly started sparking with noise and voices.
"…Mobotropolis, being one of the first cities to encounter these new threats, has been evacuated and quarantined by G.U.N military, as have numerous other cities as well. Just in, Station Square is reported to have been invaded and is being evacuated at this very moment, while military units are being deployed all over the continent. Recent journalists wonder where these creatures come from, as it has been confirmed to be the undead attacking. More on this subject will be debated, but in the meantime, G.U.N has initiated a safety protocol for those…"
He turned it off, frowning as he stabbed the knife back onto the table, washing his hands in the sink and putting his leather gloves back on. He rubbed his eyes, putting his hands down as he looked over to the door and noticed a speck of blue by the tiny space between the frame.
"Hm… blue isn't a usual color around here, but then again… I can't be too careful…" He said, walking over to the door and placing his hand onto the knob, slowly turning it as Knuckles got ready to spring through.
The echidna barged right through the entire door, breaking it off the hinges as the surprised fox quickly jumped back to avoid the frame, being tackled onto the table with the corpse as he was stunned by the blue hedgehog now holding him down.
"Bah, what is happening?" He said aloud, looking around at all the people before him, now all staring directly at him as he struggled to get out of the hedgehog's hold.
"Alright, you got ten seconds to tell us who you are before we… what do we do?" Sonic asked back to Knuckles and Tails.
"Get off him and let me do this." Knuckles mumbled, shoving Sonic aside as he picked the fox up by the collar of his coat and brought him against the wall. "Who the hell are you, and if you don't talk, I'll beat it out of you."
"Ah… before you start roughing me up like this, you should at least buy me dinner first." He said, slightly smiling at the disturbed echidna.
"Gross, this guy is disgusting!" Knuckles shouted, dropping him onto the floor as the fox quickly sprinted for the balcony leading to the power room, being blocked by Tails as he stood in front of it, ready to stop him.
The brown fox stopped right in front of tails, looking at him awkwardly before saying, "My goodness, is it you? How is it that you've grown up so much, coming this far already?"
Tails tilted his head in confusion as Sonic and Knuckles paced around them, watching the crazy fox for anything suspicious.
"Uh… do I know you?" Tails asked. "I don't think we've ever met before…"
"Hm? Oh, you must be… the real one… well, that's even better!" He shouted gleefully. "I guess if it was Fi- well, if it was that other person I was talking about, he probably wouldn't have been happy to see me."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Sonic questioned the strange fox. "Are you Richtofhen?"
"Richtofhen, where did you hear that name? Are you some sort of assassin hired by group nine-three-five to kill me?" He quickly asked Sonic, backing off as he bumped into Tails accidently.
"No, we're looking for him so that he can help us." Tails answered, backing up himself as he didn't like being near this guy.
"Help you guys? In what ways do you mean by 'help'? He asked, now less insecure around them.
"By helping us find a way to get rid of those stupid flesh eating assholes out there, that's what we need his help for!" Knuckles shouted.
The fox perked his ears up, counting his fingers and talking strangely while he looked up at the ceiling. He looked back down at them, smiling as he answered. "Well, I guess we can be helpful to each other. I have a certain errand to run, that happens to take place in a certain place that would most likely have the answer to your problem, and if it all goes well, we won't die."
"So then, Mr. Richtofhen…" Sonic assumed his name. "You have an 'errand' to run? What exactly is this errand, and how is wherever you need to go have an answer to all of this? This seems a little too complicated for just a simple answer."
"First of all, it's a personal errand, and secondly, you will understand when it happens." He answered while pointing his finger at Sonic. "Now I find myself curious, who are you people?" He asked.
Sonic looked around at everyone in the room, shrugging as he looked back at the fox.
"You mean you've never heard of any of us?" He inquired. "We are worldwide heroes, it's not really hard to identify us, I mean, I'm freakin' blue! How many blue hedgehog's are there?" Sonic said hysterically.
"I do know one of you…" He said, gazing towards Tails, who awkwardly looked away at the ground." But, I don't pay much attention to the outside world after being busy for two years."
