Travis blinks at Katy's words, and then looks up as she points, his head tilting to the side as he sees huts in the trees. He gives his head a shake and turns his gaze back onto Katy, his tail flicking behind him a bit at her next words.  "When I have eaten, I may go up. It looks... interesting."  He turns his gaze past Katy, in the direction that she came from, his ears flicking on top of his head.

Michael observes how Emerald handles the situation differently than he has and is quick to realize that she is far more suited to handling situations like this than he is. However Michael is also able to calm himself down and relax as he doesn't have to deal with the mounting pressure of continually answering questions.

When Emerald sits down next to him and asks him her question, Michael nods as he replies, "Yes, I do. Thanks for taking care of that. Dealing with such situations isn't exactly my specialty."

  Joe would have expected Mike to be better practiced under worse conditions.  'Do not use the belt sander to file your nails!'  'The table saw is not a picnic table!'  'If you cut against the grain, the universe will explode!'  Alright, so maybe that last one Mike probably didn't have to say in his shop teacher days.

  "I'm lacking a specific reason really."  Besides, if the kid had continued to have alone time it seemed likely Emerald would crush that situation with a cheerful hammer of...  Where's that thesaurus?... Right, Cheerful hammer of gleefulness.

  "Is there a particular reason I shouldn't I missed?"

  OOC Style: Ahhh, memories of Jr. High shop class and high school 'not shop class but we did some stuff in there' class.  I was the only one who made a tiny house foundation corner that didn't explode under pressure due to skipping the glue gun fights.  And those first two lines of course, are based on RL.

  "Thought you could use an extra pair of hands!" Mittens answers Samuel while wiggling her fingers in front of her face, "That and I wanted to pick your brain about what you thought of our encounter with Ra."

Samuel looks down at Mittens from the ceiling where he's finishing up his current repair work on the engine and thinks to himself, 'she'd not be much help for repairs and might cause more damage...after all she's not trained for this and this isn't something to use for training,but I'll probably get yelled at if I just tell her to 'bug off'...', before he says, "Well given that you haven't had any training on how to repair complex technology that isn't native to this planet unfortunately you won't be of much help."

Samuel then thinks about the second item Mittens had mentioned and then adds, "Well, I know thermite grenades won't be enough to take Ra out... sometimes fighting fire with fire is a bad idea. Truthfully, I'd rather avoid having to fight Ra if it can be helped."

Katy turns her head to her right slightly, but not much since she keeps her eyes on Travis. Her right ear then turns some as well in order to point towards behind her. "Who's there?" she asks to nobody in particular. Could be directed at Travis, could be directed at the one behind her. Although she suspects it's just a forest critter Travis wants to "hunt".

"Been too long since you taught a class full of crazy kids?" she asks Michael with a smile. "Or is it that something else is on your mind?" She offers as she leans in a little, ear perked.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:16, Wed 22 Aug 2007.

Maverick is liking this guy already. He's acting like he doesn't even KNOW what is wrong with being an overlander. "The fact I'm an overlander?" he says in a "Aren't you familiar?" kind of tone. "I mean... you guys saved me, but even heroes have prejudice. I'm just wondering why you seem to have none."

  "I'm more of a 'drive everyone crazy' outlook type really.  And being an Overlander doesn't exactly mean you don't have to worry about the killer robot army situation or they don't feel you'd make a good mindless slave.  Unless they had nothing better to do when they locked you up too."

  He shrugged, "And it also involves less effort to be incredulously annoyed at people for my own reasons on a case by case basis.  Don't have enough free time to hate everyone by default.  Of course, don't see you flipping out trying to kill everyone with a fork just because either."  Caring more than others through apathy.  go figure.

"Time?" Hart calls out as he surfaces at the water pool and removes his scuba mouthpiece.

Nautilus, standing a short distance away from the pool, clicks his stop watch and arcs a brow as he looks from the watch to Hart. "Twenty-five minutes.  Quicker than I expected." He nods "But still under par. I was unable to see all of your work from here, but I'd wager that you're still expending too much excess energy with your movements."

Hart leans forward from the pool and let's out an exasperated sigh. "Got it... That mean you want me to go again?"

The old seabear smiled a bit as he shook his head "I can't have you clean again if there's nothing down there for you to clean, Hart.  Though I'll see for myself later if that's actually the case." He allows himself a short chuckle as Shelley kicks water at Hart again and Hart splashes back with a hand. "For now, I'd say that we're done for the day.  There are some... minor things that I should see to.  Perhaps the princess can help you improve your speed in the off time, hm?" He bows his head to them both before turning to leave. "Princess, if you've need of me, I'll be in library. Do take care, both of you."

