Chapter Text
The red stage curtains closed as the smattering of applause died down. House lights rose and quiet conversations started to fill the room, mumbles of disappointment and little mocking jokes followed by more sincere laughter than during the show. The performer’s ears heard grumbles of audience members complaining they’d prefer to have wasted their money downstairs on the card tables or slots instead, but it wasn’t anything it hadn’t heard before. From stage right, an assistant trotted over to the performer’s table and props and started to pick playing cards off the floor. She was a rabbit, white-furred with elaborate grey spiral makeup over her face. “Don’t let the crowd get you down, boss. You’ll think’a somethin’ to turn this losin’ streak around.”
Her boss put its hands behind its back and looked down at its assistant, an innocent smile on its face. “Losin’ streak? All I’m hearin’ is satisfied customers,” it said, then ran a hand through its hair, combing back its own grey-spiral-patterned white fur and rabbit ears to a handsome cowlick.
“I hope management agrees,” the assistant mumbled, then stood up and placed the cards onto the table and wheeled it off stage right. The performer stretched its arms out, then turned and headed toward stage left, where a half-full glass of some mysterious grey liquid rested on a sound fixture. It snatched up the glass, finished it in one swig, then headed to its dressing room, a modest little closet for the modest little stage and modest little show.
The performer truly wasn’t bothered by the reactions of the crowds. Casinopolis management would keep the show around as long as the performer agreed to handle their legal woes and money laundering, and they would fudge audience approval numbers to further convince their parent company for all sorts of indulgent expansion ideas. Majority-human cities were easy marks for schemes like these, and Station Square was no different.
The rabbit sat in its chair and span it around, pulling a new face each time it faced the mirror, then suddenly stopped on the fifth spin when it saw someone else in the reflection. Behind it, there was a woman - a black-and-white furred canid with golden yellow eyes. The rabbit tilted its head, blocking the reflection’s image with its ears, then straightened back up and she was still there. It spun the seat around and looked at the woman, a credulous expression on its face. “Hey. Nice shoulders. You a ninja or somethin’?”
The woman blinked and looked at her unadorned shoulders, then shook off the comment and put on a plainly-false smile. “Uh- thanks. I’m a fan, my name’s Trois.”
The rabbit sat up and held out a hand, which the woman shook. “Nice to meet ya, Trois. You might know me as Abe Easy, but that’s just a stage name - my friends call me Letters. So, Trois, what’s gotcha breakin’ into my dressin’ room?”
The woman chuckled. “I’m sorry, Mr. Letters, it’s just that me and my- my brother, he’s waiting outside, we wanted to ask you something.” She reached into a pocket and pulled out a folded-up photo of a circus troupe, a dozen members strong and all in their performing gear. On one side of the frame was the rabbit, wearing a similarly dapper suit to the one it was in now, which the woman pointed to. “That’s you, right?”
“Ah, the Polycircus,” Letters smiled, taking the photo and examining itself closely. “This was just before the war. Yeah, that’s me, don’t I look young?”
“Oh, no, you haven’t aged a day,” the woman said insincerely. “But I wanted to ask... this one here, do you know where he is?”
She pointed on the other side of the frame. Stood beside a black-and-white ruffed lemur balancing on a ball with one hand was a wolf in glasses wearing a colourful glow-in-the-dark cloak with Dark Gaia Monster patterns on it. Letters twitched its nose. “Wyre? Nah, I ain’t seen him since just after the war. I think I heard he was some big-shot hero or somethin’.”
In the mirror, Letters saw the woman subtly clench her teeth. “You and him were friends, though? Don’t you keep in touch?”
“Eh, coworkers. I only taught him a couple of my easy tricks and I think he resented me a little for that. And I kinda despise his boyfriend, although I dunno if they’re still together now, I ain’t spoken to neither of ‘em for years.”
The dressing room door slammed open, and in the blink of an eye a red sword was pressed up against Letters’ throat. Holding the blade, a black-and-white jackal with a scarred face and blue-and-yellow eyes bared his teeth at the rabbit.
“We’ve waited long enough. You’re going to contact him and bring him here.”
Letters looked intently into the jackal’s face for a moment, then relaxed in its chair and turned to face into the mirror at its own expression of indifference. “Alright, whatever. But I dunno how, ‘cause like I said, I don’t got a clue where he is.”
“We have a plan,” Trois said. “And don’t think about calling security, we’ve got it all locked down.”
