Emerald Coast

[Shazbot]

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHH SSSSHHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIT!!!!!

Sometimes, there are bad ideas. Sometimes, there are crazy ideas. Sometimes, there is a lethal combination of the two that leaves hypothetical onlookers scratching their hypothetical heads at the not-so-hypothetical spectacle unfolding before their non-existent eyes. One such idea was had by a very desperate echidna aboard a very broken vessel, who hoped the idea was crazy enough to actually work. It didn't.

Heralded by little more than the late afternoon breeze, an enormous air-battleship simply materialized out of thin air, smoke trailing from its engine as it tried vainly to remain airborne. Clinging to the helm like a madman was none other than that certain crazy-bad-idea echidna. All around the bridge alarms were blaring, red lights were flashing, and the automatic cup-holders were popping in and out of their own accord. Basically, everything was broke, and the ground was looking closer every second. That certain "crazy-bad-idea" had been to attempt to hijack the vessel while it was undergoing repairs. Why? Because the person it belonged to was a back-stabbing reprobate. Emphasis on "was".

A big red light labeled "master alarm" was the brightest and most insistent, so the captain executed the command override procedure and smashed it to tiny bits. Immediately all the other alarms and lights stopped flashing, and for one brief moment the echdina felt calm, at peace.

Then the nose of the ship drove into the ocean, and all that peace was chased away by panic and terror. Clinging to the console for dear life, the unusual echidna prayed to whatever gods would listen that he wouldn't have to die here and now, not while he was still a virgin. The water parted in great rolling waves as the ship drove into it like a wedge, churning up a great spout of foam that washed over the sides of the ship. Then it hit a sandbar, and the additional deceleration arrested the behemoth's considerable momentum, causing the foolish echidna to flip over the console and go rolling across the floor. Desperately he reached out for something to right himself, but every cup-holder on the bridge retracted the instant he grasped at it.

He crashed into the windshield, his face leaving an unsightly imprint on the thick glass. Then the nose of the ship began to rise as it slowly ground to a halt at the sandy beach. The room now tilted backward at an odd angle, the would-be captain fell over backwards, tumbling back toward the captain's chair and banging his head. Amid the swirling sea of stars, he was aware that, finally, he had come to a stop.

After several minutes of much needed R&R, the echidna named Shazbot rose slowly to his feet, shaking the fuzz out of his mind while he assessed the damage.

He started with himself, which you might assume was a simple and easy place to start. Not so with this unusual echidna, who was just as much machine as he was flesh-and-blood. He was a cyborg, a rare combination of medical science and nano-technology. Years ago, he suffered grievously at the hands of a massive explosion, leaving his limbs broken and his body mutilated. Now, whatever it was about his body that no longer functioned properly was replaced with SCIENCE. He moved his right arm in experimental motions, it being totally robotic, and twisted the wrist a full 360 degrees. He banged on the side of his head, and his cybernetic left-eye stopped feeding back, the picture turning from snowy to clear. He opened a large metal plate on his chest, examining some of his vital inner workings with the speed and care of a surgeon and a mechanic all rolled into one. Glowing at the center was a giant gemstone, as large as his fist, glowing faintly with green and orange swirls all along its surface. Satisfied that everything was still in place, he slammed the hatch shut and rotated his ankles. Both feet, along with his entire left leg, were robotic, and he tested their full range of motion. A small puff of flame ejected from the bottom of his feet as he rose an inch off the floor. He slapped his knees, then clapped his hands.

Well... that could have been worse!

Satisfied that he was not only alive, but in good health, he walked off the bridge and was immediately beset by vertigo as he tried to navigate the tilted corridors of the ship. Feeling that he might soon be ill, Shaz made for the nearest hatch and burst out into the fresh salty air. Standing atop the ruined airship, he surveyed his surroundings, perplexed. Last he knew, he was flying over Knothole City, which was far inland and nowhere near any large bodies of water. He activated his GPS, but there was no signal, which was odd since all of Mobius was covered in a network of global positioning satellites. Curiouser and curiouser...

He tried connecting to the world wide network, but was unsurprised to find that there was no signal there either. In fact, he wasn't detecting ANY signal registered in his database. He was, on the other hand, detecting a smorgasbord of bandwidths that he didn't recognize. What the bleeding blue bagpipes is going on around here? It's like I'm on a different planet! The setting sun was giving way to a clear night, and far off in the east he could see many stars already peeking over the horizon. On a hunch, he spun in place and searched for the unmoving north star, but no matter how intensely he magnified the zoom of his cyborg eye, he could find no trace of the fateful light.

He turned his head with a sigh, his focus returning to normal. Well, no sense hanging around here. I'll bet there's a shuttle in the hanger I can use for now... As he climbed back through the tilted halls, he noticed that despite the crash, the ship was largely intact. There were no cracks in the hull, and very few devices were damaged by the impact. When he finally made it to the hanger, however, it was a different story. There were four shuttles, and three of them had slipped off their docking clamps and crashed into the hanger bay door, which was now dented and likely non-functional. The fourth shuttle, at least, was not only intact, but operational. The fuel cell was old and needed replacing, so after a few quick modifications with what few tools he could scavenge, Shaz converted the engine to run on chaos energy.

He took a look at the bay doors, and noticed that they opened outward, which was good. With a cutting torch, he climbed up to the hydraulic pistons and sliced them, causing the lower half of the door to swing free, and the broken shuttles to tumble out of the ship. Then he grabbed a chain and lashed it to the upper door, after which he extended his cyborg arm up to the nose of the ship, pulling himself up. After wrapping the chain around the nose, he let himself drop, using his weight to pull down on the chain and lift the door open wide enough to allow the shuttle to pass. He hooked the chain in place, then dropped to the ground with a satisfied "Heya!"

Once his path was clear, Shaz re-entered the ship and strode over to the shuttle, removing the strangely-colored emerald from his chest and placing it inside the engine core. Immediately the machine hummed to life, and Shaz strapped himself into the pilot's seat, releasing the docking clamps. Holding his hand over his mouth to simulate a speaker, he proclaimed "This is Shazbot, Machine S is go for launch. Roger Machine S, you are clear for launch. Shazbot, Machine S, take off for great justice. PIZZOW!" At that final exclamation he slammed the accelerator, boosting out of the hanger at breakneck speed.

As he ascended, more stars appeared to grace the night sky. He glanced over them, scanning for constellations, but was unable to find even one recognizable cluster. It really did seem as though he'd landed on another world, but how, and why? Shaz decided the first thing he should do is seek out civilization. Locking onto the strongest cluster of radio signals, he triangulated their location and took off toward them in a straight line, flying high over the sandy dunes below.

[To Robotropolis]

((Edit: I just realized that Emerald Coast is right near Station Square, which is now Robotropolis. This gives me an idea.))