(Ch. 2: Day 12)

VJeff · Posted: Wed Feb 23, 2011 8:52 pm

Rekk spun on his heel in the middle of voicing another thought to look at Ace, pausing only to quirk one eyebrow way upwards.

"What do you mean. Cloning facility?"

psikeout · Posted: Wed Feb 23, 2011 9:23 pm

"We don't know what it was," interjected Rock, in an effort to rail the topic away from speculation, and to dead certainty. "Let's just... lay out the facts."

He stepped away from the van, settled his feet apart in the grass, folded his hands behind his back, and thought a second. Then, he regurgitated the information with as much brevity as he could manage. His tone became markedly straight, lacking in the colloquialisms and dialect it normally had.

"Four days ago, when we captured Coopmore, the Chaosol Emerald had just been stolen from him by an adolescent human—a really powerful human. Abnormal. He was accompanied by some sort of human-like supersoldiers in jumpsuits and Chaos Drive-equipped helmets. Jam caught up with him, but he feigned association with you to catch her off guard. He... then took her ring, and got away."

After an apologetic glance to Jam, he digressed.

"We arrived at the Empire City facility today. They tried to obstruct us from entering, but your clearance overrode security, and we were able to go in without hostility. We went to the level where Coop was being held. A couple of us entered his cell to ask questions. Coopmore claimed that GUN was behind everything. At that moment, the power went out. When it came back online, all the cell doors opened, and a prison riot started. When we encountered the our first Hunter and Mono Beetle units, they tried to shoot us, so we returned fire and started working our way out. Rouge and Coop took an aerial path; we found a tunnel that went deeper into the facility.

"The tunnel went under the channel, back to Empire City. Turns out that it was directly connected to the sublevels of Arware-Mistar. We ran into Eggman in one of their labs. He looked... rough, like he'd been there for a while. Prison garb, too. He was cooperative enough, though. Opened a vault for us. We went in and found a few hundred more of those... 'super-soldier' things, in boxes. Incubating, being cloned, being stored, we don't know—they were there, though, and the same Chaosol Emerald the kid had stolen was there, too.

Rock exhaled, and finished his story abruptly:

"I rigged explosives to the emerald, and... you know the rest."

Mie · Posted: Wed Feb 23, 2011 9:31 pm

Though irrefutably not happy about Rock's admission or the truth in it, Jam was very pointedly busying herself with glaring at a particularly offensive blade of grass some five or six feet away, and save for a brief flicker of her pupils to their corners and corresponding tightening of her eyes and lips, it may have seemed as though she hadn't noticed at all.

Until Rock finished, that is.

"You caught that too, huh?" she asked flatly. "F'you ask me, we may as well've found a f**kin' paystub in there..."

VJeff · Posted: Wed Feb 23, 2011 9:46 pm

"Yeah, no kidding," Rekk sighed, massaging his temple. He'd come here knowing he was probably going to end up getting thrown for at least one loop, but that had been closer to three.

"G.U.N.'s report was trying to make it sound like Jam created an EMP that caused the riot. You're making it sound like this kid did instead, and this kid is pretty obviously affiliated with G.U.N.," He concluded. "It sounds like G.U.N. caused the riot to try and silence Coopmore or stop you guys from hearing what he had to say."

Sheff · Posted: Wed Feb 23, 2011 9:57 pm

"Lot of good that did," added Sheffer from the side, having been listening intently to the ongoing conversation. "The eagle is out and about now. He can still talk if he bothers looking for us... or anyone, for that matter."

The hedgehog felt uneasy thanks to the cat's lack of apparent knowledge to the situation back at the base, or GUN's downright lies. Something really was up here, and with everything coming together now, it seemed like things weren't going to get any better either.

psikeout · Posted: Wed Feb 23, 2011 10:08 pm

Rock looked at Jam again. He had thought to mention that she couldn't have done it... but thought better of it, and chose not to say the obvious. (The lightning ring theft had been a touchy subject ever since it happened.)

"Th'whole thing's a mess," he grunt-sighed, posture loosening and shoulders slacking. "The kid's still out there, somebody in GUN wants us dead, an emerald's still waitin' to blow up on Westside..."

He looked back at Rekk. In a tired tone that was distinctly not militaristic, he garbled one word:

"Orders?"

VJeff · Posted: Wed Feb 23, 2011 10:30 pm

Rekk scratched the back of his head.

