24 hours after Channelwood's latest mission...

A video recording plays back, showing Ra getting his own missiles shot at him. The wolf looking at it pauses the video and looks over at her commander. "According to the data files we received from the MHU, that dragon is not a roboticized individual, but completely created by Robotnik. Why Robotnik decided to create a machine of that magnitude for such a remote area would normally be beyond me, but... after seeing this video, I'm convinced the Channelwood Freedom Fighters could very well be the edge we need here in Robotropolis. The harder we hit here, the more likely we are to cut the head off this beast. Mr Willis... I advise a recruiting course of action. And nobody could sell our cause better than you."


One week later....

Ra growls low in his hangar where he is regenerating. A screen comes up and he sees none other than Robotnik. "Master..." Ra bellows, "Why have you sent this... whatever it is?"

Robotnik frowns. "You're lucky that's all I did. I was tempted to scrap you after all those failures. But you are cunning and powerful... two things I like in someone as ruthless as you. So for now, I'm performing a test to see how well you do. Besides..."

That's when Robotnik grins. "I let her do as she pleases, as long as it doesn't interfere with my personal plans. So it was mostly her decision, not mine. Learn how to deal with it. Accomplish something. Anything. And there will be a reward waiting for you."

With that, Robotnik hangs up. Ra looks over at the new arrival annoyed. "Don't make me regret your existence."

The young Overlander female smiles brightly and says, "I promise to do nothing short of making the Freedom Fighters feel loved." before hurrying off towards the woods.

----

Meanwhile, in Channelwood, nobody has been on a mission since Katy received her injury. Timothius had left instructions with Channelwood for Katy's care and promised he'd return in a week, so he is due to show up soon.

Katy is stubbornly trying to get back on her feet and mostly gets around on a crutch under Timothius' insistence. She had fractured a few bones including her tibia, meaning she couldn't put much weight or stress on those bones. Her mind is all there, but she is growing impatient with the healing process.

"Stupid injuries..." she grumbles. "So much to do... so little time. Every second I waste, Robotnik gets stronger..."

She crutches her way off to Michael, looking to get the day going. Despite the fact Katy is an early bird, between her injuries and Michael taking a large portion of Katy's duties off her hands, Katy isn't about as early as usual. She shows up for breakfast at around the same time as everyone else. Nevertheless, she hopes to see Michael there.

Maverick is eating with everyone else in the Dining Hall. He's in better spirits than he was a week ago. Everyone pulled together, fought back and won! And to top it off, he was included in that fight. Maverick feels he's officially part of the village now. This doesn't stop how much he seems to like hanging out with Joe, but it seems Maverick has warmed up to Valin now. And, of course, Mika. With the number of people Maverick can say he actually likes growing to a point where he might need more than one hand to count them, Maverick can't help but know he can't leave this place. Currently, he's sitting next to Mika.

Emerald is serving breakfast as usual, though she's got some help from Mika. It's been this way for a while now and Emerald is just happy nobody has been on the battlefield for a while. She sings a merry tune and even decides to do something silly by serving a pair of eggs to form the eyes and a curved pair of bacon to make a mouth as she serves smiley faces to everyone.

Angel has stuck around Channelwood this long to familiarize herself with the people there. After all, she has as much time as she feels is necessary to do her mission. But today, she will be headed to Aquarius to hang out there. Having already contacted Shelly via the communicator she gave Timothius, Angel know where to go. But for now, Angel is joining everyone else for breakfast. Currently, she's seated across from Joe.

Timothius is eating breakfast also, though back at Aquarius. He fully intends to take advantage of Angel coming today so he can borrow her for a ride to Channelwood if possible. But for now, he just relaxes with the others, sitting near Hart.

"Good morning, Hart. I'm going to Channelwood today to check on Katy. Care to join me?"

Shelly is eating in the Aquarius Hall as well, reading the notes given her by all the participants of the Scuba Gear Retrieval mission. She can't wrap her mind around running right up to Ra, much less one of his shoulder missiles. On top of that, she can't help but feel she picked right by Mittens... though the whole thing with Mittens and Michael being at odds at a moment when it could have been lethal for such an argument is unsettling to her.

(Shelly would have contacted Michael via the Aquarius communicator Katy has in order to get his side of the story also. If you like to tell me anything specific, Mike, lemme know.)

Shelly looks towards Nautilus and says, "Samuel and Milloni have really pulled through. Sam has a prototype SWAT suit." She says, as if not paying attention to what she's reading. "I'm preparing the last details for a mission to Urser. Now that we have the scuba gear for some extra help, I think we can finally raid the old armory for some decent weapons."

Mittens has been spending most of her time practicing underwater combat in her new scuba suit.  She'll never completely overcome her aversion to water, but it sure doesn't show.  She spends nearly every waking moment underwater.  This because she's got it in her head that the next adventure will be a wet one.  :P  Today is no exception.  She's on her way to go train some more when she overhears Shelly mention some of her favorite words.

"Mission?" she asks with an eager look, "Raid?  Weapons? "

She wags her tail excitedly.

Phil was reluctant to wake up so early but he's on an important mission and Rai was eager to get started.  Thanks to her urging, the two of them have already found the place where the swats were defeated by the retreating CFF / AFF alliance.

"Good grief," Phil says, "And to think just one girl did all this!  Remind me to stay on Katy's good side."

Phil is an urban warrior, not a woodsman.  In spite of plentiful evidence, he has no idea that several well prepared people were responsible for this carnage, not one.

"We're not going to find Channelwood, so let's have them find us.  We're far enough away from town that if I make some noise only the goodguys will hear.  So... Shall I do the shouting or would you like to do the honors?"

Lucky's been doing his best to lay low since the rescue.  The only exception is that he's been trying to work up the courage to ask Candy on a date...  which will never happen.  He just quietly eats his breakfast quietly, trying to just blend because he's learned hiding only draws more attention.

Raichel smiles. "Sure!" and with that, takes in a deep breath, fists clenched to either side of her before yelling towards the direction the carnage points. "HEEEEEEYYYYY!!! IS ANYBODY OUT THEEEERE?! WE'RE HERE TO HEEELLLLP!!"

She waits a moment, hoping she got through. "How long should we wait before we make camp somewhere?"

Mika sits quietly at the table.  She's good and hungry after getting up early to do a good deal of the prep work for today's breakfast.  Slicing bacon, getting bread in the oven, prepping fruit for the vegitarians, squeezing juice and getting on 5 gallons of high octane tea to get everyone awake.

Between bites she looks over towards Maverick and starts conversation, "Buenas dias, Dolce.  Did you sleep well last night?"

Mika's been spending the week getting familiar with the treebound maze they call home, as well as acting as sous chef in the kitchen with Emerald.  And if anyone needs someone to blame for the extra spicy fruit sauce that's been the new condiment that's been burning through everyone who's tried it.  It's Mika's fault.

  'My Doom sense and Moron sense are knife fighting for priority...  Maybe if I ignore it, at least one of them will go away?'

  Results on ignoring trace sound effects from Yelling.  Success.
  Results on ignoring a generic sense of impending doom.  Failure.
  Questionable results on if Joe was a moron or overly philosophical.  Why?

  "So, are there any implications that eating faces via stabbing them in the eyes is considered wholesome?"  This in regards to the stylized breakfast.

Like many others, Valin is currently eating his breakfast. As Joe asks his question regarding the way the breakfast is presented, Valin looks at the 'face' that his breakfast and ponders the implication of the comment. The gorilla then shrugs and replies, "I'm not sure... but I don't think Emerald had such intentions when she made breakfast for us."

To say Samuel has been busy for the past week would be a bit of an understatement as he has spent a lot of time building the prototype SWATbot suit. Currently Samuel is still working on it to make sure that there isn't anything wrong with the suit since he'd rather it fail a test in a secure environment, than have a failure occur in the field which could result in his capture and roboticization.

There is however one thing Samuel does regret that has occurred within the last week. Which is that he wasn't present to see Ra get blasted with his own missiles. That and the fire suppressant to the mouth sounded hilarious to Samuel, as it gave him the mental image of Ra with a face full of bubblegum.

While most others are currently eating breakfast, Michael has already eaten his breakfast and is currently working on chores in Channelwood. By taking on a significant portion of Katy's duties while she is recovering from her injuries has mean that Michael has had to shift his schedule around a bit to make sure he has time to get everything done. Which includes getting up a bit earlier than he normally does to get started.

After all, he has more work to do, but not more time in the day. Needless to say, Michael has been quite busy since the mission and it is starting to look like he's barely getting enough sleep at night.

Hart is eating breakfast with the rest of the Aquarius team. Things have been pretty quiet since they got back from the last mission, and he's thankful for that. He'd been sure to make proper notes on the last mission to give to Pierson, and he gave a full report to Shelly on how the mission went and, later in private, how Mittens did as a leader. While still a little unpredictable, he basically told Shelly that she did a good job, really kept the team's spirits up, and even taught them some skills for silent communication. Of course, the faux pas with Michael after the mission seems to be kind of a mark against her, but Hart told Shelly that he couldn't tell if it was really a serious mistake or if it just seemed that way because tensions were so high overall after the mission.

When Timothius asks Hart about joining him, the deer shrugs, "Eh, I guess it couldn't hurt to get out and see how things are going up on the surface." He nods after a pause, "Yeah, I think I'll join you. The way things ended last time kinda left a bad taste in my mouth... It'd be nice to check out Channelwood now that things are a little more relaxed and we're not falling in at the start or end of some battle."

Nautilus nods at Shelly's words, his eyes showing his happiness at focusing on reclaiming Urser after spending so much time with Middletown. His expression is still rather serious overall, however.

"Samuel and Milloni have indeed set some very great things in motion, and more of the new arrivals to Aquarius are finally becoming somewhat more competent in underwater travel and combat... Though many have a very long river ahead of them. Still, a raiding mission, along with some reconnaissance, is a wise choice for our first stroke to make now. What remains to do now is determine who will be going on this mission and who will be staying behind to protect Aquarius? Do you already have a roster in mind, Princess?"

Upon Mittens coming upon them at the mention of the word 'mission', Nautilus affixes a serious gaze on Mittens. "Calm yourself, please, Mittens. Details are still being finalized."

The little girl rabbit known as Candy sits next to Lucky. "Hey there, Lucky! How've you been?" she pulls out a balloon and blows into it, inflating it and twisting it with amazing quickness and skill as she makes a balloon kitty. She has already eaten, which means it's time for her to go around making sure people smile.

(OOC Sidenote: Forgot to mention. But now, it'd have been clarified that Candy mistook Katy for Katy's mom because Candy doesn't remember Katy as a "grown up", but as a child. So since the only grown up she knew who resembled Katy was Katy's mom...)

Benji is sitting in his lookout post when he overhears someone yelling in the distance. He doesn't have the Mess Hall's conversations to blot out his hearing, hence his usefulness being where he is. Not knowing who could be out there or how trustworthy the origin of the voice is, he decides to pull the nearby string that sounds a medium-volume bell throughout Channelwood that is just loud enough to interrupt ordinary conversation. Once that's done, he pulls the "intercom" (Which is just a network of what amount to paper-cup phone-lines) to his mouth and says, "Attention: Yells heard in the distance. Sounds like potential allies." he repeats the message one more time in case whoever needed to know didn't hear it the first time. Then Benji sits and waits, binoculars handy.

When Katy sees Michael isn't in the Mess Hall, she grumbles and crutches right back out and starts looking for him. Figuring he's probably busy, Katy decides it better not to yell for him, lest she cause him to get distracted. For all she knows, Mike could get crushed under some kind of heavy equipment if distracted.

Amy is nearby and watches Katy enter the room only to leave. She already knows what this means and gets up to follow Katy, hoping she won't need to help Katy since that would likely mean Katy would be suffering.

Katy soothes herself with thoughts of Robotnik some day working his fat off in a prison somewhere. Not that it makes her cheer up much, but it's better than nothing. When she finally spots Michael, she crutches over to him.

"Mike... your diligence is exceptional as always. Thanks for all you done. But I need you for something else right now. Suppose you could delegate your tasks for a little while and come with me to the planning room upstairs? I'm positive Emerald and Valin will be happy to help you out for a little while."

Katy then perks an ear when she hears the intercom. She looks back at Michael and is about to speak when Amy says, "I can tell Valin to take care of the intercom if you like."

Katy glances to Amy and nods. With that, Amy runs off to inform Valin...

Maverick nods to Mika. His face starts to get red, but not from embarrassment. The spice is getting to him, but he's trying not to show it. Hoping to distract from this, he says, "Well enough." He slides something towards Mika. Apparently, it's a clay heart that's been painted red with gold-painted letters that read "I love you, Miss Mika." He sips milk, hoping that will help calm the spices.

It's then he hears the intercom, but figures it's not his place to do anything about it until someone tells him to.

Emerald grins at Joe and Valin. "I didn't." she concurs, validating Valin's statement right before lip-syncing a "thank you" to Valin. "Though given the fact that stabbing SWATbots in the eyes is good for your health, I would almost argue that is half of the equation." she winks at Joe.

However, soon as Emerald hear's Benji over the com, Emerald says, "Valin, go ahead and eat. I'll go check it out. I'm done cooking and if anyone needs more, Mika can handle it."

Angel chuckles from Joe's comment. After Emerald says her piece, Angel raises an eyebrow. She doesn't add anything though, opting to stay out of that one unless she's addressed.

Timothius smiles at Hart. "Or so we can hope... we weren't expecting the CFF to suddenly be chasing one of their children to Middletown. But at least I know Michael will support me if I say Katy can't go on a mission." he says as if his own statement relieves him.

Orion shows up in Samuel's working area with a tray that has food on it. "Hey Samuel... you eaten yet?" he asks as he approaches the hard-working human. "If not, I've got a tray here with your name on it."

Shelly looks at Mittens and grins. "A mission is when you have a group of people sent to do a task or service. A raid is like a surprise attack. And weapons are tools of destruction, usual meant for harming an opponent." she sticks her tongue out. "Sorry.. you just opened yourself up for that one. Yes, we're going on a mission. Yes, you can join. Yes, I've noticed how much you've been practicing under water with your suit and no, you are not leading the team this time... I am."

She then looks at Nautilus and says, "And I guess that answers your question too. I do have a few in mind for this mission. I'm glad you approve of the kind of mission I've got in mind, though it's a no-brainer if you ask me. Five, no.. six new members to our group and we don't have weapons for any of them. Lessee... that's Harrison, Mittens, Orion, Thomas, Timothius and Walden. Orion mentioned something about managing to keep his dagger. Mittens came with a make-shift sword. Harrison wants a hammer. Thomas said anything is better than being empty-handed. Timothius and Walden, though..."

Shelly skews her mouth a little in thought. "Timothius doesn't like weapons and thinks he'll hurt himself and the people around him if he has one. Walden... well... understandably, Walden doesn't want to see action at all. But maybe a weapon in hand would make him more confident?"

Shelly then ohs and says, "As for who, I already mentioned Mittens. I wanna bring Thomas, Samuel, Milloni, Crucible, myself and any others who really want to come. So that makes a team of no less than six. Hopefully no more than eight. That will make for a good team: 1 leader, 2 fighters one of whom has leadership skill, 2 techies, 1 zealot who doubles as a detective and room for two extra of whatever skill set. Though I guess Samuel could be counted as a heavy hitter due to his size. I just think he has a better head on his shoulders than he has fighting skill. But mostly, I want him on this mission so he can familiarize himself with Urser and hopefully find a few of the things he needs."

Shelly looks back at Mittens. "I want you because of your enthusiasm. You'll be a good group instigator / encourager. The key thing I noticed in the reports on your activities was that you never put anyone down and didn't let anything discourage you. Which is what I had expected would be the case."

Shelly returns her eyes to Nautilus. "Find out discretely who else is aching to see some action and then let me know who they are. Don't let on about the mission." she glances back to Mittens. "You... don't say a word about anything yet. No offense, but you don't have 'discrete' down that well." she says that last part with an impish grin and semi-teasingly.

She then looks from one to the other and says, "But all thoughts greatly appreciated from both of you."

Upon hearing Benji's voice, Valin starts to get up, despite not having finished eating yet when Emerald speaks. "Thank you Emerald." Valin then sits back down and resumes eating, although Valin hurries as he eats as he suspects he'll be needed elsewhere soon enough.

Michael stops working on his chores when Katy approaches him, "Didn't Timothius say you need to take things easy till you recovered? I've already delegated what I can, although I do suppose I can put things on hold for a short while to see what it is that has you up and about." as Michael puts away his tools in his tool belt for the time being.

Michael then hears Benji's voice on the intercom but as Amy volunteers to handle the situation by going to Valin, with Katy's approval, Michael doesn't see the need to speak up regarding the matter.

As Michael watches Amy head off towards the mess hall, where Michael suspects Valin is, Michael turns to Katy and asks, "I've not gotten around to asking you yet, why would Robotnik allow one of his robots to use a portable deroboticizer on someone? It doesn't make any sense as the knowledge of a derotobizer would make people fear the roboticizer less, and Robotnik thrives on fear. Also it reduces his workforce, again something Robotnik woudn't just give up so freely," as Michael suspects that Katy is probably wanting to plan a mission. Possibly a mission to claim the portable deroboticizer that Lucky claims was used to turn Candy back into flesh and blood. However Michael thinks that right now she should focus on recovering, but it still doesn't change the fact that something about the situation with Candy being wrong, as Michael still can't figure out why Robotnik would let a device that could free his slave workforce be demonstrated in front of those that would wish to use it to free the Robians. Also Michael can't figure out why such a device would be in Middletown and not in some personal vault of Robotnik's in Robotropolis.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:03, Tue 23 Dec 2008.

Samuel stops working on the suit when Orion shows up. Samuel glances at a panel on the Diagnostics bracer on his left forearm to check on the current time. Samuel then notices that his stomach is silently rumbling and as he realizes that if not for Orion he would have worked through yet another meal. This reminds Samuel of all the times prior to coming to Mobius when another crewmember of the Elsydeon, typically his wife Alexis, would have had to remind him to stop working and get something to eat. Thinking of those he is now separated from saddens him for a moment.

Nodding his head slightly to distract himself from his memories he turns to Orion and says, "Thanks, I was so caught up in working that I forgot to head over to the mess hall to get something to eat." Samuel then accepts the tray from Orion before clearing a spot in the work area where he can set it down so he can eat without having to hold the tray.

Mika finishes her meal just as Maverick slides his clay figurine towards her.  It takes just a glance to realize it was made for her.  "Ohh, thank you!"  She picks up the clay heart, and places it in her shirt pocket.  She gives Maverick a hug, and rubs her cheek on his.  "That was very nice of you, Dolce." she says.  If Maverick is like the average overlander, she half wonders how they ever got into conflict all those years ago...

As Emerald heads off leaving the kitchen to her she stands, taking her plate.  "I could use your help in la cocina, if you aren't busy." she says to Maverick.  After all when cooking for a large group the time to start planning for lunch, is right after breakfast.

Lucky blushes deeply and squirms in his seat.  Bad enough the teens and adults of Channelwood think of him as a mere child, but Candy's balloon caricature of him confirms his fears that even his peers would baby him.  He still doesn't understand "cute" is a good thing in a girl's eyes.  Still... on the bright side...  no one's run him out of town with pitchforks yet.  Even after admitting his secret "bad luck curse."  Granted, they don't seem to believe him, but that hasn't stopped disaster before.  It's been a whole week and there haven't been any hurricanes!  No werewolves, earthquakes, invasions, diseases.... nothing...  yet.  Must be building up to something worse than he can imagine.

"Greatful," he answers at last, figuring it best not to sound like a crybaby focused on his fears, "Katy hobbling along on her crutch is a constant reminder that she risked her life to rescue me."

