Chaos Within

[Espio]

Espio soon entered the fray, running in to get the creature's attention with three quick shuriken tosses. The last thing he needed was for that thing continue to go after the rebels. It was well timed too, Chadin's yell coming soon after. The ninja would take leave of the immediate area as the rocket fired, making a bee line for the closest wall away from the blast zone.

[Nail Strafer]

[I think I'm going to skip Alpha this round. Anyone opposed?]

[Gail Strafer]

[Sorry Alpha, I know it's hard for you to get on but I think a couple weeks of waiting is enough.]

Espio's shurikens twirled through the air, striking the dragon and getting sucked into its form. However, it was taking so much incoming fire it had a hard time telling it as any different from the laser fire.

It was then that Gail's pointed ears swiveled, just picking up the sound of Chadin calling out for everyone to stand back over the chaos. He wasn't sure what was about to happen, but no doubt it was going to be something big. By coincidence, Espio managed to back up into the same place where Gail had taken refuge. Gail spared a quick smile to his companion.

"Ah can't wait to see what this is gonna look like!"

Everyone appeared to get the message as they all backed away from the beast as best as they could. The creature looked around, appearing confused as to why the crowd appeared to be letting up on its attack. It didn't have long to wonder as Chadin's rocket cleanly struck the creature in the torso, causing its shadowy form to be torn in half. A few twinkles could be seen as the shards fell to the concrete.

Meanwhile, the crowd resumed their relentless stream of fire on the shadowy form. Now that its midsection was gone, the shards left inside were exposed and open targets. Several lucky shots struck the remaining shards, causing the creature to violently shimmer and pulsate. Instead of the two halves joining back together, they appeared to be becoming more gooey and formless like the creature was having a harder time pulling itself back together. The fight was going to be over soon.

"Hey! You two!" Gail whirled around, and saw a hound dog in dirty clothes gesturing towards both Espio and Gail. "Are you two freedom fighters?"

"How'd you know?"

"You're too clean to be Robotropolis residents. Hardly any dirt on you." Hound dog waved at his own clothes and then pointed at Gail's.

"Oh, that makes sense!" Gail spared a laugh.

"Anyway..." the hound dog continued. "Don't know if you know, but we've got these tracking chips in us. If Robo is still alive and he's got an army out there, then it'll take him only five minutes to hunt us down. But his HQ tower is close by, and it's unguarded because of....that..."

The hound dog waved at the disintegrating dragon. Shrugging, he continued.

"Anyway, now's the perfect chance to blow up the inside of the command tower! That's where he keeps all the servers and things that run the tracking program. What do you say?"

"Espio... You still got enough in you for some demolition work?" Gail smiled at the chameleon.

[Dr. Robotnik]

"Fire away..." Robotnik sighed, in reference to Rampage asking for permission to fire on the civilians now pursuing him. "I'm going to go get the Egg Fleet up and running. Can you hold out until then?"

He was nearly at the airbase. However, he noticed something a little distressing. Sure most of the ships were still there, but there were hardly any SWATbots. Most of them must have gone into the city to fight the shadow creatures. In any case, it looked like he'd have to go running around hunting for crew to actually run his air fleet.

"Attention all SWATbots in the area! Gather at the Egg Carrier as quickly as you can!"

[Rampage]

"Let's find out." Rampage smirked as he leveled his laser rifle on the crowd. He hardly even needed to aim really, he just opened up with a hail of laser fire; trusting that his sudden attack would instill fear and panic among the crowd and thin out the heard so that only the truly hardline rebels stood up to face him. Once he cut them down, it would be child's play to disperse the crowd. Of course, his MALR rifle may have an unlimited ammunition supply, but it's heat dispersion limitations still imposed some serious restrictions on his tactics. He couldn't fire non-stop forever, and no matter how carefully he burst-fires his shots, his weapon will inevitably heat up until he needs to dissipate the stored up heat. He'll either need to get his hands on some additional fire power, possibly from the fallen rebels or resort to some good old fashioned hand-to hand combat. Come to think of it, that actually sounded good. It has been far too long since Rampage had enjoyed the feel of breaking someone's face it with his robotic arm.

[Chadin]

I watched with deep satisfaction as the rocket blew the creature in two. I could see several shards fall out of it as the crowds continued to lay into it with their combined firepower. It looked like we'd turned the tide. I grabbed the last rocket and slung the launcher over my shoulder alongside my crossbow, intent on getting down to the street level to join the rest of the team. It would, unfortunately, take me a few minutes to get down the ladder carrying the extra weight of the rocket launcher, but after seeing how useful the thing was, I wasn't about to ditch it until we were well and truly clear of Robotropolis or I had exhausted the last shot.

