The sensors in both Samuel's diagnostic bracer and his cybernetic implants warn him of the two SWATBots. Fortunately they haven't noticed him yet but that have noticed the 'walking shrub' which drastically alters Samuel's situation. Samuel makes a split second decision to act. He knows the person in the 'bad costume' won't be safe for long. Thus before the SWATBots can report anything back to base, he whips out both his laser cutter pistol and his gauss gun and using this sensors to aim the weapons.

In the span of what seems like only two seconds since the SWATBots noticed the 'unidentified object' Samuel relies on his implants and the sensors in his diagnostic bracer to do what he otherwise could not. For while both SWATBots are stationary while trying to figure out what to do about the 'unidentifed object' Samuel easily has the time to aim his laser pistol at the visor of one of the SWATBots while simultaneously aiming his gauss gun at the neck of the other SWATBot. Samuel then fires one shot from each of this two weapons hoping to take out the preoccupied SWATBots before they can even finish compiling their report inquiring what to do about the 'unidentified' object.

Samuel hopes that both SWATBots drop without any problems, but he's ready to fight incase they don't. 'I hope this works since if it does I won't have long to get both of them into the treeline where I should have enough time to remove and toss away their tracing beacons before moving them deeper into the woods to work on gutting them for parts and a complete SWATBot shell for me to use....Hmm, I wonder how badly I just surprised whoever is in that bad costume.'

Probabley not as badly as the walking shrub surprised Samuel. Nevertheless, the SWATbots are downed. However, before Samuel was able to take them out....

Meanwhile, at Middletown's headquarters:

Ra observes the data sent to him on the computers screen and sees what looks like a stilted robot with a hat. "What manner of trickery is this?" Ra thinks to himself. When he notices the robots who sent the data got interrupted with a sudden end, he looks over at Blipvert. "I believe we have invaders. Seek and destroy."

Back to the current location: Edge of Middletown

Other SWATbots hear the two that got shot fall with a loud clank and quickly hurry to investigate. Seeing as how Samuel took out 2 of the 5 that were guarding the more open area, that leaves 3 headed his way.

Samuel grumbles as his sensors inform him he wasn't fast enough and that now odds are the three other SWATBots as part of this patrol are heading this way, which means he has to act faster than the SWATBots. And this throws a monkey wrench into his plans.

Thus Samuel runs to the two downed SWATBots while saying to the 'shrub', "If you want to live get to the treeline and HIDE as the three other SWATBots in the area are probably heading here right now," as Samuel holsters his laser pistol and switches the gauss gun to his left hand, as he knows with his cybernetic implants in that arm he'll be able to use the gun while moving easier. Samuel then quickly bends down and grabs one of the SWATBots and picks it up like a sack of potatoes while activating the antigrav features in his shoes to negate enough of his weight to let him run a short distance. As Samuel doesn't have time to stop to see what the 'shrub' is doing he just rushes towards the first peice of cover he sees, which happens to be where the two Aquarius Freedom Fighters are hiding as he needs a spot to hide the downed SWATBots since he wants to keep them for parts.. but Samuel expects that he'll have to fight the three other SWATBots to get the other SWATBot...which is something Samuel isn't looking forward to... as a three on one isn't something Samuel wanted to deal with... as he knows now that his intended mission is blown, all because of whoever wanted to dress up as a shrub with a SWATBot's head.

  Joe nods as the boss lady heads off and gets on the whole table and map corner abuse thing.  He wonders how many times it would take till the corners of the map are nonexistent for a moment before deciding on 'a lot'.

  "Hmm, what would be the second biggest hassle of an area..."  The way things tend to go, its always the high disaster potential areas that get dealt with.  However things haven't been dramatically building up enough recently for a trip to where Ra hangs out, so that leaves less dangerous areas like where they keep the volatile explosive materials and such.

  You're either bored out of your mind or would really prefer to be someplace bland instead of robot death land.  What ever happened to moderation?
This message was last edited by the player at 04:16, Tue 16 Jan 2007.

  Lifesaving tips like, "3 badnicks incoming!  Hide!" tend to change one's opinion of the tipper for the better.  The bush...  Mittens decides to take Samuel's advice and dives for cover - the same nearby cover where everyone else is.  Once there she drops the disguise and stares in amazement at the Seabear.

  "Are you from the lake?" she asks.