She coulda been killed!  All of them could have been killed!  It's my fault they were in such danger.  I shoulda left town the same night they found me to spare them my curse.  And now after a whole week of tempting fate, I stick around thanks to my stupid crush!  How selfish.

"The others too.  Words can't express how much I appreciate what they did for both of us."

He looks down at his plate and stabs at his unfinished breakfast.

"And thinking about you."

His face turns red and steam shoots out his ears.  He looks for a way to make it sound less like he's admitting his crush.

"I mean...  Are you ok?  You sure act like you're fine, but the whole Rip Van Winkle thing where everyone you know is suddenly a decade older must be... unsettling."

Benji's announcement sets Lucky on edge even more than he was already.  He decides not to say anything lest he put his foot in his mouth or sound like a scaredy-cat.

Mittens grins mischievously at Nautalus, stifling a chuckle at his request that she remain calm.  :D  She knows full well that that "remain calm" is code for "TIME TO GO BERZERK!"  I mean really... when's the last time you heard someone say "please remain calm" unless there was something to NOT remain calm about?

She smiles with the tip of her tongue sticking out at Shelly's teases.  :p  But when Shelly starts revealing that adventure IS just around the bend, Mittens can hardly contain herself!  She stands at attention and pounds her fist on her chest then bows to Shelly.  ^.^

"You're leading!?" she answers Shelly excitedly, "And I can come!?" 8D

She dances a jig.  <(^.^<) (>^.^)>

"I can hardly wait!  Suggestions?  Hart iz teh pwnzorz!  Hear he's got some omg swimmin' skillz.  He'd rock on any team!  Timo too with his flying medical... well...  don't suppose that works as well underwater.  I guess Crucible knows aquatic first aid?  Orion is teh awesomez too.  Defines the perfect soldier.  Eager to help and certain of victory.  Huah!" :]

"...who's Thomas?"  o.o;
This message was last edited by the player at 14:24, Tue 23 Dec 2008.

Lorena wanders into the mess hall in Aquarius, belly rumbling.  She was wearing her bright pink outfit today, again trying to keep everyone's spirits up by wearing bright colors.  Being happy inspires happiness she always told herself.

After getting her tray, she walks over to Shelly.

"Lady Shelly, is it time for me to join a mission yet?  I really want to be useful.  Please give me an important task.  I know I can handle it.  I've even been practicing my underwater spear fighting like you told me to.  I'm also itching to try some new things out that I figured out from my book.  Pwease!" (Yuff!)

She begs of the Urser Princess, trying her best to be cute as usual, grinding the ball of one foot against the floor, while pulling one shoulder to her cheek, hands clasped together under her chin, batting her eyes repeatedly.

She's been itching to try her spear and new strategies out in actual combat.  All the tests she's been running proved to be of some success on the chess board, but that doesn't stack up to real people fighting real battles.

She had no clue that Shelly was planning a raid on Urser, but IF there was something going on, she wanted in.

  Joe's grasp of narrative casualty filled him in on the situation the moment Candy mentioned 'Mrs. Coloflower'.  Of course, this helps him how?  Lucky didn't need the extra help because he used that sensible thing known as 'talk to the person involved'.

  'Considering the recent trends of new allies turning up, I wonder how many more explosions will be involved this time compared to last?'  Of course even if it was enemies turning up, the gradual increase in explosions per day was just as likely.

Awaking from what seemed like a life action film of death and destruction with blurred occurrences of the battle with what ever that tin-cans name was Daemons stomach began to growl, not eating for what seemed like a year he could really go for breakfast. "I wonder if there's any chili dogs in this place" he thinks to himself. Daemon visits a mirror and glances at himself in the mirror.

"Oh god the horror, I look like crapzola" the young hedgehogs begins to groom himself trying to make himself presentable to meet the legendary Katy from what he's heard she seemed to be like a God from in these parts. After he was done making as himself look pretty he grabs his belongings and searches for the mess hall where he can grab some grub for his stomach. As he moves through the corridors he takes in all of the new surroundings trying not to get lost, he finally found the mess hall were everyone has gathered. He walks in giving everyone in the room a big grin a thumbs up.

Nautilus nods at Shelly's words and her choices for her team. When Mittens speaks up and asks about Thomas, the old seabear searches his memory before responding, "I believe that Thomas is one the Mobians that was rescued... A mink, if memory serves. It would be a good opportunity to observe how he works with the rest of us on a mission."

Carefully, he looks at Shelly, "As for thoughts, I suppose I don't have to tell you about the risks involved in you, the princess, leading a mission into dangerous occupied territory, especially in light of what happened on your last mission. We know very little about what has physically developed inside of Urser since our absence. I must admit that I don't feel entirely comfortable with you putting yourself in such unnecessary danger."

When Lorena comes up to them and literally begs to be put on a mission, Nautilus raises a brow. Lorena had the proper training... but what about actual experience? He wondered if it would be worth the risk, but everything was a risk when it came to this war. As it was Shelly's choice, he waited for her response on the matter.

Hart gives a bit of a shrug to Timothius, "If you say so... Heh, but I wonder if Katy will support you if you say that. After seeing her taking on a metal dragon with nothin' but her claws, I'm thinking she isn't the type to wanna stay out of the fray for long. But, yeah, like I said, I'm in. When were you planning on headin' out?"

His ears perk as he thinks he hears his name, but he doesn't see anyone looking towards him or hear his name being said again, so he doesn't pay it much mind.

Katy grumbles when Mike asks his questions. "I've asked myself the same thing. But Lucky described the girl was getting de-roboticised so that she could be made aware, bleed and feel pain. I dunno... it sounds like something he'd do, but it doesn't." she looks down and away with her face tensing up in anger. "Robotnik... so rotten he has us second-guessing what kinds of low he'd sink to. It's literally spoiling my appetite on a daily basis." She isn't kidding either. Her diet has taken a minor drop in quantity.

"I want to plan a mission. Idle Freedom Fighters means stronger Robotnik forces. I don't care if I'm well or not. I don't have to BE on a mission for one to happen. And this village's chores are important... but none of those chores will ever take priority over making sure Robotnik doesn't get an edge." Katy is holding her tone, trying not to sound like she's cross with Mike since, well, she isn't. She's just plain upset.

With fury still written on her face and her eyes still downcast, a tear rolls down Katy's cheek. "Please, Michael... it's TORTURE knowing I have to be idle. I don't have a choice. But the others do. And I know I've been asking a LOT of you since you have been taking this load off my shoulders. But Robotnik won't stand aside just because you're losing sleep caring for your loved ones. Robotnik loses sleep looking for ways to make life horrible for everyone. I can't just sit around doing nothing. So I've written up a number of plans to use. But you are the only other one in Channelwood good for leading a team. Emerald's afraid of missions. Valin's... big. And everyone else here is a soldier at best. This is why I'm asking you have someone else take the burden for now."

Candy skews her face a little in thought as Lucky asks about her Rip Van Winkle experience. She turns an ear towards the comm as Benji speaks, but figures the right people will respond and she looks back to Lucky. "Katy being older is... disorienting. She's very different too. Just as fearless now as she was then, but... a lot less cheerful. Katy used to make me look like a grump. Now she takes grumpy to a whole new level. But one thing I can see for sure about her is that she still has just as big a heart as before. Maybe bigger. All that anger is directed at Robotnik and herself. I think she's upset because as long as Robotnik is around, she feels like she is failing at protecting you all. That's the kind of Katy I know anyway..."

Candy sighs and says, "But you're right. It's still not easy to jump forward so many years. Katy will always be my friend, but... she's a grown up now, ya know? She and I just can't share the same things we used to. And what's really disorienting is knowing you and anyone else who's my age were just babies when I was still like this." she then smiles. "But you're all still here. Fighting against Robotnik. And that is reassuring. Thanks for caring, Lucky."

It's around then that Amy arrives in the Mess Hall and notices Valin before going up to him. "Mr Vaschel? Katy was busy with Mr Maynard, so I offered to go ask you to take care of the intercom message. Did you hear it?" After all, just because she noticed Emerald on her way to see Benji doesn't mean Valin is deaf. She's already figured out what must have happened, not that it took her insight for that. But still, she has to do as she said she would by checking in with Valin.

Maverick eyes the hedgehog Daemon with minor suspicion. Not to mention Candy the rabbit. So many new faces... so much higher chance of betrayal. If only he heard Michael's questions to Katy, Maverick would be going down a list of worst-case scenarios. Not that he needed to hear that in order to go down such a list in his head.

His attention is turned back to Mika as she requests his help and he nods, standing up and following her to the kitchen. He's more than willing to help, especially when it's asked of him from someone he cares about. But before he reaches the kitchen, he looks at Mika and says, "Excuse me a moment, please..." and heads over to Lucky. "Lucky. Wanna help in the kitchen with Miss Mika and I?"

Amy notices Daemon and waves back, beckoning. She figures the guy is probably looking for Katy now that he's likely heard Katy is up and about. Poor guy has waited a week to talk to her.

Angel glances at Joe. "A penny for your thoughts?" she holds up a penny. Seems the craziness is starting already and Angel can feel it like Joe. But she is smiling, rather than worried.

Orion nods understandingly with a small smile. "You're welcome. You really are a diligent one, Sam. But... I thought for sure you and Milloni were already done with the project...?"

Shelly thinks about Mittens' statements. She suspects already that Mittens has a crush on Timothius. "To answer your question, Mittens, Crucible is the best under-water combat specialist we have. Orion is a nice choice for any situation, but I wanted to be sure there weren't others who wanted a chance to be on the mission..."

At the sudden interruption of Lorena, Shelly grins and says, "Sure... since you are so anxious..."

She then glances to Nautilus and says, "Welllll... I understand your concern, Nautilus. But this is a mission to Urser. Who else would lead? Crucible doesn't like leading and Mittens and Orion are not familiar with Urser. That would leave you, Nautilus... if you think you wanna lead an Urser raid."

She looks back at Mittens. "And yeah... what Nautilus said. Thomas is the mink we rescued not too long ago."
This message was last edited by the player at 13:49, Mon 05 Jan 2009.

Timothius says, "Soon as Angel gets here. She said she'd come today, so..." he notices the small crowd forming near Shelly already and ponders. "What's up with those girls? Judging from the fact Mittens is there, I doubt it has to do with normal girl-talk..."

Emerald has made her way to the ground level after hearing from Benji what's going on and runs from tree to tree towards where the yelling came from. She eventually spots a couple of tigers ahead. She calls out to them, "Hello there! My name is Emerald. What're yours?" Soon enough, she is stepping out from behind a tree to let the tigers see her. She is within view of Benji, so she isn't breaking any kind of rules about being alone.

  Joe sees that the value of his thought process has gone up.  "Just considering how much more popular this place had become of late.  The original owner of Deamon's hairstyle is somewhere else, after all."

  Points for originality for wanting to be like Sonic, without pulling the creepy stalker bit though go to the guy however.

"Thomas the mink," Mittens repeats thoughtfully.

Made a big stink? she thinks to herself, Made the cat think?  Was dipped in ink?  Skating rink?

"Out of the brink.  Badnicks will shrink."  :)

Mittens turns to Lorena.  More than her bright clothes, Lorena's eagerness to put spear techniques to good use on a mission has Mittens in a great mood.  ^.^

"Good to see I'm not the only eager kitty!" she chimes with a big smile and a tail wag, "My name is Mittens.  Nice to meet ya!"

Mittens gives a polite curtsy to Lorena.

"So what's your name, m'lady?"

"You're welcome, Candy," Lucky answers with a forced smile.

He tries to look casual when the overlander boy asks him a question, but Lucky's ears fold back when addressed by Maverick.  Can't help but be intimidated by the only overlander he's ever seen after all the terrible things he's heard about the race.

"Always happy to help any way I can," he answers softly, "Least I can do for the heroes that rescued me.  Wunna join us, Candy?"

((OOC: I don't expect everyone to read or remember Phil's char sheet.  The Angel Fish and Devil Fish represent his good and bad conscious and cannot be seen or heard by anyone but Phil.))

---

"Hi," Phil answers calmly.

"Aw man!" Angel Fish interrupts in his mind, "Already lusting after someone you just met!?"

"I can't blame him," Devil Fish answers, "She IS a fox.  Literally.  And she's about his age."

"Oh I get it.  You're right!  Phil's usually lusting after younger girls.  This IS an improvement!  I'm proud of ya, Phil!  At least when you cheat on your wife with this fox it'll only be 1 sin instead of 3."

"Three?  Oh riiiight!  Aw MAN!  Almost forgot what a PERVERT Phil is!"

They both laugh at him.  Phil's eyes narrow in anger and he clenches his fists.  Ever want to punch your conscious in the face?

"My name's Phillip," he continues, "And this is my daughter, Raichel.  We're here looking for a safe place to stay for a little while."

"What's the matter, Phillip?" retorts Angel Fish, "I thought you were ALL about honesty.  Afraid to come out and tell the truth?  'I'm here to take your powerful hero away and use her for my own ends.'"

"Oh! Oh! '...leaving you to fend for yourself without her.'" Devil Fish continues, "'So you'll probably all be robots before long.'"

"'...So you may as well enjoy yourself in bed with me tonight.'"

"Aw MAN!  '...And I don't mind if you invite a few friends along.  I know there's someone I'D like to invite!'"

Both roll over laughing at him.  Every muscle in his body tenses up.

Mika gathers the dirty dishes, avoiding the ones people are still eating off of and brings them into the kitchen.  Staking the dishes withthe others she begins to pump some water into the sink to get things ready for her volunteers so they can get right to work.

After filling the sink she heads into the pantry taking out the meat and vegtables to be prepped for quick cooking come lunchtime.  "Oi, cooking for so many...  How do I keep track of what everybody eats?" she asks herself as she looks throughthe kitchen for utensils, cookbooks, and hopefully a menu left by Emerald.  If there's no menu then luch will be empanadas, quesadillas, and fajitas.  don't forget 3 flavors of salsa: mild, hot, and anaphylactic shock.

Valin finishes eating around the time Amy enters the mess hall. When she tells Valin her message from Katy and Michael, Valin nods and says, "I heard the intercom message, and Emerald already volunteered to deal with it. Although I do plan on heading off to assist Benji and her, now that I have finished eating."

Valin then stands up and waves to Daemon upon noticing the hedgehog before taking his plate over to the kitchen since he was still eating when Mika had come by. The large gorilla carefully manages to not get in the way of those helping in the kitchen, in part by using his height and reach to place his plate down without having to worry about someone being in the way. After all, when you can reach over or around someone with over a foot of clearance, they aren't in your way and your not likely to be in their way either.

Valin then heads off leaving the mess hall to head over to where Benji is to find out if Emerald and Benji need his assistance.

When Katy speaks her opinion about how and why Robotnik would allow the deroboticization of Candy, Michael silently agrees that while Robotnik would stoop to anything to make people suffer, something about relinquishing control over someone he has enslaved seems at odds with Robotnik's personality...and that bothers Michael.

Michael also considers Katy's comments about a mission and reads the expression on her face as he carefully chooses his words, "It sounds like you have already planned out several possible missions. The only two things that remain are to decide which one to implement, and who goes on the mission. And the latter one would in part be determined out of necessity by the former one. So do you wish to discuss these plans here or somewhere else?" As Michael then waits to find out Katy's answer.

Samuel takes a few bites to eat from the tray as Orion speaks. But after Orion finishes talking, Samuel shakes his head slightly and says, "While the suit is built, it isn't ready to be used yet. There are still some calibration tests that must be done. Since if it isn't calibrated properly, it won't fool any of robotnik's robots. And I'd rather not end up roboticized due to the disguise failing or something else going wrong."

Samuel then goes back to eating as he ponders how best to use the one suit, would it be better off in a solo mission, or would it somehow be better to tie it into a solo aspect of a raid. Although it has been figured out that the SWATBots  in Middletown now broadcast some sort of ID number when moving between areas. Samuel hasn't gotten past figuring out that a lone Swatbot would have to be taken out before it can report that it is under attack, and then it's ID number copied. Then the lone SWATBot would have to be disposed of so it wouldn't be found, thus enabling the wearer of the suit would be able to have a valid ID number to use when moving between areas without arousing suspicion. However, Samuel still hasn't figured out how to successfully pull that off in a group, let alone trying to pull it off on his own.

Nautilus nods as Shelly goes through the list of candidates to lead the Urser raid, and thinks heavily on her words before answering, "Hrm. You're quite right that the list of possible leaders for this mission are few... And I'm gathering that you're intent upon going on this mission, Princess?" He nods, "Then I'll do as you suggest, at least in part. I'll go with you on this mission, but I suggest that you still lead officially. The other Freedom Fighters then will still be encouraged by your presence, and I'll be in the best position possible to advise and prevent you from placing yourself in too much danger."

He only paid passing attention to Mittens' attempt to create a catchphrase for Thomas, surprising himself at how he unsurprised he was at her response.

Hart nods, watching the group gathering around Shelly with idle interest, "If Mittens is in the mix, I doubt it's a normal anything. Still, it doesn't seem to include us, far as I can tell. Shell's pretty good at letting you know when she needs you for something, even if it's just giving a look or something." He turns back to Timothius, "So, Angel? That's that rabbit we met during the last mission, right? What's she coming by here for?"

Upon hearing Shelly give her the okay to go on the raid to Urser, she jumps for joy.  "Oh Thank you, Lady Shelly!  I promise to do my best.  I won't disappoint you!"  She exclaims, giving the princess a big thumbs up.  She was about to run back to her room to get her spear and memorize a few strategies in case they're needed.  Better to have them and not need them than need them and not have them.

As Mittens introduces herself, Lorena smiles and introduces herself to Mittens.  "Nice to meet you, Mittens.  I'm Lorena.  I've heard that you are a warrior of sorts.  I'm looking forward to working with you on this mission."  She gives Mittens a polite curtsy as well.  Making note of her armor, she felt the need to comment.  "Your armor is pretty cool!  Did you defeat the SWATbots to make that yourself?  If so, you think you could do that for me, please?"

"Well... the major rescue you guys pulled off turned a lot of heads." Angel starts with a smile. "If you ever doubt your heroism, all you'll have to do is look at one or two of the people you rescued. Why... I understand those boys over there were some of the ones you helped rescue." Angel directs her gaze in the direction of Maverick and Lucky.

Candy nods with a smile. "Sure." Maverick looks down at Lucky and gives him a look like he's trying to gaze into his soul. But as Lucky's words sink in, Maverick looks aside. "I didn't rescue you..." he says quietly. He knows he helped the others, but he doesn't feel any rescue credit should be attributed to himself. Candy hmms. "Well your help sure made it possible, Ma... Ma.. sorry." Candy's ears flatten this time. "What was your name?" Maverick looks to Candy and says, "Maverick." Candy brightens up. "Yeah! Maverick! Knew it was M-something. Anyways, I think you and Lucky should be friends!" she leans over to whisper in Lucky's ear, "This boy's younger than you, ya know. By four years." Candy made it her business to know how old the children in Channelwood were because age is a status symbol among kids. "He's counting on you to be a good example to him." she finishes whispering with a grin.

Whether Maverick heard her or not is anyone's guess, but he just calmly watches Candy whisper to Lucky before walking towards the kitchen.

Amy acknowledges Valin with a knowing smile and then turns her attention back to Daemon. "You're the one who's been wanting to meet up with Katy, right? Well she's finally awake. She's a little busy, but the way I understand it, she is busy with planning another mission against Middletown's forces. So if you want to make a good impression on her, well, offer your aid to her directly and if she says no, just wait till she isn't busy."

Emerald looks skeptical. "Well... I'm sure you are here for more than a safe place if you knew to come looking here in particular." she says with an unsure glance. She then shrugs and smiles. "Well I'm sure you'll tell me all about it once you are rested up. Come with me."

