Take back the city (1-2)

psikeout · Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2010 4:51 pm

Rock had been around the block a couple times. As much as he may have despised the Chaos Emerald capers Sonic and his ilk were always running around on, he had watched enough, seen enough pictures, read enough reports, and observed enough damage to know one crucial fact:

When you see a robot shaped like Sonic, you go the other direction.

Scrambling away from the door in one of those so-fast-it-makes-you-stumble movements, the bursting door came not only with a hail of large metal fragments, but also bits of concrete and dust as it even tore out pieces of the walls with it. When the plasma fire started blazing, a concussive blast that erupted a little too close sent him for a tumble straight off the lip of the concrete loading bay, and onto the hard ground below, where he landed harshly seated on the ground. He immediately backed up against the concrete ledge, keeping his head low to take a bit of momentary cover from the constant, blazing guns, and figure out a plan of action.

... No time for that. Toby plus some other fragile-looking guy (In Rock's naturally cocky opinion.) were both in the fray. He had to be the focal point.

The deliberation only took a couple seconds. The ragged, old sawed-off on his back was unholstered again, and with no delay, he stood, acquired and aimed at his target in a snap, and let both barrels rip at once, targeting the machine's face as best as possible. Champion of firepower, it was not, but he hoped that two side-by-side slugs of that sheer mass from that range might crack something, or at least tick it off sufficiently.

David · Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2010 6:08 pm

Following right behind the others, Toby barely had any time to react when Rock spazzed and threw it in reverse. As the monkey backed up, so did Toby’s board, smacking him directly in the face, causing him to trip backwards in a daze. “Ooomph!!” The kangaroo rat hit the ground, but quickly regained himself and scrambled to his feet. There was only one real thought running through the boy’s head as he struggled to find his balance: run.

Toby’s feet hit the ground harder than a drunken chick at a frat party. It was a good thing they did, because seconds later all hell broke loose from that door. Toby didn’t even look behind him. Once he heard the explosion, Cotton clutched Kyle and dove onto the ground, rolling a few times and barely missing a metric crap-ton of shrapnel and debris. Toby caught a glimpse at the cause of all the death and destruction that was raining down on them as the debris and dust began to clear. He was gut-punching that dude who they just ran past.

“HOLY F***ING S***-F***S!!!” As his eyes widened, Toby struggled to regain control of himself. Homeboy was in serious danger, over there. As soon as he regained himself, Cotton lunged into action. Bomb-dropping onto his board, Toby laid on the boost, speeding towards the metal monstrosity. As he did, the boy’s left arm got plastered with two renegade plasma shots. “NnnNGhhh!!” His right hand shot up to cover the wounds, but near-suicidal sky-boarder rocketed onwards, cutting the bot off just as little boy green hit the ground.

Watching his bigger buddy get messed up by Mr. Machine, Kyle grabbed onto the boy’s injured arm. “Suja bi, Toba! Ja!!” The little guy closed his eyes and made a small, high-pitched grunting noise, and suddenly the small electric ball around him expanded, just barely cloaking Toby. How long it would last or how much good it would do was yet to be seen, but the chao tike had successfully covered his buddy in the same protection he’d managed to swipe off Jam.

Toby sailed past at extreme speed, attempting to taunt the bot into focusing on him. “HEY TIN CAN!! How about a MOVING TARGET?!” As Toby started to circle around, he got a bit of unexpected assistance, as Rock popped up and unloaded his shotgun into the Sonic shaped Cyborg.

Is this what these monkeys did every day?

Rusty · Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2010 8:50 pm

Out of all of Eggman's Sonic-shaped robots, the latest iteration of Silver Sonic could have been described as the one that just didn't give a crap. Few things short of a tank--or a well-empowered chaos blast, as Ace had demonstrated earlier--could unroot it from wherever it happened to be standing. Or running, or charging... or punching and killing. That sort of thing. And it was proving this by remaining on the attack even in the midst of the slugs--it flinched visibly but did not slow, despite the dents the shotgun made or the impact from the plasma pouring down at it. The toroids thundered from its gunhand every which way, one endless stream of light and noise spraying at Rock, then at the speeding Toby, back at Rock, and so on.