As Nautilus walks off, Hart smirks and whips back a bit of water at Shelley. "So what now Shelley? It looks like I've got some free time, and I'm guessing you didn't go out for a swim just to give me a pick-me-up.  You killing time, or do you have something in mind?"

Michael chuckles as he thinks back to the 'old days' and replies to Emerald's question, "No, it's been too long since I could send the crazy kids that felt they didn't need to listen to the rules and obey them to the principal's office. After all, I never even let a student near anything that could be dangerous if not handled carefully till they had proved to be responsible enough to take the necessary safety precautions around that piece of equipment. These days, things just are that simple anymore."

Travis gives a light shake of his head, his tail swishing slightly behind him. "I came in this direction because I had heard something wandering about. I was hoping it would make a good meal, and am seeing if I can hear it again or not." He closes his eyes and just stands there for a couple seconds, before shaking his head again. "I do not hear any decent size animals right now, looks like I have a bit of a search ahead."

  "You have a point," Mittens answers Samuel with a sly smirk, "All my training is in empire class star destroyer propulsion systems so I wouldn't be much help on this kind of craft..."  She amusedly watches for Samuel's surprise then continues cheerfully, "Just kidding of course.  ;)  Still... though I may be a mouse to your Lion's share of technocery, even mice can be indispensable to Lions as the parable teaches."

  With a big smile and an ear-wiggle, Mittens tail-flicks in the most mouse-like way she can.  .^S  "As far as avoiding a fight with Ra, I think you're on to something.  A wise combatant picks their battles rather than allow their battles pick them.  Did you have a specific plan in mind?"  ^.^
This message was last edited by the player at 22:30, Fri 24 Aug 2007.

Samuel sighs as he says, "There is no such thing as an empire class star destroyer. After all why would someone want to destroy a star, that would be so wasteful." Samuel clearly doesn't look impressed as he hangs from the ceiling after hearing 'Mitten's joke'.

Upon hearing Mitten's cheerfully 'explanation' about her joke, Samuel grumbles, "Food is indispensable to all life, and lions are no exception. Although I'm not familiar with any parable dealing specifically with those two creatures, I suspect it isn't about a lion eating a mouse, or you wouldn't have mentioned it."

When Mittens asks about Ra, Samuel shrugs and replies in an unenthusiastic tone of voice, "Not really, other than make sure to keep Ra and all of Robotnik's other minions far away from here... after all who wants an army of lethal robots that wouldn't hesitate to kill or roboticize you in your sleep, knowing where you sleep? Heat and Fire won't work on him, so most thermal based weapons are useless other than as distractions, and since I don't have large supplies of liquid nitrogen, freezing him to make his armor brittle isn't an option... That leaves kinetic, chemical, and electric attacks, and with his heavy metal armor, it would take a large kinetic force to pierce Ra's armor... and I don't know how well insulated Ra is so I can't even guess what electric attacks would do to that robot. Likewise I don't know what chemicals would be useful due to not knowing what Ra's armor is treated against." It is obvious that Samuel does not look forward to the next time he has to deal with Ra.

Maverick ponders how to proceed with the conversation and comes up with a dangerous question to ask Joe. The whole time, he's been talking quite, so he doesn't really have to quiet down and it's not like anyone's listening in... "Then what annoys you?"

Shelly gives Nautilus a mixbreed of salute and wave in a "chou" kind of fashion as she smiles and watches him leave. Then looks at Hart. "I was just gunna go out for a relaxing swim. But when I saw Nautilus and then saw you, I kinda figured out what was going on and that you needed a pick-up! So... yeah. But you aren't naturally aquatic like me, so chances are you're tired of the water for now..." She kinda taps at the corner of her mouth as she looks off to the side as if trying to rack her brains for what to do since OBVIOUSLY she can't go swimming if it doesn't involve Hart now that he's here with her.

Emerald hrms and nods. "I can't say being a teacher crossed my mind back then. But these days..." she pauses. "It's going to be nice to have the extra help around. Once they get settled in, they'll be much more handy to have around." She nods, arms folded. "Speaking of, what is going to be done about that dragon? There's talk that we might not be able to go on as many missions thanks to his arrival."

Katy hmms. Then addresses Travis again. "Well I'm headed for the windmill for it's checkup. Going my way? The fish that dwell there are a great substitute for normal woodland creatures."

Michael chuckles as Emerald 'considers' being a teacher and mutters, "More help is always nice when outside help tends to be in short supply." Michael rubs his chin with his right hand as he contemplates how the chores may end up being redistributed once the new arrivals have settled in, which could make things easier on everyone.

