Egg Command Tower

[Dr. Robotnik]

[From Egg Air Field 2]

A small ship would arrive in a docking bay on the upper floors of the tower. As the doors hissed open, Robotnik weakly looked around, trying to keep himself from going under again due to the pain and the meds. In spite of how he felt, it was great to be home again. This would no doubt be the best place to recover. The med bots eased him out and towards his quarters.

He couldn't wait to see those emerald shards again and start talking with Rose about what they would do with them. The possibilities were quite endless, really. He was personally thinking of a gigantic laser cannon of some sort that he'd reflect off of satellite mirrors to hit other places on the planet...although that sounded a bit boring. Surely he could think up something more interesting than that...

"It feels good to be home again... When were we last here? Feels like months."

He would say, to whoever had come with him.

[Rose Fox]

[I’m putting the short response from Egg Air Field 2 here. Also, From Egg Air Field 2.]

The look on Rose’s face was a mixed bag. On one hand she had a sad pout on her face. And on the other hand she also looked a little angry. She was still concerned about the Doctor’s condition, but she was a little peeved that she had to explain herself to the badger. Mainly because she didn’t feel like giving her secrets out to someone she saw more as an ‘enemy’ than an ‘ally’. And you never want to tell the enemy your secrets, no matter harmless they can be. Because once you’ve told someone, it’s no longer a secret.

“Fine!” Rose huffed out as she folded her arms. “But I’m going to tell later!”

Looking peeved she walked out behind the medbots and followed them onboard, with Snively sulking behind.

-----------------------

As they exited the tarmac Rose looked around curiously. Snively meanwhile, went over towards the Doctor for a personal matter.

“Is there anything you’d like me to do, Doctor?” Snively asked. He was hoping for the chance of getting away from Rose and thinking his situation through.

“And where is the nearest laboratory? I would like to start working…” Rose added as she examined. “ The sooner I get to work the sooner I’ll explain things. I’d rather not waste any more time…”

[Tatsuhiro]

[From Egg Field 2]

While he’d never seen the place, it was still all too familiar to Tatsu. And as Snively and Rose peeked there curiosity, Tatsu also wondered what he was going to do. But he wasn’t going to ask; instead he was going to wait if the Doctor had anything in mind. If there wasn’t anything for him to do he would just tag along with someone and find something to do. Surely the badger would do something that he wouldn’t mind doing. He wasn’t so sure about anyone else.

[Rampage]

Rampage grinned with wicked delight, both from Robotnik's decree that Rose is to spill the beans; something she clearly didn't want to do, and better still, he was trusting him to report what he learned later. Talk about bonus's!

Once off the ship, Rampage took particular care to not lose sight of Rose. He didn't exactly expect her to betray anyone or something, but given her... random... personality (and obvious insanity) he wanted to keep close tabs on her.

On the plus side, Rose wanted to head to a lab. Lab's normally aren't Rampage's thing, but since every single lab had a myriad of monitors and such, Rampage could easily keep tabs on Rose as she worked while he simultaneously watched the ship records from the battle on Angel Island to get a handle on what kind of enemies they were facing. Sure it meant having to spend more time with Rose than absolutely necessary, but unfortunately, this was one of those times the exception proved the rule.

That just left the Gargoyle and Snively to consider. Snively was largely a non-factor. He's a coward so anything he does or any manipulating of him came down to a simple show of force and intimidation. The only thing that bothered Rampage was the fact Snively seemed to be directly following Rose's orders, not Robotnik's. That worried him. He'd have to find out what the deal is between those two before long. Not that he really cared about Snively, but if he could undermine what few allies Rose had, it would be all the easier to keep the pompous woman in check.

As for Tatsu, they seemed to finally have stuck upon some common ground when Rose was attacked by the two wacky turrets. (Which still seemed to remind him of something that he just couldn't quite place) In any event, he at least seemed to be the most blindly loyal one of the whole group. That was good, he could work around that. It also meant he might have a possible ally of his own, so long as their goals remained parallel.

"Yeah, yeah, whine your pretty little head off, Princess. The sooner you talk the soon I can say t' hell with you 'n get back to doing something useful. Rampage chastised as he followed along close behind Rose. He then turned to Tatsu as he spoke again. "Speaking of, care to join me analyzing this combat footage? Might give you a chance to deal some pay back on those Freedom Fighters."

[Dr. Robotnik]

"First thing...we need to do..." Robotnik laboriously said to Snively, between breaths. "...is begin analysis of the shards, and decide what we're going to do with them. They should have been shipped to the main lab already."

