Chaos Within

[Rampage]

Then out of seemingly nowhere a high energy laser blast streaked through the air, aimed only slightly off of Dr. Robotnik's body, but more than enough to impact the creature's glowing head. No doubt Robotnik might be left a little deafened and daze from the proximity of the shot, but if he were to look down the street he'd see a familiar looking tank rolling up the street. It's barrel sizzling with the extreme heat of the laser blast.

"High-ho, Robo!! Didja miss me?" Rampage's unmistakable voice rang out over the tank's loud speaker. "Sorry I'm late to the party! Soon as I got back, I started adding a few of my own, personal touches. Think the cannon's too butch?!" The cyborg badger joked as he drove the tank unrelentingly up the street. "Would'a been here sooner, but, well... it's a tank. What more can I say?"

[Mammoth Mogul]

"RAGGH! Away with you, foul beast!!" Mogul spat as he unleashed a chaos slash attack at the creature's head, hoping to land a hit before it could connect.

[Dr. Robotnik]

Robotnik shielded his eyes from the bright laser blast, feeling the ends of his moustaches getting burned as the searing light passed directly by his face. As the blast hit the snake's crystal dead on, it screamed long and loud, promptly dissolving into mist. Without its body supporting him, Robo collapsed to the concrete in an ungainly heap. A small twinkle flashed where the creature's crystal had been, as the emerald shard bounced off the street.

Quote:"High-ho, Robo!! Didja miss me?" Rampage's unmistakable voice rang out over the tank's loud speaker. "Sorry I'm late to the party! Soon as I got back, I started adding a few of my own, personal touches. Think the cannon's too butch?!" The cyborg badger joked as he drove the tank unrelentingly up the street. "Would'a been here sooner, but, well... it's a tank. What more can I say?"

Robo was a little too dazed between nearly getting his head taken off, getting burned, and falling down pretty hard on the concrete. Thus he didn't catch much of what Rampage had said. However, he did recognize the voice.

"You took your sweet time!" Robo shouted back, being extremely ungrateful in stark contrast to how he'd felt after nearly getting killed. "Back me up! I've got this elephant guy trying to steal our shards! The shards fell out of the tower and they're scattered around on the street!"

With that, he swiped the snake's shard quickly, as he hurried to get back into his mini mecha.

---

Meanwhile, the bird creature got a mouthful of Mammoth's chaos attack, but the jaws deflected the blast enough to where it missed the crystal mass in its head. It ended up crash-landing and skidding along the pavement behind Mogul. It was currently without its face (or the closest passing thing), so it would need time to reform it. In the meantime, the creature rapidly climbed to its feet and started wildly flailing around, attempting to find Mammoth again.

Seeing that a direct frontal assault wouldn't work, the other three bird creatures began a slow circling motion around Mammoth.

[Rampage]

Rampage hardly paid any mind to Robotnik's harsh rebuttal. Heck, he'd have been more surprised if Robotnik hadn't, given how well he knew his bosses mannerisms. Besides, whenever there's a fight to be had, Rampage would GLADLY over such minor slights.

"Mammoth? Where? Doc, it's like pea soup out here. You're lucky I was able to even spot you with the thermal sights on this thing!" Rampage shouted back with an edge of confusion. Deep within the turreted body of the tank, Rampage sat at the combined drivers/gunner seat staring through the glowing green periscope. True enough, the bizarre darkness surrounding the area left them with a very limited range of visibility, even with the additional vision modes available.

"Ah, whatever you say. I'll cover you as best I can from in here." Rampage halted the tank and traversed it's broad turret around until the sight rested upon another of the slithering creatures near Robotnik's mecha. Rampage squeezed the trigger and after a brief wind up cycle the tank's heavy laser cannon fired once more, causing the air around it to sizzle with the smell of ozone.

[Mammoth Mogul]

With the other creatures suddenly taking a more cautious approach, Mogul turned his attention back to the same creature who'd just attacked him. He unleashed another chaos slash attack against it's flank, hoping that perhaps the combined strikes might be enough to at the very least put the creature out of action for the moment. If he could just get a hold of even one of those shards, his power would increase exponentially!

[Gail Strafer]

[From Swatpod hangar]

At Chadin's command, Gail equipped his rocket launcher. This time he tugged on the rocket a bit, to make sure it was sitting nice and snug. However, while he did want to use this thing, Gail didn't feel like this was an ideal scenario to be carrying it. Even with his own natural night vision, he couldn't see very far. This fog, or mist, or whatever it was appeared to simply choke out all light, plus any natural or artificial methods to penetrate it.

If one of the shadow beasts rushed him out of the darkness, he'd never be able to aim and shoot in time. Thus, he stayed as close as he could to Chadin. He had the short range weapon after all and could handle threats that got in too close for comfort.

Another loud blast and flash of light resounded through the darkness, as Rampage's tank fired off another laser blast. Gail promptly aimed the launcher at where he thought he'd seen the flash begin.

"You want me to shoot at it now?"

A brief blink.

"What is HE shootin' at anyway?"

Gail suddenly felt himself torn between looking towards where the laser blasts were coming from, and what was being shot at. Either could be a grave threat for all he knew.

[Dr. Robotnik]

Mammoth's chaos attack directly struck the bird creature's crystal. An entire chunk got blown off in the process. The shadow beast's form promptly began to violently shimmer and convulse, as if it were about to shake itself apart. The creature did not dissolve, but it looked like one more solid hit would take it out.

However, the other hovering creatures used this opportunity to attack Mammoth from behind. One swooped in low and fast, attempting to rake his body with its sharp clawed feet.

---

The slithering creature easily got blown away like a puff of smoke.

After Robo got back into his mecha, he figured he would be safer if he stuck closer to Rampage. Strength in numbers, after all. It's why he had so many disposable SWATbots at his command.

"Rampage, I'm moving to join you. Don't fire. I'm going towards where I saw your last shot come from."

The doctor quickly marched over to where the badger would be. The loud footsteps of the mini mecha would be quite audible to anyone in the vicinity.

Behind the tank, some more plodding footsteps could be heard. Two of the gorilla-like beasts rapidly approached Rampage from his rear.

[Mammoth Mogul]

"Probably more of our shadowy friends if I were to guess." I reasoned with a grim frown. "We did see one of them come in here. No telling how many more there are."

I debated in my mind about Gail's question of firing the rocket just yet. On the one hand, whatever was firing that laser cannon was something big and powerful. If anything stood a chance against the creatures we ran into before it was that. On the other hand, no way that thing was friendly. It HAD to be one of Robotnik's machines which means it's just as liable to shoot at us as anything else. No, the safest thing to do is eliminate the known threats first and deal with the rest as they come.

"Wait for it to fire again, then let it have it. Be ready to reload fast in case one shot doesn't take it down. I'll cover you." I crouched down beside Gail, resting my crossbow against my shoulder as I scanned around for any creatures that might emerge from the gloom. At this point I'd lost track of Jii and Anu. They didn't exactly seem to be 'team-players' anyway.

[Jijeka-Te]

(@%^#$! Why didn't someone tell me Chadin and Mammoth were played by the same person?)

Anu had managed to keep up with Chadin and Gail the whole time. He didn't add to the current conversation.

Meanwhile, Ji had lost track of her teammates in the dense cloudage. She landed stealthily near Rampage's tank, as it was one of the only things she'd been able to see.

[Dr. Robotnik]

[Really? You didn't know? By the way Chadin are you going to post as Rampage and Mammoth this round too? And man...three of your characters in one place And I thought having Nail and Giichi in one place was bad.]