Letters shrugged. “You break into a casino and lock down security and you’re not even here for money? And people call me weird.”
The sword pressed even tighter against the rabbit’s throat suddenly, and Trois moved from behind it to the other jackal, grabbing his arm and trying to push the sword away, but it remained still. “He called me weak!” the jackal scowled, and Trois pushed harder on his arm.
“He said weird, not weak,” she pleaded, and after a moment, the sword began to quiver at Letters’ throat before finally lowering. Trois sighed, and the other jackal turned to face the door.
“Let’s go. Move, rabbit.”
The rabbit pretended it was chewing on some gum. “What’s in it for me?”
The jackal looked back and the sword raised again. “You do this, and we don’t kill you.”
Letters looked into the mirror again and shrugged to itself. “Sounds like fun,” it said, then stood up and followed the jackals out the door.
---
The road was quiet for the early afternoon. Lined on both sides by trees, the only vehicle in sight anywhere along the highway was the caravan emblazoned with the Arcadian Aces logo, halfway parked on the roadside, its hood popped and a wolf’s tail poking out from inside. Dangling upside-down from a tree branch hanging over the empty road, Loki the black-and-white ruffed lemur yawned and stretched his arms.
“I’m working as fast as I can,” a frustrated voice came from inside the engine. Loki glanced over, eyebrows raised.
“I am not saying anything.”
Wyre the wolf leaned out from the caravan’s innards and looked at Loki with exhaustion, motor grease covering his face and matting his fur. “I can hear you yawning.”
“Okay. I will not even breathing any more, then,” Loki huffed, folding his arms. Wyre shook his head and mumbled to himself, then buried himself back in the car’s internals. Loki rolled his eyes and restrained a sigh. Another minute passed, then a wrench flew out from under the van’s hood, followed by a growl and curse, and Wyre hopped out to pace in a circle.
“Argh!! The one time you’d actually want Grey to be here...” he complained, then looked up at Loki sternly. “And don’t you dare point out it was my idea to leave them behind. It’s your fault the caravan’s like this, pushing it too hard outside Spagonia.”
“I am not even breathing and yet I am still the scapefrog,” Loki moaned. Wyre glared at the lemur.
“Yeah, you’re good at that, not doing anything.”
“You are the one saying to leaving you alone so I am not messing anything up.”
“Well, in case you can’t tell, I’m out of ideas, so feel free to go and break everything more, if you want.”
“How am I supposing to know it is okay to helping now, hm?”
Wyre opened his mouth to argue more, but was interrupted by a sharp buzzing sound from his wrist, and he jumped into the air in surprise. Loki laughed and Wyre shot him a frown, then held up his wrist and stared at the zip-grapple wristband where the noise had originated. A few seconds passed in silence, and both suspected the machine had just broken, but then the sound came again, followed by a crackling, hissing voice transmission. “...ello? Can you hea... ...ome in, Gadget.”
The voice was Tails’, and Wyre stared at the zip-grapple in surprise. “Tails? There’s a radio in this thing?”
“...ignal is bad... ...et out in the open and u...igh, if you can...”
Wyre looked over at Loki, who held down his arms as an invitation to swing him up. Instead, Wyre pointed the zip-grapple at a taller tree and the cord shot out, pulling the wolf up to a higher point above the tree cover while Loki crossed his arms. “Is that better?” Wyre spoke into his wrist.
“Much better, thanks,” Tails’ voice came, slightly spotty but broadly understandable. “Good to hear from you. Sorry I didn’t tell you your zip-grapple has a radio transceiver in it, but I didn’t think it’d ever get used.”
“Sure, now you’ve just got me wondering what else you put in this thing,” Wyre grumbled. “I take it there’s some kind of emergency, then?”
“I’ve been told it’s about Infinite,” Tails said, and Wyre’s heart stopped. Loki saw the wolf’s fists and teeth clenching, and narrowed his eyes.
“Where is he?” the wolf growled.
“I’ve got someone on the line from a Station Square Restoration base who says they know. I’ll patch you into their frequency and let you guys figure it out - if you need to contact me or Resto HQ, there’s a hidden button on the zip-grapple that’ll start a transmission on our frequencies. Patching you in... now!”
Again ready to open his mouth and complain, Wyre was stopped by a booming, nasally voice from the gadget that took both him and Loki by surprise. “WYRE?! YOU THERE, WOLFIE?!”