Sonic placed his hand over his face, sighing as he let his hand drop.
"I'm Sonic the hedgehog, and this is Knuckles, and apparently, you already know my buddy Tails over there." He said, gesturing his hand toward Tails. "So, if you will help us, and by that I mean tell us you will but not even bother to tell us how, do tell us a bit about yourself at least."
"I don't think you want me to tell you about myself, you might… be disturbed by some of my personal… how can I put it? Bah, that's not important, so do we have a deal so that we can stop this?" He quickly rambled and answered. "I mean, the zombies aren't going to get rid of themselves."
"They… aren't really the living dead, are they?" Tails asked. "Zombies are just fictional, there's no way that they can be real…"
"Ah, but they are. It's very confusing on how it happened and how the process continued and evolved into much more then it let on too-" The brown fox started to ramble on again, stopping as he was interrupted by Sonic.
"Wait, you do know a lot about this, don't you? Was it you who made the zombies?"
"You have to understand, I was there when it was happening, when it began. I wasn't exactly responsible for making them… but, it was an unintentional accident at the time. Then, time went by, and we made more and more and more, testing out the teleporter took many bodies, and they all became what you see now." Edward explained.
"It was unintentional at first? And teleporters? What the hell, that is definitely a lot more than we got from the G.U.N base." Sonic said. "Surely you guys there had some sense in what you were doing…. You couldn't have thought that was a good idea."
"Ah, I am saying too much, spoiling the surprise I might say… but correct. Many of those did not like the idea of now purposely creating the zombies and preforming experiments on them to gain control of their feeble minds." Edward said, wiping some stray dust off his shoulder. "We did keep them locked away at Geisteskranken, but when we made him…. Or more mostly it was me who made him, things got worse when he went through the teleporter."
"You mention a 'he', who is this he?" tails asked, interested in how these creatures were created and what happened.
"Am I just going to tell you about what happened, instead of just going and stopping the zombies?" He questioned them, getting silence as he let a low sigh and began talking again. "He was a creation made after the previous one was a failure, a design to radiate the element used for the whole process, element 115 was to be conducted at frequencies within a little machine, and then we decided to use a more… life-like model."
"I don't like where he's going with this…" Knuckles mumbled, leering at the doctor as he kept on explaining.
"Living flesh is a more conductive matter for 115, for reasons I cannot explain. So, we made a… clone of some sort that worked perfectly fine, as we write our orders into his DNA, but when it was going good, it got bad when he went through the teleporter."
"Why'd you send him through the teleporter?" Tails asked again.
"Because, the other facilities were having major problems containing there zombie captives, the threat of being overrun was beginning to dawn on us. We had to get him to those places fast, and the only way…"
"…Was teleportation." Sonic finished his sentence. "I don't get it; you say this group nine-three-five was behind this? Why would they need to use this element stuff, there's a perfectly fine energy source known as the chaos emeralds." Sonic stated, trying to sort this out.
"We've always known it would be easier to find teleportation through chaos energy, but you have to consider how rare it is to have them. You should know, they are quite the attraction of attention to troublemakers, they pose more of a threat when they are secured because of their strong desire from others." Edward carefully explained, looking to not confuse his words with others.
"He's right; the emeralds are used so often, mostly by you Sonic, or Eggman." Tails stated.
"Yeah, it does sorta make sense, but I have to ask one more thing right now…" Sonic quietly said, looking at the brown fox.
"Do ask, I am ready to answer."
"Why the hell are you at this asylum? And if everyone's gone from here, why were you still staying here?" Sonic asked, finally getting out the last of his curiosity.
"Shouldn't you know? It's an insane asylum, I was sent here because of my many incidents concerning my mental health. It was also because of some legal stuff there too, but that's hardly important." Edward answered. "And as to why I am still here, I was still doing some tests on subjects, trying to get a look on their insides so I know where to shoot."
"Okay…" Sonic muttered to himself.