"YOUR RUDIMENTARY WEAPONS CANNOT HARM ME," blared the machine's unearthly bass in an almost angry tone, shortly before it went Juggersmashing right through the bottom of the boxy structure Jam had taken position on. Devoid of a great deal of its foundation, there was a certain word which might apply here, and that was "timber." The second it had passed through, the machine screeched sideways to a stop to face Rock. Its various rockets boomed, quickly followed by the sight of the whole robot curling into a ball, and the veritable wrecking ball thundered on.

"... Hey Major, look," said Elegant Joe, who had noticed something interesting while the shuttle prowled the area.

Cross glanced out the window at the distant, sheer chaos befalling the group they'd had the pleasure of running into earlier. His expression did not change.

"Think, um. Think we should lend a hand?" asked Joe.

"Nah. I'm sure they've found the rope they needed by now."

Admin · Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2010 9:48 pm

"Under this island," the Eggman began, "I have not only the Chaos Emeralds, but the—"

*Badadadadada.*

"— ... The ultimate use for the Chaos Emeralds. Far beneath this island, farther than you could ever hope to—"

*Badadada. Thoom, thoom. ... KRAKOOM.*

"SILVER SONIC, could you please destroy my enemies a little more... ... quietly?" asked Eggman, leaning precariously over the edge of his vehicle, and enunciating every syllable of that last word very clearly. "I'm trying to monologue to the president, you infernal noise box, for crying out loud, I just— Can't I have my moment here? Even my own creations..."

Mie · Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2010 10:16 pm

What else could be said about about a machine that could take two loaded barrels to the face along with a barrage of ball lightning, and shrug it off, with enough pep left over to return fire with a vengeance and then immediately level a small building with someone on top of it besides, "Hooooooo sh--!"

Well, perhaps that, and some actual complete obscenities, be as Jam went tearing towards the edge to fling herself off at the last possible fraction of a second, survival instincts outweighed her need to be edgy; thus, she promised herself she could cuss all she wanted when she was dead (or ideally, alive). So for the moment, the name of the game became "hide and take pot shots."

Normally a conspicuous eyesore, the current setting provided a healthy red glow to blend into, which Jam could only hope would mess with its heat vision (if it had any), despite the fact that it didn't really seem to be aiming, so much as flooding open space with fire. Regardless, she hurriedly scrambled behind some far and away-ish cover, fished Cross' pity firearm from her hip pouch, and launched her second attempt to fight fire with fire. ... Er, well... You know.

psikeout · Posted: Sat Jun 05, 2010 11:31 am

Unsurprisingly, Rock hadn't had much time to stray far while Silver Sonic was playing wrecking ball in that other structure. He had remained pinned down by the plasma fire (and nearly got the top of his head taken off by some during his shotgun escapade, it felt like) up until the moment the robot went to harass Jam. He had time to do little but dump the empty cartridges out of his gun.

Then, he saw the robot emerge from the building, face him, and begin its relatively brief hunker-down-and-take-ball-form process. He was still sitting on the ground, back pressed against the loading bay's tall, concrete platform. His hand moved briskly to his belt, under his jacket, then behind the small of his back, as if patting around for something, or grabbing at something. Was he feeling for ammo? Was it really the time?

Whatever it was, he was soon empty-handed anyway. He drew his feet beneath himself, quickly stood, and gave up on his worthless, still-empty gun, flinging it back across the loading deck just to free his dominant hand, no time for holsters. The rolling, grinding ball of spikes was in motion; everything that happened from that point on was in the blink of an eye.

Rock pitched himself into a low, wide stance, and drew back his fist. There was an energetic surge—That light around the fist and arm, the strange spike of chaos energy that always came when someone frankly very powerful was about to give every fiber of power to their blow.