Raichel leans over to whisper in her dad's ear. "Uh... why not tell them why we're here? I mean... yeah, we need rest, but..." but to Emerald's sudden cheerful attitude, Raichel shrugs herself and looks at her dad before heading off to follow Emerald.

Katy says, "That's why I asked you to come with me to the planning room on the third level. I wanted to share our options with you and see what you think and who you think should go instead of me to lead the team and who should go with that person." She leads the way to the elevator that leads even farther up, assuming Mike follows her. She glances at him a few times. "You know I loathe putting pressure on others when it isn't necessary... right? I mean... the only thing I hate more than that is Robotnik."

Timothius shrugs. "I'm unsure. But I think it has to do with wanting to hook up the various Freedom Fighters with her hometown so we can all communicate better. She offered that she could come pick me up and then when I return, she would stay here in Aquarius for a bit. So... tell me a bit about the people here? I mean... a weak is not enough for me to truly be familiar with who's who... and frankly, I'm kinda shy."

Orion nods and says, "Safety first, they say. Well congratulations ahead of time, Sam. For when you finish." he turns to head off, positive it's only a matter of days at most before Sam has his project done. He pauses at the door and turns around to look at Samuel. "Ya know... I don't think anyone has said this to you yet, but Robotnik's days are numbered and you are helping those days be fewer. Thanks, Samuel."

Lady Shelly? Shelly giggles. Lorena's a childhood friend, so Shelly knows Lorena's just playin' around. She glances over at Nautilus. "Sure thing" she says passingly. She then says in a quiet tone, "Besides... I feel like I let everyone down with what happened to me in Middletown. I need to restore the faith of my Freedom Fighters."

Thomas happens to overhear the part where Mittens mentions him and stops behind her long enough hear the "Badnicks will shrink" part. He waits his turn after Lorena and then speaks up. "Thomas the late; Died suffocating Robotnik in his hate." He then leans over to look Mittens in the eyes, still giving her personal space. "Tell me: Why do you get so excited over these missions?" He looks deathly serious. Not like he's looking for a fight, but somehow still intimidating in a way. He does look somewhat upset, though most of his anger is hidden behind a wall of frost he's developed over the years. Mittens has been pushing a button of his and he intends to find out how her mind works if at all possible. "Masochists" as he calls them are rare but powerful adversaries to Robotnik. Too bad they always wind up bringing everyone else down with them.

Crucible and his ever-faithful friend Pierson have been watching Shelly's table the entire time and just kind of mosey their way over as if they were preparing to put their dirty dishes away. But they are intent on making sure nothing violent happens. Especially to the princess.

  Respect for Murphy mechanics prevented certain comments on the subject Joe had on mind.  Not that it would probably make any difference unfortunately.

  "So, are my standards too high or too low when I don't consider not wanting someone to die if you can conveniently help it heroic and more 'well duh'."

  Driving vehicles through buildings and fleeing from worse enemies than most Sonic dealt with when they weren't powered by magical plot devices was convenient?  There was definitely some snags with Joe's standards in general.
This message was last edited by the player at 07:03, Sun 25 Jan 2009.

"Thanks" Philip answers Emerald as he follows her lead keeping an eye peeled for an ambush, "And you're right.  We are here for more than just taking advantage of your hospitality.  We saw signs of a battle.  As Raichel shouted earlier, we're here to help if help is needed.  Is there any help needed?"

~Poor naive little girl,~ Angel Fish says, shaking his head at Raichel, ~She still has no idea the depth of Phillip's cunning and deception.~

~And who's surprised?~ Devil Fish points out, ~After all, who wouldn't trust such a virtuous daddy?~

~Oh man!  Now he's got YOU calling him daddy!~

~Aw maaan!~

Devil Fish face-fins in embarrassment.

Lucky blushes and avoids eye contact when Maverick stares at him, but the glare is intense enough that he knows he's being visually dissected.  He can't help but be angry with Maverick.  Is he so racist that he doesn't appreciate being rescued by Mobians?!  Lucky blushes all the more when Candy tickles his ear with whispers that suggest he's a coward for being intimidated by a younger kid.  Even if the younger kid happens to be twice as tall, twice as heavy, and can slice you into pieces with his laser-beam gaze.

"You were among the rescued too," Lucky answers them both darkly, "Nice to not be a robot slave isn't it?"
This message was last edited by the player at 19:41, Fri 30 Jan 2009.

Mittens smiles at Lorena's compliments and smiles at Thomas' poem.

"Thank you, Lady Lorena," she answers with a pound-fist-to-chest salute, "Warrior I am.  Looking forward to accompanying you too.  Yes I did build the armor, but I was not the one to fell the SWATs.  If you think that's something, you should see what Spaceman Sam is making!  I'd be happy to build you some armor, but I suspect after our mission we'll be wearing stuff much better than anything I could ever make."

She turns to face Thomas.

"Nice poem!"

She pauses and taps her finger on her cheek, contemplating how to answer his question, then light-bulbs with a big smile.

"Ever heard the story of David and Goliath?  It's one of my favorites!  The Israelite army was backed to a corner, under siege by the invading Philistines.  The Philistine champion Goliath was a giant man, over 10 feet tall!  He was covered head to toe in armor, and every day he taunted the Israelites.  'Send your best man!  If he beats me one-on-one, the Philistines will surrender!  HAHA!  Didn't think so, you cowards!'

"From the ranks of the Isrealite army stepped forward a young shepherd boy named David armed with nothing more than a sling.  'I accept your challenge!  God will hand your life over to me!  By day's end, you and your whole army will be a feast for ravens!  The whole world will know that there is a God and he gives the victory to whom he pleases!'

"Both sides were in shock.  Such bold words from a boy!  Goliath was enraged and charged at the boy with his spear raised to shish kabob the little shepherd!  But brave little David charged right back at him!  He drew a stone from his pouch, and with miraculous power and accuracy, KA-POW!  slung it right between Goliath's eyes, dropping him in one hit!  Encouraged by the victory, the Isrealite army routed the Philistines!

"I get excited about missions because I worship the God of David.  My prayer is that some day, I too will bring him glory as David did!"  ^.^
This message was last edited by the player at 20:36, Fri 30 Jan 2009.

Mika putters around the kitchen a bit more, getting all the dishes together to be washed.  After she has everything together, she looks around for her young volunteer helpers.  She walks back out into the dining area calling out from the door, "Oi!  Coming to help in the cocina or you gonna eat lunch off of dishes with breakfast bits still on it?" she calls not too seriously.

It isn't long before Valin reaches Benji at the lookout post as he asks softly, "So what is going on?" as the gorilla doesn't know if he needs to keep his voice low or not so he decides to err on the side of caution.

Valin glances around while as he awaits Benji's answer, and when the gorilla glances down in the direction that Emerald is in, he notices that Emerald isn't alone, and that she is with two strangers. This makes Valin wonder if he needs to go down there, or if going down there would be a bad idea as it would tip their hand to the strangers and reveal that there are others in the area... which could easily be a mistake.

Thus Valin merely glances around to thin of a fast way down without revealing Channelwood's presence should the need arise that Emerald requires immediate assistance.

Michael nods as he follows Katy while listening to her talk on their way to the planning room.

The chimpanzee responds to Katy's question with, "I know. The times are tough, and it is never easy to make difficult choices. It is only natural to not wish such hardship on others."

Samuel continues to eat as Orion leaves. While the mechanic consider's Orion's words, he grins at the prospect of Robotnik's days being numbered.

However, Samuel's facial expression turns solemn when he starts to think about what if people like Orion truly understood what he would do to insure the safe rescue of his crewmembers. Samuel thinks to himself, 'I would have no qualms with sacrificing the whole bloody planet in order to get my Captain, Markus, and Alexis free and back to our home. That is nothing for those of this world to be thankful for. But if it did come to that, would I be no better than Robotnik? But to save my wife, Alexis, I would do anything...'

Nautilus responds to Shelly's concern with a quiet "Indeed" and a nod. Though he did not consider what had happened to the princess last time as a 'let down', he knows that many others may have. To lead the people is to carry the burden to inspire the people, as a wise bear had once said.

At Thomas's appearance and question, the old seabear remains quiet, but attentive. Although the mink no doubt had the countenance of a warrior, he also had a certain coldness about him that made Nautilus question his long-term loyalties.  Mittens's answer is unsurprisingly positive, of course, although Nautilus has never heard of any of the things she's spoken of. He'd never heard of any place on Mobius called Israel or Philistine.

Even so, he watches with careful eyes to see how the mink will react, fully prepared to step in and talk down a potential conflict and take the proper measures to ensure it does not harm the morale of their potential team for this mission.

Hart watches the events unfold at Shelly's table from a distance. Noticing that even Pierson and Crucible stop to pay attention, he begins to wonder if something is really up. Even if that was true, he was sure Shelly would make some kind of announcement or call them over. He reminded himself to ask her about it later.

At Timothius's question, the deer looks up in thought, "You wanna know about the folks here in Aquarius? Well... Stickin' around is a good way to pick up on stuff like that. It's not exactly easy to just lump 'em all into a single description. You met a few on the last mission, so you can tell for yoruself that we're a varied group." He shrugs, "Still, I think the best way to describe everyone here is to think of them like a family rather than a military group or anything. Yeah, we're freedom fighters, but a lot of us grew up together and most everyone knows that it's less about rank here and more about doing what you've gotta do to help out." He looks at Timothius with a raised brow, "Does that answer your question, or were you seriously looking for me to do a 'who's who' for ya? I don't think it'd do much good for me to list off a bunch of names of Mobians you haven't really met yourself."

Daemon looks to Amy and gives her a smile, "Thank you so much it has been a journey from my home so I could finally meet her" and with that he gives Amy a bow and looks at the rest of the mess hall taking in all of his surroundings like he normally does.

He turns back his attention back to the pleasant Amy that is standing in front of him and chuckles a bit. "Umm well Amy..." Daemons stomach grumbles loudly as he looks at her, Daemon then looks down to his stomach and begins to rub it. "Well not to make trouble for anyone but is there some kind of muchies around here I'm starving!, food would be so very nice before I see Katy can't do that one a empty stomach you know"

Daemon chuckles and looks back to Amy giving her another one of his winks

"You really think we're going to get some good gear, Mittens?  I better go get ready then!"  Lorena replies, offering a Fist-to-Chest salute to Mittens, prompting her to cough slightly.  She was no where near as hardy as Mittens.  Shelly was a childhood friend, but she was compelled to treat her with the respect she deserves when talking about missions and the like.  Outside of the "shop talk", they were as close as two friends would ever get.

Lorena ran down the hall and right into her room and changed into her sky blue jumpsuit, checking herself in the mirror before grabbing her spear and running to wherever the meeting for departure would take place.

Angel sees these 'snags' in Joe's logic / standards... and is happy. "If only everyone felt the same, Joe, then this war with Robotnik would already be over." Of course, one could argue that Angel's standards were a bit cuckoo as well if they realized she saw Robotnik as an annoyance who set things back a bit. "Nevertheless... as the saying goes: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And I suspect the people you rescued see something beautiful in you. That, at least, should matter to you somewhat... right?" she gives Joe a pleasant smile, awaiting his answer as it will tell her a number of things about Joe.

Emerald nods. "Anyone anywhere, in this fight against Robotnik, needs help. I'm no exception. For now, things have calmed down some." She leads Phillip and Raichel to the spiral staircase and takes them up to the second level. She figures it's only two people and you can't live life without giving trust out now and then.

Meanwhile, Benji points to Emerald, Phil and Raichel. "Those two just showed up and yelled out as though they expected to find us here. Emerald's bringing them here so we can find out what's going on."
This message was last edited by the player at 02:56, Thu 26 Feb 2009.

Raichel follow right behind her dad and looks around on her way up. Upon seeing Channelwood and realizing what it really is, she brightens up in awe, jaw nearly hitting the ground. It is an amazing sight to see... so many homes up in the trees, complete with bridges and... a community. She reflected on the fact her own home is much more hidden, but has to admit this is an interesting hiding place. And if it's worked all this time, there's got to be something to it. Something more than what meets the eye.

Maverick looks over at Lucky, instantly recognizing the tone of voice and asks, "Yes. It is nice. So why are you so upset about all the sudden?" His gaze has changed to a more confused expression. He keeps his eyes on Lucky after that question. Even after hearing Mika speak up. Though to her, he simply picks up a dish and starts helping while keeping his eyes on Lucky.

Candy decides it best to casually listen in on Lucky and Maverick, playing coach if need be. She smiles up at Mika and says, "I heard you're new here too... like Lucky and Maverick are. This whole place is so different from the way I remember it..."

Amy nods. "You're late for breakfast, but I'll set you up with something." and with that, Amy swiftly gets some scraps together from what's left over and puts a plate together for Daemon before sitting him down with it. She sits next to him and smiles. "Eat up. I'll wait here next to you so I can take you to Katy when you are ready."

Thomas sways his minkly tail slowly as he listens to Mittens tell her story, looking at her intently the whole time. He sighs. "Whatever gets you through the day..." he comments, feeling her story to be nothing more than a child's fairytale. "Just make sure you don't get so excited or blindly faithful that you sacrifice someone else's life for what you believe in. You can play David till the day you die, but don't volunteer anyone else to face Goliath unless they are just as armed one way or another."

Shelly grins. "Neat tale." she believes it about as much as Thomas does. "Maybe you can tell me more of those later on. But don't forget that God won't bless those who sit there and do nothing. The boy in your story had to have tremendous courage AND the skill to wield a sling in the first place. Without either one, he would never have made history and you wouldn't know his name. I see you have the courage... and the skill. Which is enough for me, Mittens."

Shelly sees Orion come into the mess hall. Having noticed he left with a tray and knowing Samuel was in the direction Orion just came from, she figures out what happened and smiles. She then watches Lorena run off and looks back to Nautilus. "Well.. you know what to do. I'll go make final preparations."

With that, Shelly gets up and goes to put her dishes away.

Once Katy arrives with Michael in the planning room, she points to the map of Middletown that is already spread out on the table. Katy has apparently already put some chess pieces out on the map which are usually used to indicate individuals in the team and where they will be at points in the mission as well as individual enemy forces and where they will be or likely will be. Looks like she's been at this on and off for a while. Katy, despite being on a crutch, pulls up a chair for Michael and then carefully sits in one of her own. She points to the white King piece, which represents the team leader. It's near the black King piece, which presumably represents Ra.

"We've learned Ra's fire can be stopped. We have yet to poison his energy reserves. He's probably expecting us to try and douse his fire again, so he'll try fighting us with his sheer size and strength. I want him to do so at his own risk. Emerald gave me an estimate of how much energy, amperage and voltage a machine that size that can do what he does would require. An estimate. Nothing exact. What you see here is a follow-up mission. Before it can happen, I want exact numbers. With precision, we can make his recharge such that WE can control how he acts, when he powers down, and how weak he is in combat. Without the exact numbers... we could accidentally alert him to the fact that something is wrong with his recharge systems and he'd be on to us."

Katy leans her head in her hand. "But that's not all we need. We need to know when he's there, when he isn't and how long he isn't. According to Angel, there is a chance Daemon can get all the information I mentioned, but I've been unable to talk with him so far. That's the basics of what's going on in my mind."

Katy then points to the white king. "But once we have all the needed information, I need a team, lead by you or someone of your choosing, to go in and install a remote device that controls the energy levels for when Ra charges up. As I seem to recall, we already ruled out destroying his charger since he'd just use another until it was replaced. I want this nightmare dismantled even if I have to crutch my way over to him and do it myself one-handed. I've already heard the comments floating around in Channelwood. People are saying our days are numbered. Oh! That reminds me...."

Katy pauses a moment. "Let Jimmy know I have a special assignment for him. It's for his ears only." she gives Michael a quick glance. "One of those things... the less you know for now concerning what I want Jimmy doing, the better." Then looks back at the map. "The rest of what you see on the map is just details that I can explain later when the mission is actually being prepaired... questions?"

Timothius huhs and nods, "It answers more than you know." he smiles. Timothius really has more respect for Hart now. Now that he's heard Hart NOT talk about people behind their backs. "Well I'm done here. I'd love to just hang out with you until Angel arrives." He gets up, preparing to put his dishes away.

"Was I supposed to expect them to hate me for rescuing them instead?"  Of course that wouldn't be anything new, but that sort of thing tended to go along the lines of 'Why did you keep me from a horrific death, save a school bus full of handicapped orphans, but not insert person here, you suck' crazy.

  "I'd probably think about it more if rational thought wasn't a bad plan when you need to go towards the killer robots.  What about you, are you into shooting Dragons in the face purely for a warm fuzzy feeling?"  Unrelated to the warm burny feeling being lit on fire would entail, of course.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:51, Fri 20 Feb 2009.

Phillip on the other hand, looks more on edge than impressed.  He eyes every detail he can take in with an intense gaze.  He reaches over and lifts Raichel's chin with the side of his hand to close her mouth.

~What's the matter Phillip?~ Devil fish taunts, ~I thought you liked the sight of a girl with a gaping mouth!~

~Shh!~ Angel fish answers, ~Don't interrupt him when he's trying to look tough.~

"Wow," Phil says, ignoring the fish, "Impressive.  Are you in charge of this place, Ms. Emerald?"
This message was last edited by the player at 18:47, Sat 21 Feb 2009.

"Not sudden," Lucky answers blankly, "Been upset for a very long time."

Lucky gets to work helping with the kitchen chores, making it a point to try and avoid Maverick's gaze.

Mittens salutes Lorena back, smiles, courtesys to Shelly in response to her approval, then turns to answer Thomas.

"That's the plan, Mon Capitán," she chimes cheerfully, "But just in case you're confused, it was her highness the Princess who suggested you be on the next mission's team, not yours truly.  If you'd rather not go, you're talkin' to the wrong girl."

She then proceeds to practice her slingshot skill with an imaginary sling.

As the children file in for kitchen duty, she points out a few basic instructions; "Fruit and vegtable scraps and leftovers go into the mulch bucket, meat scraps go together for hunting bait, and this meals leftover bread becomes next meal's croutons.  Waste nothing."  A valuble lesson in a place where one does not always know where the next meal is coming from.  "Each of you can decide who washes, dries and put away the dishes.  And since you're all helping, you can all have a say in what we are having for lunch."

She can sense some friction between Lucky and Maverick, or perhaps it the anti-joy of being given kitchen duty.  Either way they'll both have to get used to each other, and helping out with chores, no matter how mundane they seem.

Samuel then goes about finishing the rest of his meal in silence, in part due to not wanting to have someone walk in on him with him talking to himself, as that would be a sign of insanity. And Samuel thinks people already suspect he might be short a few marbles.

After Samuel finishes eating, he decides to finish the testing before taking the tray back to the cafeteria. So, Samuel quietly resumes testing the prototype 'SWATBot suit'.

Upon hearing Benji's answer to his question, Valin rubs his chin as he is curious to know who these strangers are since if they were from Aquarius they would have known how to get into Channelwood is and not had to yell out to get people's attention. Valin nods and mutters, "I probably should head on over to find out more about them."

The gorilla then heads over to meet the three at the top of the stairs. Upon reaching Emerald and the two strangers, Valin politely says, "Hello, Emerald. Care to introduce me to your new acquaintances?"

Valin does his best to try and not look threatening as he doesn't want to startle the strangers, but he is curious to know who they are and why they are here.

As Michael listens to Katy explaining things, the chimpanzee ponders things and thinks up a few questions in his mind, although he waits till Katy asks if he has questions to avoid interrupting her.

