(Ch. 6: Day ?)

Person Vs Badger · Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2012 7:10 pm

Mike had been a bit slow to respond, the initial shock of his sudden and very brief flight still muddling his thinking. "Yeah, uh, I think I-" was about as much as he said, before the ceiling exploded, and, like the gun at the start of a race, kick-started the fisher's thinking. More specifically, it set off the upper extreme of most of his mental alarms, and the resulting adrenaline burst snapped him out of his disorientation.

He twisted from his position, throwing all of his meager weight to try to push the both of them away from the robot's descending feet and falling glass. Fairly obviously, it wouldn't work- not unless Tabitha was already on the move or otherwise off-balance.

Mie · Posted: Sun Sep 02, 2012 9:41 pm

The fisher would find his efforts rewarded, as, yes, Tabitha was already on the move, and shoving the former capsule resident clear of the raining glass incoming meaner-of-business. Actually, between the their combined pushing efforts, Mike and the swift-footed feline probably suddenly looked like a pair of like-charged magnets, as they scattered from the ridiculous Egg Walker(or whatever it was called)'s path.

She made it look good, though, rolling sinuously to a perfectly controlled crouch from which she sprung immediately onto a remaining small animal canister (smanister???), before bounding to the next, then another... then a straight, vertical bound up to a metal-grated catwalk. The important thing was, she kept moving.

"Pi! Scout!" The panic in her shouts went unmarred by the acoustics of the large, concrete room.

"Any ideas?!"

Jahkari · Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2012 12:46 am

"This place is a bucket o'crazy!" Scout yelped as she dashed away from the incoming thing, trying to shield herself from the shattered glass with her tail only to briefly tumble over it instead. She recovered surprisingly quickly for her and scurried out of the way of the glass, glancing over her shoulder at the landing robot. Deciding she didn't want to remain out in the open for too long she ducked behind some crates for temporary shelter, once more cursing her lack of speed or grace for entirely different reasons.

Some part of her knew she should probably keep moving, but the other part of her knew that the more she moved, the more likely she was to get anxious and nervous and when that happened she was all the more likely to send herself sprawling over something right into the robot's path. Instead, she wrapped herself in her tail and hunkered down, nervously eyeing the robot while keeping an eye out for Pi, just in case an emergency airlift to (relative) safety was needed.

"My idea is to not die, but how we're gonna go 'bout that one is anybody's guess. Where'd that thing even come from?!"

Seafarinhare · Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2012 1:48 am

As the robot straightened out, it towered over the resistance fighters at a staggering ten feet tall. They had a precious few seconds to pull a plan together while it no doubt cherry-picked a target. It's legs shifted, allowing it to face it's selected target. In this case, Pilot. At this point, it's selected target wasn't really based on anything other than he was there. Threat values were as of yet unknown. Maybe it was because he was the closest, being airborne and all.

It reached out with that vice hand to attempt to grab the bat. If it managed to do that, the hand would abruptly fire -- yes, fire -- the bat across the room, and into a wall. The vice hand was attached to a cable that was fed from the inside of the robot's left arm. Upon collision, the grip on the bat would loosen. The cable snapped taut, and reeled the hand back in to it's original position.

Kazz · Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2012 2:14 am

Pilot was trying to cut his attention between his (for-certain) allies, the new guy, and the robot. This ended... less well than he might have hoped. He was looking in Scout's direction as she spoke, and then...

"Shi--!"

He tried his best to get out of the way of the oncoming robotic hand, and only half-succeeded. With a pump of his wings he tried to evade its grip by going up, but he simply didn't have time to get entirely away, and the hand grabbed onto his legs. He was summarily, indeed, fired across the room and into the wall.

...

That hadda hurt.

He was remarkably dazed when the hand loosened his grip on him and he slid to the floor, and there was no doubt he was gonna be sore in the morning, but there were more important things at hand. It had just gotten personal. "Not cool," Pilot hissed through his teeth, getting to his feet, but not moving just yet. He'd like to pretend it was because he was formulating a plan; in reality, it was that he was still reeling a bit from being smashed into a wall. There was one thing he could do:

"Keep moving! Don't let it grab 'ya!" he yelled to his allies, cupping his hands. He added, as an afterthought: "That means you too, Scout!"

Person Vs Badger · Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2012 5:05 pm

Though Pilot's caveat arguably wasn't directed at the fisher, Mike took it to heart, scrambling up from his less-than-graceful landing and started running, his head half-twisted to gauge the distance between the walker and himself. Hopefully, staying out of the claw's firing range (which he could only hope had been fully exercised by the move it had just pulled) would take at least one thing off the deadly arsenal it boasted.

"Wouldn't it be a better idea to just get -out- of here?" He yelped, diving for the nearest cover as his pitiful stamina emptied itself. Boxes. Wood and plastic, mostly the latter. Not something that would take a hit from any of the machine's weapons- the only thing he could hope was that it wouldn't notice him at this point. Drawing his knees in and wadding up in his jacket, Mike happened to glance the other way- and discovered the lemur attempting to do much the same thing as he was.

He sighed, and pressed his back against the crates while he caught his breath. "So, am I just exceptionally lucky," he panted, being careful to keep his voice down, "or do you guys do this all the time? Because if I'm disrupting some kind of friendship bonding ritual, I could totally back out of this situation. ...right now."

Mie · Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2012 11:06 pm

"We're not done yet!"

Tabitha landed hard and with precision on a big yellow plunger, resulting in that same (thankfully figurative) explosion of small animals, running for the hills. From there, the acrobatic cat took full advantage of their hulking foe's preoccupation with her teammate, bounding back across the vessels headed straight for the Egg Hulk, and lunged onto what loosely worked out to be the back of its head.