The split second before impact—The very last possible instant before he became a spatter against the concrete—Rock ... got the heck out of the way. That's right. Rock was never very powerful in light of ton and a half of rolling steel. His build-up was a fake-out, and his fighting stance was a jumping stance. And, as he literally backflipped up over the loading deck, out of control in his hardest, streaking-blurring-fastest-possible-get-the-hell-outta-there jump, one more thing became clear: Even in evasion was still going to hit back harder than Silver Sonic had tried to hit him.

There on the ground, lying discreetly amidst the rubble, gravel and debris, right in the place Rock had been sitting seconds before, and where a hulking robot was inevitably going to rip into the concrete platform, was one of those home-loaded grenades the obnoxious monkey had grabbed from home, its pin long pulled—And it wasn't one of those Hollywood grenades, either. He had it loaded as hot as it could be.

Yes, Toby, this is what monkeys do every day. Or so it would seem, as Rock hurtled up out of the way of a spiked, Sonic-shaped wrecking ball, flying concrete impact debris, and then, just one brief instant later, a blast of flame that spread and covered a good fifteen yard diameter, and pitched concussive, knock-down-power force at least twice that far in any direction that wasn't shielded by the big, black metal attacker.

David · Posted: Sun Jun 06, 2010 1:20 am

((OOC: Edited because I was half asleep posting this, and missed the whole concussive blast from the grenade))

Luckily for Danger McDaredevil, the hedgehog shaped robot's fire wasn't largely concentrated on him. Unluckily for him, his plan to draw attention to himself, in large, failed. Silver Sonic blasted a few plasma shots in Toby's direction, which were admittedly really hard to avoid, but the treatment Toby got was like a rolled-out red carpet compared to what his monkey pals were going through. Jam's foundation had been utterly obliterated, and the metal maniac looked like it was about the decapitate Rock. Toby darted around, desperately trying to thinking of something, anything that could turn the tide of the battle. That's when it hit him; frantically, the kangaroo rat's hand shot into his pockets, almost immediately laying hands on something smooth and round. Without hesitation, Toby pulled out not one, but two of the shiny, glowing objects, and clutched one in each hand, wincing at the pain as he balled up his left fist.

This would be the point where Toby would've normally thrown caution to the wind, and attempted some stupid, possibly fatal stunt to try and make use of himself. That didn't happen. Instead, while the sky-boarder was speeding through the air, attempting not to get burnt to a crisp or sliced in half, Rock pulled some evasive maneuvers and left their iron aggressor rolling straight into a giant explosion. His mouth agape, it was all of .5 seconds before Toby was hurtling through the air, tumbling along from the grenade's shock wave. "Ungh!!" The kangaroo rat slammed into a metal door with a loud crashing noise. As his left arm made contact with the ground, pain shot through it, and instinctively, Toby's left fist released its grip. "Aaaah, no!"

With the sound of a metal "clink, clink clinkclink," one of the boy's glowing rings rolled and bounced away from him.

Sheff · Posted: Sun Jun 06, 2010 10:08 pm

Still recovering from the first initial punch, Sheffer had been fortunate not to be on the receiving end on the metallic being's fist again, already having managed to crawl away from the carnage. Taking a few deep breaths, he found his board still tightly gripped in his hand. Somehow he had not lost it in the chaos... not yet anyway. He'd better watch it or-

A ruckus (one louder then the current din now gracing the area) occurred, interrupting his thoughts, his head snapping up. He was now looking at the building from before, the one the white monkey had urgently shut before it had been nearly blown apart by the robot. There the monkey stood, against a wall, the hedgehog shaped automation literally spinning towards him. Just as the primate was about to become mince meat, he jumped, but just before Sheffer watched him drop something.

Something small... but destructive.

Unfortunately for the hedgehog, he was relatively close the building, but his reflexes were already in motion, standing hastily, his feet digging into the dirt. Starting off to a quick acceleration, he began to sprint away, but time was not on his side. The grenade unloaded its contents in one fiery explosion, throwing Sheffer off his feet and into the air, a situation already becoming repetitive to the hedgehog.

Hitting solid earth after a short flight, he groaned yet again. This impact was nowhere near as bad as the punch to his gut, but he still felt the result.

