The Jungle

[Echo]

[from cross country]

Quote:"Where are going to go once we're off the ship? Do any of you have a map or anything like that? Any way we can summon a rescue craft?"

Era hopped down to the ground and tapped a small device on her wrist with a clawed finger. It flickered to life, displaying a small map of the planet which zoomed in on their location.

"we do, we have sat images and topography maps of the whole planet thanks to your 'Virtual Mobius' software we got from your internet. We mapped some of it manually, but you mobians had already mapped it pretty extensively."

She adjusted the map to match up with the environment around them. "alright, seems our course is that way" she said pointing behind herself. "There's a roadway through the jungle about fifteen miles from here, lets hope it's still there since the merge. Then it's another seven miles from there to the nearest town. We can steal us a means of transport from there."

"Then what?" Amiroo asked skeptically. "assuming we make it there alive, where do we go from there? This planet is being invaded. No doubt, as we speak, they're preparing to project their forces across as much territory as they can capture. We're still within a hundred miles of Robotropolis, still well within range."

"We have to hope that we can take a vehicle and keep ahead of them. Then we can..."

Suddenly something caught her eye, ripples in the environment around them, at least a dozen of them.

"THEY'RE HERE!!! THEY'RE CLOAKED!!!" Era screamed raising her rifle to engage the cloaked enemies, but her offensive, as well as that of the others, were cut short as several stun grenades were thrown into the center of their group. They were all immediately sent to the ground choking as the world seemed to spin as the effects of the grenades took hold. Almost all at once they were surrounded by no less than twelve armored raptors aiming rifles at them, one of which Amiroo recognized through his stupor.

" You*cough, cough*you're from the city. Who are*hack, cough*you?" Amiroo asked trying to push himself from the ground but was stopped as one of the raptors placed his foot on Amiroos neck and pressed him back to the ground, the barrel of his rifle just inches from Amiroos face. The raptor leaned down and said something in Saurian that made Amiroo look at him skeptically. Amiroo said something back, the raptor only snorted in response.

The mysterious male raptor was also there. He turned his attention away from the raptors they'd just captured to the forest behind them.

"Nail, you can come out now, we've got them. These are the raptors you were talking about aren't they?" he asked.

"How can you not recognize one of you're own exploration tea...*ack*" Amiroo started but was cut off when the raptor that had his foot on his neck pressed down harder, cutting off his air. The raptor yelled something in Saurian, presumably along the lines of 'shut up!" while pressing the barrel of his rifle into Amiroos cheek.

The others were not in much better shape. As they came to and began to move, they would be similarly restrained. Gichii would have no less than two raptors aiming rifles at him as they didn't know what to expect out of him.

"Don't move mobian" one said through a heavy accent.

Amiroo suddenly burst into flames as he activated his pyro abilities. "GET OFF ME!" The raptor atop him jumped away as he howled in pain from the fire that was lit under his feet.

Amiroo jumped to his feet and attempted to tackle the raptor but was sent back to the ground as the mysterious male raptor shot him with a stun bolt.

"Restrain him!" the raptor commanded. Several raptors jumped on top of him and forced him to lie still on the ground despite his resistance.

"I will shoot you again! SIT STILL! STOP RESISTING!" one of the raptors warned as they wrestled with him.

[Giichi Twinkieland]

[Didn't Amiroo get captured along with Nail and Gail by these guys? Also, what happened to the plan to split the group?]

As soon as Era called out to run, Giichi turned to bolt. But before he could even take a handful of steps, a stun grenade landed at his feet and exploded. His entire scope of vision filled with blinding white as he got pelted by the grenade's high speed rubber balls. The cat quickly went down, crying out from the surprise hit. By the time he recovered, he found himself staring down the barrels of two rifles pointed at him by other raptors. He quickly raised his hands, feeling incredibly pitiful as he sat on his knees in the grass.

Why the hell are they doing this to me? What did I do to them?

[Nail Strafer]

Nail walked out of the trees after the strange raptors, limping on one of his legs. That laser wound he'd gotten in Robotropolis hadn't had time to heal yet. Still, he limped onwards to look at what his strange hosts had done. He sighed and shook his head at the sight.

"Is it really necessary to use force like this? You could have just sent me out to talk to them. They know me."

He called out to Amiroo and Giichi's group.

"Sorry about this guys. I don't know why they're doing this to you."

