Fortunately, the troops and tanks lined up right in front of the president's house didn't open fire on them.

Well, successfully. Upon first sighting them, one tanker fired a wild shot that must have singed the top of their heads as it passed, but it was unclear if he was shooting at them or behind them. Either way, nobody got hurt, and it seemed they were being allowed passage. Either that, or everybody was just too busy focusing all fire on the still-moving, still-walking boat to be concerned with the group of survivors in the slightest.

The ship, however, seemed more than concerned with them. Stomping, tromping, and generally rampaging all about, its bird-like feet crushed the earth beneath as it leapt about like some sort of giant, utterly surreal boat-cat trying to pounce on people. Unfortunately, for its sheer size, its feet actually weren't that big, which meant that it actually wasn't succeeding in hitting any of its tiny targets who bothered to make a run for it (which was hopefully all of them).

Meanwhile, something had begun to change in the sky. The dark, sooty mess was thinning; a change in the wind was blowing everything seaward once more, and for the first time during the incident, the sun was actually beginning to beam through the haze again—And the ghost ship didn't like it.

The giant contraption and all of its robotic cohorts became that much more sluggish as the environment lightened. The strange bonds holding the two pieces of the ravaged patrol boat began to loosen and sag a little, and its angry, stamping steps slowed. The cannon fire still wasn't enough to take it down on its own, but it did seem to be holding the ghouls and their deranged vehicle back.

The mere mortal crew still had a good chance. It was just a matter of finding a way to capitalize on it, whether that meant getting away, or doing something awesome.

Cross slid to a halt and whipped around to face the retreating troops, as well as the civilians. It was hard not to feel responsible for those without a uniform, but they didn't have any choice but to run. He cursed his troops' obscene lack of firepower in the face of this kind of threat; they'd have to do something in the future to correct that--at least a little.

As the soldiers raced past him, though, it would become apparent that Cross had become more interested in something other than running. His eyes were fixated on the metal horde, then on the wind and burgeoning sunlight. It was almost like a message from the heavens. The big one had slowed down too, and that gave them a chance to--

"Hold up!" he yelled, moreso into his communicator than anything. The message went through the earpieces of every squadmember and they jolted to an awkward, abrupt halt, looking at their commanding officer like he'd just told them all to cut off their own limbs.

"What the hell--" an utterly baffled Tally quipped, more mortified than frustrated at the order. She and the crow didn't see eye-to-eye on much, but this was just... He's lost his damn mind.

"Major," Killey started, "we don't have any way of--"

"Bangs ready!" He reached onto his belt and grabbed something, a small cylindrical device.

Without wasting an instant, the confused team followed suit. They didn't have any clue as to what the purpose of this was, but following orders was one of those things soldiers did almost without giving it conscious thought, even in the face of a crazy-ass monstrosity of mechanized warfare like that.

"Bangs out!" Cross pulled the device's pin and lobbed it right up towards the killboat, right up towards all those eyes. When the team saw just where he'd thrown the little thing, out went their own 'bangs, aimed square at the same spot. Twelve little cylinders arced through the air like tiny, dangerous footballs.

No sooner had they all played their little game of quarterback than they actually turned their heads to look away from the ship and cover their ears (despite the helmets) as best they could. Why? One flashbang upon detonation could blind a person for anywhere from five seconds to a whole minute, the sheer noise would probably make car alarms a quarter mile down the street go berserk, and those weren't even the extent of the effects, as the SSD squadmembers had all learned (enduring flashbangs was part of their initial training; Cross had been nauseous immediately afterwards, couldn't maintain his balance for five minutes, couldn't fully hear for another twenty minutes, and was ultimately still seeing spots seven hours later).

Now consider twelve going off almost in unison.

Nature's worst lightning looked feeble in that moment as those twelve flashbangs lit up the yard and sky, and left unsuspecting troops all the way as far as the front porch of the president's house fully blinded for the moment. The light seared utterly.

When the flash, glare, and trace smoke disappeared, the ship remained, but with absolutely no sign of life (or undeath). There was just silence after it dropped to the ground and fell to shambles. The only sound was that of the distantly retreating small robots.

The sun continued to shine weakly through the gaps in the sooty sky. The temperature soon returned to normal, while the wind whipped the dirty skies ever cleaner. It became obvious that it wasn't really that cloudy out. Whatever it was that obscured the sky with that nasty, strange mix of steamy fog and sulfuric stench was getting blown clear as a mere matter of chance. It was a fortuitous change in the winds had come just in time to inspire a plan, and lingered long enough to offer some peace.

Once the troops lining the house were done prying their clenched cheeks apart, and releasing those breaths they'd been holding for the past minute or so, a steady murmur of activity returned to the area at large, and, if only for the time being, a sense of "normality" returned. That is, normality for a veritable warzone, anyway.

When the insane lightshow and the booming apocalypse noise had passed, it felt weirdly quiet to Cross, even with the sound of the fleeing foes. That was what he got for setting some kind of most decibels ever holy crap record, probably. The others rose, thankful the debacle had ended.

Regardless of what they'd just did, though, there was no apparent celebrating from him: he turned his back to the hunk of scrap and started walking in the direction of the president's place. No, he never really oozed cheerfulness in the first place, but he was more frustrated than pleased. It was only dumb luck they'd taken that thing out of commission, and it looked like the end of the world out here, on their leader's lawn, no less. It would have been like celebrating a funeral. At least the cloggy air was dissipating thanks to the wind and the sun was appearing again--better than still being stuck in smog city.