"Got to get out of here..." he muttered. "Next thing I know, I'll be thrown into the lava..."

Just as the words passed his lips, he felt something tap against his knee. Peering down, he saw a golden glint, something rounded resting before him. It was a ring, gold in color, almost giving off a small shine. Cocking an eyebrow, Sheffer reached down and picked it up, examining it in his palm. He had seen one of these before, quite awhile ago, the knowledge of their purpose coming forth in his mind.

Showing a small grin, he stood. Maybe he could do something with this...

Rusty · Posted: Sun Jun 06, 2010 10:46 pm

There was no way the machine was avoiding that one. It was going way too fast, had way too much momentum behind it, and it was way too heavy to hit the brakes and make a u-turn outta there. So it shouldn't have come as a surprise that it didn't really seem to make any effort in slowing down or turning before the detonation.

The immediate results were hard to see. One of Silver Sonic Mk. II's primary assets was its sheer toughness, as it had been demonstrating all evening, so it wasn't about to be blown into two thousand different pieces of shrapnel even by a grenade. It had been built to endure that kind of thing. But this blast was so big and mean that while it didn't turn the robot into itsy-bitsy robot remains, it did send it flying like a cannonball up into the air. It had been literally right on top of the thing when it exploded, and the soaring wrecking ball arced into the air, flames washing through the air behind it for a second as it blurred away...

... right into a distant defense tower of Eggman's...

... and... then another. Those mounted guns that had been trying to get a bead on the SSD's shuttle toppled like a broken BLOCKO set. At least the machine got pitched far enough away that the group had a few seconds to collect its breath. No kidding--that thing was going to be back on them in moments, judging by how the sound of more things getting busted up quickly began growing louder after said seconds had passed.

Greens · Posted: Mon Jun 07, 2010 12:03 am

OOC:Triumphant return! (And collab with Johnathon. Please forgive the meddling of time. And the massive length.)

Another figure appeared, descending from the now-slightly-thinning fog.

Tails was carrying Ace, flying down with an expression of intense and deliberate concentration on his face. As he made his way down the side of the catastrophic city that Dr. Eggman had installed into inside of the bowl-like island, the sounds of fighting became more and more evident. The straggling robots that made their way around the cat-walks that stretched their way across the island all seemed to be heading further and further down, towards the centre of the smokey, acidic miasma, from which a deep orange glow radiated out, searing the mist away.

As they approached the centre of the island, Tails dodging the occasional half-hearted pot-shot that were thrown their way by the apparently pre-occupied robots, it became increasingly obvious that something was going horribly wrong. Bright flashes and booming noises emanated from the pit at the heart of the island, giving increasing strength to the suspicion that the fight that had started outside with the military's jets had moved on.

There was a seething mob of robots below. As the mist pulled away, the source of the chaos below became clear: above, a gunboat droned lazily through the sky, raining down creatively machined death and terror from its gun emplacements; below, a ragged group of familiar figures fought tooth and claw with...

Silver Sonic.

Robots seethed and surged, trying to attack without getting too close to the group of fighters, apparently aware of the absolute lethality of the one machine that stood in the middle of them, spilling plasma around the terrace with total indifference to who was receiving it.

Then there was a fire-burst and a roar of flame, and Tails reflexively looked away as a shockwave rippled through the air, carrying with it sparks and flecks of debris which lined with red-hot paper cuts the skin of anyone nearby who didn't have thick enough fur to absorb the spray.

As the shockwave buffeted him, Tails lurched slightly. He grunted, and his face went wooden. The shock had apparently distracted him, as the two of them lost lift and descended the last twelve feet in a kind of half-hearted flop, landing behind a collection of bin trucks on rails, which had apparently been designed for the purpose of dumping garbage of various makes into the lava pit below.

He landed on Ace's head, bouncing off with a yelp and tumbling to the side, where he sat up and rubbed his head dazedly.

"It's—'s that Metal Sonic robot out there!" he said, his voice slightly slurred, "We gotta... we gotta do something!"