"Alright, now we need to turn on the power here first before we go." Edward stated, walking across the balcony.
"Why? Aren't we leaving?" Tails asked.
"We're going to need to get some items from here first… most of the other rooms are operated by a mechanical device, the ones you came through must have been broken or torn apart. Fortunately, I have the key to these certain doors, which have some of my belongings in them." He pronounced. "My favourite coat, some weapons, and the map leading back to Geisteskranken."
"Ah, so that must be where we're going." Tails realized. "So we're going where it began to end it? Sounds strange, but I haven't been there to know what might happen."
"I'll tell you what might happen, we might die!" Knuckles shouted.
"You, the red one. Stop being such a buzz kill, there are plenty worse things to fear than death, like being a zombie." Edward said to Knuckles.
"Why do you need a map? Haven't you been there for like two years you said?" Sonic asked.
"I have, but being inside the facility for two years doesn't really help with its location, and the… troubles I've encountered here, or what they call 'treatment' may have damaged my memory." Edward explained, pointing towards his head.
"I can certainly think of something that is damaged…" Knuckles briefly muttered, walking away from the kitchen and into the hallway.
Knuckles wait!" Sonic shouted to his friend, but was stopped by Edward holding his arm in front of him.
"Just wait here, I will go turn on the power and get some of my supplies, be ready to go when I get back." He said seriously, running into the power room as he roughly searched for his belongings.
Sonic sat down on one of the tables, making sure it wasn't the one with the corpse on it as he sighed. "Well, we certainly found your guy Tails, and boy, is he a mouthful…"
"I didn't expect- you know… it's not that bad, he is going to help us, right?" Tails raised the question.
Before Sonic could offer his opinion, the doctor came back instantly, wearing a green vest underneath a brown coat outlined with red.
"Ja, where is the red one at, I have something for all of us, although I still need to get the map…" He spoke excitedly.
"He went downstairs; he does have a bit of a temper, just so you know…"
"Reminds me of a certain military sergeant, always loud and obnoxious… yet, he will do good when fighting zombies, I think all of you will be good at that." Edward complimented them.
"Why is that? I know I'm pretty fast, which I mean, the fastest thing alive, but other than that quality of mine, and Tails ability to fly, except that he has bandages, and Knuckles strength, what would make us possibly good at fighting off the undead?" Sonic spoke with sarcasm. "I'm not pointing out the obvious, just some factors to put in…"
"Do you know how annoying you are? You are like some kind of mutated blue rat, and you're breath… what smells of so much chilli? Now I cannot enjoy the sweet aroma of death with you around… I CANNOT ENJOY!" Edward angrily replied, yelling at sonic as he leered at Edward with a certain dislike.
"I don't think we're getting along, Edward."
"Yes, the only one I like out of you three is Tails, because we have something special together, like kindred spirits…" He talked soothingly towards Tails. "That red one is ignorant, and ugly, and smelly, and stupid, especially stupid."
"Can we just go? We've spent enough time here damnit, we should be doing something!" Tails shouted, trying to ease the tension between the fox and hedgehog and get moving.
"He's right, come, let us go and get the map…"
The walked through the hall and back down into the shower room. The open wall had caved in, as fist marks were present on the tiles beside it. Outside in the courtyard of the asylum, Knuckles stood by a small room to the north with a locked door. It had a red light shining out of a small box above the handle, but this was meaningless as Knuckles pounded the walls of the room, caving it in as the ceiling above it collapsed into the room, leaving nothing but dues as the debris covered everything that was in there.
"Heh, wish this was that Edward guys soft little head…" Knuckles mumbled to himself as he stood above the rubble.
"What the hell are you doing?" Edward shouted, walking out of the asylums doors and into the courtyard. "My map was in there, along with…" He started to choke up a little, as he calmed himself down before getting angry.
"Okay, that's fine… I still have an alternative… don't listen to the voice's, they just want him dead." He silently spoke to himself, perfectly within hearing range of Sonic and Tails who followed behind him.