[Gail Strafer]

Gail meanwhile brought up the rear of the group. He simply stood there and watched, as he found himself rather confused by this entire situation. A lot had happened in the past couple hours. A raid on Robotropolis with the Freedom Fighters, then shadow beasts, then dinosaurs, then more dinosaurs appearing through temporal wormholes.

Thinking about the original reason he'd gone to Robotropolis reminded him of something. What had happened to the other Freedom Fighters? Were they OK? Were any of them wondering where he'd gone off to? He hoped they were doing well. Gail hoped he could get a chance to contact the others and Chadin.

[Echo]

[yes, he was captured. But she let him go because the ship showed up sooner than their simulations indicated. As for joining back up, it's only momentary. The time jump messed up some minor things with the plot line. So, I modified the timeline slightly which required us to temporarily to link back up.]

Quote:"Is it really necessary to use force like this? You could have just sent me out to talk to them. They know me."

"Yes, for the same reason police forces arrest everyone during a hostage situation. You can never be sure who is friend and who is foe. An enemy could disguise itself as a hostage, and walk right into your arms and you wouldn't know it until you end up with a plasma bolt in your gut. Until we are sure of which side they are all on, they are treated as potential enemy combatants."

The raptor turned to Amiroo,"If you would sit still, this would be over quicker."

"We are on your side idiot. We were sent here to study the planet in detail almost a year ago" Amiroo hissed.

"and what side might that be?" the raptor responded curiously.
Amiroo was about to respond but suddenly thought better of it. He seemed to think a moment before speaking.

"who are you?"

The raptor waited a moment before responding, "I am chief petty officer Ryseland Jimiree of the Yudanese navy"

Amiroos face twisted into a look of horror as his blood ran cold....they were the enemy.

"The Yudanese Navy?" Era whispered.

"But you said you were republic! Why let me go before if you were lying!?" Amiroo demanded of the female raptor standing adjacent of Ryseland.

The female raptor gave Amiroo a curious look. "I am republic"

Everyone's mouth fell open in shock.

"enough!" Ryseland yelled. "Find their ID's. We're already fairly certain who you and your people are Captain Amiroo. We just want to be sure."

"Captain?" Amiroo asked....he wasn't a captain.

Several raptors moved in and began rifling through their bags, spilling their contents on the ground until they found what they were looking for. A raptor handed their ID's off to Ryseland and he looked them over curiously.

"These are Ararian ID's...sort of. I was unaware your team was under cover."

"what is going on here?" Amiroo said quietly to himself.

"These aren't very convincing forgeries, captain. These symbols are wrong, it's a good thing you hadn't run into any Ararian forces, they'd have killed you." head said turning the Ids around in his grasp "You may release them. They're description matches up."

The other raptors released the crew, though they kept their rifles at the ready should they need them.

"Do they think we're someone on their side?" Rye whispered to Amero, "I don't know, just go with it."

"you'll be pleased to know that we've processed the data you sent us during your last entry before we lost contact, captain. We've made quite a few discoveries regarding the location of the ship. We've located at least two subterranean structures that are probable to contain information regarding the final resting place of the weapon. We need to..."

"whoa....what? We didn't send you anything pal! We're republic!" Amiroo hissed, the others visibly cringing at his outburst seeing as they could all be shot at the drop of a stone.

"Yes...so are we."

"No you're not, you just said you were a member of the Yudanese navy. Last time I checked you guys were the enemy of republican governance, brutal totalitarianism's more your style."

The raptor simply stared at Amiroo a moment, "Captain Amiroo I..."

"I'm not a captain!"

The raptor seemed taken back by his outburst. "Amiroo, I feel some misunderstanding is happening here. If we could.."

"Oh yeah, invading a primitive world, leveling a city, and setting up shop is sure a misunderstanding. Let me guess, you guys were just stopping by in your giant destroyer to ask directions right? A little sight seeing maybe?."

"Whoa, invading!? The Ararians are the ones invading, not us!"

"What!? That ship had Yudanese markings slapped all over it! So unless you know something you're not telling us you can.."

"SHUT UP! Look" Ryseland said tossing his ID to Amiroo, who simply slapped it away.

"Go swim on a star." amiroo said coldly.

"Amiroo, if we were your enemy we would have simply killed you and been done with it. Especially since we already have the data we need. We don't need you, but it would be ideal if we had your support. This is our chance to turn this war around. The republic has only been just hanging on in this fight, but we have an opportunity to change that and crush despotism once and for all; to pay those b*stards back for the billions they've slaughtered. Think about it Amiroo, we know everything about you. We knew where you were, what you had been doing, using your own frequencies and equipment. There's no way, if we were the enemy would have access to all of that. Especially since we alternate our frequencies in the snowflake band specific pattern every 3.223 minutes." Ryseland said smiling.
Amiroo's expression softened somewhat. Ryseland had two points, one of which there was no way the enemy could know.

