Egg Ship 5

[Giichi Twinkieland]

Even Giichi himself was starting to feel the heat. He paused to wipe a copious amount of sweat from his brow. "I don't think it'll be hotter. This vent is probably what all the hot air from there is exiting through...not to mention tight spaces warm up a lot easier."

Up ahead they'd see yet another ventilation cover, this one looking out what was definitely the engine room.

It was a huge echoing space with machinery everywhere...most of it of unidentifiable purpose. However, the area along the back wall (presumably the back of the ship) obviously looked important. There they'd see a large network of pumps and silos, probably for the fuel required to keep the rocket engines going. More of the maintenance bots, like the ones from the landing dock, milled around, checking machinery. Other swatbots patrolled the room, obviously on alert now that intruders had been confirmed in the building.

Nothing could be heard over the loud, deafening roar of the machines in the room, as they all did their work. So Giichi almost had to yell to be heard, as they watched from the vent. "I guess we just fling our entire load of metal-eating balloons at the back wall and hope they melt through something critical." He paused to wipe his face again, and then removed his cloak, revealing a red tunic underneath the garment. Giichi stuffed the cloak into a large sack on his back that contained most of his thievery gear. Other bits and pieces were strapped to a utility belt he had. "Perhaps it'd be best to throw up high, so that when the balloons break the fluid drips down on more stuff."

[Falina]

Falina nodded to Giichi as she came up behind him just inside the vent, a little relieved to feel that it was slightly cooler here with the open air just on the other side of the the vent cover. "Yeah, sounds like a good plan to me. Guess I'll keep the SWAT bots busy while you take care of the engines?" She asked through her still panting breaths, already pulling out her sword.

[Giichi Twinkieland]

Giichi smiled again. "Heh, yeah. I like to avoid fighting, like you've probably noticed by now. Anyway...give me all your metal eaters, and I'll see about scaling to the top of that wall." He reached out his hand to take Falina's sack of balloons.

As he looked over the hazardous space they'd have to cross, he really hoped they could get this done before this ship got back in the air again.

[Falina]

Falina nods to Giichi and hands him her sack of balloons. She then tries her best to squeeze by him in the shaft and make her way next to the vent opening, figuring she should go out first since she was dealing with SWAT bots. She looks out the vent at the positions of all the bots, trying to plan her method of attack. She then glances back at him for a moment. "Alright, ready? Here goes nothing!"

She then turned back to the vent and kicked at the vent cover with both legs, sending it flying into the room below. That was likely to cause a bit of chaos down with the bots while Falina slips out and lands with a roll, then darts toward the first SWAT bot, standing close to the bot and at such an angle that it would shield her from any of the other bot's fire. She quickly slices into the neck of the first bot, then runs to the next, continuing to try and use line of sight to her best advantage.

[Giichi Twinkieland]

The swatbots busied themselves chasing Falina. However, the confusing layout of the place (what with all the tanks, pipes, catwalks, and assorted other goodies) would allow her to move around a lot without being cornered. But spybots were flying over now, wanting to keep her in sight so that she couldn't hide.

Meanwhile, Giichi planned to take the high road to the other side of the room. Scaffolding, rafters, pipes, and assorted other things ran all over the ceiling. Hopefully, that would get him to the other side of the room without any resistance, now that Falina had the attention of the bots in the room. He just had to get up there somehow.

Poking his head out of the event, Giichi looked upwards to see if there were something he could climb to make it to the top. Since the vent was built into a wall, a pipe was in easy reach.

Making sure that the sacks of balloons were secure, the cat started up. He went one hand over the other, and pressed his feet against the wall behind the pipe as leverage. Giichi tried to hurry but also tried to be careful, considering he really didn't want to drop any of his precious cargo. Oh, and he really hoped none of the swatbots decided to look up and target him while he was doing this...