"So Knuckles just destroyed your map underneath that now destroyed room, and you have an alternative?" Sonic asked. "Pretty well planned ahead."
"Ah yes." Edward said, looking up as he smiled a little. "If I got the map, we would go there easily, except it would be a long walk…"
"You could hang onto me, I run past the speed of-"Sonic tried adding in.
"Yes, but we wouldn't know where to go now, because of… the red shrew…" Edward insulted Knuckles.
"Oh shut up, you talk like a whiney bitch and taunt me, what's stopping me from kicking your ass now?" Knuckles threatened the doctor.
A dirt covered hand shot up from the ground beneath Knuckles, grabbing onto his leg as it pulled farther up from the ground, revealing it to be a zombie.
Knuckles wasted no time kicking it in the face, causing the zombie to scream and bite down onto his leg, letting him give a grunt of pain.
"Fuck you; I'm not your snack!" Knuckles shouted, as he grabbed the zombie with its teeth still in his leg and pulled and pulled until its head ripped off and he held it in his hand.
Knuckles threw the head away as he kneeled down to look at the bite, seeing blood slowly crawling down his skin.
"Hm, it's just a flesh wound…" Edward said, after putting a gun in front of Knuckles face and turning the grip to him. "Now you see why we will need weapons, to avoid that."
"Shit, it burns… can I wrap it up or something?" Knuckles asked, being a little friendly to the doctor.
"Man, are zombie bites just full of drugs or something? Maybe Knux is bipolar." Sonic joked around, astonished at how he was calm with the doctor.
"I don't have any bandages, but I know something better, and that is Juggernog!" He shouted happily. "Ah, so refreshing and the chemically enhanced effect of it cause your muscles to relax and expand, increasing your strength and endurance!"
"That drink was chemically enhanced? No wonder I felt different after drinking it…" Sonic said.
"It's just experimental though, it has some side effects, although minor." Edward clarified. "But come, we will go to Station Square and enter the G.U.N base and hack into the computer systems to find the location of Geisteskranken, and secure some weapons and a ride too."
"We're just going to walk in and take weapons and secret files without their permission?" Tails asked while helping Knuckles onto his feet. "How are we going to do that?"
Edward looked at his hands, seeing the bloodstained gloves that took him through many different situations. He thought it up in his head, hearing those whispering voice's again, shaking his head to avoid their whispers.
"Edward… focus… end it, end the pain, end the suffering…"
"La la la la, la la la, la la la la la, la la la la la la…" Edward sung to himself, standing in front of the three as they stared at him in confusion.
Sonic looked away from him as he went inside the building and grabbed another bottle of Juggernog and gave it to Knuckles. He took one sip and immediately stood straight up, ignoring the gash in his leg.
"…was I dreaming again? Never mind, let's go comrades, we barely have any time!" Edward shouted aloud while walking to the exit of Verruckt.
"Alright, everyone grab on to my hands, Edward, you can grab onto Tails." Sonic said, as Tails weakly smiled when Edward grabbed onto his gloved hand, giving a tiny smirk to the child fox.
"So what, are we simply going to run into the city when there are-"
However, Edward was cut off as Sonic sprinted through the forest, pulling everyone along with him. Edward had to close his eyes as the wind blew harshly into his face.
"We are going so fast! How can we be going so fast, its impossi-"Edward was cut off again as he was troubled with Tails left tail getting caught in his mouth. "Oh Miles, you're tails are getting in my face… I might not be able to contain myself…"
Sonic heard the awkward doctor speak, and looked around fast as he slightly moved to the left as a low branch approached. Quickly, Sonic yelled duck as everyone but Edward ducked in time for it as the branch smacked him directly in the nose.
"Mein nose!" The doctor shouted, grasping his face with one hand as Sonic kept running. "When I get the tools I need, you might be the first person I need to test it on, blue rat!"
"I told you before; I'm a hedgehog, not a rat!" Sonic smirked with pride as he continued running faster than sound as he soon faded from the sight of the asylum, as well with the burning forest.