Loki quickly scrambled up the tree Wyre was on and perched next to the wolf as their faces met with expressions of delight. “Hugo?!” Wyre gasped. “Ringmaster, it’s been years, we thought you’d disappeared, how’ve you been?”
“Neeh, I’m messin’ with ya,” came the heavily-accented voice of Letters the Rabbit, and both Wyre and Loki let out a groan. “‘Ey, almost sounds like you’re happy to hear from me. Whaddya think of my impression of the boss?”
“What do you want, Letters?” Wyre moaned, and Loki began climbing back down the tree.
“What, is it so wrong to storm into some top-secret spy base just to check in on your friends?”
“We am not your friendlies, Letters,” Loki yelled up from the road.
“Was that Loki? Still only interested in himself, huh?” Letters said, and Wyre glanced down with disdain.
“You’re not entirely wrong... but he’s not wrong either. Did you lie about Infinite?”
“Nope! I gotta friend here who knows exactly where your old pal is at. Take it away, Trois,” Letters said, then the voice on the line changed to one that was firmer and more feminine.
“Wyre, is it? Infinite is my brother. You beat him before - I need your help to stop him again.”
Wyre took a deep breath. “I’m in. Where is he?”
“That was quick. I thought it’d take some convincing - I heard you were done with hero work.”
“I was. But if Infinite’s still around, then I’m not done yet.”
There was a brief pause on the line, then the voice returned. “I’m glad to hear it. He’s in Station Square, and so are we.”
“Station Square... that’s not far from us now. I can be there in a day.”
“Good, thank you. I’ll let Mr. Letters organise a meeting place so we can talk more.”
Letters apparently pushed his way back in front of the radio again. “Come to Casinopolis, 2nd floor down the back, I gotta show there, it’ll blow your glasses off. See ya tomorrow, wolfie!”
Before Wyre could respond, a tiny ‘pyow’ indicated the transmission was cut off, and he sighed, then looked down toward the caravan and saw Loki’s long diamond-patterned tail sticking out of the front hood. He grimaced and jumped out of the tree, running over just as the lemur hopped out and pulled the hood down. “Fixing,” Loki said smugly, then goose-stepped around the side of the vehicle as Wyre stood dumbfounded. The wolf shook himself off, then pulled up the hood again and took a look inside for himself. Right as he pressed his nose up to the engine, it roared to a start and Wyre fell backwards in shock, the hood dropping down and revealing Loki behind the wheel, grinning.
Wyre dusted himself off with a grumble and trudged around to the passenger side door, only for the caravan to lurch forward before he could open it. He sighed again, then tried walking to the door again, and the vehicle lurched forward again. Finally, Wyre shot his zip-grapple at the door handle and flicked his wrist, pulling the door open and shooting the wolf inside. From the driver’s seat, Loki gave him a mischievous smile. “Time for ‘thanking you’s?”
“Just go. We’re expected in Station Square tomorrow.”
Loki stuck his tongue out at Wyre, then turned to the road and steered the caravan back onto the highway, switched gears, then pushed down on the accelerator and began the next leg of their journey in silence, the only sounds being the rumbling of the engine and the tires on the road.
---
Finding good parking in Station Square was a nightmare, and frayed the nerves of the pair even more as they argued about possibilities. Loki would suggest parking outside a fast-food place, but Wyre would argue they’d get impounded for staying too long, then he’d suggest one of the multistorey garages, and Loki would point out they didn’t have any human money to pay for it with, and both of them would accuse the other of being unwilling to compromise. They completed a circuit around most of the main roads of the city before eventually lucking upon a free car park next to a government building, and in relief as they walked away from the van, they offered half-hearted apologies to each other before setting off to find the casino Letters worked at.
As they walked the paved streets between the tall buildings and sidestepped busy-looking humans rushing about with suits and briefcases, Loki couldn’t hide his disgust. “This place is so too very rushing. Too much everything everywhere.”
“It’s a nice change of pace,” Wyre remarked, hands in his jacket pockets. “Dead-end countryside villages and towns so historic their infrastructure is on life support get old after a while. It’s nice to be somewhere that actually feels like it has a future.”
“Future, past, pfeh. What is the place now, that is the questions,” Loki said, stopping at a wide crosswalk as cars sped past, distant sounds of sirens and honks orchestrating the ambience. “Everyone here is hating everyone else.”
“What happened to you liking cities?” Wyre complained. “Empire City was much bigger than this, and you loved that place.”
