Chaos Within

[Gail Strafer]

Gail trampled after Nail and the unfamiliar raptor, feeling very confused by the whole thing. So...Nail was his son, and he was friends with the raptors, except this one, that he didn't seem to know. He wasn't sure if he was going to be able to keep up with this for too much longer. He also didn't know what to expect when the mystery raptor warned him to stay down, but followed them back into the building nonetheless.

As the thunderclaps boomed through the city, Gail clutched tight to Nail, protecting his father from the debris blasting through the holes and the glass shattering down everywhere.

[Giichi Twinkieland]

Giichi stumbled backwards, feeling weak in the knees as he saw the Combot literally crush right through the wall and then follow up by blasting his weapon straight up at the ship. He felt helpless to do anything, and wondered if he would have been better staying off in the ship. But then there was a call for everyone to hide, as the sky literally stretched before his sight. Not wasting time, he too decided to run and hide with Rog. Like Nail, he slammed his ears down to his skull to block out the sound, softly moaning at the sound. As the glass crashed down all around him, he covered himself with his cloak. The cloak fortunately did the job in protecting him.

He came out from underneath his protective cover, and wished he hadn't. Before him he saw the starship now hovering over Robotropolis. It definitely wasn't Robotnik's ships. For the first time, he wished that it was.

"Rog...tell me that's not what I think it is."

[Dr. Robotnik]

Robotnik guided his aerial navy over Robotropolis. He spied the battle down below. Rampage looked to be holding his own against superior numbers with a Combot covering him, but even he would eventually fall if he overextended himself.

"All cannons, lock onto that enemy ship over the battlefield."

But then something very odd happened up on the sky. It was literally stretching to a single point. Robotnik did not know what this meant, but he doubted this was good. Today was just disaster after disaster after disaster, as just about everyone in the whole world seemed to have attacked him today.

"All ships, hold your positions!"

Nothing could prepare him for the thunderclap that boomed through the sky, causing all of the other starships to shake and list in the sky. Robotnik clutched himself against a railing, but it did no good as he rolled along the deck, rather like a giant ball due to his shape. He tried to get back on his feet by grabbing another railing, only for the second blast to send him reeling again. Finally though he managed to right himself, standing up to look at the massive battleship now over the city. His city.

Behind his sunglasses, Robotnik narrowed his eyes at the ship. He had no idea who it was or what they wanted, but their intent appeared to be hostile if it were a battleship. At any other time he would have charged headlong into the fight to protect his city. However, the days' many battles had deeply worn on him. With all that he'd lost today, he could ill afford yet another fight. All he had left right now was his Egg Fleet. If he lost that, then that was it. He was done.

Robotnik stood there silently, while the robotic assistants around him looked at him quizzically. It was very unusual for their leader to not boisterously throw out commands with his booming voice. Nonetheless, the machines stood there waiting for his command obediently.

With a heavy heart, Robotnik weakly let his command be known: "Egg Fleet, retreat. We will live to fight another day." And then he opened a comm link channel to Rampage. "Rampage... I hate to do this, but we can't afford another battle with whoever is in that battleship. I'm pulling back. I suggest you do the same."

[ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: Four of a Kind - Have all four of your characters in topic. XD]

[Jijeka-Te]

Ji and Anu were just as shocked as anyone else when the new ship appeared out of nowhere with what sounded like two strikes of lightning.

(Ji) "..."
(Anu) "Somehow, I don't think that's Ra answering our question. This might warrant a change of plans."
(Ji) "...You're right. I've still got the communicator; should we tell our teammate about this?"
(Anu) "I think he already knows by now."

[Rampage]

Beta's optics followed the hostile ship as it turned away, readying it's cannon for another attack. Then, the sky seemed to explode. "Detecting spacial anomaly..." It said as it watched the bizarre phenomena in the sky, switching between all of it's vision modes to collect data and observe. The shockwaves that tore through the sky hardly phased the sturdy com-bot, and the shattered, falling glass even less so. As the unknown ship emerged from the rift, the Com-bot recorded some final data from it's optic suite, then turned it's gaze back onto the street where once there had been numerous foot-targets.

"Copy that, boss. Sending you my coordinates, send me a ride." Rampage responded as he trudged down a nearby alleyway. The arrival of that unknown ship had done a brilliant job in covering his escape, but at a bit of a cost. Blood leaked out of his folded back ears. He'd watched what was happening up in the sky, but had been too busy retrieving additional shards in the process to know to cover his ears in time. That, and his own pride demanded he focus on his mission rather than shielding his ears. So, with remarkable resolve, he soldiered on, heedless of his injuries. His ears would recover, probably. His hearing at least still worked, mostly. Just another scar to the cybernetic self-martyr. "Beta, pull back to my position. We're leaving."

"Affirmative." Beta replied with detached coldness as he turned away from the building the others had taken shelter in and marched away.

[Echo]

The male raptor stared through a now shattered window at the starship that now hung silently above the city, his mouth turned down in a frown.

"They're two hours early..." the raptor whispered to himself. "That's not right, was our intel wrong?"

Quote:"I hope that's not what I think it is. Are those the bad dinosaurs Amiroo was talking about?"

"That Nail, is a Yudanese light destroyer, judging by its markings, and yes those are the bad dinosaurs Amiroo warned you about."