As tired as he was, the doctor didn't want to go to sleep just yet. He still wanted to look at the shards and bounce plans off the others. Finally coming home seemed to have given him a slight boost in energy and willpower.

"I'll show you the way there now. Med bots, take us to the main lift."

Before long, the little ding would go off as they reached the appropriate floor. To Rampage, this space should look familiar. The old Rose would have remembered it too, but he wasn't sure about this new one. Anyway, it was the main lab they'd gathered in before they'd headed off of their expedition to Angel Island. It was basically a big white space with assorted lab equipment, tables, and other devices scattered around. On a table in the center of the room sat the shard box.

As they stepped in, Robotnik was reminded of something. He couldn't help but get a sly grin on his face. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a little key ring and took one key off of it.

"Oh and Rampage, I have a small gift for you. Catch!"

He would toss the key to the badger unexpectedly.

[Rose Fox]

[Sorry for the length, just wanted to get the explanation out of the way.]

Rose looked a little surprised when the lift started going up. She wasn’t exactly familiar with the place yet, and her attention seemed all over the place. But as they made it up to the lab her expression changed. Like a kid in a toy shop her face was beaming like it was Christmas.

“Ooooohhh, shiny~!” she exclaimed with glee, as she ran over to the nearest table. She immediately began messing around with the various equipment with a starry look in her eyes. For a little bit she was distracted from everyone else.

Snively was listening intently to the Doctor’s words, all the while thinking that the old man needed rest. He appeared to be having a hard time staying awake, let alone breathe. He wondered if the Doctor shouldn’t be exerting himself, lest he keel over now. But that was wishful thinking.

“ Mmmyes. But are you sure Doctor that you should be up here?” Snively asked, as he looked over towards his uncle. “Why not let me be in charge for a while, you’re not quite well at the moment.”

“Trying to get on the seat of power this soon? Now Colin, didn’t you ever here about tact?”

Rose had turned away with her fascination over the variety of tools Robotnik had, and over towards Snively. With a scornful look, he glared at her. Thankfully for him, Robotnik wasn’t believing anyone of there accusations of him. But he also didn’t like it to be noted on so often.

“And have you ever heard of paranoia? I’m certain that you have it.” Snively replied

Rose winced her eyes and glared at him back. “Okay, fine. I’ll play it your way. Just remember I can read your mind, so I’ll know what you’re up to.”

Snively breathed in to start saying something before it was abruptly cut off in shock.

“What?”

“Ooo, That makes a perfect segway!” She exclaimed as she turned to Rampage. It appeared she didn’t seem to care anymore, as she began to happily explain in a bright, cheery voice. “You see mister badger, you’re correct in your thinking. There are billions of nanobots running through my body right now! They’re designed to survive everything that exists in the body, and to heal up any injury. Bone fractures, cuts, bullet wounds, whatever the damage. But you could say I went a little too far in the process.

My original idea was that the nanites would be able to help with minor issues, but as I came out I found that the one-hour long process to pump them into my veins actually took three hours and thirty minutes. And the nanites had determined that this ‘ageing’ thing was an injury all within its self. Which is why I look absolutely nothing like my age.”

She took a deep breath as she paused in her explanation. She must have been talking a mile a minute as she ran through everything.

“-Not to mention a nifty mutation where my muscles appear to be spring-yer than usual. Anyways, the most important part of all of this is the Hive. The Hive is an implant that you place onto the nervous system; so that the nanties know the lay of the land as well as when injuries come there way. Without the hive my little darling would be wondering about, not knowing where to go or if there’s a problem to begin with.

Now, Colin has these things too; you might have been wondering when he’d gotten a growth spurt. Well you see, I made it to where the hive not only responds to problems, but reports back to mine. Guess you could say I have the ‘Queen Hive’ and he’s got the ‘Worker’s Hive’. So not only does my nanites respond to my hive, his does too. Which is why I was able to choke him without even trying. And because of the Hive’s position, It can take his neural messages and send them over to me. Thus making it possible for me to ‘read’ his mind. Any questions, or was that all you wanted to know?”

[Tatsuhiro]

“Hmm?” as though his focus had been snapped, he looked towards Rampage as he spoke to him. “Oh, sure. Don’t have anything else to do.”

His tone might come off wrong on Rampage, as he sounded fairly dull. But then again, the gargoyle always seemed to sound dull, and lacked emotion in his speech for the most part. While he might have not sounded interested it was quite the contrary. Studying the tactics of these enemies could prove very useful for the next fight. And hopefully, he won’t have to deal with a gun-shot wound off the bat.

