The Jungle

[Giichi Twinkieland]

Giichi grimaced at Nail, as the hybrid suggested that he babysit Gail. If Nail cared how he felt though, he didn't show it. The hybrid maintained that flat, emotionless face that was his default look. It looked like Gail was probably coming whether he liked it or not, so it would probably just make things easier if he tried to help Gail become the hero he wanted to be.

In any case, he covered up his frown with the best winning smile he could and said, "Sure, I'll do it."

[Echo]

Quote:"If we can't split up the teams half and half, then I will go with the Yudanese group. However, I want two Ararians to come with me. I think the Yudanese who goes with the Aranians should be someone with high ranks as well." "If you don't mind, I'd like to go over a few details with you in a second. Excuse me a moment."

"I think that's agreea.....ble?" Jimmiree trailed off as Nail abruptly walked away.
"Have your other choice ready momentarily. Me and another from my team will go with Nail." Amiroo said before leaving to talk with his team mates who were discussing something amongst themselves.

"What's up guys" Amiroo said joining the circle.
"We don't like this plan is what's up." Amero said. "If we split our teams evenly, the chain of command will basically be back to first week of boot camp. If we're taking on the Yudanese...alternate Ararians, whatever we're going to be up against professional soldiers. We'll get slaughtered out there!"
"Relax, that's not what's going to happen. We're only exchanging two, plus a Mobian."

"....what?" Tybe said

"They're going to send us two of their high ranking team mates."

"but..won't that cut the head off their chain of command...and ours for that matter?" Rye asked tilting her head to the side.

"That.....is a good point actually." Amiroo said, his confidence evaporating.

"Whatever we're going to do, we need to do it fast. Whoever those guys were in Robotropolis will be on top of us soon. No doubt they're putting together an offensive as we speak." Rog said.

"I know. You've said that before, we're all aware of this." Amiroo said turning to Nail talking with Gail and Gichii, "Nail" he yelled, gesturing for Nail to come over. " we might have a problem unless you've got something good."

[Nail Strafer]

Sighing, Nail walked back over to the raptors. Surprising how comfortable he felt around them, considering his first encounter at that bar back in Soleanna. Amiroo had misheard him and thought he said he wanted two Yudanese officers to go with the Ararians.

"The Yudanese have a much bigger group than we do. I don't see how the loss of one commanding officer could make that big of a difference. Surely they have others. And if they're even halfway competent, the guy below the officer we take should be ready to step up and take charge. We just need to have some leverage over the Yudanese in case this is a trap. Competent officers are not easy to replace, after all."

[Giichi Twinkieland]

"Ahem..."

A soft cough could be heard behind Nail. Giichi walked over, looking at Nail and extending a hand towards the raptors as if to say 'May I?' Nail looked confused, but allowed Giichi to take the floor.

"If who we are fighting is the Ararians, I was just wondering if we could take advantage of your Ararian gear to blend in with the enemy. If their gear's not too different from yours, we could have a spy gather intelligence. Then we can find out about the enemy's movements. If the enemy looks like they're searching for the same two places we're going, then the Yudanese may be telling the truth."

"Or the Yudanese are really the bad Ararians and this whole thing is just to get us to play along until they don't actually need us anymore," Nail added, with a grunt.

"So we have a spy in the enemy's ranks and we don't tell these guys," Giichi said, waving to the Yudanese close by.

"Speaking of which," Nail asked, looking at Amiroo. "I honestly can't tell you guys apart. Yudanese from Ararian I mean. What are the differences? Is there any way to say for sure a raptor is one or the other?"

[Skip Gail this time]

[Echo]

Quote:"I honestly can't tell you guys apart. Yudanese from Ararian I mean. What are the differences? Is there any way to say for sure a raptor is one or the other?"

"really?" Amiroo asked looking at Nail skeptically. "We wear similar uniforms and equipment, but if you look, Yudanese armor tends to be in blue scale digital pattern, ours in brown,black, and tan. Also, look to our flags on our sides..." He said gesturing to a small small flag on his torso behind his arms "ours is yellow on crimson, theirs white on black. Easy to spot." He said patting Nail on the shoulder.

Quote:"The Yudanese have a much bigger group than we do. I don't see how the loss of one commanding officer could make that big of a difference. Surely they have others. And if they're even halfway competent, the guy below the officer we take should be ready to step up and take charge. We just need to have some leverage over the Yudanese in case this is a trap. Competent officers are not easy to replace, after all."

The raptors nodded in agreement, except one, Tybe didn't look very happy at all about this.

Quote:"Or the Yudanese are really the bad Ararians and this whole thing is just to get us to play along until they don't actually need us anymore,"

"Exactly, or they're actually just the Yudanese from our universe, and this is just a bunch of crap." Tybe hissed under his breath.

Quote:"If who we are fighting is the Ararians, I was just wondering if we could take advantage of your Ararian gear to blend in with the enemy. If their gear's not too different from yours, we could have a spy gather intelligence. Then we can find out about the enemy's movements. If the enemy looks like they're searching for the same two places we're going, then the Yudanese may be telling the truth."

"Only problem is that ship had Yudanese markings, meaning that probably wouldn't work. Those Raptors over there would probably have a better chance at that." Tybe said.

"Wait, what? But I thought Chief Jimmiree said..." Rye started "That's right, that ship did have Yudanese markings, didn't it!?" Amiroo interrupted.

"Come to think of it, yeah." Rog said

"What difference does that make?" Amero asked, clearly not following the developing line of thought.

