Egg Fleet Retreat

[Rose Fox]

The moment Tatsu had practically implied cannibalism, Snively was hiding behind Rose. He watched the demon with a wide-eye look of terror.

“ WHERE DO YOU FIND THESE PEOPLE?!?!?!” Snively exclaimed in anxiety.


Rose’s response was fairly calm (and annoyed at Snively). “ Oh please. What do -you- have to worry about?” she replied.

[Rampage]

"Wait...so you're from a dimension where you worked with Snively as well?"

"Yeah, but this one looks like he might be from an alternate world from mine though. Keep your eye on him mind, he may be a wimp, but he'll stab you in the back if you're not careful. Most of the time he's too chicken to try anything too big though." Rampage replied with a casual shrug.

"I don't see YOU doing any better at stopping them yourself!" the doctor shouted, suddenly lunging towards him as he practically spat out the words. "What were you doing upstairs all that time while I was fighting him down on the factory floor? Shining your gears? You need to learn better to not let personal business get in the way of your duties. That would have been a lot more help than grabbing the video tapes!"

Instead of being taken aback, or even angered by Robotnik's accusations, Rampage actually seemed to be pretty calm. In fact, he looked downright confident, cocky even. "Actually, I did do better." Rampage disagreed as he folded his arms across his chest. "You'll notice that Sonic and that crew I engaged in the Mushroom Hill Zone never made it to the Launch Base to screw with us, AND I, of all of us who ENGAGED any of those Freedom Fighters came away the least beaten up for it. So, I'd suggest you lay off, Chubby, since I did my job as ordered. As for that hedgehog back up stairs, well what can I say. The kid had some talent. I wasn't in any danger of losing, but he did manage to keep me busy. Besides, it's not like you'd been fighting all that long. Five minutes at the most."

"But speaking of personal issues, what's yours with that deer? I've rarely ever seen you go out of your way to personally fight anyone except Sonic or Tails. You two have some history, and I wanna here it."

[Tatsuhiro]

The replies he got from the Doctor and Snively made him turn his head to the side. He’d said something bad again, he thought to himself. He was always doing that. Though it seemed he was getting better he’d still managed to say something that freaked everyone out. He thought about what he said for a while, trying to break it down into parts. What was it that wasn’t right about his statement?

For now Tatsu stayed to the side and listened to everyone else speak; while he kept wondering what it was he said.

[Dr. Robotnik]

Quote:"You'll notice that Sonic and that crew I engaged in the Mushroom Hill Zone never made it to the Launch Base to screw with us, AND I, of all of us who ENGAGED any of those Freedom Fighters came away the least beaten up for it. So, I'd suggest you lay off, Chubby, since I did my job as ordered. As for that hedgehog back up stairs, well what can I say. The kid had some talent. I wasn't in any danger of losing, but he did manage to keep me busy. Besides, it's not like you'd been fighting all that long. Five minutes at the most."

Robotnik conceded on Rampage's first point. He actually appeared to be taking what the badger had to say straight up instead of countering it.

"You did manage to stop the Freedom Fighters in the forest. ONE group of Freedom Fighters."

Robotnik emphasized this very squarely by dramatically holding up one index finger, as he stared down Rampage rather harshly. With that last point, Robotnik lowered his hand as he went straight back to shouting at the badger again.

"Like that really mattered! Another group of them STILL made it into the camp and burned nearly all the ships on the ground! They should never have made it that far! If I hadn't pulled that trick with the first set of shard boxes being fakes, this mission would have been a total failure! You would have won your battle, but we'd have lost the war. And don't even think about calling me Chubby again. Remember who's your boss here."

The doctor quite frankly was tired of Rampage trying to act like he was Robo's equal. He needed to start emphasizing what the chain of command was here, and didn't think Rampage would respond to subtlety.

Quote:"But speaking of personal issues, what's yours with that deer? I've rarely ever seen you go out of your way to personally fight anyone except Sonic or Tails. You two have some history, and I wanna here it."