However, once she asks, Michael replies with his view on what Katy has said, "So if I understand you correctly, the first mission will need to be to get the information needed to sabotage Ra's recharging station. Then there would be a second mission to tamper with the recharging station. Although if we can find out if Ra uses a normal recharging times are we going to try to just tamper with it immediately prior to or while he is recharging? As I think trying to force a recharge with a prolonged encounter is too risky. Even without his fire breath, we can't safely neutralize his other weapons."

Michael then pauses as he looks at the map while continuing, "Also, is there a reason you aren't trusting me enough to know what you want Jimmy to do? I can understand not wanting everyone in Channelwood to know, but to even exclude me, that leads me to suspect it would have to be something you think I would object to if I found out about. Which means that whatever it is probably needs to be discussed, if only to insure it isn't a crazy idea that hasn't been completely thought out. So even if you don't want to give me the specifics, at least let me know enough to know what you can. After all I'm sure Jimmy will have questions when I fetch him, and saying I know nothing about it isn't an answer I'd want to have to reply with."

Nautilus nods politely as the princess takes her tray and leaves. He sits for a moment to make up a mental list of possible candidates for the mission today.

The princess wants a team of at least five or six, but no more than eight. With himself, her, Mittens, Lorena, and Thomas already confirmed, that meant that they already had five. From her tone, he had guessed that she hadn't yet asked Samuel or Crucible, though he wasn't sure how much Crucible and Pierson had heard in their passing. It might be possible that both of them would want to go on the mission. Adding Samuel, that would make an even eight. More than enough. He'd have to worry about Milloni after those three were confirmed.

With that all confirmed in his mind, he picked up his tray and took it to be cleaned before looking around the mess hall to see if Crucible and/or Pierson were still waiting around. No doubt they both were aware that something was being planned.

As he looked around the mess hall for the two, he kept his ears open for possible chatter about any who might want to go. If some of the candidates refused to join, the old seabear wanted to have options.

Hart raises a brow at Timothius's comment, "You wanna hang out with me? Heh, all right then... Can't say that I have a whole lot planned for the morning, though. I was just gonna go for a swim at the Moon Pool." He takes his dishes and goes with Timothius to put them away.

As they walk, he looks at the winged cat curiously, nodding at his wings, "So, since you're staying with us underwater for now, I've gotta ask... Don't those things get in the way while you're tryin' to swim? I'd think that extra wingspan would really slow you down..."

Daemon starts to hurriedly shovel the food into his mouth (Military Style) and finish's everything that was set up in front of him. He lets out a loud belch. "Exxxxxxxxxxxcccccccccccuesssssssse me," Daemon chuckles for a second then looks to Amy "Compliments to the chef". Daemon then turns his attention to Amy "Lead away friend I've been long expecting this day and there's much to be discussed, so let's do it to it."

He waits for Amy to lead him off to katy

As daemon waits for he begins to think to himself "I hope everything goes right today and she likes me. Its been a long journy to get here and it would be a waste for nothing if nothing goes the way that I plan. "

Angel chuckles from Joe's answer and then his question. "Well.... yes. Staying alive feels great." she winks. "Say... unless Katy needs you for something, feel like keeping me company for my trip to Aquarius? I'm gonna go there and pick up Timothius so he can check on Katy."

Emerald giggles a little at Philip's question, "No, sir... I'm not." she says with a smile. "The one in charge is Katy Coloflower." Emerald then looks at Valin as he arrives. "Sure. Valin, this is Philip and this is Raichel. Philip and Raichel, this is Valin. He's our carpenter and farmer." that last part added to help Valin with keeping the new arrivals calm. "A good portion of what you see around you is his handy work. I'd say probably a quarter this Village was built by his hands." OK, now she's just admiring him. "He's also a very good man at heart. We're all lucky to have him among us and Katy knows it." Yup. Jumping at the chance to brag about Valin.

Raichel is slightly flustered, but accepts the fact that maybe jaw-dropping was slightly rude. Either way, she turns her attention to the conversation to see how it goes, not interrupting. She can't help but continue glancing around, though. This place is amazing...

Then she sees Valin. She is startled at his size at first, but quite quickly calms herself and listens. At the things Emerald says, Raichel smiles and offers her hand to him. "Gosh... such a glowing report. Seems my dad and I came to the right place."

Maverick hrms... He thinks to himself Well... like you said. It's nice to be here and not there, right? So try to look on the bright side. You and I shouldn't even be here. but has his thoughts distracted momentarily by Mika. "Yes, ma'am. Thank you." he says respectfully and trying not to smile too much at the idea of choosing what's for lunch.

He returns his gaze to Lucky and asks, "Why have you been upset?" hoping Lucky might have a deeper reason so he can empathize.

Candy thinks better of intervening for now and looks up at Mika. "Miss Mika? How do you like Channelwood so far?"

Amy nods to Daemon and heads off with him. She looks around and then spots the missing elevator. Well... missing in so far as it's gone up to the top level. "Katy's on the top level. If I were to guess, she might appreciate the interruption. But here's hoping she comes down before we have to worry about that." Amy heads to where the elevator should be. Which, coincidentally, happens to be where Valin, Emerald, Philip and Raichel are. So many people there.

Amy looks at the new faces and figures that's what the earlier call from Benji was about. She smiles and says, "Hey, Valin, Emerald.. Daemon and I were going to try and get the elevator back down here so we could go see Katy." may as well be frank. Amy figures Valin or Emerald or both will likely forbid it saying stuff like 'if Katy wanted to be interrupted, she would have sent the elevator down' or something. But oh well. Amy figured it was worth a shot and besides... a little patience shouldn't hurt.

Katy pauses. "On second thought, you're a smart guy and it wouldn't be long before you figured out what Jimmy is up to anyhow. I want Jimmy to boost the moral of the people in Channelwood. He's the most pessemistic person in Channelwood, so for him to say something like "Ra is finished" would bring up people's spirits. I know it's not good to promise on a gamble, but I feel good about this. I only didn't want you to know because... because while I trust you, I think Ra probably has you as down as the rest of us."

Katy holds up a finger to indicate she isn't done yet, "But as far as the other stuff, you've got it right. And I'd rather risk tampering with the charger while he's charging. That way if it 'feels' different, he won't notice. You know... like roasting a toad slowly. Besides.. that way, the SWATbots prepping his charger can tell him it's ready and he won't think it poisonous. Of course, if our info from the first mission shows us a way to poison the charger BEFORE he gets there, I'd prefer that as it's safer. But I doubt it to be plausable."

Then, returning to the earlier thought, Katy asks, "Tell me I'm wrong... that you haven't lost any resolve thanks to Ra."

Thomas glances in the direction of the princess who seems to be leaving and decides now is his time after all. "I would rather go. Don't get me wrong... Robotnik is going to feel my sting before I leave this world." Funny. If Sam said that, he would actually have meant leaving the world via spaceship. Thomas, of course, is talking about the spirit train.

Crucible and Pierson are watching the princess leave. The play rock, paper, scissors and then nod at each other. Crucible heads after Shelly while Pierson walks towards Nautilus. Once he gets to Nautilus, Pierson asks, "So what was that about? Is Shelly OK?"

Meanwhile, Shelly is making her way to her own room to prepare for the mission.

Timothius puts the dishes away and as he follows Hart, he listens then rubs his arm. "Honestly, I wouldn't know. You guys are probably all expert swimmers, so when you all swam through it all quicker than me, I wasn't surprised... and don't know what swimming without my wings is like, so I don't have much to compare it to, know what I mean?" He grins and says, "But I heard some fish have 'wings' that actually help them swim, so... maybe I can learn a new way of swimming that will have my wings as a means of swimming instead of being in the way. Dunno how well that'd work, but it's worth a try. I've never been a good swimmer... maybe you can teach me?"

  "If I've got the free time, I can't see why not.  I'll ask her in a bit if she'll need be anytime soon."  Joe remembered the last time he had something to tell them, so did everyone else living within a mile radius (exaggeration?  Depends on how far Aquarius was).

  "May take some time before said bit comes up if recent trends continues."  Regardless, Joe would ask once Katy had a moments peace, thus crushing said moment unless they let him know before then he had something to take care of.

Lucky does not want to get into a heart-to-heart with Maverick, but he knows he has to answer the question or risk being asked questions like "why dodge the question?"

"Robotnick," Lucky answers flatly before trying to steer the conversation back to something more practical, "You happen to be the tallest, so how 'bout you wash, Candy dries, and I put the dishes away."

Use the girl you like as a buffer between you and the guy you don't like.  A real man would dry the dishes to use himself as a buffer between her and the guy.  Face it, Lucky, you're a coward.

"That's the spirit, Thomas!" Mittens chimes cheerfully, "Together we shall punish the tyrant for his crimes restore the people to flesh so they can live and love in peace once more!  Just picture the ticker tape parade lit by warm sunbeams shining down from heaven as the gloom clears away.  The air is full of music and the scent of freshly baked goodies while the smiles on the faces of the people reflect back heaven's glory!  Your valor will help make that happen, Sir Thomas!"

Mittens pounds her chest with her fist and bows at him with a big smile.

Phil is more than a little uneasy at the arrival of Valin, but he forces his face to retain it's usual grumpy demeanor.  While he's busy judging Valin's reach to make sure he stays at least that far away, Raichel flabbergasts Phil by not only stepping well within reach of the gorilla, but offering a handshake!

~What's the matter, Phillip?~ the Angel Fish asks, ~Don't like being shown up by your little girl?  She's not in the least bit scared while your shaking in your boots!~

~Oh it's much more than just that,~ Devil Fish answers, ~He's also jealous of the gorilla's SIZE!~

".....hi," Phil says without offering a handshake, "Nice place you got here."
This message was last edited by the player at 17:00, Wed 25 Mar 2009.

Mika pauses as Candy asks her question, "How do I like it here?" She repeats to herself.  She's been so busy with the rescuing, and the kitchen work she suddenly realises she hasn't had a chance to stop and smell the roses as it were.  "Muy bueno, so far.  Everyone seems to get along from what I see, but I think I need to slow down and see more.  Maybe get to know people here better." she says likely giving Candy more answer than she was expecting.

Once the kids decide on thier tasks she claps her hands, "Bueno!  I'll keep hot water on when you need more.".  While the kids work she prepares staples for the next meal.  As she prepares she occasionally checks on their work, making sure nothing baked on is left behind.

Samuel monitors the test as it runs. Samuel sighs as he knows till the test finishes there isn't much he can do, and frankly, he finds it boring. But Samuel refuses to part with protocol out of fear of the suit failing at an inconvenient moment.

Michael closes his eyes while listening to what Katy says before he sighs and shakes his head while saying, "Your wrong. My resolve to stop Robotnik has not decreased due to Ra's presence. Only my caution. We can't be reckless around Ra and not expect to suffer. We got lucky last time. Your injuries won't permanently handicap you. If things had gone differently. Most of Channelwood would be mourning at your grave right now. We should not fight harder because of Ra, but smarter. We can't risk loosing our temper around that robot. It will use our rage against as as a weapon just as potent as its missiles or its fiery breath. I apologize if my increased caution has made you question my resolve, but we can't brush off a threat like Ra as lightly as a SWATBot."

Valin glances at Emerald as she goes on about his accomplishments as Valin thinks to himself that he wouldn't have been able to build that fourth of Channelwood without the help of others to plan the layout and help in other ways.

When Raichel offers her hand, Valin accepts it in a firm but gentle handshake as Valin is careful to make sure he doesn't injure her hands given how much smaller they are than his own.

When Amy mentions about trying to get the elevator down, Valin glances over to it, and then over to where Valin thinks Michael should be as Valin realizes that its been oddly silent lately as he had been expecting Michael to be working on some repair work, but he can't hear any sounds of it. Valin then shakes his head as he puts two and two together and says, "Hmm, Katy is probably discussion something with Michael. It might be best to wait till they are done."

Valin then glances to Phillip and says, "Thanks, we've worked hard to build it up, and even harder to protect it from those what would wish to destroy it." While Valin doesn't mistrust the strangers, he has no qualms about pointing out that those living in Channelwood have worked hard to prevent those controlling Middletown from destroying their home and their way of life.

The old sea bear nods his head at Pierson, "The Princess is quite fine. We were simply discussing matters for future activities today."
He frowns as he sees Crucible walk off, but reminds himself to catch him later. Quickly, he turns his attention back to Pierson, giving him an inquisitive look, "Is there a reason for your question, Pierson? The Princess was nothing less than herself during conversation this morning. I don't believe I saw anything in her carrying of herself that would call for special concern... Hm, and I'll assume that Crucible has the same concerns?"
This message was last edited by the player at 16:15, Mon 20 Apr 2009.

Hart gives a shrug to Timothius as they walk out of the Mess hall and take the path to Moon Pool, "Well, I can see you using those wings to help you cut through the waves and keep your speed up, but it'd take a lot of practice... Also, those feathers are what I'm mainly wonderin' about. I figure those would weigh you down. But, hey, you've had wings longer than me, so maybe you know how to make it work."

He stops for a moment as Timothius asks his last question, "Me? Give you lessons? You serious?" He gives a short chuckle and shakes his head before picking back up in their walk, "I mean, heh, it's not like I can't or anything. I've just never been asked. Heck, that might be kinda interesting. Nautilus is better at the whole swim instruction bit, though. It's pretty much what he's always done." He shrugs again and gives a light smile, "But if you really want me to teach ya, then I'm all for it, Tim. We can do a little bit of that today before we meet up with Angel. Sound good?"

Angel nods to Joe's comment. Then gets up and says, "I'm going to see if she's available then." and with that, she starts walking off to look for Katy. "Coming with?"

Of course, should Joe go with her or not, Angel would find up ahead a small crowd at the elevator. "Oh my..." she says with mock-impressed awe. It's around then she sees the elevator come down and open. (See Katy's post)

In response to Mika, Candy says, "What's "Muy bueno" mean?" Now there's a kid not afraid to ask questions.

"Then I'll put the dishes away. Cuppboards are taller than the sink.." he's right, but he's also curious if Lucky's the kind of guy who would break the dishes as he washes them. Lucky's answers are short and to the point. Maverick can understand that for sure and kind of appreciates it. But he wants his answers. He knows Lucky is going to be a slightly hard case. Lucky's obvious crush hasn't slipped Maverick's notice either. So he decides to use it and the fact Candy is standing right next to himself to his advantage. "Hey Candy... when we catch a break, would you like to play with me?"

Candy, being the person she is, smiles brightly and says, "Sure! I'd love to play with you... come to think of it, you're one of the few I haven't played with. You're usually nowhere near the other kids."

Maverick says, "The other kids don't like me."

Candy frowns. "We'll have to fix that. We like you at least."

Maverick says, "We?"

Candy nods. "Lucky and I! Don't we, Lucky." she looks over at Lucky with a smile, as if she just expected Lucky to like Maverick for some magical reason.

Maverick keeps his gaze away, but watches Lucky from his peripheral vision and listens intently. He knows that once people dislike someone, they usually stay disliking that person. And Maverick would believe Lucky dislikes him even if Lucky was just a shy guy who actually liked Maverick. Maverick always looks on the dark side of life after all. But even so... if Lucky says "sure" and is lying, Maverick will enjoy watching Lucky squirm while he uses Candy's "cheery" nature against Lucky. Like watching scorpions forced to sting themselves. Or worse... having it's tail cut off. Of course, if Lucky says "yes" and is telling the truth, Maverick won't know right away and will learn of it in time. But he so doubts that prospect that it doesn't even cross his mind yet.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:10, Thu 23 Apr 2009.

Thomas glances at Mittens again. "My valor... tshh..." he seems to scoff at the idea. "More like my blood. And yours. But I still hope to survive to see that day for one reason alone: So people can learn from history. Not that they will, of course. But at least one generation could look into the empty eyes of people who lost everything."

Thomas doesn't DARE say "not that you lost anything yet" because he knows the powers of the universe would cause Mittens to have just as bad a background as him somehow just because he said something like that.

Pierson headshakes. "Just that the new mink guy looked a little hostile. Was just making sure things are OK. S'my job." he says with a small smirk. He then loses the smile and talks in a low tone. "That and still following up on making sure she's over the incident with Middletown... Crucible and I worry for her ever since then."

Katy sighs. "And I apologise. My own fear of Ra has made me lash out the way I have. I'm so very glad I have someone like you around with a clear head. We'll get this guy. We'll crush him. We *have* to... if we don't, the entire morale of the town could be at stake."

She opens the door to the planning room. "We've got our plans. I'll take care of Channelwood. It's not a cushy job, but I'm in no shape to go on a mission, much as I want to. You need a break from the town. Either you lead the mission, or find someone who you think would be best. I trust your call on that more than my own right now. And before you say it, don't worry about me over-exerting. I promise I'll delegate like I'm doing right now. Deal?"

She perks an ear, peaks out the door and looks down to see a small crowd at the elevator. "Well what have we here? A small crowd forming at the elevator. I'm gunna go see what's up." she crutches her way to the elevator in order to go down to the lower floor, hoping Michael won't chase her with objections. But whether he does or not, Katy goes down to the second floor and the elevator door opens to reveal her. "Valin, what do we have here?" she asks the gorilla, looking over at Raichel and Philip.

Amy is excited that Katy has finally come down, but holds her tongue for now since the new guests are important.

Raichel says, "So cool... well this place just got safer now that you guys have my dad around. He can kick any robot's butt with his bare hands." she doesn't doubt the gorilla could make scrap out of any robot either, but she felt the need to brag a little about her dad. Speaking of robot scrapping, is THAT the Katy she saw on the video feed? She is careful not to say that out loud though, since she got the feeling from her dad that some of this is to be kept quiet for now.

Timothius nods. "Yay!" he says with a smile. Then follows Hart to get some instruction. (OOC: Until Angel arrives in Aquarius to retrieve these two, Tim and Hart are going off-screen since posing swimming lessons isn't necessary and is tedious.)

  Joe indeed went with, and isn't particularly surprised by the situation either.  "I can't figure if I'm going to end up helping more because of this, or have a sudden surge of spare time while this is going on."

Lucky doesn't answer Candy's question right away.  He busies himself with trying to find a wooden box or a stool to stand on so the dish washer can reach down into the sink so he can carefully word his reply.  "He's not Robotnic," Lucky answers at last.  Obviously not a "yes" but at least he avoided saying "no" directly.

Two mighty forces of the universe align heavily against Mittens, and she doesn't even realize she's making it worse.  On the one hand is the powerful force of Thomas' negativity creating the self-fulfilling prophecy where he'll some day say, "I told you they wouldn't learn!"  On the other hand is the even more deadly force of an optimist insisting that "we can only go up from here" or "at least it can't get any worse," followed immediately by a disaster.  But then, is she really an optimist?  Or does she look forward to the disaster?

"True enough!" Mittens chimes, "And I'll be honored to spill my blood for freedom like the heroes of old!  Then some day a new tyrant will emerge, and new heroes will have the privilege of spilling their blood in the struggle!  I count myself fortunate to be born in a time of peril!"

~Too bad Phillip's too dumb to.... you know... use a weapon or something,~ Angel fish points out.
~And never mind the fact that he's here to beg a little girl for help,~ Devil fish answers.

Phil blushes and clears his throat.

~Uh oh... here comes the false modesty!~

"Not like I took out a robot dragon like Katy here..." Phil whispers to Rai, "But it seems even she is not as invincible as we'd hoped.  I plan to be frank with her once we're alone with her.  Find out how frank she is with us.  May turn out this was a wasted trip."

Mika smiles down at Candy, explaining, "'Muy bueno' means 'very good'
in Castillano, my first language.  It slips out now and then, especially if I can't find the right words, or I get too exited." she admits.

Hearing the boys converse and avoid direct answers she sighs, "Now they way both of you boys speak it's like the words 'yes' and 'no' haven't been taught to you yet."   She delivers more dishes to Lucky.  "I think both of you are a bit young to be making decisions based only on species.  If I remember we all were in the capture of Robotnik.  I won't make anyone play with anyone else if they don't want to, but if Candy here has found the two of you worthy of a chance, perhaps the both of you could agree with her." she says.

