The sound of he ship's shuddering engines bounced off their environment chaotically. A whizzing whip noise accompanied each passing, gleaming tower of polished, gleaming stone, metal, and glass on either side of the speeding aircraft. Clothing fabric flapped and fluttered crisp, hard, and fast; wind roared into the huge, rectangular hole on the lower front of the ship, where the cargo bay doors hung agape, and the entirety of the crew, except for Captain Basch, stood in line on the threshhold, overlooking the street as it blurred past some fifty feet below. Meanwhile, various other ships, entirely alien in design, seemed to be racing all around overhead—none of them yet attacking, but all headed the same way, some struggling to keep up.

"... This' gonna need a whole 'nother level of tuck and roll," commented the helmeted primate, voice heavily electronically distorted by the necessary volume to speak over the noise.

Not everyone was still suited up, though. Juke was among the crew who had shed their uncomfortable spacesuits... and he was quite glad for it.

"Heh," he laughed (and almost snorted), "maybe for you guys."

He stretched out a big, purple bat wing to illustrate his method of disembarking, only to stagger back a couple graceless steps from the wind resistance and quickly fold it back down by his side.

Rock looked back at him pointedly through his gold visor. "Juke. It's not too late if you wanna jus'... sit this one out."

Juke looked taken aback by the suggestion, and almost considered it for a second. He shook his head, though, clenched his fist, and lowly declared: "There ain't no gettin' offa this train we on!"

Rock eyed him suspiciously for a moment, as if wondering where he'd heard that before, but then the first shots of gunfire from the opposition began to zing around cancelled that thought. Small, energized bolts from some sort of directed energy weapons on the ground began hitting around the front and underside of the ship, making a terrible racket. At least a couple went in through the cargo bay doors and hit the ceiling right above their heads, showering sparks.

The primate's attention jolted back to the matter at hand. He stepped quickly to the threshold, drew a big breath, and, with a two-fingered point up then forward, made the call for the beginning of the end.

"It's time! Go, go!"

Geoff had also been one of the few who released himself from the burden of his spacesuit, now donning his typical street clothes. Slim fitting as it may have been, the suit was designed for space, not a full-on jump-and-roll out of a moving ship. Besides, he had grown to miss feeling of an actual breeze, seeing how long he'd been stuck off-planet (Earth or otherwise) for this much time.

Waiting on his other acquaintances to make the leap, he gave a quick nod to Rock as he gave himself a few feet of a running start. He'd rather clear the ship than getting painfully smacked by an incoming piece of it. Anyway, he fully believed he could make this landing easily. If he could do such a jump from an even greater height into acid, he could manage this.

With a quick release of breath to calm his nerves, he darted forward, and without a word, leaped out of the shuttle, being thrown into the sharp descent below.

Meanwhile, Omnis lingered back as he silently observed the others vanish from the opening to the city. Soon enough, he was the only remaining member left on the ship, save for the hidden-from-view Basch and waiting Rock.

One would think the robot would just stay behind, but no. In a mirrored path of the others, he stepped forward, his feet clanking against the metal floor of the shuttle. Lacking any farewell, especially to the captain, a companion for many years, he jogged towards the door and vaulted off into the abyss.

And so it began.

Glowing beams whizzed by, but it was not yet like a Death Egg trench run. The volume of gunfire was actually comparatively low; they had perhaps come in a lot sooner and faster than their opposition had expected. Opposition looked scattered at best, and absolutely harried and disoriented at worst, reeling from the supportive fire from above. Some gizoids tried to get in the crew's way, some made moves to tackle, and others popped off shots, but in the face of the crew's blitzkrieg stampede, it actually didn't look all that threatening. Meanwhile, burly, bloated insect-like ships were coming down in trails of flame and smoke, crashing into buildings, exploding in midair, and raining gizoids—gizoids that didn't know how to fly, and weren't ready to be dropped from such extreme altitudes. The end result was not pretty for most of them.

Very distantly ahead, one could make out what seemed to be some sort of grand park, like a gigantic palace courtyard of some sort, paved with smooth, shining stone, specked with perfectly groomed trees, and decorated by towering, monolithic echidna statues no less than twenty stories high. The tremendous sentinels looked to be some kind of ancient warriors, emperors, or both. Even farther ahead, shrouded in the blue, atmospheric haze of distance and morning mist, the silhouette of an actual tower could also be seen on the far, far end of that lot. It was clearly where the group was going. Why? Because it was also where all the transports (that Badge had not gotten to shoot down or otherwise blow up yet) were beelining for a landing.

It was all one really good, really hard sprint away. m

Without a flail of the limbs or any confusion upon descent, Geoff smoothly fell to the ground. Both feet planted solidly upon reaching it, letting his forward momentum lead him into a quick spin, propelled by the velocity of the fall and his own self-produced push ahead. Using this, he rolled forward before bursting upward with an extension of his legs, throwing himself into a full on sprint.

