Chaos Within

[Gail Strafer]

Jii's whippings had little effect, given the massive size of the creature and the chaos shards it had in it. Every time the flail hit it left behind some small gashes, but with a quick shimmer of the creature's form they repaired themselves quickly. She might as well be trying to whip water with her flail. By this point the blob's form was about to close around her arm as it had slithered all the way up the crook.

The beast tried another tactic to get Jii off it's back. It suddenly stopped in midair, before it allowed itself to fall...back side down. If Jii didn't get off the creature's back, she would be smashed between it and the concrete street below.

---

As Gail tried to limp back into the fight, he looked up at the shadow bat. Unbelievably, he saw Jii hanging off of the back of that thing...like she was some knight trying to tame a dragon in a fairy tale. However, this definitely wasn't a fairy tale, and sooner or later reality was going to ensue.

"Jii!" Gail called from below. "You nuts or somethin'?! Yah can't take that thing on by yourself! You gonna get killed!"

[Rampage]

Amusingly to any one watching on the outside, Rampage's pod actually stopped rolling along the side of the building and pulled away, spinning toward Robotnik. "Aww... But I was just starting to get into it..." Rampage replied over the loud speaker. One of the pods mechanical hands actually reached up and scratched the top of the machine's head as if it were a person responding. Inadvertently, Alpha would have to watch out for the mechanical hand, lest he be knocked off by the action.

Quote:"I promise I'll turn one of them into a new weapon for you, if you like."

Of course, once Robotnik mentioned the possibility of getting some kind of high-powered weapon out of the deal, that made the request much more appealing. "Well, when you put it that way..." Rampage laughed savagely the boosters on the back of the pod kicked in, propelling Rampage's pod towards the first of the bird creatures. Rampage wound of the right arm to slam with the first target with a mighty straight punch once he got into range.

[Mammoth Mogul]

Mogul kept a close eye on Robotnik and continued to parlay his attacks back at him. He would continue to do so until the right moment to strike arose. Mogul was nothing if not a patient adversary.

[Chadin]

Fortunately, Anu would quickly discover that he wouldn't need to carry me at all as his grasp proved to be enough to snap me out of my trapped state of mind. "Who? Wha? Where?" I blurted out as my mind snapped back into focus. I became acutely aware of the blood in my eye and the throbbing pain from the cut on my head and the gash in my ear. I wiped the thick red fluid from my eye and forehead, wincing in pain.

"Ooohhh, what happened?" I asked, though, my answer came shortly after I asked as the bat-creature wailed at Jii from up above.

"Jeez! What the heck happened!?"

[Jijeka-Te]

Quickly realizing she wasn't getting anywhere, Ji abandoned her crook and glided away. She landed right next to Anu and Chadin.

(Anu) "Your Highness!"
(Ji) "Don't worry about me, Anu. I'm not the one who needs the attention right now."

[Espio]

Espio was about to get ready to assault the death machine; but the good doctor furfills the first condition for escape for them as Rampage takes his leave. He rolls over the top of the building taking a look around. Seems they had a few wounded; but none in immediate peril. He looks at the sky dragon as it makes its decent. "Listen up.", he says to the group standing atop the building with him. "We need to take down the remaining demon; pilfer what we can and take our exit while Mammoth and the doctor's faction clash.", he says jabbing a finger in the direction of the heated battle not too far off. "Chadin. Gail. You two are wounded but still able to take action?", he asks procuring his remaining bottle of elixer. "Someone needs to get back to the hangar and secure our ride out of here. ", he says delegating tasks, "As those two won't be occupied forever..and we don't want to be here when the winner emerges. "

"Anu can hold onto this and accompany the evacuation team, while I lead a charge against the dragon with our able fighters.", he said assuming it was momentarily stuck in a crater below. He would hand the flask out to Anu, taking his recall scroll out with his other hand. "...hope the pharmacy isn't as low on supplies as I am at this point.", he muttered.

[Alpha Omega]

As Rampage turned to fly away, Omega looked back between Espio and the Big Arm pod several times, before settling on Espio, and allowing Rampage to get away. He turned and ran across the roof tops, jumping from one to another before he landed next to the chameleon, and shook his head. "Rampage took off. Acted funny first, but he was going for those birds, by the look of it."

[Gail Strafer]

[Gail's actually standing on the street far away from rest of the group, Espio.]

The shadow dragon smashed right into the concrete on the street below, leaving a big crater. It rolled itself over, trying to get back into the fight. The first thing it happened to see after reorienting itself was Gail. The dragon let out a surpremely loud shriek. Gail's ears bent backwards as he grit his teeth, the sound especially agonizing for him with his sensitive hearing. To make matters worse, it started stomping down the street after him.

"Oh! Oooooh no!"

Gail limped down the street as quickly as he could, looking for an alleyway or another passage too small for the beast to chase after him.