Katy arrives at the planning hut and notices the map is pinned. "Thanks, Joe." She then looks at Michael and Emerald. "Good timing everyone. Since you're all here we can begin." She then turns her attention to the map. "It just so happens I ran accross some interesting information. The backup power originates at a generator that's near the dump. Here's what I want you to do: Two of you will sneak over to the main generator while one of you stays behind at the backup generator. At an appointed time, all three of you will make both generators inoperable and head for the dump right away. The bots will be expecting you to go the opposite direction, so you should be safe as long as you stay out of sight. Grab what you need from the dump and head out. If you gather any intel on your way home, be sure to let me know."

This info on the backup generator is crucial since the main generator, being right next to the roboticization building, was always too risky to attack.

"You know I strongly prefer fewer numbers, but if you believe there should be any others on this mission, please speak up."

The seabear looks over at Mittens and then at Samuel as he arrives. "Well... I guess the cover's been blown." The skunk shrugs and says, "Yes, ma'am. We're from Aquarius. We've been sent to make sure that ox masquerading as an overlander doesn't get himself roboticized or worse."

Samuel quickly rattles off, "My cover wouldn't have been blown if fur-for-brains didn't think SWATBots were stupid enough to not make a report about that bad disguise even if they wouldn't think it was a threat, their bosses with more brainpower would want it captured to investigate it...Exceuse me for not being as heartless as an overlander. Then she would have been roboticized, now excuse me I have anotehr swatbot body to grab. Make sure this one isn't left behind," as Samuel drops off the swatbot body at the feet of the two from Aquarius before running back to the other SWATBOt body as fast as he can, picking it up and hopefully getting back to the others before any of the other SWATBots get into the area.

Michael grins as he says,"That is a good plan, but is it safe to have one person go solo for a part of this mission?" Michael wonders who Katy has in mind for the solo part... as he thinks the raid is well thought out, but wonders why a group of 3 and not a 4 for two pairs.

Katy is speachless for a moment. Then smacks her forhead. "Stupid... I kept thinking four because I keep thinking I'll go with you even though I'm staying here." She cracks a smirk. "I guess now ya know how much I wanted to go with... sorry. Yeah. Take a fourth member."

Unfortunately, the three extra SWATs are already at the fallen body of the SWATbot Samuel was about to go fetch. They seem to be talking to each other about something and looking around.

  Mittens glances from the very heavy Swatbot to the departing Human to the two Lake People.  He can't seriously expect 3 little furries to drag that hunk of junk around now that the Badnicks are on alert, can he?  "He's a few bullets short of a full clip, isn't he?" Mittens asks the skunk while twirling her finger at her head, "In any case, I'm gunna make us a diversion so we can escape."

  With that, she scarfs up her former disguise and begins to rig up a scarecrow made from said disguise by hanging it from a tree branch with a rope.  "That should buy us some time,"  she tells them, "Let's hope the Swats'll be drawn to the decoy once blaster-brains comes back."  She then begins to string her bow.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:50, Tue 16 Jan 2007.

The frustrating part of playing babysitter to the shrub-master and the stubborn ox overlander (Which is of course what they meant by "ox": He's stubborn) is that they were given an order from the princess. Oh wait! The skunk couldn't care less about royal decrees from a dead kingdom. So the skunk looks at the seabear and says, "If this gets any more chaotic, let's get out of here."

But the seabear shakes his head. "Sorry. I have to stay. You can leave if you like, but I have my orders from the princess."

"She'd rather you stay alive, man."

"That might even be the case, and knowing her, I'd say it IS the case. But that's inconsiquential. In seabear society, if you fail to obey the orders of royalty, you are among the lowest scum of Mobius."

"Suit yourself. I'd rather be scum and reassured by a loving, kind princess than be a roboticized or dead person who isn't considered scum."

"Enough. We don't even know that running is neccessary yet."
This message was last edited by the player at 03:02, Tue 16 Jan 2007.

Samuel frowns as he sees the three SWATBots staring at their downed comrade, but that doesn't deter him. Samuel remains quiet as he points his Gauss gun at the three SWATBots and holds down the trigger to release a rapid spray of two dozen projectiles at the three SWATBots as he waves the gun back and forth slightly to insure all three get hit with enough rounds to drop them before they can turn and fire at him since he doesn't have the time to snipe them like he did with the first two.