Mika's experience with Overlanders has been limited to the lost tribes living in the forests around her home, and they seem to pretty much stay to themselves.

Michael nods as Katy opens the door and says, "I agree that we need to do something. If morale drops significantly it could prove disastrous. We have a deal."

Michael quickly spots the crowd at the elevator when Katy mentions it. When Katy starts heading to the elevator, Michael follows as he says, "I think we both should check this out," as Michael gets on the elevator with her.

When the elevator doors opens on the second floor, while Katy asks Valin what is going on, Michael simply looks at Raichel and Philip as Michael wonders who they are, and what brought them here.

Valin doesn't comment on the fact a person can't kick with their hands, not to mention punching a robot's butt would be strange.

When Katy asks the gorilla about what is going on Valin replies, "Emerald found our two guests, Philip and Raichel, nearby and brought them here," as Valin refers to Raichel and Philip.
Valin notices that Philip whispers something to Raichel but doesn't hear what it is, although the gorilla doesn't bother to inquire about it.

While Valin is still curious to know why Philip and Raichel were in the area, he figures that the two might offer an explanation now that more people, including Katy, have shown up.

As the test continues, Samuel ponders dropping off the tray at the cafeteria with the data being logged by the system that could notify him if anything occurred while at the cafeteria. However the nagging suspicion that Murphy's Law would rear its ugly head the moment he left causes him to hold off on heading out.

Nautilus looks in the direction of Thomas briefly as Pierson makes his point, "Hm... He is somewhat hostile, but it seems to be heavily directed at Robotnik more than any of our members here. We'll have to see for ourselves, of course."

The seabear lowers his voice a little before speaking further, "Also, I will admit that I've had some worry over that incident for the Princess as well. Moreso at how the others in Aquarius perceive the Princess after the fact. She needs to have their faith in her." He looks at Pierson fully, "Both yourself and Crucible need to perform your duty and support her as best you can. That may also include assisting her on missions when possible in order to prevent such problems or others befalling her and making things worse. Would you agree?"

Daemon's stomach sunk and he became a little nervous. Daemon could feel his palms began to sweat. The time has arrived and his journey has came to almost completion with Katy right in front of him.

"Kaaaatttyyy?!?" Daemon stuttered

"Greetings, I am Daemon leader and founder of the MHU. I have traveled from my homeland to come and meet you. I've heard lots about you and I wanted to come here and see if there is a place for me in your band of freedom fighters to fight the forces of Dr. Julian. I'm a technical type of guy and there may be something I could accomplish her with you all."

Daemon looked at Katy and felt a little un-easy, he was not sure what Katy would think of him. Maybe this was a waste of time but he had to try. It was one of his main goals to meet the legendary Katy and his time has come.

Angel ponders. Katy is swamped. PERFECT time to ask permission to go to Aquarius. "Hey Katy, I'm heading to Aquarius. Mind of Joe comes with me?" She doesn't realize Timothius invited Hart to go to Channelwood with him. But then again, once she finds out, she has a plan for that too.

Maverick looks annoyed. "Who said anything about race? I don't dislike Lucky because he's a cat. You're a cat, Miss Mika, and I like you. And I like Joe. I like Candy here too. The reason I dislike Lucky is because he dislikes me. And I still don't know why because HE'S the one who doesn't know how to give a straight answer. Though based off his last answer, he probably compares me to Robotnik because of my race. Wouldn't be the first..."

Candy looks kinda lost on what to say for a moment. "Calm down, Maverick, I'm sure Lucky likes you... he's just upset because of recent events."

She then looks up at Mika, hoping for some adultish words of wisdom like Mika was giving earlier.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:07, Sat 30 May 2009.

Thomas looks at Mittens for a few seconds. Then asks, "Do you have family? Are they alive, dead or roboticized?" It occurs to Thomas, after all, that if Mittens is an orphan who lost nothing with this war, then her positive attitude is simply that. But if she's lost loved ones, she'd either not care because they were abusive, which doesn't fit Mittens' "heroic" theme, or it drove her insane. If it's the latter, he fully intends to warn Shelly.

Pierson responds in a quiet tone, "Of course I agree... but... she's just a child. Is there nobody else who can pick up the slack for a while so she can take a vacation and actually just be a kid?" he sighs. "Don't get me wrong, Nautilus. You already know I trust the princess with my life and would rather her lead than anyone else in the world. But for goodness sake, why can't she have a break? Unless... you already have something in mind?"

Milloni peaks her head in the room Sam is continuing his tests in. "Hey, Sam. Sounds like we may have a mission coming up. What're you doing?" honest question since to her, it looks like he's just staring at a screen.

Katy gets a little overwhelmed as she gets input from two more people and she holds up a hand as if to shut everyone up. "OK, OK... from the top: Angel. Go ahead. Don't take Joe; He's needed." She then looks at Daemon, "I've heard about you since you came here. I'm sorry I wasn't able to address you all week. But now that I can, it's refreshing to meet yet another who's leading a pocket resistance. From what I heard, you were key to our escape and survival when you arrived. You BET you have a place. I'll meet with you at dinner time. Be sure to have a resume of what you've accomplished, so I can get caught up and coordinate with you on what can be done next." she then looks at Philip and Raichel. "Greetings. You came at a... special time." she comments. "Robotnik must have been feeling sadistic because he's put a fire-breathing dragon in charge of the nearby town we've been fighting to set free of his influence. If you're as much a scrapper as Raichel says, Philip, then we'll really need your help. I'm not expecting you to fight a dragon head-on, but I *do* have a plan..."

Katy then looks around at the small crowd. "Everyone. I'm back in charge of Channelwood. But Michael is taking over as mission leader for a while. What he says goes. I'm going to take care of Channelwood, he's going to take care of Ra. Any questions you have on the matter will have to wait until Michael has decided on a team."

Katy looks back at Philip. Then to Michael. "If Philip's willing to help in the mission, I don't see why we shouldn't give him the chance. But as I said... this is yours now."

  Joe nods not particularly surprised by Katy's call there, despite the quirky part of his brain that still has a hard time registering the 'wait, people depend on us?' thing.

  "You forgot about the missiles.  But then it doesn't breath those, and I'm sure the full details will be given when you aren't handling twelve questions at once."  My, how incredibly helpful Joe.  No, really.  Knowing something shoots missiles alongside a shorter range weapon is a good thing to know.

  "I'm sure I'll get around to seeing the place sometime Angel.  It will just probably be a time where sightseeing isn't the main reason."

OOC Style: At first I was thinking, 'oh crap! I haven't posted in over a month!'  Then I remembered it's been less than 24 hours since my 'turn' came up, so yay.

Again, Lucky considers silence the best option, but then, there's also the chance that his silence will misunderstood.

"'Worthy of a chance?'" Lucky quotes in response to Mika, "Not me.  But you and Candy have been kind to me anyway.  Thanks."

"'Who said anything about race?'" he quotes in response to Maverick, "Well at least I can agree with asking that question.  Considering the fact that we met when we were both about to be turned into robots, I'd say the only 'racism' any of us can afford is against machines."

He sighs.

"I'm sorry if I've hurt your feelings.  Can't we just agree to get the dishes done and not talk about it?"

~Aw man!~ Angel fish bemoans, ~Nothing like opening yourself wiiide open for Philip to share his immense wisdom on how to properly run a group.~

~'You shouldn't be so quick to trust someone you just met' he'll say,~ Devil fish predicts, ~Way to make yourself out to be her savior, Philip.  Bet you're already planning to seduce her with your mentor role.~

~You know, Philip, she's about your daughter's age...~

~SHH!!!  Don't encourage him!~

~Aw MAN!  I keep forgetting!~

The fish have done their job well.  Philip just stews in frustration and winds up saying nothing at all about her trusting him so easily and "changes the topic."

"Looks like we're not the only ones who've come a long way just to have some one-on-one time with Katy."

This said with a glance at Daemon.  It didn't escape Philip's notice that Katy implied that the Dragon was not defeated like he thought it was.  He's getting increasingly discouraged that the trip here will have been for nothing.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:29, Sun 31 May 2009.

"Yep!" Mittens answers happily, "And quite alive last I saw them!  You?"

She's already expecting one of the typical answers she's gotten before.  "Then you don't know how it feels!  Lets see you be so cheery after you watch everyone you love get turned into robot zombies!"

Usually a "sorry for your loss" and a "looking forward to helping you rescue them" is enough to diffuse most people's negativity... but she gets the feeling nothing will satisfy this guy, and she begins looking for excuses to end the conversation and commence with avoiding his company.

"Yes, yes," she prays, "It's tragic and I feel for him, but how the heck am I supposed to cheer him up?  Don't?  Wait, WHAT?  You want me to be just as depressed as he is?  I can't just force myself to...  well that's...  oh.  I'll give it a try."

She refocuses her attention on Thomas, gazing deep into his eyes, watching for cues on how he's feeling.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:48, Sun 31 May 2009.

Mika sighs softly, walking over to Lucky, ruffling his headfur, "If you don't want to talk right now, that is fine, dolcito.  We've all been put together out of nowhere.  I must admit, it is for me, and my hopes we get along and be friends.  It will take time for each of us to know who we are.  Such bonds cannot be made just by one day of doing dishes....  Perhaps a week or so." she says smiling as she hints a week of KP duty.

Mika starts the prep work on the basic ingredients for lunch, "Have you all decided what you would like for lunch?" she asks.

Daemons gives Katy a salute

"I will have that done for you by then, in the meantime is there a place that I can go unpack and prepare for dinner time talks"

Daemon looks at Katy and waits for her response and looks around and stands patiently.

When Katy reveals the temporary shift in duties that leaves Michael in charge of missions for the time being, Michael glances around as Katy then addresses Michael directly, to which Michael responds with a nod and says, "I'll take it into consideration, however for our plan to take out that robot dragon permanently, I'm not even sure they have any skills that would be of help After all we don't intend to fight that robot on its terms which is exactly what Robotnik would want us to try. Thus before I can even consider letting Philip or Raichel assist in the mission I need to know more about them. Given what I already know about Daemon, I know that Daemon's assistance would prove quite helpful in carrying out the plan. Especially if Samuel isn't present, since I don't know how much we can depend on those from Aquarius for assistance." After speaking up, Michael knows that he hasn't mentioned anything specific, but has mentioned that computer skills will be more useful than the skills of a brawler.

The chimpanzee then turns to Philip and Raichel and says, "No offense, but I don't know anything about you and this plan will use a somewhat risky method to permanently remove the robot dragon as a threat instead of disabling and damaging it like in our last confrontation with it. So if either of you do wish to help out in the mission we'll need to discuss a few things." It's clear that Michael is open to discussion about Philip and Raichel assisting in the mission. Its also obvious that Michael wants to know more about them before he'd agree to let them go on the mission.

Michael then turns to Joe and chuckles, "No I haven't forgotten about the missiles, or the other weapons that robot has. Which is why we intend to strike at the robot when it won't be able to use its weapons against us. But I'll go into more details later once I have decided who will need to be involved."

Samuel turns to face Milloni after hearing her question as he replies, "Running simulation tests to make sure the prototype SWATBot suit doesn't have a fatal malfunction during usage in the field. After all given the nature of the suit, it isn't equipment that can be run through standard field tests given that a single malfunction in the field can result in death or roboticization. And those are risks I cannot afford to take."

Samuel glances at the SWATBot suit hooked up to the computer system and then back at Milloni as he asks, "You said a mission may be coming up... What sort of details are known about it?" It's obvious Samuel is wondering if the mission will want to make use of the SWATBot suit if it involves Middletown, as Samuel knows that he can't assume that a mission would involve going to Middletown.

Valin listens to what is said around him as it takes a moment for him to realize all the ramifications of what Katy has said. Since it wasn't stated, but implied that while Michael is in charge of the missions, and Katy will handle managing the town, that means that much of the maintenance work Michael normally handles is likely to be passed on to others, such as himself since not everyone in town is good at woodworking. "Guess I'm going to be picking up a bit more of the maintenance around the village for a while since Michael is going to be busy with the mission planning."

Nautilus nods slowly to Pierson at his concerns about Shelly, "The princess may be a child, Pierson, but she is also the princess of Urser and the only active member of the royal family. She has responsibilities that no other Mobian of her age could ever imagine..."
He lowers his voice again, speaking confidentially, "With that being clear... you are correct in assuming that I've means for relieving her somewhat, and you and Crucible are central, if you are up to the task. There are plans in motion for a mission to Urser very, very soon, and the princess intends to lead. The danger will be high, and... old memories may come into play and make this mission even more full of risk. With you or Crucible joining us, the princess can be better protected from danger while still raising morale in Aquarius as a whole through her personally leading this mission... Your thoughts?" He raises a brow to the skunk, keeping his voice low so as to not be overheard by possible others. Other than that subtle sign, he appears fully professional and calm as he speaks to Pierson, his hands loosely clasped behind his back.

Raichel smiles at Michael. "Sure. Just lemme know where and when and I'll be happy to tell you what you wanna know." she glances at Phil quickly, hoping she didn't assume too much.

Angel smiles at Joe and shrugs. "Was worth a shot. See you later, Joe." and with that, she heads down to her bike to get going towards Aquarius.

Maverick gives Lucky a look like he's seen a ghost. He's so taken aback by Lucky actually apologizing, all his prior thoughts and plots concerning 'putting Lucky in his place' fall to pieces and leave a blank slate. "Uh... yeah. Sure." he says dumbfounded. He's quiet for a moment. "I'm sorry too if I said something that upset you." is all he would say for now, figuring it needed to be said now that Lucky has shown he's no normal guy.

However, Mika asked a question. So Maverick answers, "I feel fortunate to have anything at all. And anything you make is bound to be good. I like meat though."

Katy glances at Joe as he comments about the missiles. "Yeah..." she looks at her leg and then to Joe. "Like I would forget THAT." she looks at Phil. "Michael nullified the dragon's fire breath, but I sure felt the explosion from those missiles."

To Phil, she says, "Maybe you can provide some extra intel to Daemon then while he prepares his portfolio."

To Daemon, she says, "Oh right... you still don't have a hutt of your own. Um... just grab what you need and do that stuff in the Mess Hall. Nobody will mind you working in there and it's where I'll meet you for dinner anyhow."

Katy glances at Valin. "Sorry, Valin... if it's any consolation, I doubt you'll have to sneak up on a large, metallic, fire-breathing, missile launching dragon and hope it doesn't wake up. I know some in Channelwood would rather face that than me, but I'm sure you wouldn't."

Thomas' eyebrow twitches. The family is alive. And well. He wasn't expecting that answer. But she asked him about his own family, so he'll answer her before inquiring further. "My family is dead." he says plainly, but with just enough pain in it to suggest he still misses them. "So then.. you're happy your family lives in a time like this? Do you hate them or something? Or do you only care about yourself?" he asks this in honest confusion. "'Cause while I can understand wishing someone like Robotnik on one's self because of some twisted desire to seek some kind of fake glory by defeating him, it truly takes a dark heart to wish him on anyone else."

Shelly peeks in the prep room where Lorena is and says, "Sorry for the delay! Gimme a bit! And pull out the following for me. I'll need those out and ready for the team so that when they get here to this room, they can gear up an' go!" she hands a list to Lorena. "Thanks, Lorie!" she jets off.

Shelly soon peeks in the room Samuel is in. "Hey Sam! You and Milloni are needed. Urser Mission. I know you're busy with the project, but maybe giving your brain a distraction is just what the doc ordered. Anyway, be at the prep room in 5 minutes!" she isn't giving a demanding tone. Just a "hurry up!" tone.

As she runs off, Crucible looks at Samuel and Milloni. He shrugs with a smirk and follows after Shelly. Milloni looks back at Samuel. "...well there you go. Urser mission. I don't know anything beyond what Shelly just said, so I'm guessing she'll brief us all in the prep room. See you there." she heads off to the prep room.

Shelly arrives back in the lunch hall and looks at Nautilus. "Nauty! It's time. Get who's comin' and bring them to the prep room. I just noticed a window of opportunity that will close in 30 minutes. We need to go now." she hurries back towards the prep room.

Pierson looks at Nautilus with a smile. "My thought is let's make this happen. Shelly's SO gonna know we have her back. Maybe that little reminder will help boost her day a bit more." He chose his wording carefully there, trying not to make the princess sound weak in public. "You know you can count on Crucible and I, Nautilus. Always."

(OOC: Shelly went off panel a little bit ago to check on a few things and one of the things she found was this "window of opportunity". The other, of course, was gathering a list of things she wanted everyone to have.)

  Joe waves goodbye to the Bunny, "Later then."  Not bothering to consider the potential hassles of parking a hoverbike in an underwater hideout.

  Not like the bike is the thing that needs to breath.

  Immediate needs of him dealt with, Joe settles in to see if anything more specific will turn up for him in a few minutes before deciding his next course of (likely just as lazy) action.

Lucky ear-flicks and raises an eyebrow at the sound of a non-hostile reply from the Human.  Wasn't expecting that.  Nevertheless, he tries to maintain his dispassionate air, swishing his tail slowly.

"Something from where you come from," he answers Mika, leaving out any reason why, "Though... preferably something UN-spicy...  Unless everything from where you come from is spicy."

~Ha-HA!~ Angel Fish gloats, ~She sure put you in a bind!  You didn't say anything about trusting too easily, so she's eager to spill all your secrets!  Now if you say anything to contradict her, it'll sound like you don't trust these tree people!~

~Damned if you do, damned if you don't,~ Devil Fish agrees, ~Man, I just LOVE saying that!~

Philip looks like he's calmed down some.  He just nods in agreement at his daughter's adorable look for approval.

"Sounds good, Mr... Michael was it?" he answers respectfully, "As Raichel says, we'll be happy to help in any way you deem appropriate.  It's the least we can do for the warm welcome we've received."

Both fish: ~Aw MAAN!~
This message was last edited by the player at 19:29, Tue 16 June 2009.

Mittens puts on a helpless expression like she just saw a puppy with an injured paw.

"Oh that's just awful!" she answers Thomas, placing her hand on his shoulder to try and comfort him, "I'm so sorry about your family.  It was Robotnic, wasn't it?  I can't imagine.  I'd be devastated if I lost my family."

She sniffles and rubs her eye.

"Sorry... Just thinking about it... Breaks my heart."

She takes a deep breath, puts her other hand on his other shoulder, and looks Thomas straight into his eyes.

"I realize there's nothing I can do to ease that kind of hurt, but if there's anything else you need, be it a confidential ear or just a shoulder to lean on, I'm here for you."

~Forgot how much this can hurt,~ she prays, ~Now I remember why avoid it.~
This message was last edited by the player at 01:38, Wed 17 June 2009.

Mika chuckles, looking over what the hunters have brought in recently, "Hmm...  Well, some of us can only eat meat, others can only eat plants, and a few will eat most anything.  We'll have to make meals for all of them." she explains.  "Not spicy I can do.  Personally I like a little picante on my meat, but that's because sometimes the meat can be....  Less than fresh, and has to be eaten before it goes bad.".  She takes down a large bag of flour, and a mixing bowl.  "Today we'll make flautas.  I'll have show you all how to make tortillas.  The rest is just filling them with meat, or beans, and spices." she explains gathering ingredients.

Samuel glances towards the door when Shelly peeks in and speaks up. Samuel then turns back to Milloni and nods as she heads off. Samuel then turns back to the computer system and types in a few commands to let it finish up the current test with the output posted to a file he'd be able to check later before he locks the system so that without a password they couldn't mess with the system. Samuel figures this would help insure the results are valid since only Milloni and himself have the password and neither would mess with the simulation or its results.