Michael's face scrunches up a bit upon hearing Emerald mention the dragon as it is clear Michael is disgusted by the mere thought of Ra, and the possible ramifications of its presence. "I'm not sure what we'll do about that dragon. But we can't let the presence of one robot force us to cancel missions. We'll just have to adapt and continue on. We may have to utilize the sewers more or other tunnels that are to small for the dragon to utilize when moving around Middletown. Or our next mission may end up being focused on taking that dragon out of the fight. Everything has a weakness, even robotic dragons."

  Mittens pauses rubbing her chin to ponder Samuel's reply.  "The parable tells of a lion who came upon a trapped mouse," Mittens explains with hand gestures, "The mouse offered to the lion, 'Free me and some day I'll repay the favor.'  The lion laughed at the idea.  'How can someone as strong as I ever need the help of a mouse?'  Amused, he helped the mouse escape from the trap anyway.  Later that day the mouse found that same lion trapped in a hunter's snare and chewed through the rope!"  ^.~

  Mittens pauses again with a contemplative look.  "Compared to Robotnic, our local dragon is a mouse.  I understand we share the goal of defeating Robotnic.  As you pointed out, both freedom fighter groups put together don't have enough firepower to overcome Ra much less Robotnic.  We'll win this war with wits if anything.  Best I've come up with so far is to somehow lure Ra to the lake where his fire will be less effective, but even if we defeat him, there's still Robotnic to contend with."  -.-  o.o!

  "That reminds me!" Mittens chirps before asking with a giggle, "How in the world did you get a video of Robotnic strip dancing!?  That's gotta be the funniest thing I've ever seen!"  XD

Samuel listens to Mitten's telling of the story about the lion and the mouse and simply thinks that it would be summarized as ones karma is what one makes for oneself, if someone is not careful it can come back to haunt you, but it can just as easily save you.

Upon hearing Mittens mention her idea about Ra Samuel grumbles, "That is a horrible plan...you don't want to lead an enemy to the front doorstep of a secret base. Your petter off using fire suppression tools, but then again I doubt anyone has any strong enough to counter Ra's fire attacks. It still may be possible to somehow lodge something in Ra's mouth so that when Ra tries to breath fire his head explodes due to either an explosive that the fire ignites or a buildup of pressure due to the blockage."

Samuel chuckles though when he answers about the 'dancing Robotnik video' and simply answers, "I simply use digital editing tools to overlay Robotnik's body over footage of someone at a Party I was at who got incredibly drunk and made a fool of himself dancing. With the right software it's not hard to adjust how an obese body would move in those circumstances, and such software is easy to come by as it's often used in animating video games and such."

  It actually was a dangerous question, if Maverick decided to put it to use sometime.  "I'm gonna have to go with attempts to kill and/or enslave me.  Just occasionally would be bad enough, but it turns up a lot for most people these days."

  "People going on about how their life is so much worse than everyone else's can be put to practical use.  As it means there is no shortage of people my life is better than.  So while it's close it's not quite on the annoyance list."

  Sometimes a win by default is the most satisfying win.

Travis blinks a bit at that question, then shrugs his shoulders a bit and nods his head as he steps closer to Katy. It is a bit off a odd reaction for a cat, since they tend to love fish so much, maybe he is not actually a cat after all. "I guess." He stretches a bit, staff in hand as he moves over to Katy, ready to follow her.

  Mittens winces slightly at Samuel's scathing assessment of her not-so-brilliant idea, but listens with interest at his explanation for the humorous hologram.  "It's good to see you smile, Sam," she answers with a serene smile of her own, :) "Back to the mouse story...  I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your rescuing me from certain doom."

  Mittens kneels down respectfully.  "I didn't thank you immediately because I allowed my jealousy of your strength and skill blind me to your courage and selflessness...  again.  For that I offer my most humble apologies, Sir Stevenson."  v.v

  "Why does this have to be so difficult?!" Mittens complains in a silent prayer.  She slouches and sighs.  "Note to self... don't ask God questions you don't want the answer to."  >.>
This message was last edited by the player at 15:54, Tue 04 Sept 2007.

Samuel looks surprised momentarily when Mittens mentions his 'courage' and 'selflessness' as Samuel has thought of himself as more self-centered and just to angry to care about the dangers that can't be avoided. That and Samuel isn't used to anyone calling him 'sir'. Samuel wonders if it's being meant as a reference to ancient knights or just as an alternative to mister.

Samuel resumes finishing up the repairs on the engine that he can complete with the parts at hand as he states, "Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses. That is why people have to work in groups when in situations beyond what an individual can handle. Everyone is different and has a different perspective, often based on their individual strengths and weaknesses. What you may see as courageous and selflessness, I see as side effects of ulterior motives that are neither courageous or selfless." However at this time, Samuel doesn't feel the need to go into detail about his ulterior motives.