This appeared to put the doctor off balance. Robo didn't seem to know how he wanted to respond to THAT question. He supposed he should have shown a little more restraint in front of Rampage earlier when talking about Chadin. Anyway...Robo tried to think of something that wouldn't sound like something Rampage could exploit.

"Maybe it's because he's unusually talented at throwing a monkey wrench in things. It's like when Sonic isn't around, that deer takes his place. We even saw Sonic around today, but even he didn't get inside the factory ship. The deer did. And this isn't the first time I've seen him get this far into my inner sanctum. He's done it many times before, even before the merge. And I didn't even know about all that electrical energy he had until today."

The doctor's attention now turned to the entire group in the room, and not just Rampage by himself.

"He's by far the greatest threat out of all the Freedom Fighters aside from Sonic himself, and I want all of you to make it a priority to take him out when you see him. I believe in the audio transcripts we captured from the footage of today's battle, they called him...Chadin."

[Rose Fox]

“I had been wondering how that deer seemed to be causing you so much trouble…” Snively muttered.

Rose simply listened in onto the conversation, as she was resuming her duties. Getting another syringe prepared she began to think. She knew she wouldn’t have to worry about Snively, since she could hear most of his thoughts. Well, at least not as much. Tatsuhiro was still a little unknown, since he seemed to be so quiet. But she knew for sure she didn’t like this Rampage fellow. He was too loud and arrogant; like someone else she knew.

But for now she wasn’t going to dwell too much in the past. For now, she would simply watch the two’s movements and try and get the Doctor’s arm fixed. She injected a third dosage of nanaites into his arm; which would only gather up fragments of bone and try to piece them together.

“How does your arm feel now?” she asked, as she looked over towards him. “ I believe all the major cuts are healed up now.”

[Rampage]

Quote:Robotnik emphasized this very squarely by dramatically holding up one index finger, as he stared down Rampage rather harshly. With that last point, Robotnik lowered his hand as he went straight back to shouting at the badger again.

"Like that really mattered! Another group of them STILL made it into the camp and burned nearly all the ships on the ground! They should never have made it that far! If I hadn't pulled that trick with the first set of shard boxes being fakes, this mission would have been a total failure! You would have won your battle, but we'd have lost the war. And don't even think about calling me Chubby again. Remember who's your boss here."

Rampage in turn once again took Robotnik's shouting in stride, maintaining that same smug grin. "Ah, so you did manage to sneak some stuff out? Good for you, Doc." Rampage congratulated Robotnik with what might have sounded like genuine praise if not for the presence of that smug grin.

"As for those Freedom Fighters well... I seem to recall someone else here was assigned to dealing with that group. Of course, given his fine physical condition afterward, I can only assume that he succeeded in; oh wait..." Rampage glared over his shoulder with his menacing orange cybernetic eye at Tatsu.

"So, if you feel like yelling at anyone, yell at the people who ACTUALLY screwed up. Because I did my job, AS instructed. If you needed help taking down that walking coat rack, I certainly didn't hear you ask, so I had no way of knowing you needed any. So DON'T presume to tell ME that this was MY fault!!" Rampage actually managed to remain calm and relaxed, right up until the end where his voice began to rise as he emphasized his words. His cybernetic eye actually even glowed a deeper hue of orange until it was almost blood red while he spoke.

A moment later, Rampage's eye cooled to it's normal orange and Rampage cleared his throat as he appeared to calm himself back down. "Besides, it's so hard to tell when I can take my own initiative. What with you holding the trigger on me all the time. Why... if you ever felt I overstepped my authority, you might try and shut me down. After all, it was you who wanted to keep a tight reign on me. Can't blame me if I'm just acting within your own rules." Rampage's voice carried a very clear, condescending secondary message that he no doubt knew Robotnik would pick up on.

Quote:"Maybe it's because he's unusually talented at throwing a monkey wrench in things. It's like when Sonic isn't around, that deer takes his place. We even saw Sonic around today, but even he didn't get inside the factory ship. The deer did. And this isn't the first time I've seen him get this far into my inner sanctum. He's done it many times before, even before the merge. And I didn't even know about all that electrical energy he had until today."

