Launch Base Zone

[Dr. Robotnik]

"Gah!" Robotnik ducked down as the laser bolts pinged off of the canopy, but fortunately the glass was extra strong to deal with stress like this. It was why it only cracked from the big impact before instead of outright shattering.

Then that blasted deer called out with his little taunt, from wherever he was hiding. Robotnik could pin down the general location behind a small grouping of vats, but not any more specifically than that.

If Chadin wanted to play a hiding game, well, Robotnik had an ideal weapon to fight an opponent like that too. Flame was more organic than most weapons. It didn't travel in a straight line. It flowed around obstacles fluidly and always sought to expand into wide areas. So if Chadin wanted to hide, Robotnik figured he could probably spray flames in his general direction to get him to come back out again. Not to mention...

"You idiot SWATbots! What are you doing?! Find him again! Flush him out so I can barbecue him!"

The SWATbots that were pursuing Chadin before rapidly moved to the floor, and started to spread out amongst all the obstacles in the room. Even if Robotnik couldn't maneuver that well the SWATbots certainly could.

Meanwhile, Robo simply hosed flames over where he thought he'd heard Chadin's voice over all the machinery. He simply sprayed in the general area instead of one specific place.

---

For the moment, Gerald was unnoticed by Robotnik. Plus the SWATbots being briefly stunned by the collision in the hall upstairs had overloaded their circuits for a moment. However, one SWATbot upstairs cautiously moved into the hallway to check the corner where Gerald had been hiding before. In another moment, the bots after Gerald would realize he was gone and pursue in the next most obvious direction.

[Chadin]

"Uh oh..." Well, that plan backfired a little. Right about now I wished I was a ventriloquist. I had to think fast. Robotnik may not be spraying the tanks I'm currently behind, but it wouldn't take long for him to reach me. Plus, those Swat-bots would soon be down here trying to find me.

My only saving grace is that in this heat, thermal vision would be next to useless in here. If I wanted to keep my advantage, I needed to thin out the Swat-bots. I could see if there is a way to tip one of the vats and melt some, but that would be igniting a roman candle to my location and the bots were already spreading out, so I couldn't catch more than two in something like that anyway. Then I spotted one of the bots coming down the stairs from the catwalks had a hand-held laser rifle. I had a stupid, brilliant idea, IF I could reach it.

But first I had to get clear of the area Robotnik thought I was in and lie in wait for that, or another bot like it to get close to me. To that however was going to take careful timing, guts and more than a little luck.

Robotnik's deadly spray of fire started to wander over towards the tank I was hiding behind. As the fire drifted ever closer, my mind flashed back to the memory of the wall of fire pursuing me and my family the day Robotnik decided to burn my forest home to cinders. I had to stifle my instinctive reaction to flee away from the flames, because that's exactly what Robotnik wanted me to do.

Flames and intense waves of heat curled around the sides of the vat. But I stayed firmly at the far side of the vat from the flames. Though the flame did curl around the vat, it was just large enough that if I stayed to one side of it, the flames could not reach me. The floor space between the floors still burned strongly, having been sprayed directly with the burning fuel, but only a small amount of burning fuel made it around the corners and were quick to burn out. The stuff on the opposite side of my vat would not burn out before Robotnik's flamethrower started coming down the other side of the vat. So I couldn't just shift from one side to the other and let it pass me by. But it did seem to have stopped burning on the other side of the hall.

A break in the flames. Robotnik's flame thrower was now striking the vat itself. I took my chance, praying this might work. I ran for the flaming side of the vat, ignoring the flames licking at my hooves and fur. I ran for all I was worth, hoping and praying that my speed would keep the flames from burning me or catching my fur on fire. Flames erupted on the other side of the vat and I jumped across the burning hallway.

I landed with a somewhat less than graceful thump and roll. But I'd made it, grateful that deer are surprisingly good jumpers. I frantically rolled onto my back and began fanning out a few smouldering tufts of fur and blowing out some burning fuel on the bottoms of my hooves; grateful that is all I'd come away with from that stunt.

I only hoped that Robotnik had been paying more attention to where he was shooting and didn't see me double back this way. If so, I could focus on the next part of my plan; namely getting my hands on that Swat-bot laser blaster and thinning out the Swat-bots.

For my part, I hadn't spotted Gerald yet. Though, seeing him would certainly not have given me any sense of relief or comfort. I still had that matter of him trying to kill me to sort out after all.

[Gerald Robotnik]

Gerald turned at a bend and ran to the nearest cover he could find and hide behind it. His heart felt like it was going to burst through his chest from the fear as well as the amount of running he’d just done. It wasn’t every day he did hair-raising adventures against evil, mad doctors.

He could only imagine the jokes that Clarice would make with that thought in his head. ‘You in a hair-raising adventure?’ she’d probably start out, ‘Was it the race to out study someone or perhaps a pop quiz in you’re hyper-physics class.’ Well, something to that extent at least. He wasn’t so good with the witty remarks like she was.

