Launch Base Zone

[Alpha Omega]

Omega scowled at the half-mechanical badger. He stretched his arms out, sore from being held, then his legs. He rubbed his chest a bit and took a deep breath. "Just a fist fight then, huh? Why not?"

He watched Rampage for a minute before leaping over him and attempting to slam his left elbow into the cyborg's back.

[Dr. Robotnik]

Robotnik's smile faded from his face, as Gerald appeared to be very scared and looking at something directly to his right. The doctor turned to face it, but he didn't see anything there.

"Are you all right?"

Now Gerald was actually TALKING to whatever happened to be standing next to him. Curious, the doctor moved a hand to search the general area around where Gerald seemed to be looking, as if his mentor could see something that he couldn't. The doctor hadn't been sure of what sort of reaction he might get to the killing question, but he never expected Gerald to start freaking out and start looking off into space like this.

Sighing, the doctor started walking away from Gerald as he waved for some nearby SWATbots to escort him.

"Perhaps you shouldn't come with me after all. I think you'll need a little time alone to get your head on straight. SWATbots, take him to the other part of my quarters, please."

If Gerald did not resist, the SWATbots would gently restrain him and start carrying him to a different door in the hallway.

---

Chadin didn't know it, but a sophisticated surveillance program was tracking his moves through the cameras since he had broken in, and making scenarios about where he would show up in view next. Regardless, the catwalk leading from where he stood to the crane's control box appeared to be mostly empty of bots and easy to traverse. A worker drone inside the enclosed box continued pushing and pulling levers, mostly focusing on its duty.

[Chadin]

"OOF!!!" Rampage gasped as Alpha's elbow strike easily connected with Rampage, knocking some of the wind out of him and sending him staggering forward a few steps.

"Not bad, but how's this?!" Rampage replied in kind as did a quick hop-step backwards and threw a heavy side-kick towards Alpha's stomach.

"So far, almost TOO good..." I whispered to myself. But so far things were still panning out as I had hoped so there was no reason to alter my plan of attack. Besides, causing some serious damage to Robotnik's power-base like this factory is simply too important.

I continued with my plan as already stated, and barring any unexpected complications made it to the control booth undetected. Crouching down behind the door, I shouldered my crossbow for the moment and pulled my metal-piercing knife from the sheath on my leg. Noisy in here or not I didn't want to tip my hand JUST yet and my knife offered a much stealthier option.

Slowly and cautiously, I pulled open the latch of the door, hoping to catch the worker-bot by surprise. As soon as the door was open wide enough, I lunged forward, attempting to slam the blade deep into top of the robots head and hopefully take out the things' "brain".

[Gerald Robotnik]

Gerald brought his hands down and looked at the two SWATbot’s walking straight towards him. In response, he began backing up, not allowing them to get close to him.

“Take It!” The spirit exclaimed sternly, as he kept up with Gerald’s movements. “I will not bother you longer if you just take the bow from my hand!”

“Alright, fine!” Gerald exclaimed back, sounding agitated. “If you’ll just leave me-”

As soon as he grabbed the bow from the spirit’s hand, he disappeared. And he realized if this was still a hallucination, he could –feel- the bow in his hand. With a curious look as he faced his head down towards the bow, he could see something else. A sprinkling, white line that he could swore wasn’t there before.

“Curious…” He muttered, as he pinched where the string was a pulled back; after all, it was a bow.

But when he pulled on it far back enough a white, golden-edge arrow of energy appeared; with a loud “VEUM” sound as the arrow came into being. This, made Gerald a little skittish, causing him to let go of the string; and the arrow pointed straight at the SWATbot on the left. And the arrow had a clear pathway to get to it.

[Alpha Omega]

While he couldn't dodge the swing in time, he did manage to drop his arms down to protect his stomach, though he was thrown back a decent bit. "Oww..."

He quickly eyed the cyborg up before pointing at him and firing the ring on his finger at him. In the short space, and due to the ring's own weakened power, it wouldn't build up much speed, but hopefully enough to hurt.

[Dr. Robotnik]

Unfortunately, Chadin would find the door to the control booth firmly locked. As the deer did this, the worker bot turned its head. The bottom part of its face curved into what looked like a twisted smile, and it made a funny whirring noise, as if it were laughing at him. Chadin had been too right to believe things were going too well. Seeing an opportunity to trap Chadin in a place with no room to maneuver, the security surveillance program had latched the door shut when it saw the deer approaching it.

