( Bit tired, pardon the shortness. Mostly posting to not hold things up on my end. )

Tau directed his focus towards the downed space craft for several seconds then visually inspected the surrounding area. Not finding any further interest, Tau quietly boarded the waiting van shortly after.

Tails continued to take the cat's advice, following it with great intensity as he sat by the window, staring holes into the side of the van.

Coop had no such intentions.

"This is stupid," the titanic Eagle mumbled.

"..."

"...Come on," he said, to the Fox, gesturing down into the recesses of the building, "if the cat and the hedgehog guy are planning on getting all the attention drawn up to the skyline, then the best place to attack is from the ground, if you want to do something."

"I want to stay up here," said Tails, "I have an idea. If I can just—"

"Look, said the Eagle impatiently, and then, "f… don't... actually, no, on second thought, do whatever. You're probably better at saving the world than me anyway. Just be really sure your plan will work. No point in Eggman getting you. Anything I can do?"

"Um," Tails said, and then brightened up, "yeah! If you could keep going and, well, if you could be really careful and distract them from down below, too, I think I could get to the van without anyone noticing."

Coop narrowed his eyes.

"How."

Tails turned to the side and flapped his tails a bit.

"Flying!" he said, "you know I can fly, right?"

Coop gave the fox a long, slow, suspicious look, then:

"Ok," he said, and dropped down into the lower section of the building.

It was a good thing they were sorting things out quickly. It didn't seem like they'd have a whole lot of time. The van, fully loaded (and lurching comically toward one corner after Tau boarded, before the hoverjets could compensate for his immense mass), whirred silently and briskly away.

Though the hovering vehicle was cruising the same streets used by normal cars and trucks, its driver seemed to be ignoring traffic signals and virtually all forms of right-of-way that were not enforced by the bumper of a yet-larger vehicle. It almost appeared as though they knew they were being followed, and were trying to escape. The truth was, however, that it was just Rock's driving.

"I hate driving," Rock announced gruffly to his passengers, a robot too big to fit in the driver's seat and a girl worse at driving than him, as if anyone in the vehicle would care.

It was hard to be sure where they were going, weaving along broken streets, through traffic, and barreling directly through the metropolitan area (and even on the sidewalk a couple times), but there was an Eggman-operated emergency center coming into view ahead.

"Alright. Hrghm. This..." Coop muttered, as he watched the van begin to drive away.

"This had better," he looked up at the sky, where a small orange figure drifted up into the chemical-bleached, burnt red sunset sky in pursuit of the van, "this had better be worth it."



"Hey," he said, stepping out of the hollow building façade, "hey!"

He walked up to the closest robot that did not look likely to kill him instantly, and smacked it into a wall.

Meanwhile, a happy little squirrel popped out of the Cop Speeder Coop had just obliterated against a wall. While the squirrel (or ricky, technically) skittered away, another Cop Speeder nearby turned to address the eagle.

"Hey! You! Fat bird!" it announced in a stereotypical police-megaphone-voice. "Was that a wrist spasm, or did your big fat body have t'throw out its brain t'make room for another delicious roast beef sandwich?! You go catch that animal right this instant and have it put back in another robot pronto!"

Coop squared up to face the cop speeder now addressing him.

"BITE ME," he announced, vigorously and with candour.

Coop began to be assailed by a small horde of Cop Speeders, the functional equivalent of a bunch of little, hovering, robotic-monkey-piloted bumper cars with police lights bolted on top. The scene descended into relentless and mindless bumping pandemonium.

He had everybody's attention, even some other robots. No one was really trying to jump in or help yet, though. They just seemed content to watch the zipping, scurrying crowd try to bump the big bird into submission.

The van whined down loudly as it came to a grinding stop at the curb (or well atop the curb) of the emergency center, shut down its thrusters, and settled noisily onto the concrete.

The driver's door popped open, and out stepped Rock, who, with quick strides, stepped to the van's side, slid open another door, and carefully removed Rouge, who was already starting to seem a little more... with it—which is to say she was dazed, but likely coming around.

"Tau, wouldja keep an eye on the stuff?" he requested with a nodding gesture of his head toward the black cases, which by that point had spilled around the floor. Given any affirmative response (as if Tau wouldn't want to sit around and have bizarre, foreign technologies to fiddle with), Rock turned and plodded off to enter the facility with their patient (or captive?)

It was a lot like a hospital, but not quite. There were robotic guards at the door, a couple plain, orange Egg Pawns, neither terribly attentive, and a lot of fluorescent lights, beige concrete floors, and painted metal walls, which gave the place more the air of a garage than of a medical facility. Still, it was clean, smelled strongly of sanitizer, and staffed both by nursely-looking robots and white-uniformed organic sapients. Cameras mounted high on the walls swiveled slowly, while all the chatter and noise one would expect from the hospital bounced and echoed off the hard surfaces. There were even some plants here and there, maybe for the impression, nay, insinuation of comfort. (They were plastic.)

The place Rock was most likely heading was the front desk, where there was a robot with a stretcher—no, scratch that, a robotic stretcher, self-propelled—waiting at ready, next to a similarly robotic receptionist, who looked more like a vaguely humanoid stick figure of metal tubes with almost-cartoony white-gloved hands and a nurse's hat for a head.

Coop stood there, among the crowd of bumps, for a second or two, before he had what initially appeared to be some kind of seizure. He waved his arms around above his head; he elbowed things; he pushed backward with his legs, bouncing off a speeder behind him and colliding with one directly in front of him.

"Get out of here!" he yelled, increasing his arm waving to a sort of windmill of off-balance haymakers, like someone trying to swat an entire swarm of bees out of the air.

He flailed about, bouncing off of cop speeders like a big, angry pinball off of a million bumpers.