After the sustained burst is over, his cybernetic implants remind him that he is now at half a clip as the three SWATBots fall to the ground sparking. Samuel grumbles about the wasted ammo as his implants inform him that about half the rounds missed the SWATBots and impacted the building off in the distance... but Samuel isn't too concerned as the metal projectiles are easy to manufacture as they are little more than shaped metal toothpicks.

Samuel then picks up the other SWATBot corpse he was going after and then heads back to the others as Samuel knows he now has the time to remove both of the tracking beacons before moving the SWATBot corpses to another location with the help of the others.

Upon getting back to the others, Samuel immediately starts working to disable and remove the tracking beacons while saying, "Okay we got enough time to deal with the tracking beacons from these two SWATBots, then with your help we'll carry them out of here... then in a few hours after things cool off, I'm going back in through the sewers... unless another fur-for-brains decides to walk up to the SWATBots in a rediculous disguise,." Samuel continues working to remove the tracking beacons from the SWATBots using his tools and sensors to keep working fast while still keeping aware of any approaching robots, although Samuel hopes that he'll have enough time to get both beacons deactivated before anything else shows up.

Micheal rubs his chin before asking, "Any suggestions on who we take as our fourth member for this raid?" as Michael glances back and forth between Katy, Emerald, and Joe.

Emerald thinks about it for a while. Then nods and says, "I think we should bring Valin. He can stay behind at the scrapyard while the rest of us disable the power. Then, when we head back, his brawn will be helpful, not only in carrying the materials back, but plowing through any resistance we get on the way out. Since the scrapyard is at the southern edge of Middletown, it's not like he'd be fighting his way from the center of the chaos. So I think it's safe."

Michael shakes his head and says, "But that leave two people going solo for parts of the mission, since Valin wouldn't be with the indivudal going after one of the generators on his own. And how are we disabling these generators anyways, they are guarded and large. I don't think we can make a distraction that would draw away their guards without also bringing Ra into the equation and I'd rather not do that. So how are we dealing with the guards and disabling the generators?" as Michael realizes that Katy never said how the generators were to be disabled.

It's around that time that the robot known as Blipvert arrives as per his orders from Ra. As his eyes glow red, he turns on his creepy green lights at his waist and begins to speak in a voice that echoes with a resounding creepiness only a robot can achieve, "INTRUDERS! SURRENDER AT ONCE!" With those simple words, he commands about 25 SWATbots who are behind him to proceed towards the area where Samuel and the others are.

Samuel isn't phased by the robot shouting, but he dose pause to silently signal the three mobians with him to remain hidden and silent as he has just finished dealing with the two tracking beacons.

Samuel then is very careful to switch out the clip in his gauss gun for a fresh clip and puts the half empty clip where the fresh clip came from on his leg. Samuel make a mental note of which clip is now the one that is only half full, but he figures if he needs to deal with over two dozen robots while retreating, he wants to make sure that he has a full clip.

Samuel then is quick to hook up his two grappling hooks to the two SWATBot 'corpses' as he has already figured out how to get both out at once with only himself and three mobians. He'll support most of the weight, while the two Freedom Fighters each support some of the weight from a single SWATBot.

Samuel silently tries to inform the other two on what he wants them to do. Next he visualizes the area in the map in his mind's eye to figure how far he has to go to get into the woods and be able to loose the slower SWATBots, although he does realize that carrying the two SWATBot 'corpses' his group won't be much faster.

However Samuel knows he is only carrying 125 rounds left for his gauss gun and 59 for his laser pistol... so fighting these many robots isn't what he wants to do. Fortunately he has a few tricks up his sleeves.

  Joe while he didn't really have any particular thoughts on who got to go solo aside from a vague guess on who would end up doing so, did have some on dealing with the generators.

  "Well, considering Robotnic wouldn't want to go through the hassle of replacing numerous robots when preforming generator maintenance, there would probably be some way to turn it off.  Though the obvious disregard for safety features probably means there isn't any emergency switch and that would only be done from Ra's control setup.  And we want it to stay off.  Failing that, things stop working when new parts are introduced between where old parts are supposed to be able to move, fuel getting introduced to sparks because carrying that much sugar for the tank would be a hassle, or any other method we tend to use to abuse the scenery."