[Falina]

Falina wanted to look and see where Giichi was and how he was doing getting to the engines, but she didn't dare take her attention off the SWATbots, and also thought that looking around for him might alert the bots to where he was, and that would be bad. She continued to move around the area, using everything around her for cover that she could as she dispatched one bot after another. She ignored the spybots and maintenance bots for now though, figuring they were both harmless compared to the SWATbots, and now that the spybots had seen her, it didn't really matter she felt if they continued to see her.

[Giichi Twinkieland]

At last, Giichi reached the top of the pipe. He began the journey across the ceiling, using the rafters and pipes to traverse it. At first it was going pretty well, but then he heard a new alarm-type sound from below. The cat paused to look down. One of the maintenance bots was looking up at him and raising a mighty stink about it.

Oh crap!

The swatbots pursuing Falina temporarily stopped chasing her in favor of attacking the more vulnerable target above. Giichi was about to take off running, but then several laser blasts cleaved through the rafters next to him. The cat didn't take any hits...but now he heard a groaning sound from the rafter he stood on. A second later, the beam Giichi stood on suddenly tilted downwards, knocking him off balance. His eyes bulged wide open, as he felt gravity start to take over.

Instinctively, Giichi reached out towards the beam as he fell past, and managed to clutch his hand around it. Only his years of training as a trapeze artist saved him there. But now he was totally vulnerable to any laser fire from below, until he could get his feet back up on the rafters. His fate sat in the hands of Falina for the moment.

"Falina! HELP!"

[Falina]

Falina knew something was wrong as soon as the bots stopped chasing her. She looked at where they were focusing their attention, and a look of horror shows on her face as they start shooting at Giichi. She quickly went running past all the SWATbots while they were distracted with their new target and went about swinging her sword hard with both hands down on the laser firing arms of each bot as she passed it, hopefully she would be able to either cut the limbs off at that last joint, or at least disable the weapons.

[Giichi Twinkieland]

Now that they were focusing on Giichi, Falina easily disabled many robots. However, there were a lot in the room to take care of.

As the laser beams flashed around him, Giichi began to wonder if he'd make it out of this alive. With his free hand, he withdrew the sack of metal-eater balloons, before looking over at the back wall with the engines and their fuel works. He'd been planning to wait till he was above them...but he was pretty close right now. May as well do as much damage as he could while he was still able.

"Here goes nothing!"

After saying that, Giichi did a brief windup before flinging the sack of balloons at the wall. As it arced through the air, the top of the sack came loose, causing the balloons to spill out and spread into a wide pattern.

The balloons popped open at the top of the engine wall, and the chemical spilled out. Before long it was doing its work. Everything metal the chemical touched began eroding away before the eyes. Things up high eroded first, following by objects below as the chemical dripped downwards.

Pipes began spilling fuel all over the floor, while flames spit out of the back of the engines. Now the fuel had caught fire too, and it was spreading fast. Maintenance bots rushed in with fire extinguishers to put it out, but it became obvious fast they couldn't contain it. In fact, they started to erode too now that the chemical was dripping down on them.

While Giichi felt happy the balloons worked wonderfully, they were still in a lot of danger.

It's going to hit the gas tanks soon! We better-

Giichi took a laser bolt in the arm holding onto the beam. He screamed as he fell towards the floor of the engine room below, both from the pain and from the fact that the metal floor was rushing up quickly to meet him.

[Falina]

Falina is still busy chopping up SWATbots when Giichi finally decides to unleash the metal eating balloons, so she doesn't notice it at first. The distruction they are causing does draw her attention eventually, and she looks up at Giichi just in time to see him get shot. "Giichi!" She cries out and runs to try and catch him. He lands in her arms as she dashes under where he was falling, but she's going too fast, and when she tries to stop, her hooves slip on the smooth floor and she takes a tumble. She quickly gets back up though and tries to help Giichi up as she speaks to him in a urgent tone. "Let's get out of here before we get barbecued." She cries and begins running for the exit out of the engine room, hoping that Giichi would know of a quick way to get out of this ship before it blows sky high.