Stayin' Alive (1-6a)

Rachel · Posted: Sat Oct 16, 2010 7:18 pm

Jack crossed her arms listing carefully, she was weighing her options. It was Westside island. A place she'd been on a number of occasions and the place her mother had bit the big one. She never liked the place but getting around could be easy so long as you dont look like you've got any money or any desire to stick around.

"I'm willin' to try." Jack came to her conclusion. "The more of us that enter the better our chances. But we're gonna need a crash coarse in how ta box and in how our opponents will be cheatin'. Because they will be cheatin'.

"Oh! Oh! ME! It'd be fun!" Exclaimed the fembot who looked as if she was struggling to contain herself. "I haven't got a chance to fight anyone since I got this shiny new chassis!"

Sheff · Posted: Sat Oct 16, 2010 7:33 pm

Sheffer seemed to think the situation over for a moment. He sure couldn't box, he knew that. He could maybe throw a punch or two, but unless he went through some serious training, he probably wouldn't stand a chance against some other competitors. What if there was another heavy-weight like Tank in the lineup? But... there was one thing he did have that others didn't...

"Count me in, doc," said the hedgehog. "Just as long as we practice for this little tournament."

He then turned to the griffin. "Yeah, chances are, with a prize like that, fair play is going to be rare. But, that doesn't mean we don't need to be strict about the rules ourselves." He showed a small smirk. "I mean, when was the last time you saw a boxer have to hit solid rock?"

Seafarinhare · Posted: Sat Oct 16, 2010 11:03 pm

Hoji nodded to the old moth-mentor.

"I'll go as well. I may not be a boxer, but I can punch with the best of them." He said, making a dramatic fist-clench to illustrate his eagerness to compete. His mouth curved into a coy smirk.

"Besides..." he trailed as his smirk subsided, "With a villain such as the Red Wasp afoot, the need for a hero will surely arise." He said, putting perhaps a bit too much emphasis on the word "hero" in that sentence.

psikeout · Posted: Sun Oct 17, 2010 7:45 pm

"It's decided, then!" declared the old man triumphantly, with a shaky fist skyward. "We're all going!"

Nevermind that Mako didn't really get any say on the matter.

"Clear your calendars, pack your bags, kiss your mothers and write your wills, kids! Next week, we're stepping on the West Side!" He went buzzing off toward the nearby private elevator, cackling to himself, surely with a billion things in mind. Before its doors could close, though, he added (almost sinisterly), "And tonight, we traaiiin." His grin probably couldn't have gotten much wider. "Meet me in the lab after dinner!"

*Fwoosh.* The doors slid shut, and he was gone.

Kazz · Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2010 6:59 pm

Mako might have looked a mite miffed as he minded the moth's migration to another room (and he wondered why his inner voice was starting to alliterate), before he turned to the gathered.

"... is it just me or did I not even get a say in this?" he asked, blinking a couple times. The confusion on his face could only be clearer if someone had written the word "BEWILDERMENT" on his forehead in magic-marker. He paused to consider everyone for a moment, and then looked at Sheff.

"And then some poor dude will break his hand on your forehead."

The shark solemnly sighed, slowly, and then decided that his internal alliteration was going to stop here and now. He paused, and to completely break the mood, reached over to the pizza-bearing robot that was still hovering around his ankles. He snatched up another piece, and chewed it pensively (that is to say, crammed the whole piece into his mouth in one go). After some dramatic deliberation, he said:

"... nope, I got nothin'."

psikeout · Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2010 8:45 pm

Meanwhile...

...

Wind whistled across the roof of the tall, glassy, modern work of steel-and-concrete architecture. Cars passed by on the street below; people strolled down the sidewalks; a couple small boats drifted out in the river. Nothing was out of the ordinary.

A round, blue UFO soared through the air overhead at high speed.

... Nothing out of the ordinary at all, for crazy old South Island, anyway.

The spinning ball opened up. Like most unidentified, spinning blue objects sighted in the world, it turned out to be an unmistakable individual—lithe, blue, lively, and unhindered by any such obstacle as a small skyscraper, the hedgehog landed from his huge, ramping jump off a nearby building with little more than a quiet, unintrusive "clop" sound from his two bright red running shoes.

Sonic trotted a few steps forward, carried by his own momentum, before fully stopping and taking in his surroundings a little more. The rooftop garden was desolate, but very luxurious, with its palm trees, sparkling-clean pool (replete with slide and rocky artificial waterfall built into the garden), snack bar, comfy, cushioned lounge chairs... He let out a quick whistle, but moved onward without expressing much more interest, instead searching for something in particular.

"This is the place?" he asked... someone. Three guesses of who would be following Sonic, and able to follow him through that last maneuver.

Diluss · Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2010 8:56 pm

put put put put put put put put put put put put

A slower-moving orange figure slowly descended to about ear-level, over Sonic's left shoulder.

Enter Tails the Magnificent and his Amazing Aeronautical Rear.

"Yuh-huh! It looks—" blip went a piece of electronic gadgetry strapped to the fox's wrist, "it looks... like we're right on top of it!"

He dropped gently to the ground, and took a few steps forward to the hedgehog's side, looking around in wonder.

