Chaos Within

[Jijeka-Te]

Anu tagged along with Chadin and Gail as well as he could.

Ji checked the doctor's body over as well as she could for injuries. "Relax. Don't overstress yourself. I'll protect you if I have to."

[Rampage]

[Ugh, sorry guys, totally didn't realize it was my turn again. Anyway, I'm suggesting the following posting order for all concerned to avoid further confusion]
Robotnik, Chadin, Jii, Rampage, Espio, Alpha, Gail, Mammoth

"Oop!!" Before the ape could get it's hands on him, Rampage ducked back down into the bowels of the tank like a gopher. With any luck, either the creature would be so thick it'd be stuck scratching it's head trying to figure out where he went or at the very least, pound away on the top of the tank trying to crack it open like a nut.

In the mean time, swiftly made his way to one of the emergency hatches on the opposite side of the tank, away from the hulking apes. Judging by their sheer size, strength and the toughness that he'd witnessed these creatures possessed, staying inside the tank was a bad idea. Especially with it running purely on the batteries now that the engine was dead. Heck he couldn't even set the tank to self destruct without the main power core running.

Popping out the side of the tank, right between the legs of one of the apes, Rampage made a hasty dive from the tank and hit the pavement running. Hopefully they wouldn't notice his exit until at least he'd put a bit of ground between them.

In all that time, his MALER steadily began to recycle its charge. In another few seconds it'd be back to full reserve.

[Espio]

[Got a job offer finally. =D Been preoccupied getting things in order. Shall color in later!]

"We're entering the combat zone now.", Espio said as the bond between the rings weakened. He came to a stop in the main street, in perfect view of the situation. There was a wrecked tank further ahead, another of the monsters charging tordards it- some...demonized ape. Espio broke the bond as he stored his ring away. "We...might need to preserve whats left for a getaway.", the ninja says not looking back.

He sharply turns his head- seeing Gail and Chadin up on the nearby rooftops. It seemed they needed aid. "You take the low road, I'll keep an eye out from above.", Espio said reading a bomb shuriken in hand. "Find a weapon, and stay out of sight until we get a grasp on whats going on.", he says eying the birds. Then something -big- came to his attention. "What? Its HIM!", Espio said taking on a combat stance, seeing a figure he and the Chaotix had thrown down with before. "...and at all costs, stay out of -his- line of sight.", he muttered. Mammoth for now had yet to pay attention to the new pair on the scene, so they were safe- for now.

The ninja immediatly cloaks himself, running up the nearest building to give Gail a much needed hand, and to learn why -he- was there...

[Alpha Omega]

Omega slid to a stop beside the chameleon, looking around at the strange beasts rampaging around. "What are those things?"" He was pretty distracted by them, but when Espio's tone became so sharply hostile, he started trying to find where the chameleon was looking. "Him? Him who? Am I missing something?"

As Espio ran up a wall to aid their allies, Omega ducked behind a building corner, poking his head around, trying to survey the chaos in front of him.

[Gail Strafer]

While this was going on, a fresh swarm of the shadow birds descended upon the emerald shard box. Within seconds, they had gobbled down all of the shards like so much seed. They morphed into an enhanced state like before...but then they did something extremely peculiar.

They began to collide into one another, forming an ever-growing shadow mass hovering over the street. The dark blob grew in size at frightening speed, as more of the creatures joined with it. It started out about the size of a small car, and then before long it had grown to the size of a small house. Mammoth would have a first-row seat to witness the phenomenon. In the meantime, everyone else on the street would observe the shadow creatures abandoning the fight to join with the shadow mass.

Even stranger, the dark fog appeared to be lifting. In fact, it was like the dark mass absorbed the fog as a black hole.

----

Gail waved for Espio and Alpha to join them on the roof, but then Espio vanished and Alpha ran out of sight somewhere on the street below. He was about to call out for them again, but then he noticed something. The shadow birds were all gone. Why wasn't he getting hacked to bits by them right now, while he was busy yelling to Espio and Alpha?

As he looked upwards, he gaped in confusion at the birds suddenly turning away.

"Why are they doin' that for? They wanted to tear us to little pieces just a second ago!"

[Mammoth Mogul]

"By the forces of chaos..." Mogul gawked in awed disbelief as the creature grew ever larger in size until it dwarf even his own impressive bulk. For all his ageless wisdom and intellect, even this monstrous creature left Mogul speechless.