Matthew then turns away from the computer and heads to the prep room as he mutters to himself not carrying if Milloni is still in earshot or not, "A distracted brain is a brain risked becoming a brain deprived of freedom by Doctor Fart-Factory or one of his stinking mechanical minions."

Valin nods to Katy and replies, "I wouldn't be suited for a covert mission anyways. I'm far to large to fit through the air vents that would probably be used. The mission comes first and we both know that I'm a heavy hitter, not a covert spy that sneaks around in small places." It is obvious that Valin is trying to make Katy feel that there is no need for an apology.

Michael listens to what Katy says to Daemon and Philip. After Raichel  and Philip reply to Michael, the chimpanzee nods to answer Philip's question before saying, "We probably should head to the Mess Hall since at the same time you'd be provide any intel you have to Daemon while we talk."

Nautilus nods in response to Pierson, giving a light smile, "Indeed, I do know. I would not trust my thoughts on the matter to many others, Pierson.  Now, even though we are going in order to assist the Princess, you should be on your guard as well. I believe there will be memories for all of us today... With that in mind..." He gives a leading nod for Pierson to follow after Shelly before he starts walking in the other direction towards Mittens and Thomas.

"You two!" He speaks up as he gets nearer to them, making it very clear that he's speaking to both of them. "If you are both still intending on joining the mission today, then I would suggest that you finish your conversation quickly and hurry to the preparation room. The Princess has discovered something that will require us to move immediately, so please do not dally." With a serious nod to them, he turns and starts walking briskly to the prep room in the direction that Shelly was headed.

(Still having a Hart to Tim talk)

(Angel goes off panel for a round or two while riding to Aquarius)

Maverick hears Lucky's suggestion and ohs, why didn't HE think of that?

Candy squeals with delight at Lucky's suggestion and nods in agreement.

Whenever they aren't distracted, Lucky and Mika can likely see out the window the large gathering of people around Katy and Michael. The gathering is heading towards the Mess Hall. At least, most of it.

Katy heads for the Mess Hall figuring she may as well devote her time to Daemon while she still can. And Phil and Raichel can help with that as Michael suggested.

Milloni hears Sam and says, "Then be sure you aren't distracted from the mission, Sam. Cross your fingers... maybe we can find an inspiration or two during the mission for the project."

Thomas gives Mittens a cold look that seems to be melting into pity. She's probably going to be the first in Aquarius to die. And only after she has his heart in her hands. When Nautilus spurs them on, Thomas looks at Nautilus as he snaps out of it and gets a serious expression. He looks at Mittens. "Thanks, Mittens. I'll hold you to that" he half-warns. Then looks back at Nautilus. "I've sat on my butt too long to miss this. I hope what Shelly found is potent." he states as he follows Nautilus, fully expecting Mittens to be not far behind, if not ahead of them already.

When everyone gets there, Shelly is waiting in the prep room with Lorena. Mei Ling is seen there, holding a bunch of capsules.

She looks at Pierson. "You're in charge of Aquarius while I'm gone. We're expecting Angel and you can apologize to her on my behalf that I am not here to greet her."

Shelly then looks at everyone else and says, "OK. Here's the plan:"

The room dims and a bright holographic projection shoots up from the center of the room. It's a 3D map of Urser. Shelly points at a flashing red dot on the map with a pointer she's holding in her hand.

"We're going here." The map enlarges in the red-dot area and Shelly points to a specific spot. "There is an air and water purifier / recycler here that functions for this section of Urser. It opens in about 25 minutes and will close 1 minute after. That single minute is when we will go in through the purification unit and into Urser. It only does this once a day, so if we don't go in at that moment, the mission will be *much* more difficult."

A purple path appears on the map, showing a direction to go from the entry point. "From there, we'll split into two teams. Team 1 will follow this path to here." she points at a green dot. "That is the armory. Today only, it seems there is a very special occasion going on. Snively is visiting Urser. Because of this, security will be increased around a whole other area of Urser, making security decreased everywhere else including our two destinations. The armory will probably be emptied of any advanced weaponry such as laser weapons, but it will still likely have spare harpoons, spears and other such gear. Maybe even a few spare scuba suits from our relations department."

An orange line appears on the map, showing another path. "Team 2 will follow this path to the ol' archives room. It will be even less guarded than the Armory. Team 2 will gather all the latest intel possible. Then both teams will follow their respective paths back to here." She points at the purifier again. "Once we all meet up, the purifier will obviously *not* be our way out since it's closed for the next 24 hours. We will follow a new path." another path shows up in yellow on the map. "Which will lead us to the hangar. This place will probably be the most guarded of the four locations we will have been. But because security will still be lower than normal and we will be together, I believe we can use surprise, grab a vehicle and book it."

She then points around at specific people. "Team Armory will be composed of Nautilus, Mittens, Thomas and Milloni. Team Intel will be me, Lorena, Crucible and Samuel. Mei Ling is handing you all capsules. In case we get spotted, you are to use the capsule as Mei Ling instructs and then hurry to the meeting spot right away. Any questions?"

Mei Ling shows each person the button on the capsule as she hands it to them. Then demonstrates pointing the thing with the red end facing AWAY from herself and pressing the button.

  Joe looks over to Valin as others head inside.  "So, anything you need some help with before I head off on another suicide mission in robot town?"

  Well, at least Joe doesn't use an inordinate amount of surfer terminology?

Lucky blushes at Candy's adorable reaction.  He recalls his parents telling him this day would come, when he'd be hypnotized by girls.  He was sceptical, but now he's a believer!

"Flautas..." he mutters softly, trying to get the pronunciation right to give his mind something else to think on lest he make a fool of himself in front of Candy.

He gazes out the window, watching the crowd of people headed for the mess hall.

"Tortillas.  Meat, beans, and...  Hey!  You said you wouldn't make it spicy!  And it looks like we've got a big crowd of hungry people already.  Is it really lunch time already?"

That's what happens when you sleep in, Lucky.

Philip's brow furrows deeply at Joe's words "suicide mission."  His fur bristles as a flood of memories and emotions wash over him.

~Aw man,~ Angel fish bemoans, ~Here comes the "I'm a battle hardened veteran!" speech.  "Don't EVER talk about suicide!" or "More like homicide... you're killing your friends with that demoralizing talk!" or..~

~Hey!  Angelfish!~ Devil fish chimes in, ~How many veterans does it take to screw in a light bulb?~

~I don't know... how many?~

~Of course you wouldn't know!  You weren't there!~

Both fish laugh their fins off!

Once again Phil just clenches his fists, grits his teeth, and says nothing.  He nods to Michael and follows him in silence.

Mittens gives Pierson a big smile and nods vigorously before rushing off to the prep room when prompted.  ^_^

~Saved by the bell!~ she thinks to herself, ~Only thing better than an awkward moment being interrupted is an awkward moment being interrupted with ADVENTURE!~

After she hears Shelly lay out the plan then ask for questions, Mittens raises her hand waves it vigorously!  ^.^/

"Yes I have a question!" she says excitedly, "What's that capsule do?!  Does it make you wake up from this world where you discover that Robotnick's got everyone plugged into some kind of digital dream machine?  Or does it cause a glitch in the system so we suddenly have incredible speed and strength?  Our enemies will look like they're moving in slow motion!"

She begins to demonstrate how to dodge slow-motion laser fire complete with pew-pew-pew sound effects.  If ever there was a devout follower that could make her god blush in embarrassment...

((OOC: In the DBZ series, a planet destroying tyrant's elite fighters make him him blush just by introducing themselves: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGNPFi64fPM ))
This message was last edited by the player at 15:01, Tue 07 July 2009.

Mika glances up as Lucky mentions there's a big crowd heading towards the mess hall. "No, lunch isn't supposed to be for another three hours, I don't even have the ingredients ready."  She smiles at Lucky, "No worries, dolce.  I'll not make the flautas spicy, but those who like it spicy I'll have a spicy salsa for them."

Mika takes of the kitchen apron, and hangs it on the chair, "I'll let them know we are not ready for lunch, you ninos finish up in here, I'll be back.  Aye Caramba, and where did Emerald go now that this work has started?" she asks herself as she steps into the dining hall, getting ready to greet everyone, and break the news that the kitchen is not ready yet.

Samuel's only response to Milloni's first comment is a 'hrmp', although he says, "Inspiration can come from the strangest places."

After arriving at the planning room, Samuel pays close attention to Shelly's plan.  Samuel enters coordinates into his bracer so that he has the routes mapped out just in case. Samuel keeps looking at the map on his bracer as he focuses on entering the data, until he hears who is on which team and looks up.

After accepting the capsule from Mei Ling, he places it in a belt pouch while pondering the situation. Samuel can understand why he's on the intel team due to the gear he carries, but what puzzles him is why Milloni isn't on the intel team given her expertise with computers. "Wouldn't things go smoother if Milloni was going to help deal with the computers we'll be working with? Also, don't be surprised if a there are electronics left in the armory. So make sure you have some waterproof bags in case any of them are worth swiping. Too bad we don't have time to properly plan this. We could have come up with a plan to take out Snively. All we'd need to do is disable some safety systems, lock him in a chamber or corridor and flood it. And with the proper set up it could all be done remotely. Oh well maybe next time." It is obvious Samuel doesn't care if people dislike how cavalier he is about wanting to eliminate Snively in a less than honorable manner that Samuel knows no freedom fighter is likely to approve of.

Michael heads to the Mess Hall while making sure he doesn't loose Raichel or Phillip on the way since the chimpanzee doesn't want them to get lost in Channelwood, or to move around on their own just yet since they don't know their way around.

Valin watches as people head to the Mess Hall as the gorilla waits to see who is heading where as he decides on whether he is needed somewhere in particular at the moment or if he can resume is normal shores before needing to deal with his 'new responsibilities'.

Nautilus stands with a stoic air as he listens to Shelly's plan. Several questions develop in his mind, but they are of a more personal nature rather than ones directly related to the task at hand, so he refrains from asking them at this time.

After listening to Samuel's concerns, he speaks up steadily, "It would seem likely that leftover arms would still be inside of Urser's Armory from when it was under Mobian control. As Urser was a kingdom built with the water in mind, nearly all of the equipment available for combat is designed for use under water or in very damp conditions." He nods towards Shelly for confirmation on his next point, "I would assume that equipment to be our top priority as it would have the greatest potential for use in Aquarius. Also, with the kingdom still being an underwater base, it stands to reason that Robotnik may have created weapons to accommodate the water as well. With limited muscle between the members of our group and the obvious need for speed in the escape, I believe that it would be wise to be somewhat picky with the weapons and equipment that we intend to take back rather than needlessly taking that which we may not know how to use."

With that being proposed, he gives a glance to Mittens and Thomas to try and get a better read on their feelings on working together in this mission. He has little worry about Milloni's morale in light of the current team.

Lorena wanders into the departure area, seemingly ready to go.  She is only carrying her spear.

Sorry about my running off, but I guess I got so excited about my first mission.  What have I missed so far?  I can take care of our routes of escape should the need arise.  I have a few strategies that will surely undermine all of Robotniks plans.  Let's have a successful mission.

She said, with her usual bright and cheery smile.  Her morale was high, but then again, it never isn't.  She takes the capsule handed to her and puts in in the knot of her bow for safe keeping.

What does this capsule do for us anyway?  Just kinda curious.

Maverick listens to Lucky and Mika concerning the approaching people. Once Mika's gone, he speeds up his efforts. "Mika's counting on us, guys. She doesn't need more stress than what she already has, so let's get this done quicker for her."

Indeed where DID Emmy go? She stepped off panel, it seemed. Or was just that silent. With the small crowd heading to the mess hall, Emerald looks up at Valin, adding to what Joe said. "I'm here to help too, Valin. May I lend you a hand?"

Raichel does indeed seem distracted as she looks around in amazement. "This place is just so cool. Still... I have a question. How do you stay hidden from the eye in the sky? Or other such surveilance? Can't see the village for the trees?" she asks Michael.

Katy doesn't answer Raichel as Michael was the one addressed. She does glance at Philip, however, seeming to scan him with her eyes. She makes no attempt to hide this either, as Katy only believes in being subtle against the enemy. That doesn't mean she trusts Philip as far as she could throw him yet (Then again, even in her current state, she could probably throw him farther than most in Channelwood. Most. I didn't forget Valin. O.o)

The "suicide mission" comment doesn't miss her notice, though, and she stops in her tracks, ear flicking. "It's only suicide if you die, Joe. And we're still alive." She continues walking with Phil, grumbling about stuff like "I'll show 'em... I'll show everyone... Robotnik's going down. And I will live to see it happen." as she crutches along.

To Mittens, Shelly looks at her and giggles. "Mei Ling will explain what the capsule does..."

Shelly explains to Samuel, "I believe the expression is: Six one way, half a dozen the other. On one hand, as I explained earlier, the armory will be more guarded. That means computer-wise also. So Milloni would be better suited for that. That and the armory was built with only seabears in mind... you'd be very cramped trying to move about in there. But on the other hand, if we had you with Team 1, we'd be able to carry more back. So if you and Milloni wish to switch, that is fine. As for Snively, we'd best stay off Robotnik's radar. Rumor is, Snively is the guy's Nephew. I don't wanna chance that Robotnik has something resembling a heart left and come for revenge by killing all my people and then hunting *us* down. If anyone here comes up with an idea for capturing Snively, though, I'm SO for that. A bargaining chip is always handy."

Shelly looks at Nautilus and nods. Then looks at everyone present. "Nautilus brings up a good point. On the way there, make up your mind to grab only what you KNOW how to use. That way, we know that we can use what we walk away with. Also, keep in mind Samuel knows how to use projectile weapons well enough that if we see any, grab 'em. At the very least, Sam can teach us how to use 'em later if Crucible here doesn't already know how."

Thomas doesn't object to being stuck with Mittens. SOMEONE has to be willing to knock her out with a solid punch if she goes overboard with being crazy. And while he's confident Samuel would be willing to do that, he also knows Samuel would likely get in bigger trouble for it. And for a group to function like an efficient machine, the less inner turmoil, the better.

Mei Ling explains to Lorena and to everyone present. "The capsule shoots ink. Much like an octopus. But this is special in that it acts like octopus ink either in water or out. It will provide superior cover for escape." (OOC: Sorry couldn't resist the DnD reference)

  "A much more sensible reasoning than my being very bad at suicide missions."

  It could be one of the reasons Joe doesn't do as much as if potentially could around Channelwood between missions is how easily distracted people are.

Lucky nods at Maverick's suggestion and redoubles his efforts.  "Heh...  won't she be surprised when she comes back to a kitchen already prepared for making lunch."

Ambitious... but possible depending on how much time Mika takes chatting with the crowd.  In short order he's already found the meat and beans and has placed them on the counter.

"You and me both..." Philip mutters in agreement to Katy's mutterings, rubbing his knuckles.

He follows the others to the dining area.  When it seems appropriate to sit down, he pulls out a chair for Katy.  She might not be the oldest lady present, but his mother taught him that the infirm take priority when it comes to courtesy.

~Such a gentleman!~ Angel Fish commends sarcastically.

~Just watch... Raichel's going to do the same thing,~ Devil Fish predicts, ~Nothing like teaching your daughter to be a gentleman too!~
This message was last edited by the player at 16:02, Thu 23 July 2009.

Mittens grins that she made Shelly giggle.  :D

"Good points made by all," she commends before commenting with a shrug, "Only idea I have for capturing Snivley would probably require Sam to use the SWAT suit to smuggle the fox lady from channelwood on board Snivley's ride unless someone else knows how to fly those things...  besides...  I thought the good-guys aren't supposed to use 'surrender or we hurt your nephew' tactics."  ;p

She's still smiling and wagging her tail, hiding the fact that she's very serious about her last point.  She takes the whole "never use immoral tactics" thing very seriously.  She'd sooner allow Robotnick destroy the entire world than stoop to his level.

Mika steps out of the kitchen as everyone arrives, and is seated.  "Hola amigos, we are just between breakfast and lunch, so we do not have any food ready right now." she tells them all, "Though we do have milk, juice, and water if anyone is thirsty.". 
She knows that the mess hall is occasionally used for impromtu meetings, but she figures she'll get the dissapointment over with for anyone hoping for a meal right away.

Samuel chuckles at Shelly's response as he says, "I'm used to working in cramped spaces. I still think Milloni and I should switch, since heavier guarded also means more robots to deal with and I will have several weapons with me. Also I'll be able to carry more equipment out, plus assist in identifying equipment that I could train people to use. Also the armory itself was built with Seabears in mind, but I doubt Robotnik's forces have stuck to the same protocols in regards to its maintenance and what they store in it. I wouldn't be too surprised if equipment that didn't react well to water was being stored there."

Samuel ponders for a moment on how to deal with Snively since while a dead Snively would suit Samuel just fine, a live one in capivity could be more useful, if only for target practice. "Well I still don't see anything wrong with just taking Snively out and making it look like an accident. Although if we acted fast, could we try to maneuver him into a flooding chamber where we can use a rigged air-tank to force him to cooperate. He tries anything funny we shut off his air supply and he drowns. But I doubt w have time to rig an air-tank and rig a chamber to flood, let alone figure out how to maneuver him into it without him getting electrocuted when we take out whatever robotic guards he'd have with him."

Michael responds to Raichel's question by explaining, "The canopy of branches and leaves above us provide adequate protection from aerial surveillance. Also there are enough branches and leaves beneath us to fool the rare robot patrol. Although we'd also spot the patrol a mile away and take steps to make sure they wouldn't be drawn toward us due to noise. So if they look up from the ground all they see are trees, branches, and vines. Additionally the plants and wildlife also make the use of heat sensors in the area relatively useless as everything looks the same."

After the group reaches the mess hall, since Phillip pulls out a chair for Katy, Michael pulls over a pair of chairs for Raichel and Phillip to make sure that the two can sit next to each other as everyone files in. After wards Michael takes a seat where he can comfortably talk with Raichel and Phillip while also keeping an eye on Katy's conversation just in case his input is needed for something.

Valin considers all the tasks at hand that still needed to be attended to in response to Joe and Emerald's offering of help. "There are several of the gardens that need to be tended to make sure the plants have the appropriate amount of water and nutrients."

The gorilla then says to Emerald, "Think you and Joe can handle that while I finish up some of the maintenance on the village?" as Valin knows he won't really need any help with the maintenance given his carpentry skills and that no one in the village really lets anything get into significant disrepair.

Nautilus raises a brow at Samuel's insistence, keeping his own suggestions for who Samuel should go with to himself. After all, the Princess is the one leading this, not him.

However, he refuses to stay silent on the growing suggestion going around, "If I may say... I think that concentrating on an elaborate trap to capture Snively would be foolish. Aside from undoubtedly incurring a major attack upon us, we risk losing our status as 'under the radar' for Robotnik. We are not at the size or overall skill where we can make demands and risk a direct confrontation. The less attention we draw and the less we reveal about ourselves, especially when exploring new options, the better."
He clears his throat officially, giving Samuel a glance, "Additionally, I believe Samuel has made an important point... This will undoubtedly be a changed Urser for those of us that know it. Until we know more of what has or has not changed, I would suggest that we refrain from wandering too far from our planned destinations." He nods to Shelly, giving a gentle reminder, "Princess. You said that time was of the essence?"

Lorena stood there listening, taking in as much information as she could.  Unsure of what to say that may have any relevance at all, she merely piped in with her usual enthusiasm.

So, when do we leave?  I haven't been to Urser in forever!

Emerald nods to Valin. "Sure we can. Don't you worry." she then reaches to Joe to tug on him as she heads for the gardens.

Maverick and Candy help Lucky as much as possible, seeming to double efforts and things are actually getting done relatively quick. Of course, later on, the kids will have to hear people complaining about either some crusted food on their plate or the taste of soap. But we'll get to that when we get to that.