A few hours after they left, a helicopter flew within the proximity of the asylum, as four men were seen roping down into the asylum. The helicopter flew away after dropping off the men, leaving them to fend for themselves as zombies walked into the view of Verruckt, and more clawed their way through the ground and walls to find their prey.
While the team consisted of four men, two of which were mobian. One of them was a rough, bearded hedgehog, who spoke in a tough voice, often shouting random phrases as he enjoyed killing the putrid undead. His name was Tank Dempsey, and his mission was to retake the asylum, there was no after.
There is only the legend of Tank Dempsey, and how he will win the war for the rest of us…
(Station Square, G.U.N military stronghold with city perimeter.)
"This is Station grid, G.U.N headquarters of Station Square military control; we are requesting additional evac birds, over." Sergeant Fall requested over the radio. He walked around, pacing as he seemed nervous at the situation. "Command, do you copy?"
"Sorry sergeant Fall, but Command is currently unavailable at this time, you'll have to make do with what you have, over." A dull man's voice spoke over the broadcast. "Overlord will give control of predator drones to your squad for defensive purposes, and we do advise that you get everyone evacuated within a timeframe of two hours, over."
"Excuse me Overlord, but did you say two hours?" Fall questioned with disbelief. "We only got enough room for the next birds to take about one-hundred people, there are ten-thousand crowded within and around this entire site, we do not have enough resources or firepower to hold this base for long."
The radio was silent for a few seconds as Sergeant Fall waited for someone to tell they were getting more support, but was disappointed when he heard the response.
"You're on your own sergeant, good luck…"
He threw down his radio, stomping it into the ground as he looked around at his surviving men. All of them were battered, bruised or bleeding in almost every part of their body.
"Men, we managed to survive till this point, we survived this far, we're not dying without a fight. Commands pretty much left us out here to die, but we're not letting all those innocent souls within there get killed by some rag-tag group of zombies, now are we?" Fall tried to influence his troops.
"Sir, there's nothing left here… the city's gone, most of the people are dead, why are we staying? We need to leave, there's nothing left to save here…" One of the privates said.
"Soldier, you have to be ready to die for something you believe in, and for those who deserve a better life. The greatest gift you can give someone is freedom… freedom to live their life, and that's all we can do now. We're going through hell, and I know we most likely won't survive this time." Fall spoke to the men. "We all deserve better then dying here today, but we don't have a choice in it. If all else fails, we will have died fighting for something, we will have not died in vain. We will die as heroes, because it doesn't take someone to save the entire world to make you a hero, it takes courage in the face of your adversary that makes you a real hero here."
The men shifted in their place, often whispering to each other and looking around at their fellow soldiers. All of them understood what was going to happen; they knew what was needed to be done.
"Sergeant Fall, we're giving you command over predator drones alpha, bravo, and omega. We're also giving you access to a direct order from G.U.N's highest command." One of the radios sparked from one of the tables lying out.
"Sergeant Fall, this is General Han Barack." The general spoke.
Fall rushed over to the table and answered the radio. "Yes sir?"
"I understand your unit is the last one in Station Square, pity, there was much more when I was there." The general said. "There should be a small box with a key switch on it in my office, right on the desk. I want you to grab that box, and if you're about to be overrun, I need you to turn that key, soldier."
"What does this key do, sir?"
"I have that key's signal locked on to a nuclear warheads biochemical signature, as when you turn that key, the nuke will launch itself to the last known location of the signal." General Han explained. "Only use it when it is absolutely necessary, we can't risk anymore of these zombies spreading. I'm leaving it up to your judgement when to launch that nuke, and don't forget that everything we do is for the greater good."
"I understand, sir."
"You're a good soldier sergeant Fall; I'm leaving it up to you to take that extra step to do what is absolutely necessary. I know you understand."
With those last words, the radio died, leaving the sergeant and his men with no communication.
"Sir, this is it, isn't it?" Private James asked. "They're going to be coming again, and we don't have enough force to hold them off, do we?"
