Chaos Within

[Nail Strafer]

[Sorry Alpha, but it's been over a week now.]

Quote:"Ha! They act like they've never seen a dinosaur before."

Nail frowned at that remark. He hoped that was sarcasm. In any case, his irons never left the badger that he guessed was Trigger. That stupid hedgehog still stood in the way of his target though, so he couldn't shoot the badger as he got up. However, as Rampage got up, Nail's eyes briefly met his. They'd been spotted now. Although he supposed it'd be pretty hard to miss Amiroo. Rampage started talking into his radio, although Nail couldn't make it out.

"Careful, he's seen us."

They didn't get much time to wonder what he'd said, as the SWATPod flew overhead and crashed into a building on the other side of the intersection. Nail ducked down behind the car to shield himself from the flaming debris and shrapnel. When he looked back up, he saw what looked like a humongous-sized SWATBot. He'd never seen anything like it before. In any case, it clearly meant business, so Nail's iron sights immediately settled on the most obvious target: the glowing red eyes.

He squeezed the trigger several times on his futuristic coil gun, propelling high velocity rounds towards its face. But after his attack, he could hear the distinct noise of what sounded like a minigun spinning up. Horrified, Nail immediately rushed away from the SUV to duck behind the solid wall of a building. If that was a minigun, no way that car would be adequate cover.

"Run Am!"

As he rounded the corner, he slammed head on into somebody's chest, sending him stumbling backwards. After Nail recovered, he looked up and stared into the face of a young but still very tall wolf. In spite of the situation, Nail had a sense of deja vu as he stared upwards at the larger canine. Had he met this person before? In any case, he had to get this kid out of here.

"You better hide! There's a SWATbot back there with a minigun!"

[Gail Strafer]

"Yeah, but mah friend's over there!" Gail shouted, pointing towards the corner where Nail had just come from. "I gotta go help him!"

While the fox looked frantic to hide before, now he stood stock still, staring at Gail with his jaw slightly open and his yellow eyes wide. The wolf couldn't help but notice those eyes looked just like his own, and the gray fur was a similar shade too. The huge, black rifle in his hands drifted towards the ground while he'd held it at the ready before.

"It can't be..."

Gail looked equally confused, as he stared back at Nail while cocking his head slightly to the side.

"A'm sorry...have we met? And why in tarnation do you have a dinosaur with you?"

Remembering his friend, the fox suddenly spun around to see if Am was going to follow. Simultaneously, he offhandedly waved Gail away.

"Never mind. I'll talk to you later. Just go hide somewhere."

Gail growled at that, narrowing his eyes. This little fox thought he was more of a badass than he was?

"Oh come on! You're treatin' me like mah old man! I've been runnin' around this city fightin' SWATbots and demons for hours! I'll be fine!"

The fox responded with his own growl, as he whirled around.

"I don't care! You're too young to die! You're my--" He paused in mid sentence, before slamming his jaw shut unceremoniously. "Never mind! Just hide!"

"What for?! I can fight!"

"You don't even have a gun!"

Gail clenched his teeth into a harsh grimace, as he pointed at the M1911 strapped to the fox's hip.

"You've got TWO guns! Give me that one! I can shoot!"

"I said GO, you stupid kid!"

[Dr. Robotnik]

[Skip Robo this round.]

[Alpha Omega]

[I'm sorry guys. With the holidays, and all the excitement, and then getting sick, I would open the forum, then be too tired or drained to actually post. And then getting sick isn't helping. Lemme make my posts now, and I can just keep my spot in the order here, or jump back in place next round.]

Omega's eyes were locked on Rampage, until the com-bot crashed into the building. His stance slackened a bit, as his eyes moved to watch the machine stand and ready itself, his eyes registered a bit of fear, before remembering the badger gave it a target behind him. Though he would have liked to help whoever had to deal with the robot, he was busy with the cyborg, whom he locked eyes on again, as he stood up.

He dropped his blaster, and punched one fist into the palm of the other. "Y'know, at this rate, you're gonna run out of teeth. Pretty sure I got one last time we met too." He braced himself, expecting to be rushed at this point.

[Rampage]

[Just waiting on Am to post.]

[Echo]

Quote:"Careful, he's seen us."

"I see him over there seeing us" Am said, rocking on his feet ready to run at a moments notice. Am watched with suspicion as Rampage spoke into a device.

"um, Nail. I think he's calling for help. What do you think?"

Amiroo had barely gotten the words out of his mouth when an over sized swatbot dropped onto the battlefield.

"Wha..." Amiroo stood, flabbergasted, by what he saw: An absurd killing machine one might imagine encountering in a rather twisted nightmare. He was only shaken back to reality by Nail opening up on the machine, with Amiroo quickly following the example. Amiroo emerged from his cover briefly to open up on the swatbot with his particle beam rifle, liquid-like bolts of semi-transparent energy erupted from his rifle with mighty thunderclaps, and sailed towards the machine with alarming, almost blinding, speed. He was aiming primarily for the Swatbots minigun in an attempt to thwart the robot from using it.

Quote:"Run Am!"

Amiroo didn't need any further motivation as he turned and joined Nail in a strategic retreat. As he himself turned the corner he found Nail chatting away with someone of all things.

Quote:"Oh come on! You're treatin' me like mah old man! I've been runnin'
around this city fightin' SWATbots and demons for hours! I'll be fine!"

"What for?! I can fight!"

"You've got TWO guns! Give me that one! I can shoot!"

"I said GO, you stupid kid!"

"Look, we don't have time for this. That thing's right behind us, I don't know how much damage we managed to do to it."