His first instinct was to flee. The power of two measly shards paled before the power of nearly two dozen more. It would be all but suicide. And Mogul was hardly the sort to take undo risk. But he could scarcely just walk away. Every so often, he could see a glimmer of the chaos shards through the creature's semi-transparent body. Inside, he could just make out that the emeralds seemed of have formed three separate sets of circle within the heart of the creature. Each circle spun, as if orbiting some invisible centre of mass. It looked to him like the emeralds were trying to reform themselves, drawn together by their inherent, unique magnetic-like attraction. But what sent a chill down Moguls spin most, was that the emerald shards were intermingled with each other. If those spinning circles were allowed to collapse together with an unfamiliar emerald fragment, it could literally be the final straw that sends this patchwork existence over the edge into oblivion. That could NOT be allowed to happen. For all Mogul's grand schemes, even he had no desire to wipe out an entire plane of existence, least of all with him along with it. But even with such high stakes, Mogul could not even begin to fathom how he could take on so massive and undoubtedly POWERFUL a creature by himself.

But as the shadowy fog faded and was consumed by the single, vast creature at the center of this chaotic storm, Mogul could not see that the battlefield had become filled with additional combatants. In particular, one purple chameleon caught his attention. "Hmm... perhaps all is not yet lost after all."

Forgetting about the creature for the moment, Mogul did something he very rarely ever did. He ran. Not away from the battle entirely, but towards the low building to which Gail, Chadin and Alpha all currently were clustered together upon. "You there! Down here!!!" He called out to them.

[Dr. Robotnik]

Some kind of crazy dream I'm in... the doctor thought, as his vision started to come back into focus and he could see Jii. I'm being nursed back to health by a giant lizard.

He briefly looked around at the surroundings. With the lifting fog, he could just make out the swirling, angry mass of shadow creatures walking, flying, or slithering down the street past them. The doctor shrank back against the concrete wall behind him, but then he realized they were not attacking. In fact, with the lifting fog, he saw them all walking towards a giant blob that continued to get bigger, bigger, and bigger.

"Great Scott! What are they doing over there?!"

The doctor tried to stand up, but then there was a sharp pain in his ribs where they'd impacted into the control panel beforehand. He clutched a hand to his stomach, before looking back up at Jii. If this was all real, he wondered why she was helping him. She must be a Freedom Fighter, otherwise why would she be here? Her clothes were far too nice for her to be one of the slave laborers.

These questions ran through his head, but for some reason he thought it would be best to keep them to himself for the moment. But one question could not wait.

"Please...those creatures were attacking me before. Can you tell me why they're doing that?"

Even the apes that were previously hellbent on killing Rampage joined the flock, as they too merged themselves with the blob. By this point, it had nearly grown big enough to stretch from one side of the street to the other. And the street was big enough for five lanes of cars.

[Chadin]

I was wondering the same thing Gail was as we watched the flock of creatures circling around us start to break off. But as the shadowy fog faded away as well, it suddenly became all to clear where there creatures were going. My ears drooped as I beheld the enormous blob of living shadow that the creatures were forming into. "Oh that can't be good..." I groaned, as I pointed it out to Gail.

Then I looked down at my measly crossbow. "We are GOING to need BIGGER guns!!" I added, in breathless awe.

[Jijeka-Te]

Robotnik's outburst drew Ji's attention to the new formation of the shadow creatures. As for the question of why...

(Ji) "...I have no idea."

Anu had no idea what to do, having no weapons at all.

[Rampage]

"Yeah!! That's right RUN!!!" Rampage raged as he turned back to face the apes, only to see them turn and run the other way.

Of course, his bravado died rather quickly when he saw the hulking thing the apes were merging with. "Awww... nuts..." Figures that his tank would be knocked out of action before THAT thing showed up.

Rampage scanned the area, quickly spotting Robotnik's mech. "Doc!!! We got us a problem over here..." Ramapge's voice died away as he spotted Jii up on the mech with him.

"Hellooo... You're a bit early for halloween, aren't you princess?" Rampage stated cooly, noting Jii's pharaoh attire, levelling his rifle on her. "Now how's about you come on down here and give the Doc a bit of personal space? B'fore my itchy trigger finger starts get'n antsy."