Meanwhile Rye had picked up the ID Amiroo had swatted to the ground. she looked it over a moment, it had Yudanese markings and insignia, but it was formatted in Ararian ID layout as well as the Ararian symbol for democracy and liberty.

"I have a hypothesis here. This ID is formatted after our ID's, only it has Yudanese markings. Also Chief Ryeland is correct about our frequency encryption pattern and rate of band jumping if I'm not mistaken.." she said looking to Rog, who nodded in agreement.

"There's no way the enemy could know that, much less infiltrate it. Due to optical encryption that would require breaking the laws of physics to infiltrate undetected. The only logical conclusion, in my mind, is that we're both on the same side, just on different sides from two alternate time lines."

"say what?" Amero asked, tilting his head to the side. Apparently that had flown completely over his head.

"We're from two different time lines. In ours, the Ararian republic is the good side. In theirs, the Yudanese...republic, are the good guys, our roles reversed. Our two realities could be overlapping due to the merge."

"...oh" Amero said digesting that information.

"Look we don't have a lot of time, the Ararians will be here any time now. Are you with us? We could use your raptorpower to cover more ground quickly."
Everyone turned to Amiroo who still stared at Ryseland. He simply stared for a good long moment, like he was contemplating his next move.

"Fine. But the moment you give me any reason to doubt our alliance. I'm going to kill you."

Ryseland swallowed hard, "Agreed. Now look, We're going to need to split into two teams. Your crew and one of the Mobians will be a team in and of itself. We'll provide you with the data and one of our ships to check out one of the sites we found. Meanwhile, we will take a Mobian and go to the other site. That way, we're certain to find the data in the least amount of time before the Ararians get time to get settled and launch their own teams."

"Why are the Mobians coming along?" Rye said placing her hand on Gichii's shoulder reassuringly. "why can't we leave them somewhere safe, this isn't their responsibility."

"We need them to infiltrate these facilities and disarm their security systems before we can enter them. Theses facilities date back to before the purge 70 million years ago. At that time, mammals were nothing more advanced than rodents. The security systems are programmed not to respond to mammals..as long as their careful."


"A few things" Amiroo said " One, you're coming with our team..just in case I need to revoke your hatching certificate. Two, the mobians choose which team they go with and they are all to remain in contact with our team at all times. Three, Nail is to be fully healed before we do this or no dice."

"Agreed. Medic" he said gesturing to Nail. A medic quickly ran over to Nail to tend to his leg with some healing nanites.

"Alright, the mobians need to choose which teams their going on. Meanwhile we'll bring you a ship to replace your other one." Ryseland said.

"Alright Gichii, Nail, Gail what's it going to be? You guys have any questions?" Amiroo asked.

[Nail Strafer]

[I've got to say that I think I'd like one of my characters to join another plotline. Probably Giichi. Even if we are breaking up the party, I would like to have my characters spread out a bit more.

Also, if you don't mind, I'd like to critique something in your posting style. You tend to write an awful lot and advance the plot too quickly most of your posts. This doesn't give my characters much of a chance to respond and interact with the story progression. I think my characters would have liked to ask some questions in the middle of the conversation between your characters. For example, the part where Ryseland mentions she's part of the Yudanese Navy would have been a great place to stop.

But now all I can do is answer the question they ask at the end. It limits the amount of things my characters can do and makes the roleplay less fun for me. Just remember that you're not writing your own story. We're writing this story together. Let me help move along the story too.

Also, there would be a side benefit if you made your posts shorter. If you don't write so much in one post, it'll be easier to write your posts more often since you won't have to think up and write so much. I know it's hard for you to post fast, so I think this might be the thing to help you post faster.]

Nail watched the raptors converse back and forth with one another. It was a bit like watching a tennis match really, as the conversation rapidly jumped back and forth between the two. He wanted to speak up, but so much information was being disseminated that it was taking all of his effort just to keep up with the flow of the conversation.

Finally though the raptors turned to the Mobians and asked which team they wanted to go on. So they could either go with these new raptors, or Amiroo and the raptors they knew. If Nail had his choice, he'd want himself, Gail, and Giichi to all go together as a group with Amiroo's raptors, but that didn't look like an option. This timeline crap messing with the raptor factions really made things confusing...