  Right, even Joe has offered ways to get things done now.  Wasn't Mike supposed to be the sensible one?  Why hasn't he given any info they can use yet?  Note to self, get more materials that explode when either properly handled or mishandled to make up for lack of advice in the future.  People whining abut how dangerous things are dangerous is a small price to pay to get things done in the time normally reserved for complaint time.

  Mittens watches the scene in fascination.  Between machine gun fire, a spaceman scrounging and butchering robots, creepy boss-bot voices, and hand signals, she looks like a kitten watching a windup mouse spin around.  @.@  She looks to the man-eating mermaid - erm...  merMAN and his skunk friend for some semblance of sanity and follows their lead.  Meanwhile she fantasizes about fighting through the robot army and fighting the boss again.  >:D

Katy nods to Michael. "That's easily remedied. Valin goes with Emerald to the backup generator since it's right there near the scrapyard. You and Joe go to the main generator since Joe has the grappling hook and thus the ability to avoid ground forces since the main generator will be more guarded for sure. But I want to add one more thing. It's not neccessary, but stronly preferred if possible: Make the problem at the backup generator look like a rat chewed through it or something. As long as it looks like it wasn't done by freedom fighters, we'll be better off than if Ra figures out we purposely downed the backup generator. The less he thinks we know, the better."

Blipvert says, "They've been warned. Enemy is not a freedom fighter. Engage with extreme hostility."

That said, the SWATbots switch their lasers to burn and begin firing a barrage of lasers at the general area around Mittens's scarecrow. Blipvert turns on his personal blinding lights and looks to the ground, noticing drag marks on the ground that lead to the bushes Samuel is hiding in. He points and the laser fire soon gets diverted to Samuel's hiding place. This robot is smart. But what's worse is the blinding lights being pointed in Sam's direction along with... well out come the speakers and a very LOUD accompanyment of chalkboard scraping, high-pitch screaming, and thunder bass sounds all at once come from Blipvert's speaker system. The blinding lights and nasty sounds quickly accompanied by change in color of lights at one change of color per .1 seconds.

Blipvert is one annoying robot. Especially since the SWATbots seem uneffected by it since they are BEHIND the lightshow and speakers. Whatever effect it may have on them must be halved at LEAST since there is still a barrage of laser fire.

The seabear and the skunk don't have time to argue with Samuel and quickly grab hold of whatever Samuel showed them to and start hefting when suddenly, the skunk lets go to cover his ears while the seabear winces in pain. All he can do is point deeper into the forest as if to say now's the time to run.

Samuel grunts as he puts in earplugs as soon as the loud noises begin. Samuel chuckles as the same earplugs that he has to wear around noisy mining equipment works just as well against annoying robots. Then he slides down his tinted goggles, which normally he uses to protect his eyes while using equipement that throws off bright sparks, but they shield his eyes from the lightshow jsut as effectively. Samuels then grins as the noise and light no longer bother him. Now his grin becomes a cruel smile as he pulls out two palm sized objects with with strange lettering on them that looks quite alien. Infact it is in the Dinonian written language and says 'Caution, Highly Flamable - Thermite enhanced 'flash bang' grenade'. And his cybernetic implants along with his diagnostic bracer have just finished calculating where the SWATBots are firing from, and where blipvert must be dur to his sound and lightshow.

Samuel says, "Amature," although with Blipvert's loudspeakers it probably can't be heard by anyone. 'Although I've seen worse plans used by Space Pirates, this is still rather pathetic, but it does remind me of a joke Markus and I pulled as children back on Tanelorn.' Samuel then uses the calculations his cybernetics have made to know exactly where he has to toss the grenades and how to set them for maximum effect. Samuel then quickly throws them while keeping himself behind the cover as he knows sticking his arm out would be an easy way to loose it. Samuel knows the only thing keeping them alive is the fact the laserfight hasn't breached the cover... yet so he has to act quickly. Samuel knows that Blipvert's light and sound show will mask the grenades till it is too late to do anything about them as the first is set to go off in midair when thrown, calculated to blow up a few feet infront of blipvert, while the second will blow up in the middle of the SWATBot formation.

Samuel waits for his two grenades to go off as Samuel specifically modified them to annoy electronic sensors in addition to just the normal senses... in addition to the sound and light flash, they also release a huge heat plumb to neutralize thermal sensors and give of enough of an electromagnetic static to interfer with most eletronic sensors for about a minute, easily enough time for Samuel to get the others out of here.