"Yes Private, all we have is the predator drones, the BTR is too damaged for combat, and we're being surrounded as we speak." Fall answered quietly. "Snipers, watch for the zombies, start shooting when they reach the hundred yard mark, when at fifty, infantry start shooting your rifles."
As they were ordered, all of the soldiers there got into their positions, as the zombies looked in from afar. Over three-hundred yards away, the zombies started limping forward, some managing a full-out sprint at the base. They moaned and screamed at the sight of the soldiers, the decaying skin of former men and women, human and mobian, hedgehog or fox, all of them stared with the illuminating glow of their yellow iris. Their faces were emotionless, their reasoning unsure, their nature unquestionable.
They were zombies, the undead. Nothing more, nothing less.
"They're no longer the people we know, they've become someone horrid, and we will put an end to it." Fall mumbled to himself, jogging over to a small laptop on a table located outside one of the tents in front of the base. He opened up the casing, looking at the green outlines and aerial view of the entire area.
He pressed one of the keys on the computer, zooming in his view as he looked at the flickering white dots on the drone's thermal visual camera. He pressed another key and turned the view over to the northwest, seeing the red hot white glow of the zombies, all of which were moving inwards.
"Zombies, closing in at the two-hundred mark line, permission to start sniper engagement early sir?"
"Granted, make their heads fly." Fall replied to one of the snipers, as they all began to fire shots off at the oncoming horde.
Fall aimed the drone right at a huge amass of zombies, pressing the space key as the drone suddenly bolted forward, shaking back and forth constantly as it got closer to the thermal heat signatures.
Completely oblivious, the zombies just kept walking as the drone crashed and left a huge explosion in its place, killing many of the zombies as they were left in a smoldering heat. Fall did the same as another huge group had gathered closely to the far gate, another drone crashing down as it left a smoldering pit of bones and flesh.
"Few zombies have crossed the fifty yard mark, engage, engage!" Lt Johnson yelled as he fired rapid bursts from his M1A1. All the other troops followed, as they shot at the oncoming zombies, falling onto the concrete hardened ground.
The blood scathed zombies kept coming forward, the last predator drone came crashing down, making a hole in their path and making the zombies have to crawl through to get them. They kept shooting, the sound of bullets and screams filtering the atmosphere as a quiet whistling sound was faintly heard, but drowned under the sound of the violence.
Sergeant Fall ran back to the front, swinging his automatic rifle from his back and into his hands as he carefully aimed and took down some zombies. Their heads exploded as they're bullets made contact with the soft heads, leaving messy pools of blood and a disgusting sight of bone and flesh sticking up from the throat up.
The sound of a small explosion caught Falls attention, causing him to turn his head back to the base. He tried to contact inside the base through his short range TAC com, getting a slight sound of buzzing as he got an answer.
"This is base; we're getting civilians evacuated right now, what seems to be the problem?"
"This is sergeant Fall; I've heard a small explosion from inside, is everything alright?" Fall asked the man on the comm.
"Explosion? Uhh… I don't know what to tell you, but-" Suddenly, the man cut off, a loud sound of static sounded through as he heard some shouting and then some rough handling of the com as another person answered through the comm.
"Shit sergeant, we're getting massacred in here by these dog things! They're coming from everywhere… My god, the zombies are in here too! We have to leave, right-" The new speaker had also been cut off, the sound of snarling being sounded through as the agonizing sound of screams were heard from over the comm.
Fall brought his hand away from his ear and looked around. The zombies crawled up from the hole, a few snipers shooting their arms and legs off as they slumped back into the pit. The front soldiers were keeping fire on the zombies as one got through and tackled one of the gunmen to the ground and bite into his neck. The zombie only had about two seconds into that bite when it was shot by a sniper, falling limply to the ground.
"Medic, get on that man, now!" Fall shouted to the combat medic, who hurried over as he pulled out a first aid kit. Fall held the man's face up, he was slightly groaning from the pain, but was still alive even though he had a giant gash in his neck.