Elegant Joe hunched his shoulders up and flexed. "We... are the kings... of the WORLD!" Inexplicably McBride appeared next to him and busted out the muscles too for a few seconds, until he realized he was in more pain than he'd really realized, because he kind of lurched over with a little ow noise.

((OOC: Shortie, but I couldn't resist.))

Callous as it was, if it wasn't Rock, Jam forgot to care just who got the pointy end of the stick in the crash, figuring that whoever it was, no one was really freaking out to warrant a life and death injury, so it wasn't too serious, anyway. She grinned a little malleably at her compliment, puffing her chest out subtly, until her check-up was summarized so succinctly.

"Me?" she sniffed with a comically forced nonchalance, vainly attempting to coerce her fur into lying flat again. "Jus' violated like a parkin' meter, nothin' twenty years a' therapy won't fix."

The squad watched in silence while the non-uniforms began getting their bearings. Their semi-medic's eyes followed the yellow cat while he picked up the wounded one; there was a tinge of responsibility in him for seeing her treatment through. Well, they probably had more capable and better-equipped emergency personnel inside the president's place. He did what he could.

Cross and Killey marched across the lawn. It seemed the presidential home had become a veritable hold-out point for the military. He couldn't tell if they were allowing regular civilians in, and that would have been a problem for those they had come with, but Cross would try to work his magic if that were the case.

"Nice job by the civs," Killey commented.

"Yeah," Cross halfheartedly mumbled. It had gone pretty well, but there had been distinct bumps along the way, bumps that very, very easily could have been avoided. Next time there would be less dithering about and much less faith placed into certain members of society who think they know what they're doing. "Well, by most of them." He huffed through his nostrils.

"I guess that got too crazy for people who probably aren't used to this."

Cross shrugged. "Sometimes crazy is the best way to go."

They stopped near a writhing McBride, who was sitting on the ground favoring his leg. The medic approached and stared down at him too for a few seconds. "Problem?"

"Hurghblurgh," grumbled the alligator.

"Hm." The medic scratched his chin and went through the vast internal library of medical routines and knowledge he surely had. "Does it hurt when Ooryl does this?" He kicked the alligator right in the gash on his leg.

"AAAAAAHHHHHHH--"

As little of a camaraderie he may have had with these guys, Teck was certainly grateful for their vitality. As long as everyone was okay, he was okay - albeit, like Rock, Teck had a cynical knack for these kinds of things. As he sat down upon another chunk of cement just cooling down from the flame that had once engulfed it, he kept his ears perked and his guard up just in case Mr. Danger wasn't quite done soliciting his product.

Most of Teck's injuries lingered from his past bouts within the hour, such as the indentions left in his fur from how tightly those tentacles constricted along his extremities and even his torso, or the the light cuts any shards of metal drew upon his skin as he recklessly plummeted away in spinball form. He had little to no involvement in the final bout, in fact the only thing he got out of it were ears that didn't seem to stop ringing as a result of those deafening flash grenades and rampant cannons. Sometimes acute auditory senses had their drawbacks...

"Heh, well at least that's wrapped up... huh?" Rubbing his hands together and rocking back and forth as if to comfort himself, Teck just began speaking when his wristwatch communicator vibrated under his densely furred cuff. His leather sleeve crinkling as he pushed the cuff along to expose his all-time favorite personal gadget, the wristwatch literally bloomed open like a metallic flower to expose a 1" x 1" screen depicting a very pretty human girl with a lightly tanned complexion, jeweled blue eyes and jet black hair. The image was a still; presumably an uploaded photograph of her laughing while doing something (it looked as though she was driving) and under it was her phone number. With the press of a button, her voice exited a miniature mesh speaker directly under the screen."Hey!"

"Janet, dah'ling! Quite, quite good to hear from you, m'lady - you wouldn't believe the pandemonium I've been through! I'm sure it's only a matter of time before the news reaches your nation's shores."

"Yes, yes, I am very sure it'll take little time. Where are you that this happened? And WHAT happened?"

"I don't know if I should tell you that, haha - lest you inform President Emerson which'll stir a veritable shitestorm the likes of which few have ever seen."

"Come on, Tecko, how long have you known me?"

"Ample time, dah'ling, ample time. Hm, well I went to Central City on business since I had to drop off some research to a patent office here. Heaven forbid they let me drop it off at Incartopolis' (North Island capital city) office, so I need to hurdle my spiny patoot' all the way down to this madhouse. Cue to the disgruntled locals - RUDE AS CAN BE- and which were, as far as obtaining information went, as useful as blooming tits on a bull... they ran around like Flickies gone awry. Alas, once I found the source of their anguish, well I was in for quite a ride. To nutshell it, Janet, there were bloody GHOSTS possessing complex military equipment and zombie-ish, virtually indestructible robots which took on very similar designs as those of Eggman's!"

"Hmm, well Teck I'm sorry to break it to you, but I hope you don't feel too disappointed when I say that in a world of giant water monsters, lizards shoving space colonies up their ass, and megalomaniac egg-shaped scientists, your charming little anecdote seems hardly... well, WOW, OH MY GOD, REQUIRES ATTENTION - you know what I'm saying?"

He could already see that she was probably filing her nails while saying that. "Ah, well Janet, I'm sorry but I'm busy right now, I'm gonna head off. Cheers."

Hanging up just in time for her to nonchalantly say, "Ta," he made way towards Ace & Caz as he started to regroup with the others, always mindful on the safety of others. "'Ey mate, is she going to be alright? I never intended to make a fool of myself earlier, I was just trying to help her."