He peeked over and looked at the scene being layed out before him. Robotnik appeared to be attacking blindly, SWATbots were searching everywhere, Chadin wasn’t anywhere in his line of sight- and the SWATbots from the hallway where coming after him. He let out a harsh breathe. That wasn’t good. There was no where to move around on this cat-walk-

A light turned on. If he could destroy the catwalk far enough away from him….

Gerald only moved out a little briefly as he aimed at the cat mid-way between the turn and the entrance and shot an arrow at it before going back to his cover. Hopefully, his location wouldn’t be spotted so soon; but he couldn’t deal with all those SWATbots if he wanted to help Chadin.

[Dr. Robotnik]

Robotnik sighed as Chadin didn't appear to run out into the open from where he'd been spraying the flames. He hadn't noticed the deer leaping across the area he'd just burned, due to the smoke and the fire that still remained from his spent fuel there. Chadin's plan had worked. Robotnik returned to his comm link.

"He's not in that area. Check the quadrants of machinery to either side of the one I just sprayed. He can't have gotten too far."

The SWATbots were now fully on the floor, and had split into two units to check to either side of the area Robotnik had just burned. Of course, this meant splitting their forces, so Chadin had succeeded in forcing Robotnik to thin the ranks of his men. Now he had half the force after him that would have been descending upon him.

Ominously tall SWATbots checked amongst the pipes, machinery, and containers for any sign of the deer, poking their laser rifles wherever they thought they saw a good sized hiding spot. Chadin would in fact see a pair of them approaching him now, as they performed a thorough, methodical search of everything between his position and theirs.

In the meantime, Robotnik let himself levitate a bit higher, this time careful not to crash into anything as he ascended. He wanted to get a better view of the work floor.

---

Gerald's arrow blew a neat hole in the catwalk, which would make it unstable and impractical for the heavy pursuing SWATbots to give chase on. However, Robo glared upwards when he thought he heard the dull boom above. Frowning, he stopped to adjust his glasses, before he gradually let the ship ascend. This time he did it much more carefully and slowly, so as not to hit anything like last time.

[Chadin]

Now came the dangerous part. I pushed myself as far back behind the angular support brackets holding one of the large vats as I could manage; someplace where I could still lunge out at a searching Swat-bot but deep enough in the shadows to potentially stay hidden and drew my knife. Hopefully, the Swat-bot that came to search my area would be alone, giving me the best chance possible to surprise and kill it before sounding the alarm. After that, I could set up the next part of my plan.

I heard some kind of loud bang, even within the noisy confines of the factory floor and the sound of my own heartbeat pounding in my ear but I didn't have time to act upon it. If it serves as a distraction all the better, but I HAVE to remain focused on getting my hands on one of those Swat-bot laser rifles.

[Gerald Robotnik]

Feeling the catwalk weaken, Gerald fled father down to another spot in cover and peeked out. He still couldn’t see Chadin, but perhaps it was a good thing. Now it was a matter of decideding his next move. No matter what he realized that if he attacked, he would be drawing attention to himself; something that made him uneasy. Sure, he was safe on the catwalk now. But when Robotnik realizes there’s someone above him, he would take action in the form of SWATbots. And Gerald had just gotten away from the group of SWATbots he sent after him.

It was a matter of how he’d gain the attention. Was it better to attack the robots pursuing Chadin below? Or would attacking Robotnik himself be a better distraction? Well, he was out in the open and just sitting there. And he was a lot closer than the robots below.

He stepped out just a little into the open as he raised his bow and pulled the string back. He looked down upon Robotnik and decided it was best to take out his weapons. So he let go of the arrow, causing it to fly towards one of Robotnik’s flamethrowers and ducked back to his cover. His heart began to race more, as he realized he’d just struck the hornet’s nest.

[Dr. Robotnik]

Gerald's arrow hit home from Robotnik's blind side, causing the war machine to suddenly lurch to the side. The mad doctor grunted as he struggled to regain control of the vehicle. As he did so, he thought he felt impact on the left flamethrower, so he stopped for a moment to check the damage. Fuel for the weapon looked to be spurting out of a gash in the weapon pod. It seemed Gerald had hit its fuel tank.

However, Robotnik had accounted for the possibility of a fuel tank being punctured in this machine's design. An internal sensor detected a hole in the container. This caused a small nozzle on the inside of the armor to begin spraying a white gel over the interior tank. Immediately the white gel started hardening and covering up the rupture in the tank, with the fuel spurt correspondingly shrinking until it had stopped.

As the gel did its stuff, Robotnik looked upwards, knowing that he had definitely heard a small explosion up here. He then noticed Gerald's handiwork on the catwalk above, and thought that his mysterious assailant couldn't be too far away.

About this time, the SWATbots in the hallway above started jumping down into the hole, although they stopped after the second one since the weakened catwalk couldn't support much weight now. Robotnik patched into the bots' comms.

"Tell me! What's going on up there?! I'm being shot at from up here!"

"Sir," the SWATbot responded in a deadpan voice. "Gerald escaped through a hole in the hallway, and he has entered the main factory room. He must be hiding somewhere on the level that we are on."