"Woah woah woah, hold it, kiddo," Ace replied, for as respectable Tails was but simply getting this far in the first place, he was still an eight year old boy doing it all. "Unless you can uncrack your ribs in the next sixty seconds, you aren't gonna be doin' anything but holdin' out right here, alright?"

He pushed himself to his feet, doing his best to not imagine blasts of plasma he kept hearing ventilating Rock or Jam. The other stragglers they'd appeared to have picked up... no concern, either way.

"Here, over here," Ace hurriedly called over to his younger companion. "I don't think it's seen us yet. You stay here, alright? You aren't gonna take that thing on."

Tails had clambered to his feet, and seemed to be considering some sort of action when Ace's address reached him.

The fox paused. He looked around at the desolate mechanical landscape, as if searching for something. Apparently finding nothing forthcoming, he looked despondently back to Ace.

"What are you going to do?" he hissed to the cat in a stage whisper, "do you have any weapons or stuff like that, that you can use to fight it?"

"Well," Ace started, expelling a breath that was either a sigh or a chuckle that didn't make it. He hopped onto one of the bin trucks service ladders, climbed to the top, peered down into the heap of garbage that awaited him, and somewhat frantically scoured about for anything that might've proved useful. "Let's... find out." Alley Cat indeed.

Secretly, he hoped that Eggman's high standards (compared to the standard government fare, anyway) for weapon advancements might lead to the doctor's trash being Ace's treasure.

Sure enough, after wading through enough scrap metal to build enough coffins for everyone on the island (a morbid analogy, and he wondered what was wrong with him for thinking it,) he found the veritable goldmine: a cabbage patch of old, discarded blaster pistols. Almost childishly designed, straight out of an old cartoon, colored purple and green like it should've been a bubble gun instead.

...These wouldn't do a thing to Silver Sonic.

But whatever, he'd take what he could get. "Here," he said, and threw a spare in Tails' direction. "I'm assuming you know how to work onna these. Anything gives you trouble, you give 'em a mouthful of plasma. Or lasers. Whatever."

He took two for himself (yeah, two, why not?), and... shoved them both into his waistband (his jacket was still tied around his waist, so it didn't look too awkward). He wasn't about to go charging in with those things. That was for the broken monkey wrench he was charging in his hands. He hopped off the ladder, readied himself, took a deep breath... released it... and took off, rearing the wrench behind him.

...Just in time to see his target fly off like a bottle rocket. His sprint awkwardly turned into a jog, and then sort of a speed-walk before he stopped in the middle of the crowd that had formed, a few feet from the monkey in charge. His wrench shifted back to it's normal gray color, and he shot Rock a sort of 'what the hell, man' look as he lifted and dropped his arms in frustration.

"Well, $%@&, man, so much for the cavalry."

Beat.

"...You holdin' up?"

psikeout · Posted: Mon Jun 07, 2010 11:11 am

It'd seem that since the grenade was under Silver Sonic, the robot had shielded soaring, leaping Rock from the blast for the most part, because the primate wasn't as buffeted by the explosion as everyone else was, despite being the closest. He struck the wall of the building somewhere above the torn-open garage door feet first, kicked off lightly, and landed back on the loading deck with an uneventful clap of his boot soles.

Just when he was about to turn and go to grab his dropped shotgun, though, Ace (of all nearly-presumed-dead people) arrived. He let a single, inaudible, slightly bitter laugh at the cavalry remark. (He really could've used the help.)

"Uninjured for once," he replied, "but not makin' much progress, either."

Sure enough, Eggman was still hovering there, monologuing, the hordes of robots the SSD had fled from were still approaching and about to take Silver Sonic's place, the big metal hedgehog himself was probably on the way back, and they still didn't have any way to get to the tower, no thanks to the soldiers.

Without any notice, trusting the cat's reflexes, Rock suddenly tossed Ace one of his grenades—A solution to at least one of the problems above, in said cat's magic hands.

"Have a wildcard."

