Chaos Within

[Alpha Omega]

As Omega and his ring slammed into the pod, he clung to the side until he regained his senses, before climbing up onto the top, using the spikes as handholds to secure himself. He shrunk his ring a bit, and grabbed hold of it, looping it over a spike as an extra way to hold on. When he saw Espio throw something up at the pod, he closed his eyes, and waited for the sound of it hitting before opening them again. With his free hand, he started knocking on the back of the pod, between the two thrusters.

"Hey, Egghead! Get your priorities straight! I'd be worried about the blob monster destroying your city!"

[Dr. Robotnik]

As Mammoth threw his arm out, as if he were tossing something, Robo scanned the area around him. Sure enough, he saw something dark flying out of the city at him. He jerked the control stick right, just letting the SWATbot bounce off the bottom of his flamethrower ship. It left a dent, but it was a minor matter. Robotnik chuckled at the attack.

"Oh please, you're going to throw things at me? Is that it? I was expecting something a little flashier!"

While he exchanged barbs with Mammoth, Robo's real goal here was to get back those shards. That bat creature looked like it was giving everyone a handful, so the doctor figured the shards inside it were safe. But those shadow birds Mammoth tried to capture... They looked much smaller and weaker. No doubt those shadow birds he'd been trying to capture before had a shard or two in them. If he caught them they'd probably be easier pickings. So where had they gone off to?

Robo, keeping an eye on Mammoth, quickly checked the scope to see if he could pick them up on radar. Obviously a heat signature wouldn't work, so he decided to try motion. He got signals from the combatants in the area, but then he got three signatures trying to exit the combat zone. No doubt those were the birds.

But how to chase them without Mammoth screwing things up? He might just catch what I throw at him and then send it back. But I wonder if it puts a strain on his powers to levitate like that. Let's do a little test and see how well he can multitask.

The doctor adjusted his aim for wind and gravity, and let loose a tight salvo of three fireballs as he strafed right. Then he fired another tight grouping, circling Mammoth in a counter-clockwise manner and keeping his distance.

[Gail Strafer]

When Jii's crook made contact with the shadow bat's form, it left a small hole as it got skewered. However, she got about the same result Alpha did before when he tried to beat a blob to death with a club. The gash quickly repaired itself, and the crook began to be absorbed into the shadow creature's form. In fact, the shadow form slithered up the crook, getting close to Jii's hand.

Meanwhile, the shadow bat thrashed all over the place, trying to get Jii to let go of her staff. It even landed talons-first on some vertical walls before pushing off again in a sudden directional change.

---

[I really have no idea what to do with Gail this round, so I guess I'll have him sit out. By the way, what's the count of shards for all sides? I think it's:

Freedom Fighters - 2
Mammoth - 2
Robo - 0

at this point.]

[Rampage]

Rampage growled at seeing the chameleon evade him. It would appear he'd guess correctly when he decided that he might be the greatest threat out of the rag tag bunch of freedom fighters. Actually, he felt a little disappointed that neither Sonic or that echidna Knuckles decided to join the fun.

"HAH!! Egghead? Sorry to disappoint, but he's trying to fry some bigger fish at the moment. But, you can call me Rampage, allow me to illustrate why." Rampage used the powerful arms the death pod came equipped with to effortlessly pull itself free from the side of the building and threw his control stick hard to the left, causing the pod to spin about suddenly. He knew from the sound of the impact that the trouble maker was on his back, and so, he figured he'd give the little varmint a little incentive to vacate his position... by rolling along the side of the building like ball. If Alpha didn't want to get crushed, he'd need to do some quick thinking.

As for the flash bomb, it did indeed go off, but Rampage was already in motion by the time it went off, luckily it did cause him to ease up on his control stick a little, buying Alpha some precious time to figure to react to Rampage's attempt to crush him.

[Mammoth Mogul]

Mogul scowled in annoyance to see that his attack had little to no effect. Clearly this won't be the one-sided cake walk of their first encounter. Adding to the delima of course was the fact all those precious chaos emerald shards were still in the clutches of those blasted blobs. The last thing he wanted right now were distractions.

And Robotnik was proving to be a very aggravating distraction indeed. Still, ever the tactician, Mogul knew the limits of his powers quite well, and with his powers bolstered by the chaos shards in his possession, his barest limits were already greatly improved. Now if only he had enough to form a full emerald... then this pointless fracas could be brought to a swift end. What Mogul truly needs right now is a distraction of his own. Another target for Robotnik to focus on while he secures his ultimate prize.

For now however, he is loath to simply use his levitation to catch, then hurl all three flaming projectiles back at Robotnik's next volley of fireballs.

[Chadin]

What Anu would find as he set down beside me would be a creature of sharp contrast to the one he'd left only minutes ago. Eyes wide, distant and unblinking. Hands trembling in fright by my sides. I didn't even seem to be able to see Anu beside me.

[Jijeka-Te]

Ji was not so easily defeated. She matched the blob's movements, keeping her frills open to slow it down. She let go of her crook, but only with one hand-- she used the other hand to whip out her flail and lash it out at the beast's "heart", remembering the encounter in the stairwell.

Anu exerted a bit of effort, and managed to pick Chadin up.

[Espio]

Espio looked on in mild annoyance as that flash seemed to be less than effective; the bot beginning to scale the building. For now; that mech's eyes were off his, giving him a moment to plan ahead. The situation had quickly devolved into a Mexican standoff plus one. The chameleon was pretty sure Mammoth wouldn't be of any further use outside of distracting the doctor and his cohort now that he smelled blood. Now would be a good time to run; and with as many shards as possible to leave the remainder to tear themselves apart and escape in the chaos.

This required two things; the first for that lumbering hunk of metal to get off their backs, and the econd to have the remaining threat crippled to ensure reality itself wasn't in imminent danger from those mixing shards.

For starters he would take a moment to find an inconspicious pile of debris, drawing out his wire and a bomb; leaving him with one more. He would set up a wire trap to fling the exploding shuriken to fly straight up a few feet away from the building. One good toss and he could set off his extra attack when needed. He closes his eyes; blending in with the nearby debris as he sets off to scale the building; it had been troubling him how quiet it was up there till now...

[Alpha Omega]

As Rampage sent the pod rolling against the side of the building, Omega quickly clambered onto the top of the pod, before pulling his ring off the spike it was looped around, and using it to float up into the air, away from the pod. Though he wanted to get some form of revenge on Rampage, the odds were tilted very harshly away from him. So he settled for escaping to the roof top, and looking back down at the pod.

[Dr. Robotnik]

All six of the fireballs went up in a big flaming puff, as they collided into each other. Robotnik frowned as he watched his opponent do this.

Well...that's unfortunate.

Looked like Mammoth could keep himself in the air and fight back with no difficulty. Simply taking him head on didn't look like it would work. However, he still had someone else around who might be able to help.

Robo briefly scanned the area for Rampage, and it looked like he was occupied with the freedom fighters. The doctor pondered for a moment, before he made his decision.

"Rampage," he said, over the radio. "I hate to interrupt your fun, but I need your help. There are three of those shadow birds trying to escape the city right now. I would chase them but there's an elephant sitting down in the road and he won't budge. Would you be so kind as to get those shards? I promise I'll turn one of them into a new weapon for you, if you like."

Of course, that would leave the freedom fighters free to do what they wanted for the moment, but so what? His whole army was down, and most of the other blob creatures were already gone. It wasn't like they could do much more harm than the shadow creatures had already done.

Meanwhile, Robotnik lazily fired a few more fireballs as he circle strafed Mammoth. They weren't really intended to do harm, but more to keep him occupied.