Robotnik let out a loud growl that could be mistaken for that of a mighty bear. Sure, he'd made off with the emeralds, but now everything seemed to be falling down around him here. He really didn't want his mentor escaping, even if he did seem to be suffering from a split-personality disorder. The doctor also couldn't believe it would be Gerald of all people shooting at him. The man looked incredibly meek and sheepish when he was in his "good" personality after all. Not to mention Robotnik wondered where he'd gotten a weapon to do such damage to his machine.

As much as he regretted it, he would need to leave this one to the SWATbots. This war machine wasn't equipped with any non-lethal weapons, and he wanted Gerald alive.

"Very well... Locate him. And find another way around the hole and don't let him descend any more. Seal off all exits on your levels."

"Yes sir!"

The SWATbots already on the catwalk remained where they are. If Gerald stepped out, he would be seen by the bots. And at the moment other bots were working to cut off his escape routes.

---

[Chadin, the two swatbots are moving as a pair, so I'm guessing you wouldn't want Chadin to attack in this round, right? Let me know if you want me to change this.]

If Chadin wanted to get a chance to attack the SWATbot pair looking for him, he'd need a way to split them apart. One checked the nooks and crannies on either side of the walkway, while the other covered him with its laser rifle. The deer would either need to take them on and let one of them raise the alarm, or he'd need to hold off the attack for the moment and wait until one of them was distracted.

[Chadin]

[No worries, I just have to roll with the situation as needed.]

So far as I was aware, I had no idea if the bots were searching in pairs or singles. Either way, when the business end of a bot laser poked itself into my hiding spot, I had to act. My right hand sprang out to grab the bots laser rifle and pushed it aside so that if it fired by reflex it wouldn't hit me. I lunged out of my hiding spot, attempting to plunge my knife deep into the bot's wrist and disable it's hand so that it couldn't fire either it's hand-held weapon or wrist blaster.

As I cleared my hiding spot, my right hand grabbed hold of my crossbow as I spun around the Swat-bot and from point-blank I fired a shot into the Swat-bot's torso.

[Gerald Robotnik]

From where he was hiding, Gerald couldn’t tell what the damage was. And he was afraid of being seen, so sticking his head out didn’t seem like a smart move. He felt sweat trickle down his brow, as he rubbed him forehead with the sleeve of his right arm. He hadn’t realized how hot it was until now; and it didn’t help him with all the running around. He looked through the bottom of the catwalk to see the floor bellow.

He was under one of the pools of molten metal bellow him that Chadin had managed to dish out. It must have done some damage, but now it might be obscuring the battle-field for everyone; and not just Robotnik and his chornys. He was surprised nothing had caught fire yet. You’d think in this place with molten metal and robots who might have some flammable fuels in them, one would have better safety measures.

And suddenly, something clicked. Sprinklers. If there were sprinklers, the constant water may mess up his machine. The robots would no doubt be able to handle a little water; after all, water doesn’t conduct electricity without salt. But it would be possible that it could disable the flamethrowers Robotnik’s machines. He didn’t like the idea of being drenched, but if he could delay Robotnik’s attacks, it would help Chadin significantly.

He looked up, and to his luck there were indeed sprinklers on the ceiling. He looked up, finding it a little awkward to shoot the bow from the upward angle at a sprinkler above him. Hopefully it wouldn’t just set off the one under him; and would instead activate the entire system in the room.

[Dr. Robotnik]

"Robotnik! We see him! He's aiming at--!"

And before he could finish, Robotnik saw a bright arrow flashing through the air from Gerald's position, before it struck a sprinkler. Before long his death machine was being pounded with water from above. He felt like he was outside during a hard summer storm rather than inside one of his ships. No matter. Now he knew where Gerald was. Unfortunately all the water splashing over the glass dome made it extremely hard to see, since he didn't have windshield wipers on this thing.

"Control!" he shouted into his communicator. "Switch off the sprinklers on the main factory floor, right now!"

"But Lord Robotnik, that's a safety system and it always needs to be on--"

"I don't care! The intruders are way more dangerous right now than any fire! We can turn it back on again later if it's a problem!"

"Consider it done Robotnik. But it will take a little time to disable since it's an emergency system."

"Just hurry up and do it now! In the meantime..." he switched channels to the SWATbots pursuing Gerald. "Apprehend Gerald alive at all costs. He must not be killed. Use only stun guns."

"Roger, Lord Robotnik."

Again, like up in the hallway, Gerald would find his hiding spot being pelted by stun gun shots. These came from the catwalk just under the hole that Gerald had used to enter this place. In the meantime, SwatBots were beginning to take up positions at the exits off of the catwalk that Gerald stood on.

As much as he wanted to help out, Robotnik knew he couldn't with this machine. So he slowly lowered back down to the floor of the factory and hoped he could get a bead on that deer again.

---

Chadin's grab cleanly pushed the SWATbot's laser rifle out of the way, as it started shouting out to its comrades for help even as the dagger plunged straight through its arm.

"Alert! Alert! Member of Cervidae family spotted! The---BZZZT!!!"

Chadin's crossbow shot killed the SWATbot there, making it fall backwards and collapse into a heap on the floor. Now that the deer had a rifle in his hands, he might want to start using it, considering his partner was already bringing the rifle to bear and opening fire.