The raptor turned to Nail, "They know it's here, The Unending Light. The weapon the Republic was searching for on this planet. It's a starship that was left behind somewhere on this world, or nearby after it caused the purge, what your kind call the 'KT extinction event'. They're prepping for the main invasion, the fleet can't be more than a day behind that ship. We have to get out of this city."

"Player 2, this is player 1, what's your status?"

"Shaken, but I'm still here"

"Good to hear it, what's Amiroo's status?"

"He's still breathing. Player 1 what is going on here? Intel said they shouldn't be here for another two hours."

"Intel was wrong. We've got probably about 30 minutes or so before the city is locked down by the their guys. We've got to get out of here."

"I thought they were rebels? Why does it have Yudanese markings? "

"It must be a coalition effort, the most powerful weapon ever built is on this planet somewhere so I'm not surprised. Needless to say, this is not how it went before."

"you dont say..."

"How far out is our ride?"

"ETA, 1 minute"

"Copy player 2, make sure Amiroo gets to safety and meet us at the 1BB LZ"

"Copy player 1, we're scootin' "

The raptor turned to Nail and Gail, "our ride out of here is about a minute out, but we're going to have to run for it. This city is about to fall, and we cant be here when the enemy gets here."

The raptor walks over to Nail, "Nail do you think you could ride on my back in your condition? We need to move fast."

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Meanwhile PLayer 2 was busy bringing Amiroo around with some sort of injection.

"wha, what? WHO!?!?" he said suddenly jerking away from her as she herself backed away, her clawed hands raised.

"relax relax, we're republic, I'm republic."

Amiroo's eyes darted around the room before finally coming to rest on the mysterious female.

"Who are you?"

"That's classified I'm afraid. I can't say any more, I'm sorry. Take this." She said throwing her rifle to Amiroo who caught it casually.

"I don't understand, if the republic is here why did you attack me, why arent you fighting the enemy?" he asked,

holding his rifle tightly.

"I can say no more, I'm sorry. Return to your friends, time is running short"
She turned and hopped through a window on the sidewalk outside and disappeared from view.

Amiroo stared a moment after the raptor before turned to the blown out front windows of the abandoned shop he was in. 'why is it so quiet?' he thought.
He slowly made his way to the blown out windows, glas crunching under his armored feet. Until he saw it. His mouth dropped open. Above the city, hung a Yudanese warship. He stared in awe a moment until he suddenly became aware of what kind of danger he and the others were in.

"where's Nail and the kid?" he said tapping his radio, "Nail, Nail where are you? The Yudanese are here, we've got to get out of here!"
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Quote:"Rog...tell me that's not what I think it is."

Rog raised his head to gaze on the ship that now hung in the sky, "I'm afraid so. we just ran out of time. We've got to fall back"

He tapped his radio, "Era, we have to get out of here. Pick us up."

"where's amiroo and Nail? Has anyone heard from them?"

"no, not that I know of."

"this is bad..."

[Nail Strafer]

"Riding....on a dinosaur?" Despite his leg wound, Nail looked at the raptor in disbelief. He also couldn't believe he'd just said that out loud.

Then he looked back at his leg. Of course, it felt silly, but what else was he going to do? He waved for Gail to let him up onto the raptor's back, and the wolf did so. Once he was on top of the raptor. Nail held to his armor, since didn't see anything else to grab. It wasn't good for a handhold, so he hoped this guy didn't run too roughly. In spite of the situation, he had another weird feeling about this whole business.

"Why do I feel like a plumber when I'm up here?"

Suddenly his radio began squawking at him with what sounded like Amiroo's voice.

"Amiroo? Hey, can you hear me? I think we're okay, but some other raptors have found us." Should we trust them?, he wanted to ask, but thought it wouldn't be the best thing to say while in earshot of one of them. He settled on something a little more banal. "Were you expecting extra help on this job?"

[Gail Strafer]

"A plumber? Where the heck did that come from?" Gail looked at Nail incredulously as he sat there.

Nonetheless, he shook his head and looked over at their raptor friend.

"So I'm confused. Dinosaurs have spaceships? Where ya'll been hidin' all this time anyway?"

[Dr. Robotnik]

As Rampage rushed down a side street, he'd see a Robotnik transport ship appear right on cue to pick him and the Combot up. It simply descended right out of the sky and dropped to the ground in front of him, with the opening door already facing him.

---

Meanwhile, Robotnik looked on with a mixture of anger and regret at the starship that appeared over his city. If this were any other time...any other time...he would have stood and fought. But even he had his limits. Mammoth, shadow creatures, freedom fighters, and even some dinosaurs had all picked a fight with him today and taken their toll. Nearly every SWATbot in the city destroyed. His civilian population taking advantage of the chaos to flee.

But he always bounced back. Somehow, someway, he was going to make everyone here pay. Things would change. They would change in a big way once he got back on his feet again.

He looked down at the city, cold and dark since the power had been knocked out early in the attack. "I'll be back for you. I promise."

[Giichi Twinkieland]

When he first met Nail, Giichi never thought in a million years he'd hear himself saying this, but- "Amiroo and Nail... We're not going to just leave them behind, are we?"

Hard to believe they'd first met with Nail pointing a gun at him, way back in Soleanna.