The previous night was one of brainstorming. Discussion of locales and potential targets led to ridiculous, off-the-wall ideas, which then led to hushed whispers as those insane ideas were actually considered by some. Most of the crew was asleep by the time the harebrained scheme was finalized.

Where had they decided the best place to hit Eggman was? Right in his supply of robots. It was ridiculous to think they could stop him from making robots, or getting metal to make robots, or any other number of things, but what about the animals powering them? There was only one lab in Gigalopolis where the animals were "processed" and sorted into their robot shells. With that eliminated, Eggman's robot production would be decreased, and with it, his workforce and army.

One could not expect to simply stroll in the front door of Eggman's labs, though. No, that structure was probably one of the best-protected in the whole city, with a fenced, stringently-guarded perimeter that would keep anyone from even getting within a hundred feet. It did have one very unconventional method of entry, though: A pipeline.

A large, several-foot-wide vacuum-tube pipeline stretched from the labs, snaked its way above the city streets and buildings, and led all the way outside the city limits, down the cliff to the southeast, into the nearby forest, where there was a "collection station" amid the trees and foliage. Concrete and steel, and bizarrely structured with what looked like lidded, tubular openings all over, it was "fed" by grey, yellow and black robots remarkably similar to a certain E-100-series prototype, which constantly came and went from the site. They each carried an egg-shaped pod on their backs, which they disconnected and plugged into the large tubes; with a press of the large, yellow button atop their pods, the small animal contents were dispatched into the metal and glass vacuum tube, and sent zipping along on an entirely safe-looking (?) high-speed journey to Gigalopolis.

This is the sight our heroes beheld from just beyond the lawn of the collection station, in the shady cover of the bushes and forest canopy. Some Caterkillers trundled their way around the perimeter, while a few Orbinauts hovered to and fro, and a single Egg Robo operated the station from an open-air, lookout-tower-like control platform at its top, maybe a few stories above the ground. Resistance looked low overall... at least compared to what they were used to, by this point.


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“I’ve got this,” Coop said quietly, “give me a minute.”

He retreated into the forest.

Roughly a minute after Coop had disappeared into the forest, he re-appeared, over-head, flying out of the sun, directly at the robot. Counting on the sharp angle of the morning sunlight to protect him from being spotted, Coop flew in like a big feathery bullet, and tackled the robot at the top of the tower.

It was like watching a railroad crossing. A black blur whizzed through, the robot's shell rang like a bell, and with a surely-imaginary whistle, they were gone from view, the Egg Robo removed from its perch as if by some kind of surgical strike.

None of the other robots seemed to notice.

A gentle breeze rustled through, blowing Rodolf's fine mane around.

Actually, it was one of the large, grey, ZERO-like captor robots hovering casually up behind them, its humming thrusters flattening the grass around it, but otherwise making little noise or fuss. It scanned the group briefly, then saw fit to make a big, bear-hugging lunge for whoever looked the most helpless-looking of the lot.

Three guesses; one hint: it was the party member with the most fins.

(It was always the party member with the most fins.)

With its hands firmly clamped around the shark's arms, the robot seemed quite content to quietly carry its shouting captive off toward the collection station, turning a blind eye to the others as if they were just more harmless woodland creatures it could return to collect later.



"Well,... it-... it is taking him where we want to go," Midian chimed in uncertainly. The jackal had been silent until that point, lurking along for the outing. Before following, though, he shot a quick glance to either side to make sure no particularly violent robots were nearby. He did indeed find a Caterkiller, and it looked hostile, homing in on the group to attack at a blistering... 3MPH.

Actually, yeah, no. It really wasn't going to catch any of them if they so much as made any remote semblance of an effort to move from the spot within the next minute or two. It gave their backsides the glaring of a lifetime, though.

whhhhhhwhoooooooooo

oooooooooooooowwwww

WHAM.

Coop zipped out of the sky again and struck the robot carrying Mako, over-balancing it and crashing it into the earth. It gonked and flailed in distress, unsure of how to pick itself back up. He looked over his shoulder at the cautiously indifferent rest of the party.

“Come on, you coy little chao,” he berated, with a prickly yet oddly gung-ho verve in his voice, “This isn’t daycare!”

He grabbed at the robot, wedging his hands between its torso and its head and turned to focus all his energy into separating the two.

“It’s karate."

The robot sure enough lost its shark with that mighty blow, and its head was left conspicuously dented inward on its topmost left corner (if you could call it that, its head as cylindrical and can-like as it was).

It laid there for a moment, suffering the burly bird's abuse, its frame groaning and flexing... But no results! Conveniently enough, it even had a handle right there on its face, which made it all the easier for Coop to get maximum torque, but the thing was apparently just absurdly sturdy.

After a few seconds of Man vs. Machine, Machine decided it was time to get up, and thus bear-hugged Man (or rather, Bird) in the exact same way it had hugged Mako. It hovered upright, lifted well off the ground, and casually floated off toward the collection station.

Coop turned from absurdly intense, focused on dismantling the robot, to intensely absurd. With a furious glare and a distressed grunt, he tried to flex his arms within the comfines of the bear hug, reaching up and out, trying to move their grip outward from around his body.