Chaos Within

[Dr. Robotnik]

Robo turned around as he heard Jii's scream. Unfortunately, that allowed Gail's rocket to slam directly into the mecha's front armor. While the faceplate helped shield Robotnik from the brunt of the blast, it sent him and the mini mecha hurtling backwards. He crashed into the wall next to Jii, leaving an indentation in the shape of his robot in the metal. The doctor slumped forwards over the controls, his face covered in soot and burn marks.

One ape creature continued to lumber over, as it eyed the two downed figures curiously.

---

Meanwhile, as Rampage clawed his way out of the tank, one of the ape monsters slammed its fist into the rear part of the vehicle. This would push it forward slightly and possibly knock Rampage off balance. Even as the badger would claw his way out of the hatch, the first thing he'd see would be the two of them hammering away at his precious tank.

---

Mammoth's blow cleanly cut through the bird creature's head, dissolving it into mist and now leaving him with two shards to pick up.

---

In the meantime, Chadin's aim was true as another flyer evaporated. However, many more flew in as a flock. They started to buzz all across both Gail and Chadin, rather like a horde of angry hornets, as they tried to rake their claws across their exposed flesh.

[Chadin]

I ducked as one of the birds buzzed me, but even as I did so another swooped in behind me and racked across my back with its claws. "Agghhh!" My leather tunic did offer some protection, but not much. A trio of neatly cut claw marks plainly highlighted where I'd been hit, along with a slow trickle of blood. Still despite the pain, they are merely surface wounds. I fought on, firing on a few of the birds attacking Gail.

"Gail!!! We can't fight these things like this we're too exposed!!" I shouted over the din of my own weapons fire. It was then I noticed the bloody gashes on his face. "Oh geez, Gail, are you okay?"

[posting from Orlando, apparently the hotel has wi-fi. Any way ill try to keep up folks]

[Jijeka-Te]

Anu had no ability to contribute to the battle, and just took cover.

Ji had just recovered from her crash when Robotnik hit the wall next to her. Having no idea who he was, she approached him cautiously.

"Are... you okay?"

[Rampage]

As Rampage is poking his head out of the hatch of his tank he saw the ape just before it struck. He clamped his cybernetic hand down on his the edge of the hatch. The impacts violently shook Rampage within the hatch, but his firm grip meant the while he did fall back into the tank, he didn't fall all the way to the floor.

Hearing the metal bend under the strain of the apes assault made Rampage seethe with rage. Nobody, but nobody messed with his prized tank. This time the first thing that emerged from the hatch was Rampage's Mauler rifle.

Firing one handed from the hatch Rampage, unloads on one of the two apes as he yells in rage. Accuracy didn't matter given the range and rate of fire.

[Espio]

[From City Streets]

Soon another pair was entering the skirmish from the main street approaching the command tower. From what Espio saw, things were in complete disarray with the primary lighting out, and the majority, if not all swatbots along the path out of order. Something BIG was going down, and it looked like the doctor hadn't planned for whats going on.

"How are you holding up?", Espio asked looking back at Alpha, the ninja in the lead, his feet scuffling along the path in a blur. In his right hand, raised above his head in front of him was a power ring, efficently tugging Alpha along by the bond of energy between his ring, and the other Alpha held. How long it would hold was a mystery though, but they would enter the battle in mere moments at their current pace. He looks ahead, making out several figures...and a tank?

[Alpha Omega]

Omega held his ring in front of him, running along after Espio, but he was currently looking at the mess the city was becoming. "I'm alright, so long as a building doesn't collapse on us or something stupid like that. How much longer do you think?"

[Gail Strafer]

[I was hoping Chadin would have posted as Mammoth by now. Oh well, we can safely pass over him since he's kind of in his own separate fight.]

Getting his face cut up like that really pissed Gail off. He rubbed a finger across one of the slashes, staring at the blood for a second before he licked it off. He brought his laser rifle out and fired wildly into the air at the flock of bird creatures. One or two disappeared in puffs of smoke, but the rest just kept coming.

"Gail!!! We can't fight these things like this we're too exposed!! Oh geez, Gail, are you okay?"

"Do I LOOK okay?!" he cried back angrily.

Nonetheless, he quickly realized the deer was right. The laser from his rifle fizzled out from the last of its power cell, and there were still at least a dozen of those birds to shoot. Gail quickly beat feet as he took off running, as he dug for another power cell in his ammo pack.

It was then that he happened to see two figures ahead of him. They looked familiar. It took him a moment to realize it was...

"Espio! Alpha! Where have you guys been?"

[Dr. Robotnik]

As Robotnik lay over his robot's controls, teetering between consciousness and unconsciousness, he thought he heard the faint voice of a woman.

"Are... you okay?"

His mental state had him questioning if he was dead or if he was in a dream. All he remembered was a rocket flying at him out of nowhere, and then a big explosion, and then the darkness in his head that he was now swimming through.

It was difficult for him to move his lips, but he did manage a few faint words.

"Who...who are you? Whe...re am I?"

---

As Rampage took aim, the two apes quickly threw up their gigantic arms to protect the crystals in their heads. Rampage would immediately notice something different about these apes when using small-arms fire. Unlike the other shadow creatures, their mass appeared to be quite a bit more dense. Instead of passing cleanly through, the shots only made huge indentations in the shadowy forms of the arms.

One of them quickly rotated around to the side of the tank. It exposed its face briefly, only for a second, before it flailed its giant hand directly at the badger. It hoped to grab him in its arm.

[Mammoth Mogul]

[ugghhh... razzle-frazzle jet-lag... okay, okay, I take the hint, sorry for the slight delay in our regularly scheduled madness. On with the SHOW!!! ugh... even typing too loud hurts the brain... okay, there might be a few dozen typos in here today...]

Mogul reached out and levitated the two shards off the streets and pulled them towards himself. "Ahhh! At last! I can feel my old power returning to me, even now! I- Wha? These shards are not even the same colour!" Mogul snatched the two shards out of the air for fear that they might be drawn towards each other in the same way that the broken chaos emerald shards did during the triple trouble saga.

"Hm... I can still sense the same force within these shards that draws them to their kin, but broken into such small pieces it would appear the force is greatly diminished. It would be far too dangerous to attempt to combine unfamiliar shards together. Still, it should be safe enough to be kept separately in my pockets for now. I suspect that with more and more shards combined together the desire to unify will equally magnify. As such, it is imperative to create a whole emerald as soon as possible; lest an incomplete emerald merge with an unfamiliar shard and reap untold damage to this already fragile plane of existence."

[Oh it hurts!! Thinking hurts too much! I need a vacation from my vacation!!!!]

[Chadin]

I took off in the direction that Gail had run. I wasn't sure where he was going, I doubt he did either, but I wasn't about to lose sight of the only other friendly face here.

I ducked as another of the birds swooped down on me. I could feel the wind rush past me as it soared by and I felt a wave of relief that it's razor sharp talons missed.

"Espio! Alpha! Where have you guys been?"

I looked ahead of Gail, spotting to the two figures. At last! Now we had some back-up. "Guys!! We're over here!!" I heedlessly shouted, waving my arms to gain their attention.