Angel Island Beach

[Gail Strafer]

[I don't know if this is how the artificial chaos would take down the pod, but I figure it works. Let me know if this isn't okay, Rose.]

"SCAREDY WOLF?!"

For a moment, Gail's shout seemed like the loudest sound in the area. Now he positively seethed and growled under his breath, his teeth bared. He HATED being called scared, a coward, or anything like that.

"NO ONE CALLS ME SCARED!"

Upon hearing Vanessa's little taunt, Gail couldn't help but throw aside his own sense of self preservation over his foolish pride. The wolf charged headlong out into the beach, screaming as he fired his revolver again and again at the SWATpod. However, his shots didn't do much else aside from ping off the interior, since he wasn't aiming properly now.

Contrast to Chadin's cool and relaxed shot, which nicked the SWATbot in the side of the red beam that made up its eyes. This caused the flying machine to suddenly jolt to the left, as the SWATbot reeled from the impact.

Finally, Gerald's artificial Chaos easily stretched out to the SWATpod's location, launching a tentacle high into the air and straight through the ship. Immobilized, the pilot struggled to get it off the tentacle. But with its craft heavily wounded, that wasn't going to happen. Since the tentacle stuck through the cockpit, the SWATbot fired a few times at the water appendage, to no avail. Eventually it was like the tentacle got bored, and then cracked sideways, flinging the SWATpod right off as it went back into the water. This sent the SWATpod into a spin, to where it finally crashlanded in the surf, making a mighty splash and going under in seconds.

It seemed the band of heroes had finally taken it down. But one of them wasn't altogether happy about that.

"Damn..."

Gail kicked the sand at his feet, now looking rather mopey about having spent most of the fight hiding. Shaking his head, he started sulking back towards the trees. In the next fight he had to be bolder than this. There was a woman around to impress after all. He looked up and called for the others.

"Let's regroup! Over in the trees!"

He waited for the others to catch up under the shade of a palm tree.

[Chadin]

I shook my head at Gail as he foolishly came charging out of the bushes. Once the Swat-pod finally went down, I came out from under the bushes, picking twigs and branches out of my fur and antlers as I went. "Man am I glad that's over. Everyone alright?"

[Vanessa Blue]

"Man what's with you and tree's, Scaredy?" Much to Gail's dismay Vanessa had found her new nickname for the wolf. The blue cat was back with the others in a fraction of a second. Kicking up sand as she made a sudden stop. Gerald trailing behind her.
"So we kicked Roboblick's tail, when can we eat?" Vanessa had confused the swatpod for their real target.

[Jijeka-Te]

Ji sighed as she and Anu stepped out of their hiding place. "We're okay... I think. To be perfectly honest, I kinda hope I can join in the next time we get in a fight."

She also noted Vanessa's remarks, and decided privately that it would be good for her health to keep her distance from that blue @*&#$ whenever possible.

[Gail Strafer]

Gail whirled around towards Vanessa, snarling at the nickname. He damn near acted on auto pilot, roughly grabbing the cat by the scruff of her neck and holding back his arm for a big punch. However, at the last second, he realized what he was doing, and let out a sigh.

"Apologies... Please don't say that any more."

After clearing his throat, he turned to face the others.

"All right...so we made it here. Maybe what we just did will be the worst of it. It'll be harder to track us down on foot. I say we head deeper into the island and find out what Robo's up to now. That smoke cloud looks like a good place to start..."

He stared up at the puffs of smoke now towering over their heads.

"Whatever he's up to, it must be big..."

[Chadin]

"Agreed. But if you think that was the worst of it, think again, Gail. That was just ONE Swat-pod. I saw Robotnik take off from Robotropolis with dozens, maybe hundreds of them. Not to mention all the normal Swat-bot's he'll no doubt have guarding his operation. So if you expect to LIVE long enough to brag about this little adventure with your drinking buddies or who ever it is you swagger your over-inflated ego around, I suggest you don't try running out into the open screaming at the top of your lungs while laser shots are raining down all around you!!" I warned the overzealous wolf as I drew nearer and stuck my hoofed finger dangerously close to his nose with my ears folded back in a ominous warning.

With a huff, I turned away from Gail and marched over to Vanessa and giving her a scolding too. "That goes for you too, Vanessa! You're going to get yourself killed pulling stunts like that; especially when you start dragging poor Gerald around!"