Entering the lab floor, Tatsu recognized the room; though it was strange to now see it from a different perspective. The last time he’d seen the place was through a monitor; now that he was here in person he could see the full depth of the room. While everyone else went on talking, he walked a little to look around.

[Rampage]

"Awww... for me? Shucks, Doc, you shouldn't have..." Rampage joked as he effortlessly caught the key with his cybernetic hand.

While obvious the key went with the box on the table, what precisely it contained was a bit of a toss up. Five rings said it was some of the shards we'd gone to all that effort to acquire, five said it was something else entirely, and five more said it was completely empty and the Doc was just toying with me. But oh, well, might as well find out which.

As Rampage made my way over to the box, he listened intently to Rose's near rambling speech. While gratified to learn his initial theory was on the ball; at the same time, the truth made him... uneasy and blatantly aggressive. And yet... comforted. Her answer had, whether intentionally or unintentionally revealed a significant insight to him. One that he would keep in mind in the coming future, should his hand ever be forced.

But he did his best to quell that rising fire inside him. At least for now. "Nope, I'd say that answers everything quite nicely." Rampage replied, calm and strangely, cheerful for the homicidal manic badger.

"Oh, and, by the way..." Rampage added as he turned to face Rose. "Don't get any bright ideas about using those nanites on me, or else I promise: I will tear you into so many pieces that all the nanites in the world won't be able to stitch you back together!!" Rampage threatened, his voice taking on it's more familiar dark, metallic resonance and his cybernetic eye glowed a hellish red.

With a withering glare, Rampage's eye returned to it's normal orange radiance and his expression evened out to its more typical scowl. Without any further ado, Rampage spun around and opened the locked box with the key Robotnik had given him.

[Dr. Robotnik]

"Don't worry...I'll sleep soon..."

He said, waving a hand at Snively to sit back. Then Rose gave her little explanation about how the nanites worked. Suddenly, he didn't like this version of his #1 fangirl so much. On this point, he agreed quite heavily with Rampage.

As much as Robotnik liked having Rose back, even he had to feel a little uneasy about the idea of her running around with injectable nanites that she could control if they were in other people. That would seriously need to be kept in check. While making a mental note to get a specimen and reverse engineer it somehow, he poured out the praise.

"That's...that's..." he stammered, looking for words as he forced a smile. "That's quite remarkable Rose. I do believe you have discovered the fountain of youth! I would like to have one of them to study sometime..."

And then Rampage tried to open the box with the key. Slapping his head, he raised a hand to stop the badger.

"No, no Rampage. That's just the shards. We need those for the experiments. The key's not for that. It's for the Egg Digger. You remember it, don't you? The last time we were here?"

He'd recalled that Rampage had been especially interested in taking it for a test drive until the doctor had shooed the badger away. Sadly, it hadn't made the trip back here with the rest of their equipment.

"You can have it now if you want. As long as you don't mind going all the way back to Angel Island and digging it out of that caved-in mine I left it in! Hahaha!"

[Rose Fox]

Rose didn’t appear to take the badger’s threat seriously. But perhaps that was because it was the furthest thing in Rose’s mind. While they may have been appalled and perhaps a little paranoid by the idea, Rose knew it wasn’t as easy as they made it sound. And while it might be a little distasteful for the badger to know, she was much more concerned about how Robotnik felt on the matter. He might have given her praise, but she had a sinking feeling that wasn’t his real feelings on the matter.

“Now, now, why would I want to give you nanites?” she questioned, as she looked at the badger dully. “With those robotic implants of yours, part of you’re body would be able to resist. With that and the combination of healing effects, that would be an incredibly stupid move. You don’t have to worry about me wanting to control you. My beef’s only with Sniv-nose over there.”

After pointing at Snively, she shifted her weight in her legs from the right to left. Rose crossed her arms as her tone sounded a lot more serious than the one before. [b]“Plus, the nanites in my system are completely different from the ones in the syringes. The ones I used to patch Ivo’s arm are only temporary; and even if I use them to somehow control somebody it can only be a part of the body and not the entire thing. There’s not enough nanites in the syringes to cover the entire body. The ones inside me and Colin are made to last; meaning they’re not cheap to make. It takes a fair amount of time to build one, and build enough for the injection. So if I ever make another batch, it’s going to be for someone important.”


Snively was fairly blanked-face after Rose’s explanation. It was bad enough he’d walked right into a trap, but to not only find out she could control the nanites in his system; he’d now found out that she could read his mind as well. Any plans he’d think up, would probably be known to her. And on top of that he’d have to be careful of what he thought, since Rose was able to invade his privacy. To be honest, things were looking pretty bleak to him.