The lemur shrugged, and the crosswalk lights turned green. “This place is differentish. I am not knowing why. Just it is,” he mumbled, walking into the road with Wyre, who rolled his eyes.
“It’s just ‘cause of Letters, isn’t it? I don’t get the beef between you two.”
“It is thinking it is so funny and random, ho ho, I am eating the sawdust for breakfast and appearing in the hats too unexpectedly, I am so quirkly, loving and laughing me please,” Loki mocked scornfully. Wyre shook his head.
“Well, your comedy isn’t always a hit either, so maybe you’re just mad you’re more alike it than you wanna admit.”
Loki span around and pointed accusingly at Wyre. “What is happening with you?! Why are you always grumping at me every time I am saying anything?!”
Wyre glanced sidelong at the cars waiting for them to move, then glared back at Loki. “Because your perpetual tunnel vision is starting to really get on my nerves!” he barked, then started stomping past Loki toward the sidewalk before the lemur’s hand shot out and pushed him back into the road.
“No, no walking away from this like Whisper is saying,” Loki sneered, then folded his arms. “You are all neg, neg, neg, then I am standing upward for myself and you are neg even more.”
“Wow, who taught you that word, Tangle?” Wyre snorted. “Complain all you want, but it's just a fact that thanks to you, ever since I got sick after Hale Hamlet, we’ve been in non-stop trouble!”
Loki clenched his fists at his sides. “Do not using this word!”
“Then what should I say, huh? How else would you describe getting chased from towns for stealing food and medicine, ruining a theatre performance because someone got mistaken for you after everything you’d done, having to stop to fix the caravan multiple times ‘cause you decided to go off-road at high speed-”
“I am doing these things to helping you! And you are doing bad things too!” Loki cried, and a waiting taxi loudly honked at the two of them. Loki looked over, scowled at Wyre, then leapt into the air and flipped backwards, curling his huge tail around himself as Wyre yelled in protest, but the lemur landed on the road in front of the car with his tail slamming into the taxi’s hood, crunching it down with a loud crash. A few onlookers gasped, and Wyre clasped his hands to his head.
“You... you idiot! What did you do that for?!” he screamed. Loki raised an eyebrow.
“Trouble,” he scoffed. Wyre stared at the asphalt beneath his feet in disbelief.
“I can’t believe this. I can’t handle this. I can’t handle you right now. Just... go away.”
“Whisper is right about you,” Loki said flatly, and Wyre’s head snapped up, tears in his eyes.
“I don’t care! Fuck you! I’ve had enough of you. It’s time for you to finally face some fucking consequences for your actions. We’re done!”
Wyre turned away and pulled his beanie down further over his ears, sputtering a few sobs as he walked out of the road and down the sidewalk, only caring about getting away from Loki. His vision was blurred from the tears and having to take off his glasses to wipe them away, but deep in his heart he was hoping Loki would come and stop him before he went too far. But he didn’t. Wyre stopped walking, rubbed his eyes and looked back around, but while the broken taxi was still in the middle of the road and getting honked at by the cars behind it, Loki was nowhere to be seen. Wyre held in another upswell of emotions and turned back to the pavement, putting his glasses back on and sniffling as he carried on walking.
It was another 20 minutes of aimless wandering before he finally spotted a sign advertising the Casinopolis Entertainment Multiplex. He realised he’d probably walked right past it at some point, but stopped himself from thinking too hard about why and focused on the objective - Infinite. As far as he knew, Infinite had vanished at the end of the Eggman War, and rumours circulated that he’d been consumed by the Phantom Ruby, but Wyre had never believed them. He knew Infinite would reappear eventually, and now it was time to finally put an end to the jackal. He clutched the Moon Medal in his pocket. Without the Phantom Ruby, Infinite didn’t stand a chance.
The entrance to the casino was enormous, bright and overwhelming, colourful neon signs and flashing billboards advertising all sorts of entertainment - slots, card games, pinball, comedy and magic shows, live music and cabaret, and signs for escape rooms and axe throwing with “NEW!!” beside them. Wyre glanced at them all with contempt, then sighed and walked inside. To his distaste, the inside was even more overstimulating than the entrance, a cacophony of sounds assaulting him from all directions as he walked past lines of slot machines and roulette tables as swing music played over speakers, stepping over wet patches of spilled drinks on the garish carpet and occasionally getting windblown by excessively-powerful aircon machines. A handsome quokka in a green Casinopolis-branded suit approached Wyre, holding a plate of drinks in their hands, and the wolf noticed the nametag reading “Hi, my name is BARRY”.