"Ok, Jimmiree over there said that in their world, the Ararians are the bad guys and the Yudanese are the good guys, right?"

"Yeah" Amero said hesitantly.

"Well, if the Yudanese are the good guys, and the people on that ship are the bad guys..." Amiroo said looking at Amero hoping he'd catch it.

"....then why did that ship have Yudanese markings?"

"exactly"

Everyone's blood ran cold as they realized they were likely surrounded by enemies.

[Nail Strafer]

"When I asked if there's a good way to tell a Yudanese raptor from an Ararian raptor, I meant body differences. Like how you can tell an Arctic fox from a red fox from the color."

When Amiroo and the raptors came to their conclusion about the Yudanese, Nail's eyebrows narrowed and his mouth stretched into a frown, but otherwise no difference could be seen on his face. He turned around and looked at Gail. Briefly, he considered calling his future father over for his own safety, but thought that might be unwise. Gail was loud and didn't think very far ahead, so he might do something stupid and let the Yudanese know about this discussion. So Nail thought he should keep the wolf in the dark for a bit.

"Calm down everyone," Nail attempted to be the voice of reason and rationality with an even voice. "Don't let panic take hold. If you do, we won't be able to work out a plan. All we can do is work with the hand we've been dealt."

He waved for everyone to lean in closer.

"Whatever we do, we can't fight them right now. We're outnumbered. Plus we don't have a ride out of here. Unless we want to spend days or weeks walking out of here, we have two options: find a way to call for help, or steal one of the ships that the Yudanese brought with them. Since they've offered us the chance to split up, I guess that means they'll be giving us a ship.

"Otherwise, we will need to get in touch with someone who can get us a ship. There's your HQ, or...Gail is a Freedom Fighter, and Giichi is a member of the Thieves' Guild. I don't think the FF would hesitate to help one of their own, but we'd need to get in contact somehow first. Giichi, would the Guild help--"

[Giichi Twinkieland]

"Forget it." Giichi shook his head. "The Guild's in chaos right now because of the mess that witch and her beast fox made. The organization may have collapsed in on itself by now."

He coughed a bit to clear his throat.

"So fighting the Yudanese directly is out. We can go along with their plan. I guess that would get us a ride on their ships out of the jungle, but also get us separated and potentially killed. Or we can tell them no. But what would they do if we said no? Would they force us to cooperate? Would they kill you raptors and take us Mobians for whatever they need? They only need me and the other Mobians after all."

Giichi blinked.

"You know, that's a good point." He looked at Nail. "They already had Nail and Gail before. Two Mobians, one to go to each site. If they are truly a scouting party from the battleship that came through the wormhole, why did they even bother coming down to the jungle to talk to us? Why not firebomb us from the air in that case? Or why not just fly off to the sites with reinforcements and leave us none the wiser to their plans? Or why not just capture civilians fleeing Robotropolis and use them? It just doesn't add up why they'd need us, if they truly are the enemy. They'd have other resources."

"Unless..." Nail whispered. "They want to capture one of you Ararians to locate your hidden HQ, so they can blow it up and scatter your organization to the winds."

"But if that's all they need from us, why not just take us all prisoners and begin with the interrogations? Why bother being friendly at all?"

"That is a good point," Nail stroked his chin. "But in general it's just a good idea to avoid allying yourself with someone who is more powerful than you. Once we agree to their plan, we are at their mercy. How could we verify they're telling the truth?"

[Gail Strafer]

Gail wondered why Nail had stared at him briefly before looking away. It looked like he and Giichi were having an intense discussion with the raptors, but he couldn't quite make out what. He decided to walk over to listen in a bit more closely. He wouldn't have to be standing right next to them though, considering his canine ears allowed him to hear incredibly well.

[Echo]

"Yeah, there are some differences. Yudanese Raptors tend to have longer snouts than us. They also tend to be a bit shorter. While we stand at your average Human height, Yudanese tend to be about about 3/4 Human height....wait.. your father is allied with those freedom fighter guys isn't he? Do you think they would help us?" Amiroo asked Nail. "I mean, is that a possibility?"

"If it is, our radios still work. I believe I could easily get a signal out without alerting them. I mean, if we do that is." Era said

Rog nodded, "I could encrypt it. Even if they did intercept it, they wouldn't be able to make heads or tails of it. Only the recipient of our choice would be able to hear it."

"That still doesn't answer how we refuse their offer, if we do, or how we would link up with anyone we contacted. I mean, if we refuse to help them, they may get violent." Tybe said.

"whatever we do, Nail's right, we can't lose our cool. We have to think this through. Era,Rog, get to work on that radio transmission idea. Be sneaky about it though. In the mean time we need ideas for what happens if that idea fails and we're on our own. Lets do it people." Amiroo said gesturing for the others to bounce ideas amongst themselves.

[Giichi Twinkieland]

[I get the feeling we're the only people left on the board. If we want to join up with anyone else, we may need to message them and make sure they'd be committed to sticking around.]

Giichi sighed impatiently. It seemed like they'd ignored just about everything he'd said.

"Didn't any of you hear what I just said? If they're our enemies, then what they're doing here doesn't make sense. If all they need Mobians for is to get past sensors, why not just kidnap random Mobians in easier-to-find places? Why go to the trouble of tracking us down specifically? If they DO want myself, you, and Gail specifically, why not just kill the raptors and take us straight away? If they're the enemy and they've got a battleship, they clearly don't need more raptors."