The doctor's attention now turned to the entire group in the room, and not just Rampage by himself.

"He's by far the greatest threat out of all the Freedom Fighters aside from Sonic himself, and I want all of you to make it a priority to take him out when you see him. I believe in the audio transcripts we captured from the footage of today's battle, they called him...Chadin."

"Oh ho! So he's from your world?!" Rampage chuckled in understanding.

"So... what'd you do to piss him off so much? Rampage asked, his dark tone of voice only amplified by the unusual metallic resonance from his robotic throat and mouth. "I've seen tougher Freedom Fighters than him before. But none of them ever went so far as to do to you what he did. I'd even venture to say he wanted to see you dead. None of them, even Sonic wouldn't be willing to go that far."

"They all think that ALL life is PRECIOUS!!!" Blech!! If they had the guts to do what was needed, a lot more of them wouldn't be pushing up daisies right now because of me. Rampage spit out in disgust as he clutched his hands together and struck up a sappy pose while speaking.

"So, what's our next move?"

[Tatsuhiro]

Tatsu didn’t react much to Rampage trying to pin blame on him. He didn’t bother to defend himself, nor did he really seem to care. He didn’t even seem to even pay attention to him, though he listened to him the entire time. And all during that time he’d wished that the badger would just stop talking. Surprisingly, it wasn’t because he was trying to show some superiority over Robotnik. It was because he just kept going on, and on. And Tatsuhiro was tired of all this talking. Talking about things that weren’t really important in the long run. He’d been stuck in a bed for too long because of the damn wolf who managed to hit him where he’d already had an injury.

He supposed he should have listened to the doctor earieler when he was still back in his own dimension about staying put and letting it heal. He was fairly sure that any time it had was completely shot, literatlly.

But finally, the badger changed the subject by asking what they’d do next. “Finally,” He let out in a dull sigh, “You’re getting onto something worthwhile. What happens now, Doctor?”

[Dr. Robotnik]

Quote:“How does your arm feel now?” she asked, as she looked over towards him. “ I believe all the major cuts are healed up now.”

Robotnik temporarily broke off his tirade against Rampage to answer Rose. Smiling at her, he said "Fine, thank you. It's getting better already."

The doctor then immediately turned back to glare at Rampage some more. However, he listened to the badger's diatribe rather patiently, not even blinking as his eye glowed and he started to raise his voice. After all, Rampage was a pawn on his chessboard. Why should he be afraid of a pawn? When the badger finished complaining about him not getting on Tatsu and Robo keeping a tight leash on him, the doctor stopped to clear his throat. He figured he'd been yelling a little too much before and acting too childishly, so the doctor decided to take a chill pill for the moment.

"Well Rampage, you've been with us for six months now," Robotnik said in the prim, crisp tone of a white-collar office boss. It actually wasn't six months, but it was something the doc figured someone like that would say. Speaking this way actually seemed to relax the doctor some, and he even allowed a little smile at what he thought was humorous. "Perhaps it's time for your semi-annual performance review."

After that, he readopted his normal voice and got a little more edgy with it.

"I think you should already know why I keep you on a tight leash. Let me be crystal clear with you: I don't trust you. I don't think I've ever trusted you farther than I can throw you since you joined our crew. You always act like you know things I don't and that you're plotting things behind my back. You can be a very useful soldier when the time calls for it, which is why I keep you around. But if you really want to be let off the leash, prove it to me that I can trust you.

"Secondly, and I think I can speak for everyone else here. We all don't like your attitude. That's why I'm yelling at you instead of Tatsu. Tatsu may be frightening," he made a quick aside to the demon. "No offense." After returning back to Rampage, he continued. "But Tatsu doesn't talk back and I've learned that I can trust him."

Quote:"I've seen tougher Freedom Fighters than him before. But none of them ever went so far as to do to you what he did. I'd even venture to say he wanted to see you dead. None of them, even Sonic wouldn't be willing to go that far."

