"Mmn nnh... no thank you," replied still-sleeping Dr. Henshin completely unhelpfully.

Then he stirred a little, as Sheffer's words apparently began to "register" in his conscious mind.

"Hmngh. ... Hm? Oh...! Oh!" He sat bolt upright. "We're here! Look out! There are lights on in there! You should have woken me up! This could get dangerous."

"Tch! And again, tch. Welcoming committee," Dr. H echoed derisively, shaking his head. "We need to sharpen up your one-liners, really."

He turned to the nearby console and made a few keystrokes on the touchscreen. The volumetric map display in the center of the chamber swirled and changed perspective, providing a 3D wire frame view of the structure's exterior. A couple sweeps across his screen later, and a breadcrumb-like dotted line trail showed Hoji an exact path to take into the lower portion of the structure.

"I did reconnaissance earlier with an unmanned submersible. There's a pressurized moonpool docking area at the location highlighted on your screen. BUT..." He pressed a couple buttons, and a yoke not unlike that of an airplane's cockpit unfolded from around his chair, flipping out across the moth's lap. "I can take the controls from here! Stand at ready to deploy!"

Perhaps fully showing the extent of the vessel's nonsensical extravagance, red dome lights began spinning, a siren went off, and a number of rounded wall panels, located sporadically between sections of glowing view screens, rotated suddenly and revealed door-like openings and glowing lights inside.

"Go! Jettison for justice! To the launch tubes!"

Yes. There were ejection tubes to blast everyone out of the sub as soon as they surfaced. Silly? Maybe. Then again, it was probably a lot safer than everybody climbing out of the same hatch like sitting ducks... Tank definitely wasn't going to fit, though.

Toby, who had been asleep up until all the commotion surrounding the group's arrival at the base, was snapping himself out of his stupor to check out the tubes that had just catapulted two people out of the ship. He shokk his head a few times, and wiped the sleep from his eyes. His arms and legs stretched out as his mouth contorted into a huge yawn. One of his arms hit poor Kyle who was hovering nearby, causing the chao to flop into Toby's lap. The boy snatched up the chao in one hand, and in the other he grabbed his new-fangled board and headed over to the tubes.

"Now this is more like it!!" He examined the tubes, stepping inside one to get a better look. "How do these things work exa..."

WHOOSH!!!

Toby was already whizzing through the air, letting a startled yelp escape at first. Once he regained himself, however, it was just another thrill ride for Cotton. He held on tight to Kyle, and landed almost on top of the griffin that had gone before him, hopping back a few steps to give her some space.

"...Sorry 'bout that!" He glanced around at the scenery, letting the chao go and re-adjusting his clothes. "Wasn't expecting the thing to go off that soon..." With a quick shake of the head, he was back on track. "So, what's the next move, boss?" He smirked, jamming one hand down into his pocket.

(OOC: I'm back!)

The time in-between the initial dive, and the recent arrival to their destination was either well-spent for the giant tortoise, or a little bizarre, depending on who you asked-- it was only at Wild Badge's mention of a "welcoming committee" that the massive reptile seemed to awaken from his standing slumber. Perhaps if he'd brought something like a set of playing cards, he'd have a better way to pass the time than staring out the 'window' of the observation deck, crossing his arms and looking serious. In fact, from time to time, one might have caught a glimpse of him actually pouting in between daydreams.

But, sure enough, that all came to an end. Power Mask, ready as ever, was one of the first to nod to himself at the call, grunt in acknowledgment, and move as fast as his totem-legs could carry him to the escape pods.

...He managed to squeeze an leg, a shoulder, and about a fifth of his shell inside. Half-stuck there, he'd gotten a lovely view of his comrades being jettisoned out while he struggled against those frustratingly tiny walls.

"...Doctur!" he shouted. "Were there... nh, no deezigns een thee sob's layout... beeult forl one... agh, soch as mai-self?!"

"I'll be sure to remember apt accommodations for one such as yourself when I build my first submersible aircraft carrier," remarked Dr. Henshin, crossing his arms impetuously, as if offended that anyone would be displeased with his creations (even considering the accessibility issues). However, after a few seconds of watching the tortoise struggle through unsympathetic, half-lidded eyes, he sighed exaggeratedly, dragged a hand limply across the control panel, and in doing so opened the sub's moon pool.

"You can swim out. Now gooo. ... And do watch out. I've got a bad feeling about this."

Badge wanted an audience for his flashy entrance, and he got one: A burly, bulky Eggman robot (one of his less inspired "pawn" models, homely as they were) was literally just feet from where he landed. In fact, a whole small squad stood there, weapons in hand, ready to greet him.

One lunged to tackle him... very... rigidly. Actually, no, scratch that. It sort of teeter-tottered and fell over in the raccoon's general direction. In the confusion of the others' landings, someone (quite possibly Kyle) had backed into one of the rear members of the Egg Pawn party, and the entire group of rigor mortis robots was sent clattering and clanging raucously to the floor, completely motionless.

The entire huge, dome-ceiling chamber was full of machines like this. Many were already on the floor; others had stopped dead in place, like statues, or some sort of particularly ugly modern art. The only sound came from the softly buzzing light fixtures high, high overhead, and the distant, passive noise of fans and other machinery necessary to keep the base livable. If not for the inherent noisiness of the intruding party, one could hear a pin drop.

What was there to see? The room was mostly empty. There were dry-docked submarines and aquatic attack robots all around, as well as cargo containers and all the other typical trimmings of a dock (albeit an underwater one), but it was fairly sparse, at least for the capacity of the chamber in which they stood. The wall behind them was covered with huge windows, offering a view into the depths from which they had just emerged. The wall distantly ahead of them had a glass-faced oversight center of some sort jutting out, as well as a number of doors, presumably leading to more corridors snaking throughout the premises. Some of the corridors were large enough for vehicles to drive through, and even had painted lines much like roads. Other doors were clearly marked as elevators, some human-sized, others heavy lifts of greater size probably intended for cargo.

It was hard to know where to begin with such enormity, and they had only seen what was effectively the entrance. The most prominent route looked to be a four lane "road" that led at an upward slope beyond an open tunnel ahead, but whether or not that was the way to go was hard to say. Tunnel, corridor, elevator, even stairs—There were plenty of options, and at the moment, the emerald radar in Hoji's helmet was probably only accurate enough to direct them generally upward and ahead.