Now Chadin would hear the loud sound of heavy metallic footsteps on the catwalk stairs behind him. It wouldn't be long before the deer would find himself trapped on the catwalk. He had a few options for how to proceed from here. The nearby machinery and pipes might provide a way to climb out of his situation, he could try jumping down to a catwalk below (although that would be a pretty good drop), or he could try fighting his way out.

---

[Can Robotnik see the bow and arrow? Or do I need to edit this?]

Robotnik almost jumped out of his skin when the SWATbot to his left suddenly burst into sparks and collapsed to the floor next to him. How...how on earth had THAT happened? The doctor looked over the damage and saw it seemed to have taken some sort of projectile in the back...coming from the direction where...

"What?! Where did you get that?!"

The doctor pointed at Gerald's hands, looking completely bamboozled by this turn of events. But the surprise quickly melted away to a mixture of shock and anger, as the raised eyebrows quickly descended into an expression of rage.

"You...you were playing with the freedom fighters all along! I never should have trusted you! SEIZE HIM!"

The doctor shouted at the nearby SWATbot to go tackle him, as Robo quickly turned and ran down the hallway to get out of the fight. As he did so, another door nearby slid open to allow more SWATbots to enter the hallway.

[Chadin]

When the door latch didn't turn and the robot spun around with that... um... smug look on its face, I was surprised to say the least. When I heard the sounds of Swat-bots approaching, I got angry, and my scars lit up in kind. The pipes offered the best way out of this mess, lots of heat and shadows to hide myself in both visually and infrared. But now this dumb bot made it personal, and I still had plans to cause as much trouble for Robotnik as my puny little hide was worth.

My hand snapped up my crossbow, and fired through the glass, banking on the hope no one ever expected to be taking fire from within the ship and thus not weapon proof it.

If the glass shattered and took out the bot behind it, I would jump through the mess and take command of the crane controls. Ideally, I'd start swinging the large vats the crane was ferrying around into as much sensitive looking stuff as possible, maybe even crush the scafolding that led to my control booth and slow down the Swat-bots; maybe even take a few out while I was at it.

I just hope those bots don't get here TOO quickly.

[Gerald Robotnik]

[ no no, the bow is visible; as are the arrows when created. Sorry, but I guess the string was confusing you. Only –Gerald- can see the string on the bow; otherwise it’s invisible to anyone else. But the arrows produced are not]

If he wasn’t being so suddenly attacked Gerald might have chimed on his words; and how they sounded like a kid on the playground. Playing with the freedom fighters? Really? And people call you a genius. He might have also told him that he’d been with the freedom fighters all along, and that if he didn’t see that he was terribly blind. After all, he came here with them and he was with the group and helping them to attack when they got to the island.

But he had company that wasn’t very welcoming. He felt frozen to the spot, but yet he found himself reacting. He didn’t feel like he was in control, but some unknown force was raising up his arms with the bow in hand and the other hand producing another arrow as his right hand pulled back on the string. And the arrow went flying straight into the center of the attacking robot.

[Dr. Robotnik]

[I'm guessing we're just ignoring the Alpha/Rampage fight till Alpha gets back?]

When Chadin began firing at the glass, it spiderwebbed. However, it looked like a few more bolts might destroy it. The bot's smug look quickly turned to terror as it began squealing in alarm, and exited the control booth on a door on the other side, leading to another section of the catwalk. One more shot smashed the glass. Chadin could now reach inside and do what he was planning to do.

Meanwhile the SWATbots after him weren't too far behind, as laser blasts started splashing all over the walls and pipes around him.

---

Another arrow took out the SWATbot with few problems. However, the other SWATbots at the back of the hallway had now gotten over the surprise of the arrows, and took cover in the doors they'd been entering through. They started taking potshots from the doors with their stun guns.

[Chadin]

With the glass smashed, I leapt through the shattered window into the cab just as the laser fire started whipping past me. That certainly made my priorities straightforward for me. I started frantically fiddling with the controls, and quickly got an idea what all the levers did at least. The vat carrying the molten slag started to move side to side in response to my controls.

Glancing over my shoulders I could see bots approaching from both directions which meant I wouldn't have much time before they reached the cab and overwhelmed me.

So, I twisted one of the controls and sent the crane spinning towards the catwalk to my left. Hopefully, the mass of the vat would act like a giant wrecking ball and smash the catwalk and take a few Swat-bot's with it. Then I'd start dumping the molten metal on the outer wall and cause as much structural damage to this ship as possible before I had to abandon the crane booth and somehow loose these bots.