Amiroo turned to Gail, his amber eyes regarding him sternly. This Mobian hauntingly resembled Nail in a way.

"Look kid, we don't have time to argue with you. You need to leave and get out of this city while you still can. Any minute now, this place is gonna be ground zero for an invasion, you'll be lucky if you manage to get out of the city alive if you leave right now!"

[Rampage]

[Whoops, forgot to add the other half of my post with this thing. Sorry guys. Brain fart]

Rampage grinned at Alpha's bravado. "Pft... Knocking teeth out, don't get the job done Jr. You wanna take me down, you better start showing your A-game. Care to try? He taunted, wagging his fingers at him invitingly.

Com-bot Beta hardly flinched in the face of Nail and Amiroo's onslaught. Unlike a humble Swat-bot, who would have buckled easily under the weight of such intensive fire, a Com-bot is built with only a single task in mind. Combat. Every facet of it's design is specifically engineered to withstand tremendous punishment while dealing thrice that in return. Only heroes like Sonic ever came close to making it look easy to take one down, and beyond that Rampage's personal guard were a cut above even the already exceptional Com-bot design. In particular Rampage specially insisted on improving protection for obvious weak-points like the robot's sensor array, AKA it's head as well as joints and weapons.

Despite Nail and Amiroo's impressively advanced weaponry, the Com-bot's armour is simply too resilient for a quick, one-off disabling shot. Much of their shots simply deflected off the energy reflective coating, and the concussive shots merely bounced off it's thick armoured hide or failed to cause more than minor pitting.

It was fortunate that Nail called out to run, because in that moment, Beta's primary laser cannon, a Gatling gun of laser weaponry, had finished spooling up. Raising it's left arm up, Beta unleashed what could almost be mistaken as a steady stream of crimson laser blasts towards the SUV. Strafing from left to right, the sheer weight of fire literally ripped through the SUV, bisecting it horizontally before the shots struck the fuel tank and caused the entire vehicle to explode in a roaring ball of fire.

Luckily, both Nail and Amiroo, were safely around the corner of the building and out of range of the blast. Nevertheless, they would certainly feel the heat of the flames and have a ring-side view of what was left of their previous cover.

"Targets in motion." Beta observed. "Switching Primary Armament to cool-down. Assessing Damage... Superficial. Analyzing hostile weaponry... Moderate Threat Assessment. Activating Trojan Horse Protocol."

Unbeknownst to Nail, Amiroo, and the newly arrived Gail, whilst they argued, Com-bot Beta appeared to literally disappear into thin air. Unfortunately, Beta was still very much present. In fact, if any of them managed to notice over their argument, they would hear very the sound of very heavy metal footsteps approaching the corner of the building.

[Nail Strafer]

Nail continued to glower at Gail as Amiroo broke them up. Then the Combot started firing.

Nail promptly flattened himself against the closest wall. The terrific noise of the bot's weapon caused him to flatten his ears backwards and squint in pain. He couldn't think of anything except blocking out that sound while it was firing. Then the explosion ripped through the car, sending a nice bloom of flames around the corner as the gasoline scattered.

His ears rung a bit from the noise...but he could feel faint vibrations beneath his feet. And he thought he heard distant footsteps. It was coming. That sure got Nail into overdrive. He looked back at Gail.

"I change my mind. You need to stick with me." He took the 1911 out of his holster and pushed it towards Gail. The wolf promptly took it, and then started to turn towards the footsteps.

Nail promptly grabbed him by the upper arm, since he was too short to reach the wolf's shoulder.

"NO!" he harshly whispered, so the Combot wouldn't hear them. "Do exactly what I say, and come with me."

Nail would lead Gail into a nearby alleyway, and he hoped that Amiroo would follow. That would buy them a little time before the next onslaught.

"If it can stand up to that, we can't fight it head on and we have to stay off the streets. The only cover thick enough to protect us is buildings. Everything else might as well be made of graham crackers. But I've got an idea. You..." Nail pointed at Gail. "Stay with me. Amiroo, we've got radios, right? One of us needs to draw its fire, while the other one flanks. We get it in overlapping fields of fire and give it more than one target, and we might stand a chance."

[I'd like to add some theme music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRrIyuSTYJw ]

[Gail Strafer]

Gail clamped his hands down hard over his pointed ears, holding them against his head. He let out a pitiful little whine as the firing and explosion assaulted his ear drums. Suddenly, the fox was in his face.

"I change my mind. You need to stick with me."

Then he handed over his 1911. While a little confused by his sudden change of mood, Gail gratefully took it. He knew he had to go get Alpha and then--

Now the fox was tugging him backwards, urging him to follow. Gail growled in frustration, trying to shake out of his grip. He started to give a harsh rebuke, but then the fox said something else.

"Do exactly what I say, and come with me."

The way he said it sent a chill down Gail's spine. You'd think Death himself was very near. Then he heard the heavy footsteps, and even felt the ground shake a tiny bit with each footfall. Surely, if Death was real, Gail imagined he might exude that kind of presence. Without arguing he ducked into a nearby alleyway with the fox, who started to quickly outline a plan to deal with this unseen attacker.

While he might not have liked this fox before, he seemed to know a lot about combat just from the things he said and the vocabulary he used. Gail suddenly had a lot more respect for him. It was funny too. The fox spoke as if he were a battle-scarred veteran, and yet Gail thought he looked young enough to be about the same age as him. Maybe even a brother with how close in looks they were...

"Can you tell me what was shooting?" Gail asked. He still hadn't seen what they were hiding from, and that realization alone sent a fresh jolt of terror through him.

[Dr. Robotnik]

[Tell you what, until I post as Robo again just keep skipping him.]