"How about you relax for starters," He said after a few moments. "I'm honestly still trying to wrap my head around 'you intentionally blew up a Chaosol Emerald on purpose', and you guys all seriously look like you could use some sleep that wasn't in a crappy looking van." He looked around at everyone gathered; to say they looked fatigued would've been a massive understatement. "To be completely honest, I have no idea what to do next. I need some time to think on all this, and I definitely need to talk to the president. He has to know that G.U.N. is trying to pull one over on us before we take another step."

Mie · Posted: Wed Feb 23, 2011 10:40 pm

"Doubt any of us'll be sleepin' easy with this thing broadcasting our location to the world."

With a blatantly unnecessary clearing of her throat, the -- yes, very tired-looking -- pink monkey unlaced her arms, and produced the ominously glowing dark blue Chaos Emerald as she stepped closer to Rekk.

"'Course if you got a safehouse you feel inclined to hook us up with, it sure would do well for my sanity t'not get shot at for a while."

VJeff · Posted: Wed Feb 23, 2011 11:10 pm

Rekk only took a second or two to stare at the blue emerald before he nodded affirmatively. "Yeah. I'll make a couple calls and see what I can put together." He already had his phone out and started to dial before he looked up, doing a quick headcount. He actually seemed sort of surprised at least once throughout said headcount before he went back to dialing.

"I'll try to make this quick. I don't wanna spend anymore time out here than necessary anyway," He said and walked back to his car, holding the phone up to his ear as he placed a call.

Tau · Posted: Wed Feb 23, 2011 11:12 pm

Still unconcerned with interacting with the others while they debriefed Tau had begun to seemingly wander around aimlessly a bit before Tau's focus would eventually shift to his left arm. He'd quietly began to scratch at the top half of his forearm a bit before eventually balling his right hand into a fist and tapped the spot several times. As if activated by the last impact a small panel on his forearm lifted, opened, and closed several times before opening once more as the machine aimed it's arm towards an on occupied area.

At first nothing more then a few clicking sounds occurred followed by a sudden ignition of a stream fire which spewed from the opened forearm panel and shot across the aimed direction for several feet and only lasted a second or two at most. Content with the test Tau lowered his arm and simply resumed being un noteworthy for the time being.

psikeout · Posted: Wed Feb 23, 2011 11:17 pm

Rock glanced uncomfortably over his shoulder as the wave of heat hit his back.

"... He... doesn't normally do that," said Rock quietly to Rekk's departing back.

Greens · Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2011 6:19 pm

Once the... fiery interruption had passed, the goldenrod feline watched with some intention as Rekk made his way to his prized and treasured vehicle, ultimately bearing but a breathy chuckle. “Still as tight-assed as ever,” he half-mumbled. “Still, good to have help from somewhere...”

“I met him before, didn't I? Some time ago?”

“Yeah, sorta. Your eyes were all rolled back in your head, though.”

“...Huh. Well. If he's gonna get us all a bed, he's gooolden in my book.”

psikeout · Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2011 7:02 pm

Rock exhaled through his nose. Good as it was that Rekk had their back, he didn't seem as content with the arrangement as everyone else, and it showed with the way he tersely and rigidly walked back to the side door of the van and took a seat halfway in the door.

"I know we all need some rest," he said, prefacing an impending but, "and you guys can do whatever you want, but," (there it was), "I'm just gonna take a nap, and catch the first flight outta here unless Rekk has something specific he needs done."

Greens · Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2011 10:45 pm

Ace heard the proverbial captain's orders from the side, but even without eye-to-eye contact, he got a hint of something being up. And the feeling of unease, however small, spread from one to another. Sans any spoken word, he stuffed one hand in his pocket and left Caz where she stood for the sake of getting a step or four closer to Rock.

"Hey," he beckoned lowly. "What's the matter? This idn't the first time we'd be wanted men."

psikeout · Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2011 10:57 pm

Rock shook his head, but didn't look Ace's way yet, instead staring across the grass, toward where Rekk's car was parked not very far away.

"It's not that," he explained quietly. "It's just..." He inhaled, thought, and selected his words. "I don't think there's gonna be a safe place until we get this finished. The folks we pissed off tonight don't play by Rekk's rules."

He leaned back on his hands. "I mean, we just did a lotta damage, you know? They're off-balance. We might'a even killed off whoever's behind this whole thing. I just wanna find that kid, bury'im, get Vince's emerald—maybe bury him too—an'... just... clean house while we got the advantage. I don't wanna lose any momentum."

(Ch. 2: Day 12)

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