A grin of success on his lips, the expression was soon lost in one already too prepared for the business of fending off hostility. Not to mention the hundreds of yards of enemy territory laid out before them. Time to make do and contribute with the forward push.

Already a few unfortunate gizoids were finding their existence cut short by sweeps of crystal fists. Geoff was using the option of resisting the convenience of armor for the sake of speed. The robots, just like before, weren't expressing any actual, powerful forms of attack other than outright piling onto whatever moved, and he could make do with the brief spurts of rock in order to keep the area around him clear. Either way, he was speeding ahead, his feet a blur, taking advantage of his agility.


CLANK

Omnis' landing was nothing close to smooth or efficient. Although his body was essentially quite light for a robot, he still landed heavily on both feet, yet he seemed largely unaffected. Even then, he took a moment to stand straight to examine the chaos before him. He appeared almost a bit too calm and patient for such a situation, but, then again, he lacked any sort of expressions to convey inner thoughts.

As he let his still-red-hued eyes sweep across the battle field, he locked his vision onto the sprinting forms of the two monkeys. Having come to a final decision on what action to take, he started to jog forward before mimicking the other high-speed runs the other attackers had begun.

He started to follow whatever path the pair before him were taking, and as he made his approach, his recently-made green-based color turned into a palette of varying shades of whites and light reds. For now, it seemed unintentional.

The road gave way to the huge lot [aforementioned, read last NPC post if you don't remember it], leaving the group with one final, dangerous dash to the destination.

Transports were crashing all around, setting fires. Gizoid parts were raining, and weaker units were already getting bulldozed out of the way by the sprinting crew. Directly ahead of them, though, was the one thing that could have stopped them: an organized force, set up for an intercept. One very large, tank-like machine (apparently built on some manner of gizoid technology, but sprawled upon four large, insect-like limbs) stood smack in the center of the huge stone court, beneath the giant statues, its guns ready, sighting up the incoming group, ready to stop them from ever getting past to the tower. In front of it were seven of the "elite" gizoids, in formation—an actual team, it appeared, even thematically colored in shades that looked like the Chaos Emeralds.

... Okay, so, a rainbow of robots may not have been the most intimidating thing. If nothing else, though, it showed they were part of a set, and that meant there must have been something special about them. The seven took off in coordination, sprinting toward the incoming combatants—Jam, Rock, Tau, Geoff, Ace, Juke, and Omnis—moving at least as fast, and on a head-on collision course. All things going as planned, they'd all literally launch into head-first, full-power flying punches. Really, it was the sort of maneuver a guy like Badge would have probably appreciated from a group of color-coded warriors, had he been on the ground to see it. Given the armored member of the enemy crew, though, it was probably a good thing he still had his wings.

The Rainbow Squad at first didn't even make the hedgehog bat an eye; it was just another group of the gizoids, right? Yet, upon seeing the coordinated attack aimed directly to every single member their party, he started to believe they were more than just a minor threat.

Watching as a green colored (oh, how fitting) elite rocketed his way, Geoff only wished to keep on moving forward. So, in response with the incoming attack, he skidded to a half-stop before diving forward, pulling himself into a tight spin. The high-pitched whine that usually accompanied such a maneuver grew in volume as he charged the hasty spindash up, a glint of crystal appearing in the whirl that was him, the hedgehog forming it on his quills.

Mere seconds before the gizoid covered the rest of the distance, he burst forward like being shot out of a cannon. Unfortunately, for the robot, it didn't even give the effort to try to dive out of the way. In fact, it only started to swing forward with its fist. Chipped off pieces of crystal erupted as Geoff connected with the limb first. The arm, in a blink of an eye, turned into a mutilated mess of shredded metal. The rest of the robot was merely slammed out of the way, sending it rolling across the ground.

It wasn't long before Geoff was up and running once more, not really bothering to look back to see if the downed robot was up and pursuing again.

Omnis, on the other hand, was, by assumption, not going to have such an easy time with his foe. He, up to this point, had seemed to lack any potential weaponry or skills to assist him to survive in a fight. Then again, none of the group had seem him in a hostile situation.

Upon seeing the elites approaching, he had reverted back to his original black color for the sake of not being confused with the others. The gizoid that chose to attack him was a light grey, providing a perfect contrast of color. This situation seemed to prove, though, that Omnis' master was giving specific instructions to take the rebel gizoid down as well.

Omnis did not falter in step as one of his brethren approached. His first course of action was to lift his arm out straight, and in a flurry of movements and adjustments from the limb, his hand started to hold the appearance of a gun barrel. To hit the change home, the new barrel erupted in a flurry of bullets, all aimed towards the grey elite's way. One by one they chipped into the enemy, yet it did not prevent it from stopping its assault.

When the elite finally reached Omnis, the robot simply dove to the side as the flying-punch skimmed past him. In a follow-up, the black gizoid rolled back onto his feet, jutting his arm behind him as he began to sprint once more, letting out another wave of bullets to fend off the other robot.