Greens · Posted: Mon Jun 07, 2010 3:13 pm

(OOC: Sorry I posted again so quickly, but it's just so great to be able to do it again!)

"Yeah, sorry I wasn't here sooner. Had a few problems on our side as well. Tails isn't doin' so hot, but I think he can pull through it." Ace took the opportunity to survey his surroundings, eyes darting left and right, computing, calculating. He saw Rock, he saw Jam (waved a swift hello and give a quick "hey", so as not to be rude), and for the most part, seemed satisfied enough with what he saw.

His palm readily caught the grenade thrown at him next to his head. He gave it only a brief look before quietly shaking his head with a puff of sigh expelled. He didn't even know what would happen if he charged one of those things up, but like Rock, he must've known it wouldn't be pretty, whatever it was.

"I'm guessing you didn't bring Caz here," he added, tucking the explosive away. "That was probably a good idea... but what's with the stragglers?"

Admin · Posted: Mon Jun 07, 2010 3:52 pm

Eggman's mustache drooped and he sighed as his eyes followed the soaring, flaming robot, which proceeded to crash into important looking structures and cause far more noise and damage than was acceptable. A couple button presses later, and the scurrying, attacking forces stalled—All of them. They all ground to an idle halt, and went into defensive postures (although the "zombie" robots, as they had so been called, seemed to twitch unhappily, and occasionally try to lurch forward).

Why would he do that? Because Eggman valued full, undivided attention about as much as victory. And, he already felt victory was assured, so all that was left was to gloat about it, and pad his ego by giving the enemy a chance to bow down and grovel.

"Now, listen," hissed the portly, irritated dictator-to-be. There was a camera drone hovering not far from him, apparently filming. He didn't trust the grunts to deliver his message with all the punch and flair it deserved. He had been broadcasting direct (which was part of why he was so grumpy about the atmosphere getting spoiled by the sounds of warfare).

"Far beneath this island, I have contained and controlled the single greatest source of dimensional instability in the known universe, and formed it into my own personal gateway to anywhere. I have channeled interdimensional forces the likes of which you can't even begin to fathom. These old, decrepit robots you've had such a hard time with? Feh! Just a sample—A tiny hors d'oeuvre of worthless, little extra-dimensional underlings 'haunting' a few pieces of scrap metal.

"Not only are the resources available to me now effectively infinite, and not only do I now have access to alter the very fabric of space and time to my personal liking, and not only do I have access to an infinite number of conquerable, enslavable worlds, but ALSO, I have..."

He held up a single, glowing blue gem that looked and and shined like a Chaos Emerald, but was cut like...

"... The Sol Emeralds. All seven of them." If he was able to grin any wider, the corners of his lips would be exposing part of his skull beneath his scalp. "And I have plans for them, involving the Chaos Emeralds, and the Master Emerald... which I also haaave!" (He looked like he wanted to bust into a little dance right there in his ship, but he managed to contain himself with an excited quiver and bounce. "So, unless you want to see the full terror of all the power and assets of the multiverse itself bearing down on your tiny, little, stone-aged speck of a civilization, you'll do the wise thing, and pledge allegiance to me."

David · Posted: Mon Jun 07, 2010 6:12 pm

"Uuugh..." Toby shook his head back and forth, trying to shrug off his recent explosion-induced crash. He'd been through about a million and one worse wrecks in the past, so bouncing around on the pavement wasn't exactly anything new for the little crash-dummy wannabe. Heck, he didn't even break anything this time. Losing that ring wasn't exactly awesome, but looking around, the kangaroo rat saw no trace of the glowing doo-dad or Silver Sonic. Had Rock blown him up? All that was left was a smoking crater where there used to be a destructive, metal deviant.

Toby looked to Kyle, who's crackling covering was finally sputtering out. "How you holdin' up, bud?"

Kyle's tiny lightning shield shrunk back to its normal size, still covering the chao, but not his larger cohort. "Jiga, batu ta bi. Brrrr!" Kyle shook his head about just as Toby had done. The little guy seemed to be doing just fine.