“Good afternoon, sir. Would you care for a margarita?”
Wyre’s eyes scanned the quokka up and down, and he kept his hands in his pockets. “Are they free?”
“One for every customer,” Barry smiled politely, and Wyre immediately snatched one of the glasses from the plate, throwing his head back and downing it in one gulp. The quokka furrowed their brows, and Wyre placed the empty glass back on the platter.
“How much for more?”
The quokka blinked. “Uh... certain bets on some of the establishment’s games make customers eligible for drink tokens-”
“Got it. Don’t run off too far,” Wyre said, then turned and instantly made his way toward a blackjack table. He had no money or chips, but that wouldn’t stop him. A human dealer was handing out cards to two players, a human woman and tiger woman, and Wyre hopped onto an open seat beside the human. As the round progressed, Wyre carefully watched the woman’s movements with one eye and observed the dealer’s with the other. When the round finished and the dealer handed out chips to the human, he looked toward Wyre. “Minimum bet of 3 green chips, sir,” he said, and Wyre reached into his pockets then patted himself down as if he’d lost something.
“Uh, sorry about this,” he chuckled, then pulled out his Moon Medal and dropped it onto the table. The human gasped and Wyre took the chance as all eyes watched the Medal spin slightly, snatching a single blue chip from the human woman’s winnings pile and flicking it into his jacket sleeve. He grabbed the Moon Medal and held it up, smiling awkwardly, then pocketed it again, and after another short patting down, he pulled the blue chip from inside his jacket and placed it on the table.
The others placed their bets and the dealer laid out their cards, before sliding Wyre an 8 of diamonds and a king of clubs. Wyre’s eyes locked onto the diamonds and his fist clenched, remembering Loki’s tail. That dumb jerk. He was probably getting himself into more trouble now. Wyre didn’t even look over at the dealer’s cards as he was prompted to hit or stand, and just shook his head. The dealer turned over his face-down card, revealing two tens, and Wyre slid off the chair with a grumble, looking around for Barry.
For another hour or two, Wyre flitted between tables, pulling similar sleight of hand to get chips when he ran out, and never winning anything he didn’t immediately play away in the next hand or cash out immediately for more margaritas. Wyre began to notice Barry avoiding him after he complimented the attendant’s eyes while drinking his fourth margarita, but he didn’t let it get to him. What bothered him more consistently was the huge statue of Sonic in the center of the first floor, a reminder of his cowardice, failing to ever tell his hero how he felt while he desperately held onto his hand, charging through Null Space together. He was pathetic.
Self-loathing spiraled him further down, and he missed out on whole hands as Whisper’s words from Spagonia rattled through his brain. Barry eventually called security after Wyre finally cornered them and begged them for a cuddle, but instead of a pair of burly men like he was hoping to see, Wyre found himself leaning on a trash can and looking across at a pleasantly-smiling rabbit with white fur adorned by grey spiral patterns, wearing a dapper suit and bow tie. “Wyre, buddy, how ya doin’? Ya look like crap.”
Wyre straightened himself up and wiped his face, as if trying to scrub off his visible disastrousness. “Hey, Letters. Sorry for not coming to see you sooner.”
The rabbit chuckled and swung an arm around Wyre’s shoulders. “My friend, my friend, I’m just glad you’re havin’ a good time at the tables, eh?” it said, patting him on the back and starting to pull him into a walk. “C’mon, let’s talk upstairs, no more botherin’ poor Barry.”
Wyre groaned. “Shit, I’m sorry... I’m not having a great day, can you let them know I’m sorry...”
“‘Course, pal, ‘course,” the rabbit assured, leading Wyre up a set of slightly-sticky stairs. “So what’s goin’ on, how’s life, you still performin’ with Loki?”
“We broke up... today,” Wyre sputtered, then sniffed. Letters gasped.
“Oh, good for you! Hey, let’s celebrate later, marg tower on me, eh?”
Wyre gagged at the thought of more margaritas, and Letters pulled him up the final step of the stairs and swiftly strolled down a long walkway overlooking the main room, then turned into a door labeled ‘Chaos Theater’. The sight of an auditorium surrounding a stage with open red curtains made Wyre lighten up slightly, even if the room was a lot smaller than he’d have expected - its max capacity couldn’t have been more than 50. “This is where you perform now? What happened to your big Central City gig?”