Before he could get too far though, he heard a succession of laser blasts behind him, followed by the creature crying out in agony. The wolf spared a glance behind him, and then saw laser shots striking the creature from behind.

But who was firing the shots? All the SWAT bots were down, and he was the only person in the group still down here. Gail stopped and turned fully around to look, but the creature's form was in the way.

Someone put a hand on his shoulder from behind, causing Gail to gasp in surprise as he got spun around. Suddenly he found himself face to face with a tabby cat Mobian, looking like he'd spent the last few years living in filth. His clothes just barely hung off of him with how ragged and dirty they were. He also brandished a stolen SWATbot laser. Behind him stood more Mobians and humans dressed in a similar fashion, with each of them brandishing a SWATbot laser, a makeshift club, or some other weapon.

"Who the heck are you guys?!" Gail looked at the whole crew of them.

"Robotnik's ex-subjects..." The tabby cat said with a grin. "He's kept us slaves in his city until now. No longer! Now that half his army's down, it's the perfect time for an uprising. We've been watching the fighting from afar, and now we're ready to help!"

The cat pumped his fist into the air, and a resounding cheer echoed up from the crowd. They all charged down the street, with those who had lasers shooting up the shadow dragon as fast as they could. The shadow dragon beat its wings as fast as it could, but they were getting shot full of holes and it was having trouble gaining lift.

Gail, meanwhile, watched on in awe. He had no idea the city was so full of slaves. Was it because he and the freedom fighters attacked the part of the city that only Robotnik lived in?

[How about some uplifting music fit for a revolution?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZhEH8vrz...1657027691 ]

---

Meanwhile, Rampage's arm easily turned one of the shadow beasts into dust. He'd see the twinkle of the shard flying through the air. If he didn't hurry and catch it, it would be lost in the streets below. The other two birds beat their wings faster, trying to get away.

[Dr. Robotnik]

"Hey! I see Robotnik up there!" one of the citizens in the street shouted, pointing up at Robo's flamethrower ship. Suddenly the doctor had several lasers trained on him in addition to the shadow beast. Laser blasts flashed all around him, striking the craft in multiple places.

"What the--? What's all this now?!"

The doctor pressed some buttons next to a monitor on his dashboard. It now showed a camera feed of his former slaves firing up at him. Looked like they'd decided to take advantage of the chaos to free themselves. Robotnik let out a low growl of rage.

Blasted shadow creatures! Blasted Mammoth! Blasted Freedom Fighters! On the same day...ALL OF THEM at once! There must be some cosmic being out there that really, really wants to see me fail today.

His current ship did have heavy armor. After all, he didn't want a lucky shot destroying the flamethrower's fuel tank and sending him up in a great ball of fire. Nonetheless, he couldn't take on both Mammoth and his civilian populace at the same time. And he no longer had his army for backup as well.

"Rampage!" Robo called out over the comms. "The citizens have started to revolt because of the calamity. Get those shards secured as fast as you can. I'll see about rounding up whatever's left of the army in town."

And with that, Robotnik promptly ignited his ship's thrusters and bugged out, flying as far and as fast as he could to escape the chaos. In the meantime, Robotnik seethed with rage from the humiliation of having to turn tail and flee.

Damn! If only my full army were here! I'd crush all of them like ants! But it's all right... I always bounce back after a failure. I know that better than anyone, with how many times Sonic has foiled me. I will be back.

[Rampage]

"Rampage!" Robo called out over the comms. "The citizens have started to revolt because of the calamity. Get those shards secured as fast as you can. I'll see about rounding up whatever's left of the army in town."

As Rampage blew through the first creature, he deftly used the pod's other hand to catch the shard as it fell. Rampage didn't stop there however, as he used his momentum to slam bodily into the second creature with the pod's windshield. With his present speed, he'd hit just as hard as with his fists, destroying the shadow beast just as quickly as the previous. The glittering shard bounced off his hull and dropped into the pod's awaiting hand. Rampage then adjusted his aim and turned toward the final bird. it had risen above him slightly by now, but not enough to be out of his pod's reach. With both hands swinging high over the pod's body, Rampage brought the combined weight of a both fists down on the creature, destroying it completely. But the shard was now in a free fall.

Gritting his teeth in determination, Rampage reversed thrust and dove for the shard. He could just see the glittering gem in it's downward plummet, only just out of reach. Rampage slammed his metal fist on an afterburner switch, pouring raw fuel into the engines, boosting his speed considerably. Reaching out with the pod's hand, he managed to snag the crystal. But by now the ground was perilously close. Rampage killed all aft engine power and poured all available power into the pod's hover system, trying desperately to halt his inevitable meeting with the ground. Barely ten feet above the ground, Rampage's pod came to a nail-biting stop.

"Hah! Got 'em boss!!" Rampage shouted triumphantly, not realizing that he was still broadcasting over loud speaker as well as over the radio.