To the explanation Mike gives for the hiddeness of the village, Raichel says, "That's so cool..."

Raichel would have pulled a chair for someone, but Michael is the only other someone and he isn't cripple. Besides, the guy just pulled a chair for her and her dad! "Thanks." she says to Michael with a smile. "So what's first?" she asks in anticipation.

Katy acknowledges Mika. "Hola, Mika... and thanks. That's very sweet of you. Water please. That, at least, we have plenty of. But try not to be intimidated by people coming here. If it isn't lunch time, people know by now to fix their own snack. If they give you trouble, tell them to take it up with *me*. If they continue to bug you, serve them what they ask. Then tell me. I'll make sure they never do it again."

Katy understands the need for leniency. Really. She just believes one slip in the respect for how things are done could result in the death of the entire town. So she has NO tolerance for such things.

As for Raichel and Philip, she lets Michael handle those two as she said she would. Though she has to keep reminding herself.

Shelly nods to both Nautilus and Lorena. "Much as it may upset everyone here that Snively will be right under our noses, Nautilus is right. Time is running out. We'll have to swallow the fact we simply don't have the time resources for doing what we want, but only what we *need*. Compared to arming ourselves, figuring out a way to trap Snively is simply lower priority. Whether he's Robotnik's nephew or not, I'm sure he's replaceable."

Shelly is serious about being moral too, but Mittens happy attitude has Shelly convinced Mittens was kidding.

Meanwhile, Thomas asides to Mittens, "I hope for all our sakes you are kidding. This is war. Those who play fair die." Thomas, at least, cares about as much for morality as a rock might. Amazingly less than Samuel, but still worlds more than Robotnik.

Shelly looks at Lorena. "We leave now. Any other questions and suggestions will simply have to be made on the way."

A door opens to reveal a pool. It's about 10' wide by 10' long and who knows how deep. "Get your breathers on." she says before diving in herself. She doesn't need a breather, of course, but everyone knows that by now.

  Joe nods, "No problem Valin, later."  He would have waved, but that particular arm is currently a tugging target by a certain fox.

  Nevermind he could have used his other arm.

  "Think we're in for peacful gardening, or curse word filled gardening?"  Well, so far as curse words go in a game where they aren't allowed.

"Thanks," Lucky says in answer to Maverick and Candy's help.  But he's just old enough to realize the yucky consequences of half-done dishes without anyone having to remind him, so he goes right back to finishing that job when the other two drop it.  He decides against saying anything about it since it'd likely start another unpleasant exchange between him and Maverick, but it's clear from his face that he's not happy.

"Thank you, Michael," Philip says in response to the chairs being set for him and his daughter.

~You're such a gentleman!~ Devil Fish continues in a mock feminine voice.

~You really should say it, Madam Philip,~ Angel Fish says with a chuckle.

Phil sits, ignores the fish, and anime sweat-drops at Katy's threats over complainers.  Sheesh.  And he thought HE was severe with troop discipline!

~What's the matter, Philip?~ Devil Fish asks, ~Intimidated by a teenage girl?~

~Well I sure am!~ Angel Fish answers, ~Anyone that can make Philip nervous is scary!~

~You need to put her in her place, Philip!  Show her who's the Daddy!~

~Bend her over and give her a spanking!~

~Aw MAN!~

Phil smears his deeply troubled face.  He shudders to think of what life would be like if people could actually hear even half of what the fish say.  Thank goodness they can't.  >.>  <.<
This message was last edited by the player at 17:53, Fri 07 Aug 2009.

Mittens is deeply distressed by Samuel's suggestions as it sinks in that he wasn't kidding, but she's even more disturbed by everyone else's attitude toward them, especially Shelly.  She's the leader, it's her responsibility to do what's right as an example to her people!  Instead of pointing out how morally questionable the ideas are, it's how impractical they are that gets pointed out!  When Thomas makes his comment, Mittens is downright angry!

"Of course!" she answers, heading for the moon pool, but not in much of a hurry for adventure this time, "This IS war!  What's a few plundered enemy villages?  So what if they starve if it keeps our troops fed?!  What's a few raped mothers if it keeps our troops morale up?!  I hear enemy children are quite tasty when shish-kabobed and roasted over a campfire.  That'll teach 'em not to mess with us!"

He looks over at Shelly, and make an effort to refrain from dumping all the blame on her.

"If we're no better than Robotnick, then he'll be our master long after he's dead.  WORSE!  We'll BE him!  You'll excuse me if I don't partake in any child killings whether it's convenient or not!"

She suits up and says a prayer that she won't end up having to fight her friends to save the life of a kid she's never met face-to-face.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:26, Fri 07 Aug 2009.

Mika smiles, nodding to Katy, "Si, water is no problem.  And no worries about troublemakers, I think I can handle them."  Her tounge can get as sharp as her claws if she decides to go all Gordon Ramsay on someone.

She heads back into the kitchen to fetch a pitcher of water, and a stack of cups. As she sees the dishes nearly completed she gives the kids an approving smile, "Ah, muy bueno.  After I deliver this water you all can get a cooking lesson." she offers as she pumps the handle to fill the pitcher.

A moment later she heads back into the mess hall and leaves the cups and pitcher in the center of the table.

Michael notices that Phil looks a bit troubled, but the chimpanzee has no clue what is the source of Phil's troubled expression, leading Michael to wonder if Phil is worried about what he might have to say in the discussion. When Raichel asks what should be discussed first, Michael's schoolteacher days kick in with a single thought 'the basics come first' since the same approach would apply here. "We probably should discuss capabilities first. I remember hearing that Phil is a scrapper, but that doesn't really say much since children can be taught how to take out SWATBots relatively safely by exploiting the weaknesses that SWATBots have. So starting with what skills or specialties you two have would help in determining how you could contribute to the mission at hand."


Michael pauses for a moment as he knows he has to at least mention enough about the mission to help them understand what sort of skills are more useful since this discussion isn't a job interview or autobiographies so endless details aren't needed, "As you can probably guess by now the mission is going to rely more on stealth and technical skills than physical combat, as the goal of the mission is to sabotage the robotic dragon when it is vulnerable. So what skills do you two think you can bring to the mission if you were to go along as part of it."

Samuel reaches for the 'gas mask' connected to his toolbelt since it serves as his scuba gear re-breather when Shelly has reminded the group of the time limit for this mission.

Upon Mittens' 'rant' Samuel realizes that Mittens' doesn't realize who Snively is as Samuel says, "I know Snively looks like a kid compaired to Robotnik, but he's an adult who just happens to be short. And I'll show no mercy to an enemy commander so complacent with Robotnik's ideals. But make no mistake I will do whatever it takes to get my crewmates unroboticized and us off this planet and back home. Even things that those of this world would find distasteful or abhorrent if required to."

Samuel then turns back to the pool, puts on his mask and dives into the pool.

Valin watches as Emerald and Joe head off to deal with the gardening before the gorilla heads off to deal with the various maintenance tasks he needs to tend to.

Nautilus looks sharply at Mittens for her comments, but makes no open words about them at the moment. Instead, he takes off his jacket and sets it aside, feeling that the extra weight would only hinder a covert mission, and prepares himself to jump into the pool.

He looks at Mittens and any remaining others who are preparing or hesitating to follow, "Death is not our mission today... Be swift and stay with our current now so that we may accomplish what we're set out for today. The safety of the group comes before personal pride or squabbles."

With that being said, he lowers himself into the pool and the waters below, waiting for the others to follow before following Shelly to their contact point. He stays behind and closer to Mittens and Thomas, deciding it best to stay with them and bring up the rear for the group.

Lorena put her breather on and dove into the water.  Just because she was a cat didn't mean she hated water.  She splashed herself a little before diving under and following Shelly, catching up to her quickly and giving the princess a thumbs up.

Daemon heads over to the small gathering and sits down with his trusty laptop JUICE. He gives a nervous grin to anyone who happens to look at him and he begins typing.

(Note from the GM: Daemon's player gave me the go-ahead to post for him. He's got a LOT of RL stuff going on right now. Exciting and wonderful RL stuff. :) )

Curse words you will have with you always. Just because the current social structure says you can't use certain words doesn't mean people can't make other curse words which provide the same function and somehow magically aren't considered "bad". Emerald giggles from Joe's comment. "My answer depends on whether you want an honest answer or just an answer that sounds good."

Raichel hrms. "Well I'll speak for myself and then Dad can speak for himself. I'm very in shape, so I can do more physically than my appearance might suggest. Run fast, run long, lift a lotta weight, so on. I'm a capable follower and leader. Dad made sure I could lead a team if need be and, well, raised me to be able to understand, trust and follow orders. Though I really shine there when it's him in charge."

Leadership IS an asset. Most people are followers. But she's saying she has that in spades and can lead too. "I know martial arts and specialize in the staff." she looks at the metal staff in her hand and then back to Michael. "And finally, I'm sure this matters a great deal, but I have about 2 years of field experience. So I am familiar with the standard tactics, but nothing on that I've specialized in... I already told you what my specialties are."
This message was last edited by the player at 14:12, Wed 19 Aug 2009.

Katy looks at what Daemon brings up and raises an eyebrow. "I see..." she says idly. Katy looks at Mika and says, "Thanks, Mika."

Katy continues listening to the others while Daemon types and Raichel talks. She can't help but perk a little that Raichel seems to believe she has what it takes to lead a squad. Still, she is slightly disappointed that the girl isn't a specialist in anything seriously Robotnik repelling like Daemon or something. That stunt he pulled with the shutting doors was, in Katy's mind, FAR more amazing in the long term than her stunt against Ra. Though she admits to herself she seriously needs to keep herself under more control in the future or she could be dead. As it is, she's already seen even surviving such a stunt has left her unable to continue strikes against Middletown until she's well again.

Seems Mika is at least holding off Maverick from engaging Lucky in conversation again. Candy gets excited and claps her hands when Mika mentions cooking lessons. She glances about, looking at the others. Maverick smiles at Mika and looks ready. The dishes are done and the boys are not arguing. Things could be better, but not by much.

Shelly didn't hear a thing of what Mittens said since she already dove in. But Thomas heard Mittens and makes the comment, "Sam's right. The guy isn't a kid. He's Robotnik's second-hand man... and for good reason. Snively's a villain through and through." he doesn't seem bothered, impressed or anything towards Mittens' comment. He then says, "And Nautilus is right. This isn't a killing mission."

Thomas then dives in. The rest of their communication is going to be done with hand signals. Presumably. At least, until they all arrive at the destination.

Shelly swims on ahead, leading the way for everyone. She is trying to keep herself at the same pace as everyone else so she won't out-swim them all that badly. When Lorena comes up next to her, Shelly smiles and gives a thumbs-up back.

  Joe is reminded of the times he slightly attempts to use tact from Emerald's answer.  "I'm gonna go with the honest one.  Besides, the impact of unfortunate gardening tasks above 'we're all gonna starve' are kinda meh my comparison to what we usually spend time worrying about."

  Of course, there are likely some people who would prefer fighting killbots to pulling weeds.

It suddenly occurs to Lucky what a threat to his manliness (such as it is) this whole situation is.  Stuck in the kitchen with a woman, an 8 year old, and a girly-girl doing dishes and getting cooking lessons!  He slumps and his ears and tail slump with him.  Isn't he supposed to be earning blisters while breaking his back tilling the soil under a hot sun with the 400 lb gorilla?!

......!

On second thought cooking lessons with the girls isn't so bad.  He perks up, looking a lot more enthused.

"Lookin forward to it!" Lucky says, licking his lips, "Especially the eating part at the end."

~Time for the humble facade!~ Angel Fish predicts, ~'I'm just a humble man of little skill!'  He'll not mention how good he is at killing things.~

"She's being modest," Phil brags with a proud smile, "It's like one of these trees here saying 'Specialty?  Well I guess I kinda provide shade or something, but I'm not all that useful,' when that tree is one of the pillars this whole village stands upon.  We both specialize in infiltration.  She's grown up in Robotropolis, so she takes it for granted how easy it is for her to live right under the enemy army's noses.  What you describe - stealthy sabotage - is what our team does on a daily basis, so we'll be plenty comfortable with such a mission.  She just happens to be very passionate about her martial arts, so she doesn't see surviving behind enemy lines with ease as a 'specialty' by comparison."

~Brilliant!~ Angel Fish commends sarcastically.

~Brag your head off and make it sound like a loving father's praise!~ Devil Fish agrees.

~You'd make a great salesman, Phil!~

~Only the product he's selling is his daughter!~

~Aw MAN!  Pimping out your own girl!?  For shame, Philip!~

The brief smile on Phil's face vanishes.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:51, Thu 20 Aug 2009.

The scuba mask is hiding Mittens' blushing face as she dives into the pool and hurries to catch up with Shelly.  Snivley is the evil adult nephew of Robotnic!  Of course!  DUR-HUR-HUR!

~Why did you let me make a fool of myself like that?!~ she asks in a silent prayer, ~Well... I don't... you tell me!  You're the author of justice!  I barely count as an apprentice...  well dang.  Hard core.  OK...  so...?  ....!  You're kidding, right?  You're not kidding.  That hardly seems...  Well yea but...~

=x.x=

"Note to self," she mutters, "Stop being self-righteous when talking to the maker of heaven and earth."

She begins to lag behind, her prayers weighing heavily on her conflicted heart.  Deep down she wants to say "No way!" but she knows that she has no right to.  Besides... from what she's read, saying that to God is made of fail.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:14, Thu 20 Aug 2009.

Mika heads back into the kitchen, "Bueno!  First thing, everyone must be clean.  The soap is on the sink, and wash your paws up to your elbows.  Anything on your paws may end up on your food." she cautions.

After everyone cleans up, she takes a carving knife out of the knife holder, along with a sharpening file. "Once your clean you need to prepare your tools.  A dull knife can be more dangerous than a sharp one."  she shows the kids the proper angle and stroke to get a knife good and sharp in just a few file strokes.

Then comes a slab of meat, she holds her fingertips in, the 'cat's paw' style of holding what your cutting, "Keep your fingertips in, and cut with one even stroke." she teaches demonstrating on the whole pound of meat.  "Who wants this job?" she asks

After listening to what Raichel and Phillip say, Michael reaches the conclusion that while Raichel thinks she can lead she lacks experience at it and she believes that she is a better follower than leader since she 'shines' when Phillip is in charge. Michael suppresses the desire to sigh since neither one seems to have a specialty and both are being rather vague with the 'I can do whatever is needed' attitude, at least with the exception of Raichel saying she specializes in staff combat. However staff combat isn't very useful if the group needs to hack into a computer system or mess with electronics.

This train of thought leads Michael to his next 'round' of questions as the chimpanzee also explains a bit more about the mission, "As far as sabotage goes, how skilled are either of you at electronics and computers? It's one thing to break stuff with a hammer, or use a bomb, but can either of you rewire electrical systems or hack computers? For this mission those types of sabotage skills are what is needed as we intend to sabotage a certain robot's recharging system to disable it while it is vulnerable and low on power."

After diving into the pool, Samuel follows Shelly's lead as to where to go. Samuel pays attention to the hand signals and body language he sees in case someone flashes a warning sign just in case the group runs, or in this case swims, across an enemy patrol. Samuel appears to be calm yet slightly fidgety as he glances around frequently, to try to minimize the chance that he is caught off-guard by an enemy patrol in route to the destination.

As Valin works on some of the tasks Michael has left for him while Michael works on the mission details, Valin realizes that it might be a good opportunity for Lucky to get some experience working around the village, with everything going on right now, the gorilla thinks that for now he should work on things Lucky couldn't really help with while Joe and Emerald are off helping with other chores.

Valin suspects that he should finish the tasks that would be ill suited for easing a newcomer into chores around the village by lunchtime, and that after lunch the gorilla will get Lucky to help out. Which shouldn't be to hard on the boy with the work Emerald and Joe are doing now.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:47, Wed 25 Nov 2009.

Upon entering the water, the old Seabear's physical demeanor changes quite a bit to those around him. Though he showed his age in some of his slower movements out of water, years seem to have vanished now. His movements are quick and uninhibited, and his gaze is sharp.

With Shelly taking up the lead, Nautilus forms up the rear, trying to keep the others moving at a good pace, since time is of the essence. As he's staying near to Mittens, he takes notice when she starts to lag behind.

Giving her a cursory inspection to make sure nothing is physically wrong, he swims a bit closer alongside her and waves her forward, giving her a gentle push on the shoulder to imply that she needs to keep up.

Seeing one as energetic as Mittens lag behind has him somewhat curious, but not concerned quite yet.

Lorena remains at Shelly's side, keeping up quite well for being a cat while Shelly is a seabear.  Lorena felt the excitement pulsing through her.

My first mission.  Can't mess this up.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:54, Sat 19 Sept 2009.

"Well.." Emerald begins, "Honestly, the level of how annoying anything is depends on two things: attitude and situation. People blame difficulty for their attitude because it's easier than admitting one's own bad attitude. So in the case of gardening in and of itself? You'll most likely only have yourself to blame if you find yourself in a sour mood. But if you have a positive attitude, you can overcome so much more than if you didn't. I have experience with this, so you will have someone to answer any questions you might have on the topic. And I would like to think I'm decent company to keep, so your situation can't be all bad."

The reason she asked first if Joe wanted an honest answer: Because a lot of people would be pissed off at Emerald by now for even suggesting their so-called ill fortune is their own fault. But Emerald is a strong believer in taking the reigns of one's own heart and life.

If Maverick were reading Lucky's thoughts, he'd probably take the thought as a challenge. But he can't. Instead, he's smiling with the other kids at the idea of eating some yum.

He washes his hands as instructed. When Mika mentions and pulls out a knife, Maverick instantly begins to light up the room with his anticipation. She is barely done saying "this" when Maverick raises his hand excitedly. He stores in the back of his mind about dull knives being more dangerous. Though he may as well ask, "Why are dull knives more dangerous?" as he steps to be right next to Mika.

He wonders if learning how to chop up meat is going to make him more proficient in carving up people he hates. No... the list of people he hates would not include Lucky. Yes... this is how Maverick's mind works.

Candy is greatful Maverick jumped on the chance, but bites her lower lip... "Are you sure it's safe for him, Miss Mika?"

Maverick gives Candy a "gimme a break" look, rolling his eyes.

Katy whispers something to Daemon and he just nods, blushing lightly. Katy gets up and walks over to the kitchen. She stands at the door, watching the kids while leaning on her crutch, her expression neutral. Katy waits for Mika to answer Maverick and pretty well stands patiently. Her neutral expression slowly melting to a slightly sad one.

Raichel answers Michael, "I can hack up to level 2 security measures, but no higher. I haven't learned the intricacies needed yet for level 3 or higher. Most SWATbots, however, are easy to re-wire for simple tasks. Again, though, beyond that, I don't know enough to make them, say, speak a phrase or anything. But altering the workings of a recharging system? That sounds like a whole other field that even an experienced hacker might not know. Sure it's electronics, but that would be like saying apples and organges are the same because they are both fruits. I can help a little with SWATs and security. And I'd like to believe I at least know enough to keep the lesser annoyances at bay while someone more capable does what they can on this... recharger you speak of."

Amy enters the mess hall around this time and hears most of what Raichel said before curiously looking towards Michael. She's here looking for Lucky and co, but decides if they ARE here, she'll bump into them. Her curiousity overcomes her need to fulfill what she set out to do and she has a seat at another table, keeping her ear perked in the direction of Michael's conversation.