“Ehh, this is less effort but still pays the same, so I get more time to do what I really love.”
“Which is?” Wyre asked, following Letters into a door at the stage’s side into a narrow hallway lined with costume racks and prop boxes.
“Creative exercises with local, national and international law,” the rabbit grinned, then opened a door labeled ‘Abe Easy’ and stepped inside. Wyre followed, raising his eyebrows at the dismal little dressing room.
“You always were good at bailing Hugo out of stuff... so what are we doing here?”
Letters bounced into its chair and span around once. “Well, we’re gonna catch up, right? First order of business - this is a trap. Second, your makeup has run, you want some help with that?”
Wyre raised a hand to his face to rub the makeup, then his brain caught up and he froze mid-rub. “What?”
The rabbit looked up at the ceiling above Wyre’s head, and before the wolf could even follow, something metal and heavy fell down on top of him and banged him on the top of his head. He groaned in pain and fell to the floor, then when the pain had subsided enough, he raised his head to see he was pinned under a steel cage just barely shorter than he was, and only a couple of feet wide and deep. The rabbit was holding a makeup palette in one hand, a brush in the other, and licking the brush’s hairs as if tasting the powder on it. “I didn’t teach ya the escape artistry trick for this one, did I? I genuinely forget. Also, I’m serious about the makeup help-”
“Letters, you bastard!” Wyre growled, grabbing onto the thick metal bars of the cage and pulling on them to no avail. “What’s this about?!”
“I’m workin’ with the Neo Jackal Squad now. I proposed renamin’ it to the Rabbit Squad, ‘s a little punchier, y’know, but they didn’t seem too thrilled about that,” it shrugged nonchalantly. Wyre punched the metal bars, then clutched his hand in pain and fell onto his backside.
“Damnit... what do you even gain from this?”
The rabbit scratched its head. “Well, I’ve never been a part of an internationally-wanted mercenary squad before. Thought it’d be a real conversation starter, quite the point of interest on my resumé, y’know?”
Wyre leaned back on the bars and rubbed the sore top of his head in exasperation. “Loki was right about you. I shouldn’t have believed you...” he sighed, then had a realisation. “Hold on... how are you gonna get me out of here? Sneaking a huge cage out of a place like this is a trick even you can’t pull off. And it doesn’t have a base...”
The rabbit sat forward in its chair. “Oh, yeah, thanks for remindin’ me,” it said, then raised a gloved hand and somehow snapped its fingers. A loud series of creaks surrounded the room, then all four of the walls swung backwards and hit the ground, disappearing like they were never there and revealing a gargantuan, almost cathedralesque storm drain, littered with huge concrete supports stretching to the ceiling some 50 feet away. It was dark but not pitch black, thanks to streaks of light from little grated openings far up on the walls, so Wyre could see the rabbit was still spinning on its chair, and a pair of black-and-white jackals leaned against one of the pillars nearby. In his slight drunkenness, he almost mistook them for looking like Loki.
“Impressive,” the female jackal said, her voice echoing repeatedly in the cavernous interior, stepping away from the pillar and hunching over to glance at Wyre in the cage. The voice was the same as from the radio call yesterday - this was Trois. “Why don’t you do tricks like that in your show? You’d get a lot better reviews.”
Letters tucked the makeup accessories into its suit. “Customer retention. You don’t want folks thinkin’ they’ve got such an easy out from the casino,” it explained. The other jackal, wearing a green bandana, snorted.
“Humans are more evil than anything the boss ever did. They’re just sneakier about it,” he said derisively. Wyre shuffled forward in the cage and peered out as much as he could, looking in the shadows for another jackal, but he couldn’t see anything.
“I almost can’t believe it was that easy,” Trois chuckled. “Even got himself drunk to make it easier for us.”
“Don’t underestimate him,” another echoing voice finally came from behind Wyre, and he turned to see a third jackal, but only from the nose-down, wearing a long-sleeved grey coat. Nevertheless, the growling sneer in the voice sent chills down Wyre’s spine, and even before the jackal could slowly pace around the cage, each step thundering about the storm drain, and squat down to look Wyre in the eye, he knew who it was. He stared into Infinite’s cloudy blue and shining gold eyes, and the jackal glared back. “Even sleeping dogs can still bite. But his nightmare is only just beginning.”