"Don't worry sergeant, I got him covered." The medic gave Fall a nod as he began to wrap up and bandage the wound.
Fall stood back up, aiming his rifle again at the zombies, concerned with what he heard from the base. He turned around and stopped firing, looking in the direction of the base's front door. He swore he heard a growl from over there…
Suddenly, everything went silent. The world around him went slower and slower as something emerged from the base's doorway, something far different from the other zombies.
This one was a dog, a flaming, hell sent dog.
It was a hellhound, but not one, not two.
Almost fifteen emerged from the base at once, running towards the soldiers, many of which didn't even notice or hear the dogs over the sound of the fighting and were clawed down to the ground as the hellhounds fed onto their victims.
Even more followed behind, with zombies pouring out of the base as well. Fall's face was alit with horror, there entire operation, their last stand was over. The zombies had overrun them, but there still were the choppers on the roof…
"Men, fall back, get to the roof, the front line is lost!" He shouted over to those who were lucky to avoid the hellhound's wrath.
They double timed it, rushing past the horde of zombies flanking them, often ignoring the many flailing arms and legs as they all tried to take down the last survivors. Lt Johnson was grabbed by the shoulder as the zombie spinned him around and bite into his arm.
Grunting, the Lt gripped his frag grenade tightly as he pulled the pin out, letting himself drop to the ground as the oncoming zombies passed by.
It was only Fall and two privates left. Private Griggs and James rushed through with the sergeant as the hurried for the stairs to the roof in the corner. They climbed up the stairs in a frantic getaway from the undead, taking only seconds as they reached the roof.
They got onto the roof, getting into the first hind they saw as Fall got into the pilots seat. He flicked some switch's on and turned some dials as he grabbed the controls and started lifting them up.
"Sergeant, do you know how to fly this thing?" Griggs asked nervously as the zombies screamed at the sight of them.
"I think we'd have a better chance of surviving a crash instead of staying here with these zombies, so let's just get moving!" Fall replied, lifting the hind up as it hovered only a few feet over the roof, the zombies crowding underneath as they looked up at the metallic hull of the machine.
The hind started to drift towards the south as it steadily flied away from the G.U.N base, leaving the horde behind as they breathed a sigh of relief.
"God knows how many men just died here today… and we just fuckin' left." James monologue to himself.
"Hey man, if we manage to get out of here, I know I'm going to kill every one of these creatures I see when I get deployed again." Griggs said aloud to his fellow survivors.
"You two, save the chit-chat for later. We've left a lot of people behind to get out, but only because there was nothing else we could do." Fall said back to the privates while he kept his eyes on the direction of the hind. "Good thing I didn't have to use this…" He said while holding the small nuclear key in his hand.
They kept going smoothly, coming across a strange sight on the ground below them. It seemed to be a crimson hedgehog fighting off some zombies down there with another unidentifiable character. They seemed to be struggling as they fought off the zombies quite well.
Fall stopped the hind near them as he flashed a spotlight near the two, notifying them of his presence.
"This is Sergeant Ander Fall; we are landing to rescue you." Fall shouted over the hind's speakers as he tried lowering the hind to the ground to pick up the anonymous characters.
However, a loud screeching sound was heard, as there was a huge clanking noise. The hind shaked and sputtered in the air, drifting right and left as it was steadily losing control.
"What the hell's going on?" Griggs shouted as the inside was shaking constantly. "This isn't good man!"
"I can't keep the controls straight, it's like we've been hit by some sort of EMP!" Fall shouted as he grunted while trying to hold the controls in place.
"How the hell does that shit happen at a time like this?" James worriedly asked, holding onto one of the bars as the hind was starting to spin around wildly.
"We are going down, I repeat, we are going down!" Fall shouted into the speakers, the two people seeing the hind struggle to keep itself in the air.
The hind spinned and spinned until it hit the side of a building, the blades braking off as the helicopter plummeted to the ground and screeched loudly as it broke a large portion of the cement and drifted slightly as it landed.