She didn't give its pilot too long to wonder what the heck was going on, though, as she promptly skittered to the top of its cue ball noggin, and let loose with a torrential downpour of ample, running black paint.

And yes, it was very possible that she hadn't really thought it through all the way. Run, little animals, run!

Seafarinhare · Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 1:29 am

Having quickly dispatched the bat, the preoccupation didn't last very long. Granted, there wasn't much the robot could do to stop her from climbing on his canopy. His arms were not designed for head scratching, so she was pretty safe there for the moment.

The pilot's reaction was anyone's guess when she started graffiti'ing his viewing window. The thrusters in his legs burst to life, launching the robot into the air, effectively headbutting the ceiling in hopes of squashing the annoying cat perched on his dome.

Mie · Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 10:00 pm

With a yelp of surprise, the rooftop writer dropped to her belly atop the domed canopy, and slid backwards, kicking hard away from the no longer entirely transparent hemisphere the second she was even remotely upright. This left her sailing backwards through the air, all leonine grace, as she segued into a tight, heels-over-head somersault that ended abruptly in a sturdy-looking crouch, which was quickly abandoned in favor of getting the heck out of dodge.

"Okay, guys!" Tabitha called over her shoulder, as she beelined for the remaining capsules. "Pencils down in 60 seconds; we gotta wrap up and clear out!"

NPC · Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 10:13 pm

While flight seemed the most sensible of the options available to them, its viability waned rapidly; a steady, almost rhythmic *tmp-tmp-tmp* of rubber-coated heavy, metal feet -- a lot of them resonated within the room, making it sound like a veritable army of Egg Pawns had arrived as back-up.

In reality, it wasn't all that bad: Maybe ten or twelve of the addle-brained 'bots shuffled in, flanking their partially blinded chief, but it didn't make the situation any easier, either. At the very least, they had not yet gone on the offensive -- Actually, they stretched out from both sides of the huge, hulking walker in V-formation, poised (some posing), but stationary, almost as if waiting for some kind of dramatic, finger-pointing directive...

Surely not.

... Right?

Kazz · Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 10:41 pm

"Uhhh," Pilot said, pointedly staying afloat (and staying behind masses of pipes and the like for... security reasons), as the Egg Pawns made their entrance. "You know, this mission is just not improving as time goes on," he remarked, wrapping a hand around a pipe for stability. He held his ground (uh, air), the side of his mouth twitching into a half-grimace.

Whatever happened, he knew, would at least be interesting.

Seafarinhare · Posted: Tue Sep 04, 2012 10:48 pm

A good chunk of the ceiling crumbled when the robot's canopy crashed into it, and the thrusters on it's legs died, and the robot plummeted back down to the ground again with another crash. The obscuring paint was definitely a hindrance, but not crippling.

The robot turned to face the cat again, aligning the cannon arm dangerously close to her position, about to fire, but paused a moment.

It was about then, that the egg pawn posse showed up. Sadly, any fingerpointing that the Eggpawns were waiting for would not occur. The Egg Hulk was not really jointed with that sort of thing in mind. Most unfortunate, really. Directive did come, of course. Almost as if to compensate.

"Surrender, enemies of the Eggman Empire!" A voice came from the Hulk, "Or I cannot be held accountable for anything bad that happens to you!"

"Apprehend the rebels!" He commanded the robots.

Jahkari · Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 12:14 am

There was a visible tremor to Scout's fur as she watched the oncoming storm, her mind having a fierce debate raging within it; risk her panic-mode clumsiness and become a moving target or keep holding, hoping (probably stupidly) that they didn't notice her?

"Man, runnin' or fightin' a robot army definitely ain't in my normal skillset," she hissed, trying her best to evaluate what to do. "Any bright ideas, or should I just start spinnin' and hope I get outta here?"

Because, really, that was the only decent plan she had: start spinning in the general direction of not there and hope she made it out before she got stomped. Not the best of plans, but, well, strategy wasn't really in her normal skillset, either.

Person Vs Badger · Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 8:12 am

Meanwhile, from his corner of the limited shelter, Mike was chewing on his lip, eyes darting around the amassing forces even as his ears were plastered against the back of his head in what could only be dead terror. "Of course the one in charge has to be the one that's huge... who invented this system, my dad?" He shoved himself back against the boxes, staring at the far wall, still chewing, still wearing a bizarre mix of fear and annoyance.

Just about every machine making an appearance today was new to him- but it was obvious that the smaller robots were far less dangerous, and a lot stupider, pushing his odds just barely into that gray area where something crazy enough just might work.

His gaze turned away from the grim situation... and seemed to focus on the lighting in the area. The fingers of one hand were rubbing the elbow of his other, finding metal through the sleeve of his jacket. Not really moving for any reason in particular, fingertips making small circles as if trying to massage some life into the limb.

Mie · Posted: Wed Sep 05, 2012 10:46 pm

"Run, all of you! Don't stop running!"

As if it were actually necessary, the slippery sand cat demonstrated her advice aptly, zigging, zagging, and generally fleeing as erratically as possible. And while such strategy might have boggled the bottom-rung flunkies like the Pawn squad, any sentient being would notice that no matter how Tabitha tried to run, where she headed was always invariably back toward the remaining canisters.

Speaking of, she mounted one in harried urgency, but with all the apparent effort of skipping a step in ascending a flight of stairs; without hesitation she lunged for the release mechanism, throwing her weight against it. She could only hope there wasn't another person in this one...

(Ch. 6: Day ?)

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