Still, Nail knew he could take care of himself, so he supposed he would be the best candidate to go with the Yudanese group.

"I'll go with the newcomers...the Yudanese." Nail cast a brief glance at his father Gail and then looked back at the raptors. "If you don't mind, I think it would be best if Gail doesn't come along at all. He's just a kid and he doesn't know what he's doing."

[Gail Strafer]

"Just a kid?!" Gail angrily growled, stepping up to Nail and towering a head over him. "Nail, I've been through several dadgum battles already. When Robotnik attacked Soleanna, when Robotnik attacked Angel Island, and when we raided Robotrpolis. And I'm still here and goin' strong. Plus I'm your dad!"

Nail's blank facial expression remained unchanged, despite Gail's toothy mouth snapping up and down close to him.

"You're not my dad yet. And you might have been a good dad while I was growing up, but I know from living with you that you're impulsive and you've got a short temper. Plus, I love you, I really do, but looking back on our lives you made some bad decisions. You ran away from home when you were a kid. Then you fell in with a gang, even though you had a wife and three kids. And then that gang killed mom. And then I didn't see you until over a decade later."

Gail's mouth dropped open in shock. And was it his imagination or did he actually see a small tear rolling down Nail's cheek? Was he actually going to do all of that in the future?


"You know what? I'm also not worried about just your life. In your timeline, I haven't been born yet. What would happen to me if you died? Or would that tear a hole in the space time continuum or something?"

Gail hadn't even thought of that, but for some reason he didn't even think it would be a problem.

"But wouldn't where we are now be its own stable timeline? You're probably going to be okay no matter what happens to me."

"How do you know that for sure?"

"Because we're in a totally different timeline right now, and I haven't done half of the things you've told me yet. I think that woulda stopped you from being born, wouldn't it?"

[Echo]

[gotcha. Sorry about that, I was just trying to move along the storyline to more exciting parts I guess. I didn't really know if all this standing around talking would be interesting or have you yelling "get on with it already >:T" . I get carried away though. I've always been a tad on the impatient side so there a lot of times where I do rush things because I feel other players are getting bored with the standing around. Maybe I should take you up on that offer to give writing lessons. :/ ]

Quote: ''ll go with the newcomers...the Yudanese.... "If you don't mind, I think it would be best if Gail doesn't come along at all. He's just a kid and he doesn't know what he's doing."

Amiroo shook his head in acceptance, yet something still bothered him if his expression was any indicator. He approached Nail while the others began prepping to leave, hoping to go unnoticed for a moment. Nail and Gail were having a discussion..an emotional one at that. If the situation didn't compel him to talk to Nail, he'd likely let the situation go.

"Nail, sorry if I'm interrupting anything but we need to talk real quick. There's something not right about all this. I don't trust it. These raptors... I don't know. I feel like we're...I'm, making a mistake trusting them." Amiroo said in a hushed tone.

"We can drop Gail off in a safe location if you'd like."

[Nail Strafer]

Quote:"We can drop Gail off in a safe location if you'd like."

"HEY!" Gail roared loud enough for everyone to hear him. "Why don't I get a say in this? I'm eighteen! I'm a legal adult! I should get to decide where I'm going and what I'm doing!"

Nail raised a hand to quiet Gail.

"Pipe down for a second, would you? I need to talk to Amiroo about this. By the way, all of that yelling and screaming doesn't help your case for why you should come."

Nail sighed, and then looked over at the Yudanese raptors.

"I gotta admit, I don't feel too good about it either. I had a hard time keeping up with what you were saying, but from what I gather they're the bad guys in your timeline, but now they're the good guys for some reason and they've taken the place of your old faction. I would give my opinion, but let's face it, I'm an outsider in this matter. Still though, maybe I can help us work through this sensibly. If we don't cooperate with them, what do you think the consequences would be? What do we have to lose?"

[Giichi Twinkieland]

Giichi also found himself wandering over. That wolf looked familiar to him for some reason. As he studied Gail's features, the cat snapped his fingers. They'd run into each other in that small town outside of Soleanna, after the battle with Robotnik had taken place. Giichi had remembered trying to hire him for some kind of job, but the wolf never showed up. But they were both members of the Thieves' Guild at least. As Gail stood there fuming, Giichi gently tugged him by his vest since Giichi only stood at about half of Gail's height. The wolf, confusedly, looked down at him.

"Hey...do you remember me? We met around the time that huge knight guy and that witch attacked that village outside Soleanna. I'm Giichi. You're Gail, if I'm not mistaken."