The impact was hard, sending the three of them flying all over the hind, giving them multiple injuries as they all blanked out. A vision of red still covered the closed eyes as they slept painfully.
(Twenty minutes after crash.)
Fall could hardly open his eyes, looking around him; he saw the burning inside of the hind as he felt some metal sheeting on top of his legs. He easily pushed the metal off as he crawled over to the open hatch in the hind's side.
He didn't anticipate the fall, as he went face first into the concrete below him. He brought his head up slowly, coughing out a small amount of blood as he stared at the scene outside.
Many of the city was already in ruin. The highway was been broken down, the intersection leading up had been broken off. Around him was broken pieces of the hinds armouring and some of the blades. The grey outlook of the hind was caught on fire as was many other pieces of metal surrounding him.
He looked around him some more and saw the limp body of Griggs, just lying on the ground a few meters away from him. He reached his hands out, gripping onto the small pieces of broken debris as he pulled himself forward.
He looked at Griggs pale face. The man's combed over brown hair was covered mostly in his own blood, a line of which was running from his mouth and down to his hair. He put his finger on his neck, feeling a slow pulse as he confirmed Griggs was still alive.
Pvt James slowly pulled himself out of the wreckage, suffering the same fall that he had done earlier. James groaned slightly, but got back onto his legs as he limped only a step forward then laid his back onto the hind wreckage.
"James…" Fall struggled to speak. His mouth was dry for some reason and his words were somehow hard to pronounce. He looked towards the mobian soldier huddled against the hind, trying to get him to notice him.
Fall managed to grab a small rock and threw it near James to get his attention. The mobian wolf looked up, seeing his sergeant lying on the ground. "Fall… is it you?"
"James… I can barely move… you gotta… you gotta help Griggs…" Fall barely managed to finish.
"I can't, I think I broke my arm and my legs are too wobbly after the crash… I can't even see straight…" James spoke, not being able to see clearly as his eyes were bloodshot.
Fall looked down to his right palm, seeing the small box with the key still intact. "James… use this…"
He threw over the box, James having picked it up as he tried to determine what it was. "Is this… this is… It's a nuclear device…"
He looked blankly at it, trying to think whether he should turn the key or not. But his thoughts were disrupted as the familiar sound of moans sounded in and the shadowy images started stuttering through a misty fog.
The zombies stumbled upon them.
Fall couldn't turn around to see them; he only stared at James, who panicked as he saw them. The wolf looked around for his rifle, spotting it nowhere as one zombie got closer and closer to him until Fall himself saw it.
James instead stopped looking for his rifle as he pulled out his pistol, carefully aiming for the zombies head as he tightly pulled down on the trigger.
*Click*
That was the damn worst sound he'd ever heard in his life at that moment, in denial, he kept pressing down on the trigger.
*Click*, *Click*
He tried moving away as he painfully moved from his spot against the hind, getting onto his legs in a painful little run as he tripped on a large slab of cement. The zombie wasted no time as it closed in on him and lowered down to bite into his soft flesh.
Before he moved, James dropped the small key box on the ground in front of the hind. Fall stared at it, determined to at least end the madness going on here.
Filled by his burning determination, he crawled forward, inching one step closer each time as he soon grabbed on the small box.
He looked at the key, taking his hands across it as he gripped the key tightly, ready to turn it.
The zombies got closer, and Fall was getting weaker. Somehow, he didn't understand why he was feeling so weak.
He looked at thee zombies that started to stumble towards him, his hand freezing as he finally looked down at his chest.
A large bowie knife was impaled into his stomach, the blood softly oozing out as he was shocked at seeing it. He didn't have any time left, his eyes faded out as his eyelids started closing slowly.
The last of his dying sight was that of the zombies getting closer. He felt very cold as his eyes closed, his breathing stopped as he sat there still, a corpse among millions. Nothing has changed, the game stays the same.
"Fetch me their souls!"
Message picked up by a a broken radio near the sight of Station Grid, G.U.N base within Station Square.