Toby patted Kyle's head, and subsequently pushed himself up off the ground. Breathing a sigh of relief from the hectic mayhem that had just taken place, Cotton jogged a few feet over to the place where his board had landed. He was lucky X-gear was built to handle some bruising, otherwise he could have been minus one ride home. With a kick, the board popped up into the boy's hands, ready to fly again.

Now, to check on the others. Indigo shoes pattered against the ground as the boarder hoofed it for now, heading in the direction of Rock and... another new guy? Toby wiped the dust off his goggles as he made his way over to the duo, catching only the tail end of the conversation. It seems he and the green board-hog they had just encountered had been lumped into the un-flattering group of "stragglers." The kangaroo rat's nose wrinkled up a bit at the thought, but, not one to shy away, Toby hazarded an interjection.

"...Heeey, there." Toby waved casually with his free hand. "The name's Toby. No relation to the green dude." After the quick introduction, the boy's eyes shot to the monkey, inquisitively. "...Dude, the heck blew up back there? I was nowhere close, and it knocked me clean off my..."

Before the sunny-yellow surfer could even finish his sentence, a voice that was getting pretty familiar at this point crackled to life. "Oh, come on!" Toby shot a disgruntled look in the direction of the voice. The boy's frustration, however, slowly melted into trepidation as the doc monologued about his latest scheme. "Oh no... no, no, no..." The Doc's claims got loftier and loftier, stepping up from having the Sol Emeralds (whatever those were), to having all the chaos emeralds and the master emerald, to fully wrecking their entire civilization if they didn't give in. Nobody had to tell Cotton that he and the others were currently wading neck-deep in s*** if all those claims were bona-fide.

"...How do we... what do we do?" The uneasiness that flooded the boy's voice quickly washed out as he regained himself, his brow furrowing. "I'm not about to bow down to anybody."

Sheff · Posted: Mon Jun 07, 2010 10:55 pm

Just after his small moment of luck, the ring now tightly grasped in his hand, the voice boomed across the crater, jarring him from his deep thinking and back to reality. Hearing the words, he recognized the voice, the one that had made many similar speeches such as this in the past. Sheffer looked around, his eyes suddenly finding the tower looming above the lava pit, the voice still speaking.

His eyes landed on a small craft, rounded in shape, floating just in front of the tower, the silhouette of a man seated. Even though he was at a far distance, Sheffer could already imagine him, that face he had seen on television many a time. The man's large mustache, the bald head, those small, blue spectacles... it was crystal clear in his mind's eye.

And the hedgehog was suddenly furious.

Thanks to this man, Sheffer's home city was in ruins, his apartment taken over (maybe even possibly destroyed), and been attacked by a numerous amount of his creations. And it was not only him, but many others, and not even on that present day either, but from the past as well. This man had done his shared amount of evil before, but he just wouldn't stop. Wasn't there a certain point when one would just give up?

Anger now having taken the reigns, Sheffer found himself nearly stomping over to the edge of the lava pit, his board in one hand, the ring in the other. Staring at the hovering vehicle at the tower, he drew a large breath.

"You honestly believe anyone will go for that?!" he yelled across the expanse, the sudden quietness of the area now broken. "As I recall, you have tried something like this multiple times, but you know what?! You've gotten your ass handed to you every single try!" He paused, allowing a laugh. "So, go right ahead, doctor! I know who you are and what you've done, but I know, in the end, someone will only stop you, just like all your previous attempts! More then likely, it'll just be that spiky blue fellow too!"

Laughing again, he felt a bit more enthused. He truly wasn't afraid now, not just yet. The doctor may have those stones, the Chaos Emeralds (a topic he had looked into awhile back, and knew much about), and the Sol Emeralds (whatever those happened to be), and even the Master Emerald, but there wasn't a drop of fear of him. The hedgehog knew the doctor was just giving yet another over-the-top speech, even if he had managed to get his hands on an unbelievable power. Someone, maybe not even the blue blur, would end his plans yet again, and the world would move on once more.

It was just a matter of time.

Take back the city (1-2)

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