"Oh, he's probably just a resident of one of many villages I decimated back in the day. Like I really care. It was only Tuesday to me, or whatever day of the week it was when I did it. I'm going to remake this world in my image anyway, so it really doesn't matter what gets destroyed in the process. Whatever I did do to him, it must have really, really ticked him off." The doctor sighed. "Let's just say he's done the same to me the past few weeks, so now the feeling's mutual. And one day, he's going to regret it."

"As for our next plans...we have the shards now. Once we get back, I'm going to start drawing up plans for robots or weapons that we can supercharge with the shards. Maybe I could start by sending one of the shard robot monsters after that deer along with your Skellies, Rose. I'm sure he wants the shards back, so we might as well give him one. Hahaha..."

The doctor tried to rub his hands together as he laughed...then he realized he couldn't. The doc moped at his broken arm.

[Rose Fox]

Rose gave out a small sigh as she closed her eyes. If that wasn’t the worst lie she heard, then she didn’t know what it was. But it was better than before, thankfully. She would need to get working as soon as possible on creating the necessary nannies to fix his arm. Otherwise, he might resort to other means to fix it. As she opened her eyes again, she looked forwards towards Tatsu and Rampage’s direction with a somewhat dull face. She was curious as to how the brash mobian was going to react.

Snively could practically hug the badger; if it wasn’t for the fact that Rampage would kill him and the fact that he would never go so far to touching anyone (except Regina). Thanks to his total forwardness that he’s going against his uncle’s back, it was a perfect smoke-screen for his own treachery. Seeing as the badger would lay off his attitude at all (or not that much), his new-found uncle would be keeping his focus on Rampage rather than Snively.

But even so, he couldn’t act so quickly upon this. He still had to appear trust-worthy to Robotnik; get his guard down before he made any hasty action. After all, Snively had no intention of sticking around with his Uncle and demented crush.

“Sir,” Snively began, turning towards him, “ Not to doubt your genius, but wouldn’t it be too much of a risk to send a shard there way even –if- it was being used to power up a robot? After all, they might actually win; and leave us one shard short.”

[Rampage]

Quote:"Secondly, and I think I can speak for everyone else here. We all don't like your attitude. That's why I'm yelling at you instead of Tatsu. Tatsu may be frightening," he made a quick aside to the demon. "No offense."

"Awww... but if I just started acting like all these other saps, it would be so DULL around here for you, Doc." Rampage replied with an impish grin. He'd never been under any impression or delusion that the Doc might actually fold and give him some more leash space as it were. "That or a I'd become just as demented as the Lollipop Princess over there." Rampage added with a thumb wag over towards Rose.

Quote:"But Tatsu doesn't talk back and I've learned that I can trust him."

"Ha! Trust him... Yeah, well... Can't say I blame you for trusting what's familiar to you. After all stupid robots come in all shapes and sizes. Even the squishy organic kinds." Rampage lightly chuckled to himself as he glanced over his shoulder at Tatsu with a careful eye.

"Pfft, I don't care if you don't like my attitude. Fact is, Doc, I do know things you don't. I know how to fight. You don't. I'm arrogant, no doubt there. But that's because I can back up my guns. 'N if any of you disagree, I'll be more than happy to prove my point. Truth is, Doc, I got a fair bit of respect for you. Few people are as ruthlessly determined as you. So how's about this, you show some respect for my abilities, 'n I'll lay out the attitude a bit. Deal?" For the first time in the conversation, Rampage actually appeared to be genuinely honest; not sarcastic or condescending at all. "Oh... and just as an act of good faith, let me give you a little free advice. Keep a close eye on Shiv-nose over there. He's a schemer that one. Matter of fact, I seem to recall where I came from he offered me the chance to join him on his latest plan to stab you in the back before the merge. If he's anything like the one I knew, I wouldn't trust him any farther then me.

Quote:“Sir,” Snively began, turning towards him, “ Not to doubt your genius, but wouldn’t it be too much of a risk to send a shard there way even –if- it was being used to power up a robot? After all, they might actually win; and leave us one shard short.”

"Gotta admit, big nose has a point, Doc." Rampage somewhat begrudgingly had to concede the point to Snively.