[Jijeka-Te]

Ji watched as the gooey creature got weaker. She scanned for her crook, not wanting to leave it behind; it was very personal to her, after all.

Anu stayed where he was.

[Alpha Omega]

Omega scrambled down the side of the building, intending to help the city's populace escape, or storm the command tower. However, he had kept an eye on Rampage the entire time, and thought that now might be the best time for a little bit of revenge.

As he moved into the crowds of slaves and rebels below, he began squeezing his way through the crowds toward the cyborg, keeping his head ducked down a bit. As he walked, he began scanning the ground for discarded weaponry, a stick, a piece of building, a discarded gun, anything.

[Gail Strafer]

Without its shards, the creature now had no chance of reforming. Whatever remained of the dragon creature began dissolving into black mist and dissipated up into the air. That only left the shards behind. Jii would see her crook clattering to the ground as well beside the shards.

"Excuse me, you guys! You, go talk to Chadin about your plan," Gail said to Hound Dog, pointing at Chadin as he was coming down the fire escape. "Espio! We better get those shards before someone else does!"

He quickly took off running to where the creature had been only just a few seconds ago, as he rapidly worked to collect the dropped shards on the pavement. It was a good thing he did, because many of the civilians started crowding into the space. They cheered as they fired celebratory shots into the air, jumping and dancing around.

Meanwhile, as Chadin would approach, he'd see Hound Dog coming his way.

"Are you Chadin? Your friend said you might be able to help me."

He explained his plan to blow up the HQ building, so that Robotnik wouldn't be able to track the civilians with the tracker chips any more.

---

Rampage's shots immediately cut down several civilians, sending them toppling down like ragdolls. Loud screams cut through the air. A few tried to drag the wounded out of the line of fire. Rampage's firing definitely spooked the crowd. Only a few remained out in the open as they fired back with stolen SWATbot blasters. The rest quickly took cover behind dumpsters, wrecked cars, boxes, or anything else they could find. If they had blasters, they let off potshots every now and then.

As Alpha neared the battle, he'd see a cat dragging a wounded raccoon to cover behind a wall. Burn marks punctuated the places on his chest where he'd been hit by Rampage's attack.

"You're going to be ok. You're going to be okay!" the cat gently said, as he started to take the clothes off to get a better look at the injuries.

The raccoon released his blaster as he whimpered from the pain.

---

[I'm not going to post as Robo this round. Consider him to be off screen but waiting to jump back in.]

[Rampage]

Rampage's amber cybernetic eye began to glow a hellish red as he stalked towards the crowd, firing his MALR rifle in accurate bursts at the fools still standing out in the open and blatantly ignoring the poorly aimed retaliatory shots. His sudden attack had achieved his first desire to sow terror into the crowds; and now, with every fighter that fell that terror would quickly spread throughout the fighters and non-combatants alike. Of course, they were hardly putting up much of a challenge.

"C'MON!!! FACE ME YOU COWARDS!!! YOU WANT TO FIGHT!?!?! THEN FIGHT!!!?" Rampage roared at the crowd, spittle flying out of his mouth.

Of course, he hardly expected the crowd to put up a decent fight. The Freedom Fighters however... Rampage saw the explosion that tore up what was left of the shadow beast. Now they would make a challenge worthy of him. Plus, as an added bonus, he could save face with Robotnik by retrieving some of the emerald shards before the Freedom Fighters got away with them all. Of course, even Rampage knew he couldn't take all of them at once. He'd need a little something to balance the fight a little. He couldn't help wondering if some of his Com-bots were still up and running.

"Open channel. Com-bot Delta, are you still functional?" Rampage spoke into the built in transceiver inside the robot side of his face.

"Affirmative. Com-bot's Beta through Gama are operational and standing by within Egg Carrier. Master Robotnik has requested all operational units to rally at Egg Carrier." Came the mono-toned response from the Com-bot.

"Belay that order. If you're already at the Egg Carrier, dispatch Beta to my location, ASAP." Rampage barked back his order as he fired another burst from his MALR. By now, he had spent nearly half his rifles energy. He'd need to either go hand-to-hand soon or grab some of the weapons from the fallen fools around him as he closed the distance.

"At once. Beta inbound now."