"Wow, this place is amazing!"

psikeout · Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2010 9:02 pm

All Tails had to do was turn his back on Sonic for about one and a half seconds. By the time he looked back, the hedgehog was standing in front of the sturdy, metal roof-access door, raring back in a low crouch.

Insert flying gung-ho door-breaching-action-kick.

Diluss · Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2010 9:04 pm

"I bet that—sonicwait!"

Tails leapt towards Sonic, arms outstretched towards the imminently destructive hedgehog.

psikeout · Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2010 9:08 pm

"Hghnkwat"

*Klompleblump.*

That's the sound of a small, colorful mammal ragdolling inertly off of a sturdy metal door. He ended up crumpled upside down against a nearby planter. He was giving the fox quite a frowning.

Diluss · Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2010 9:23 pm

"Yow! Are you OK?"

Tails hurried up to Sonic, and peered down at him over the top of a brochure the fox had brought with him. From Sonic's point of view, there could be seen on the front of the brochure a very tall steel and glass structure—the building they were standing on now—in front of which could be seen a raccoon in a glittering white costume striking an extremely heroic pose.

"Sorry," Tails added, "but this is the base of—" he looked down at the brochure, "Super Vigilante Officer Wild Badge. He's some kind of super hero!"

psikeout · Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2010 9:35 pm

"Oh."

Sonic blinked a couple times, then quickly righted himself. Tails had probably already divulged this information, but it had been adrift the tossing seas of Sonic's selective hearing until after he'd slammed headfirst into a door at 50MPH.

"Guess it'd only be right to try the front door first, then," he observed thoughtfully, and headed toward the edge of the building.

Sonic paused atop the railing, standing over the far-too-many-stories-to-be-safe drop, and smiled (smirked?) back at Tails.

"Never met a superhero before," mused the spiny one wistfully, before hurling himself from the building and running deftly down its side.

***

Seconds later, Sonic found himself in the clean, glassy, steely, hyper-modern lobby of Wild Laboratories. The Wild Badge Gift Shop was somewhere across the atrium, not far from a few small, fully-robotically-operated restaurants, and a Wild Museum (coming soon). Sonic awed silently, maybe concernedly at the spectacle briefly, as if having his expectations turned on their collective blue, pointy ear.

A mono-eyed robotic secretary/greeter of some sort just a few feet away seemed to be futilely trying to greet and welcome Sonic, but had failed thus far to get his attention.

"... huh."

Diluss · Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2010 10:02 pm

Behind Sonic, distorted slightly by several sheets of glass, Tails dropped silently to the ground.

The fox pressed his face up against the window and peered around inside for a few seconds before he saw the blue hedgehog standing in the lobby. He removed his face from the window again—leaving a small fog-patch—and hurried up the side-walk, parallel to the building's face, until he reached the automatic sliding doors which bore entrance to the building's interior.

They whirred open gently, to the tinned broadcast of a triumphant fanfare, and the resonant words, "welcome to Wild Laboratories, where we work to make you safe!"

Looking slightly awed by the prestige with which the door had announced itself, Tails padded through the sliding doors, craning his head around as he walked to look back over his shoulder at them as they whizzed shut again.

He took a few more steps, and stared, slack-jawed. The gleaming surfaces that comprised every inch of the lobby in front of him reflected in his eyes as he took in the radiant Science that was in evidence everywhere.

He saw the Greeter robot futilely trying to welcome Sonic to the building, currently confronted as it was by the hedgehog's intense lack of attention, and hurried forward to help.

"Hello!" he addressed the automaton, "This is Sonic—Sonic the Hedgehog—and I'm Tails. Can you tell us how to—"

He turned his attention to the brochure before looking up again.

"Is Wild Badge around for the eleven thirty photo taking?"

psikeout · Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2010 10:14 pm

"Let me check on that for you," the robot replied with... a surprisingly natural sounding voice, really, at least for something that for all reasonable intents and purposes looked anti-human and was physically a grafted-in component of its own desk.

Sonic was somewhere across the room by this point, investigating a fully-automated conveyor sushi bar with little badge-shaped rolls.

"...?"

"Ohhh... I'm sorry. Wild Badge is here, but it seems some heroic duties have come up. I'm not sure if he'll make it today, Mr. Prower."

Hey, wait, Tails didn't give it that name.

"I could sign you up for real-time updates by e-mail or TXT! Would you like a link to Wild Badge's Tooter account?"

Diluss · Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2010 10:33 pm

Tails gaped, stunned by the success and at the time monumental failure of his cunning plan to attract results, and momentarily unable to find a reply to the robot.

He glanced over at the hedgehog, who was currently peering at a little Wild Badge-shaped South-Island Roll as it moved slowwwly along the conveyor belt towards a low opening on the other side.

He glanced back at the quietly earnest gaze of the robot.

"B-h... No—thanks."

...He stared at the robot for a moment longer, and then made a break for the sushi bar.

"Wild Badge is busy with some important business," Tails announced, as he approached Sonic.

He came to a halt, and looked back over at the robot.

"Do you think we should ask it if we can go in?"

Stayin' Alive (1-6a)

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