"Now, if you'll hold still for five minutes, I'd like to take a look at that shoulder." Without really asking for any further permission, I grabbed Vanessa's arms and spun her around, pushed her to her knees and pulled away the seared clothing and tried as best I could to examine the wound. Normally, I'd have been more gentle, but between my frustration with Vanessa and Gail's very cavalier attitude to the dangers of our current situation and the knowledge that at any moment a shiny seashell could distract Vanessa, I knew I didn't have time to waste on pleasantries. "Well, the good news, is it doesn't look like it's too bad." I reported with a sigh of relief. "With any luck there should be some plants around here I can slap together to make a poultice to help it heal and keep out any infection. I should be able to find what I need as we go. Heck, if the right plants are around I might even be able to reduce how bad the scar will be down to almost nothing. That is, so long as nobody decides to try playing rambo again and make forget which herb it is that reduces scarring." That last part I added with a bit of a sideways smirk. I know how much scars mean to Vanessa, so I couldn't resist trying a little blackmail, if only for her own sake.

[Gerald Robotnik]

“I don’t think that’s necessary…” Gerald replied with a small smile on his face. As he walked up to the group drying off the remaining parts of his cloths he produced the first-aid shaped box that was held by the Artificial Chaos. He brought it over towards Vanessa and turned the knob. A strange stream of a faint, light-green energy would surround her and her wound on her shoulder would heal completely. Not even a scare was left as the wound completely healed itself. If one saw the process it looked as though her body regenerated.

“I will have to conserve this in the future, but for now I think it’s best to have that healed. And I will also note that it cannot heal broken bones and sorts. I think we can all agree that Chadin is right and that we have to be a bit more careful….”


[Heal Unit: 1 out of Six uses]

[Vanessa Blue]

Chadin grabbing the blue blaze was the only thing stopping her from stepping up to, and passing the challenge set by Gail. Ready for a fight at the drop of a hat, normally an aggressive move like that would have started a brawl with the cat.

Vanessa was looking back and forth, trying to see behind her. She didn't find rolling her eyes' all the way back to work so she turned her neck. "What are you doing Glow-face! Thinker!" She turned to the only person she culd see, Gail. "Scaredy, what are they doing to me?" Right now the cat was in just her swim top. Her hoodie hanging at her sides around her waist.

[Jijeka-Te]

Jijeka-Te sighed as she watched Vanessa, who'd recently become the center of attention. The queen was clearly developing a thing against her.

(Ji) "I wonder what derogatory nicknames she'll come up with you and me, Anu."
(Anu) "I wouldn't speculate too much. We might offend her."
(Ji) "That or give her ideas."

Anu looked at the cloud of smoke again, still not sure what it was.

[Gail Strafer]

Gail shook his head at the deer's stern critique.

"You misunderstand me Chadin. When I said the boat ride was the worst of it, I meant that would probably be where we'd most likely get killed. Because if the boat sinks, there's not much we can do. But now we're here, and it's going to be a lot harder for Robotnik to find us before we find him. I'm sure you're comfortable in the wilderness with that getup. I am too. I grew up on a farm And as for me losing my temper it won't happen---"

And then Chadin started tearing Vanessa's signed clothes off. The wolf stood still for a moment, with his long tongue kind of drooping out of his mouth. Obviously, while Gail seemed to have it more together than Vanessa, certain things easily distracted him too.

"Scaredy, what are they doing to me?"

The cat's new favorite nickname woke him from his stupor. Shaking his head, he realized he'd been in la la land for a moment there.

"Uh...Gerald is...using some weird green stuff on you." As he watched the stuff do its work, his eyes went wide and he started paying more attention. "And...hey! Your wounds are gone! That's amazing!"

Off to the side, he caught a glimpse of Ji and Anu standing over there, discussing something amongst themselves. Come to think of it, that appeared to have been the run of things since they'd joined the group. Gail didn't think they'd done anything at all to help in the last fight.

The wolf wanted to know what was up. They needed everyone who could helping out here. He strode over to them.

"Hey, can I ask why you don't hang out with the rest of the group? You didn't help out in that last fight, and you haven't been talking to anyone else much. What's going on?"