(For simple purposes, I'll say level 1 to 2 is average freedom fighter know-how for those who actually know how to hack. That would be like prison locks and such. Of course you have the occasional "I can hack level 3 or 4" guys who are a bit smarter and can hack into security locks that keep doors of more guarded buildings closed, but then you have specialists like Daemon who can hack level 6 or 7 security which equates to "Haha, I can make all the doors in this area close no problem! Gimme a challenge like, I dunno, the local mainframe!". So Raichel is not quite "SatAM Tails" level hacker.)

Shelly grins over at Lorena, waving at her. It's a bit of a swim and Shelly occasionally shows the group air-pockets on the way. These air pockets are artificial ones that were built by the Aquarius Freedom Fighters when they realised the potential of breathers running out of air. Lorena and Hart would know from these pockets, but most of the group today would not. This would be a first for Samuel, Mittens and Thomas. Along the way, they occasionally spot patrols, but it seems Shelly, Crucible and Nautilus are all too familiar with the robotic patterns of these patrols and easily help the group avoid the outer parimeter patrols.

Eventually, the bunch arrive at the area of Urser Shelly was talking about. She looks at the timer she had fascened to her wrist earlier. It's kind of dark, but thankfully the sun is just bright enough that even this deep there is enough light.

2 minutes remaining. She gives everyone the "hold on" signal. Soon, the generator stops. Right on time. She gives the go signal and swims inside, leading the way inside Aquarius. For Sam, it'll be a bit of a squeeze, but he can make it in.

Angel arrives at Aquarius at around that time, parking her motorcycle just outside the lake. She pulls out a cammo tarp from the back of the bike and covers it up. Then heads over to the lake itself and, staying in the trees, waves in the direction of one of the security cams. Inside Aquarius, Mei Ling sees Angel waving and speaks on the Aquarius intercom. "Attention Hart: Our guest has arrived. Please escort her into Aquarius."

Timothius is in an indoor pool taking lessons from Hart when he hears the intercom message. "Well where did the time go? Gosh... we're already halfway to lunch time. Want me to come with?" he asks Hart.

  "So considering all that, it wouldn't be entirely inaccurate to translate your response as 'less than curse filled'."

  Joe does at times get offended for 'this is totally your fault' reasonings.  However it is a little difficult for him to be offended by his faults in theoretical gardening that hasn't even happened yet.

Lucky too washes up and readies himself for the ginsu lesson.  He's a bit nervous about the overlander being offered a chance at the knife, so he moves to be on the side of Mika opposite to Maverick.  He's not so morbid as to think of using the lady as a body shield from a knife attack.  More like it's just instinct to keep as much distance between him and sharp-weapon-in-the-hands-of-a-novice as possible.  He waits patiently for Mika's next instructions without a word.

"Not much of a hacker," Phil answers, "Except in the hatchet-through-armor sense.  But I get the impression that this fellow here is the man to talk to about electronics and such."

This said with a nod to Daemon.

"Beyond that, I'll gladly wait my turn to apply my own version of hacking when the need arises."

~Gotta admit he's telling the truth for once,~ Angel Fish confesses, ~What he's not mentioning is that it's not for lack of trying.~

~And failing,~ Devil Fish interjects, ~Over and over and over again.~

~They say that to do the same thing over and over expecting different results is insanity.~

~In that case Philip defines insanity.~

~Or we do for trying to stop him.~

~Philip drove us mad years ago.~
This message was last edited by the player at 14:49, Mon 04 Jan 2010.

Mittens hurries her pace a bit when urged on by Nautilus.  She does her best to keep up with the others and sets aside her feelings for the task at hand.

~Something's going to go terribly wrong, isn't it?~ she asks in silent prayer, ~You're going to test me to see if I'll do as you asked, aren't you?  I guess we'll both find out what I'm made of.  But if I wind up having to do something crazy thanks to your orders...  Yeeaah.  You'rre the boss.~

Mika smiles as Maverick steps forward to volunteer, "Well, a dull knife takes more effort to cut.  If you try too hard, you're more likely to slip, and the knife will go someplace you don't want it to." she cautions.  "A sharp knife is much easier to work with, and makes the job go much faster.".

As Candy brings up her point about young kids using knives, she nods, "Si, such things can be dangerous at any age.  But the sooner you learn how to cut properly the ssoner you learn to do it safely." she explains.

She sets the knife down, and fetches about 20 pounds of meat in slabs, "I need all of these cut up into strips 1 finger wide." she instructs Maverick.

Mika then walks over to the mixing bowls, "Now which one of you two want to mix up the tortilla batter?".  She pats a 15 pound sack of flour.

As Samuel made mental notes of the various artificial air pockets along the way as he knows they can be useful in an emergency or simply to conserve the air supply in his breathing apparatus.

When the group reaches the 'entrance' into Aquarius that they would be using, Samuel quickly notices that while it would be a tight fit for him. Although he thinks to himself that he's had to work in more cramped places in his lifetime so it won't be difficult for him, even if it won't be exactly comfortable. As such snakes his way through he opening as he contorts his body using skills he has honed over the years working in maintenance shafts and ventilation ducts.

Michael carefully listens to Raichel's answer, while still paying enought attention to what else goes on in the vicinity to wave to Amy when she moves to sit down at a nearby table since nothing being discussed is anything that would need to be kept secret from others in the village.

Michael isn't surprised to hear of Phillip's lack of hacking skills, but does take a mental note that Phillip at least honest enough to admit that there would be someone else better than him for that task. Although it doesn't answer an earlier question Michael had which was, why did Phillip and Raichel come here at this time.

Michael then turns to Raichel and then gives an answer to the question Raichel seems to be implying, "Actually, knowing how to modify the system they hack into is part of what it means to be a hacker. What good is it to be able to bypass the security on a computer if you don't know how to use the computer or what it can be made to do? For our purposes, the method to sabotage the recharging system is simply changing some variables to make the current incompatible, and preferably incapacitating, when used for recharging. And yes having other people run interference for Daemon while he hacks the recharging system will be the responsibility of the rest of the team going on the mission."

It isn't long before Valin has finished the tasks that he knows would be inappropriate for use in teaching a novice the skills necessary for maintaining the village.

Valin then starts heading for the mess hall as he figures by the time he gets there lunch should almost be ready, as he figures after lunch he can start delegating the tasks that he doesn't have to see to personally to others while also showing Lucky the basics on the tasks that would be more appropriate for teaching the newcomer the skills he'd need to eventually handle more difficult maintenance and gardening tasks around the village.

After Shelly gives the 'go' sign, Nautilus again stays at the rear, but hurries the slower members along. He keeps a wary eye on Mittens to make sure that she keeps going and doesn't lose focus, though it seems to him that the worst is over in terms of her lagging.

The old Seabear makes absolutely sure that everyone is inside the entrance before entering swiftly himself. If anyone misses their timing, he clearly doesn't want them to be left out in the waters without anyone of experience along with them.

Hart is relaxing at the side of the indoor pool, surprised at how much he has to exert himself to help teach another how to swim.  At the same time, he doesn't have to do anything overly complicated or strenuous on his own since he's just going over the basics.

At the intercom message, Hart sighs and pulls himself out of the water, shaking himself off and smoothing his fur. He gives a brief nod to Timothius, "Sure thing. It might make her feel better to be greeted by someone else who's not a regular around here... Besides that, you wanted to head to Channelwood as soon as she got here, right? Couldn't hurt to chat with her for a bit and hear how it's goin' over there before we go ourselves." He smirks a bit, "Also might be good for you to get your legs used to walking after swimming so much, and dry out those wings..."

Patiently, Hart waits for Timothius to get out and show that he's ready before leading him up to the entrance to greet the new arrival.

Emerald smiles at Joe. "That's the way to think." she says as if to affirm he *totally* got it. Of course, soon enough, the two arrive at the garden and Emerald gives a few reminders on what needs done as they work. Also obvious is the fact Emerald makes with the light conversation with Joe, such as cloud formations and the creaky board that always creeks.... even after being fixed.

Maverick nods to Mika's request for finger-length slices and immediately gets to work, carefully measuring the sizes and then slicing. He's not here to impress anyone. He wants to do it right and NOT slice his hand open. Simple as that.

Candy hrms. "I wouldn't mind. But just in case, what's the other task you have left after one of us starts mixing?"

She then earpirks when Katy speaks up.

Katy speaks up. "Mika? You got a minute?" figuring she won't get noticed if she doesn't speak up.

Raichel says, "You all *do* have a map... right? Can I see where you plan to go and how we could potentially help?"

Much as she'd love for the CFF to use her and her dad to their fullest potential, it's sounding like they have their heart set on gaining hackers.

In the end, no matter how special or not special someone is, I've learned an extra set of eyes and hands make a world of difference in any mission... hacking or no hacking. she thinks to herself. But she feels saying as much out loud might sound disrespectful, so she keeps her thoughts to herself for now.

Shelly leads the group into the area they discussed where they would split up and looks at the others. She double-checks everyone knows where they are going and then proceeds with her own sub-group.


(Team Armory will be composed of Nautilus, Mittens, Thomas and Milloni. Team Intel will be me, Lorena, Crucible and Samuel. Mei Ling is handing you all capsules. In case we get spotted, you are to use the capsule as Mei Ling instructs and then hurry to the meeting spot right away.)
(Sam suggested switching with Milloni and since he claimed to be able to fit in cramped spaces, we'll go with that. So that Said:)

TEAM ARMORY: Nautilus, Mittens, Thomas and Samuel
TEAM INTEL: Shelly, Lorena, Crucible and Milloni
This message was last edited by the player at 14:19, Sun 03 Jan 2010.

Angel is soon able to see a somewhat wet pair of guys coming to the entrance. She lets a smirk escape as she ponders how obvious it should have been to her that if she shows up at a base that's located in a lake and founded by seabears, of COURSE people there are going to be wet often. Angel waves and once the two are close enough, she greets them. "Hey there. I'm ready to ferry you to Channelwood when you're ready. But there's no rush and I was hoping to have a nickle tour of Aquarius..."

Timothius dried off as best he could before getting to the entrance with Hart. Once there, he waves, but he also doesn't speak, figuring it best for Hart to speak on behalf of Aquarius and what plans may be.

  Joe is a competent gardener type person.  Expert type gardener person being the busy elsewhere gorilla.

  "I suppose moving creaky boards to a different spot and boards that didn't creak to the first spot wouldn't make any difference."  Although if it did make a difference, that could lead to the most silent wooden bridge ever, and the most creaky yet structurally sound wooden bridge ever.

 "I haven't had enough thought process yet to form a detailed opinion on the latest in our flood of new arrivals.  Any particular thoughts regarding them you had?"
This message was last edited by the player at 09:21, Mon 04 Jan 2010.

Lucky raises an eyebrow as he watches Maverick expertly-for-his-age carve up the meat with surgical precision.  Just as well he didn't volunteer for the task.  It doesn't cross his mind that this could be the result of much previous practice with sharp objects and assumes it's just talent.  Not that he ever cut himself, but it only took one time of seeing someone else cut themselves badly that Lucky's nervous enough with a knife in his own hand that he's never been very good with it.

Mixing up the flour sounds safe enough, so he raises a hand at Mika's offer.  When Candy asks her question, it perks Lucky's curiosity enough to say, "Yeah... What she said."

Lucky's head and ears point in the direction of Katy when she calls out.  Now he can't decide if being left in the kitchen with a creepy overlander expert knife wielder is better or worse than being left with a novice...  It's worse.  Definitely worse.  But he can't find an excuse to leave the kitchen.
This message was last edited by the player at 14:57, Mon 04 Jan 2010.

Michael's wave to Amy is enough to draw Phil's attention to the new arrival and the fish tear into him right away.

~Aw man!~ Devil Fish exclaims, ~It's cat and mouse time!~

~Phil just keeps stooping lower and lower,~ Angel Fish laments.

Phil keeps himself from face-palming by forcing his eyes away, but they wind up looking at Katy.  Why is she asking for the lunch lady? he asks himself.  His stomach growls a little at the mere thought of lunch.

~Sight of her making you hungry, Phil?~

~Lunch lady!  He'd like to make that lady his lunch!~

Daring not to let his eyes turn to his daughter, he focuses his halfway closed eyes on Michael, hoping for a map to pay attention to.

It didn't take long for Mittens to go from serious to silly.  As soon as she's above water she begins humming something akin to Mission Impossible music.  She doesn't say a word during Shelly's quick review, just hums along to an imaginary suspenseful soundtrack while giving her a salute with a cocky smirk.

"Team. Armory. GO!" she whispers with various karate chop movements before heading in the assigned direction imitating a ninja run.  ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaOZrCWW2BA )
This message was last edited by the player at 18:48, Mon 04 Jan 2010.

Mika nods approvingly as she watches the Overlander child cutting up the meat without taking off his own finger.  When Katy enters to catch her attention, she heads towards the door.  In response to Candy's and Lucky's question she replies, "Ahh, get two large pots of water boiling for the beans and rice, por favor.  I should only be a moment." she declares.

Mika wipes her paws off on her apron before approaching Katy, "?Que pasa gurerra?" she asks with a smile, letting the kids take care of the simple parts of the meal prep.

When the group splits into the two teams Samuel sighs when Mittens starts humming and acting silly, although since Samuel is currently wishing he had a music player with headphones with him, he can't really bring himself to tell her to knock it off.

Samuel remains alert as 'Team Armory' heads off, being careful to walk softly to not attract unwanted attention by making too much noise. For a moment Samuel has a flashback to when he was a kid on the Tanelorn space station. Back to a time when he and his close friends would sneak around to either set up a prank, or to hide from someone after the prank was pulled. Shaking his head, Samuel mutters softly to himself in a somewhat solemn tone of voice, "This isn't the time, focus on the mission at hand," although Samuel doesn't think how others might react to what he says as he finishes the thought silently, 'and not of fonder times from the past.' Samuel doesn't want to mention stuff about his past right now as he wants to focus on the present.

Michael nods and pulls out a map of Middletown from his toolbelt. While the map is somewhat old and doesn't show any secret safe points in the town that the Channelwood Freedom Fighter group would use for rendezvous points as those Michael has committed to memory and would not risk placing on a map that could fall into enemy hands.

Michael unfolds the map and places it on the table as he says,  "It isn't as detailed as some of the maps Katy has, but it will do for now."

When approaching the mess hall Valin is able to smell traces hinting at the preparation for lunch, although Valin does not know how long it will be till lunch is ready. When Valin reaches the mess hall he glances around to see what is going on, and if there is anything he needs to help with.

The gorilla keeps quiet for the moment as he doesn't want to unnecessarily interrupt any conversations that might be going on.

Nautilus leads the team of them towards the Armory, staying silent most of the way and keeping a constant watch on the other three. Mittens' antics cause the old SeaBear to furrow his brow, but Samuel's comment is well-timed.

He speaks softly, nodding in agreement with Samuel, "He's right, Mittens... This is not the time nor place. We must remain focused on the mission at hand."

He frowns as he keeps his visual focus forward. Much of Urser has changed, it seems. Yes, it is still somewhat familiar to him, and he is able to remember Shelly's directions for the path to take, but so many landmarks that he would have remembered from his days in this very same hallway have long since been covered up or ruined.

As he holds to the walls, directing the others with him to likewise tread wisely, he feels the walls themselves, subconsciously searching for familiar cracks that would at least assure him that they are undoubtedly taking the right path towards a room he considered to be home.

Hart clearly doesn't worry much about getting perfectly dry, since he's long since grown more accustomed to be around and in water rather than out of it, but he's at least not sopping wet when Timothius and him greet Angel. Hart himself gives a brief wave as they walk closer to meet her properly

At her suggestion, he shrugs, but nods, "Don't see why not. I've lived here most of my life, so I'm probably pretty qualified to give you the look-around. You might wanna stick to seein' the places rather than the people, though. We got a few folks out right now." He looks to Timothius briefly before turning to usher Angel in with them, "While we're lookin' around, maybe you can give us an update on Channelwood itself. What's goin' on around there these days?"

Hart maintains a relaxed pace as they move, keeping his hands mostly in his pockets and not seeming like he's going to get too 'official' about this tour.

Emerald ponders Joe's question and says, "I like the ones that stuck with us to be sure... obviously can't form an opinion on the ones who went to Aquarius. But I think Mika is a wonderful addition to the community. She is motherly and I needed that extra hand with the children. And with new kids arriving too? Yeah... Mika is a Walker-send."

She takes a hoe and starts tilling. "The kids who arrived... well I worry for them. People all too often excuse away something like minor bullying as just something children do, but EVERYTHING children do sets the stage for what they will do in adult life. Candy seems responsible, but..."

Emerald looks back at Joe. "And your opinions?"

Maverick watches Mika go talk to Katy and then turns his eyes to Lucky and Candy. He has too many targets in too many locations to keep track of visually, so he focuses on the cutting again, listening closely.

Katy makes no attempt to hide why she's here even with the kids there to hear her. "The kids are getting along, it seems. But tell me frankly, Mika... do you think they can learn to like each other? I'm stuck with this crutch for now and can't do missions... if I have to step in and show these kids how to get along, I probably won't be as gentle as you... do you think you will be able to help them? I know it sounds like I'm asking a lot of you already, but the fact is I trust you, Mika. You've been nothing but good around here and I want to know your opinion on the kids. What do they need and what do they want?"

Raichel looks at the map. Then looks at Michael. "While I'd like to help with the newest mission, nothing says that's the one I have to help on. Unless you want me along to see what I can do. I can simply provide an extra pair of hands if that's all you need."

(Due to Team Intel being just my alts and Mr Absent, I'm writing those characters off panel until later. I will still pose Thomas, obviously.)

Thomas glances at Mittens. Then to Nautilus and Samuel. Then just looks forward again. "I knew it. She wants to die and take as many allies to the grave with her as possible. Kinda flattered she wants me to join her in her glorious death, really..."

Timothius objects a little before Angel can answer, "I'd like to see Katy as soon as possible. You may think she's fine, but... I'll be the judge of that. Please? We can show you around to your heart's content when you come back to drop me off..."

Angel oh-mys... "Ummm... sure. OK. Well... you two... as I mentioned I'm ready when you are. The Energizer's right over there." she points and heads over to it.

She aside to Hart. "I *am* interested in the people though... maybe Tim's right. When I return him here, I could have a lot more time to devote to meeting and greeting..."

  "Mika does seem rather nice, yeah."  Joe's shrugging capacity was limited by the motions involved in helping Emerald.  "When you consider the broader situation, the luxury of having time to worry about bullies probably adds to the temptation of writing it off as just something kids do.  Of course, I'm not exactly Mr. Well Adjusted anyways.  I somehow doubt asking nicely for them to only spaz out over real problems would work.  Or asking nicely for them not to leave alone."
This message was last edited by the player at 10:12, Sat 06 Feb 2010.

"Boil water," Lucky mutters, "I think I can handle that..."

...Without some kind of disaster happening.  Hopefully.  He gets to work with the water boiling, trying not to let his fur stick out from Maverick's glance.  He rolls his eyes at Katy's question, but says nothing lest he be accused of interrupting.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:44, Sun 07 Feb 2010.

Phil pats his girl on the shoulder then leans to get a better look at the map.

"So where's the charger?" ha asks Michael, bracing himself for inevitable fish mockery.

~Super Extreme Commando Phillip!~ Devil Fish announces mimicking a TV advertiser.

~Smashes his enemies with his Super Extreme rocket fists!~ Angel Fish continues in kind.

~Infiltrate Super Extreme unfamiliar enemy territory with just a glance at a map!~

~Usurp command from Michael and punch through enemy forces with super extreme swing^TM action!~

~Choke the monkey with Super Extreme kung-fu grip!~

~Supper Extreme Commando Allies sold sep...  OH MAN!~
This message was last edited by the player at 03:15, Sun 07 Feb 2010.

Mittens raises an eyebrow at Samuel's self-criticism, assuming from his tone and posture that he didn't mean her.  She wonders what sorts of things might be on his mind other than shooting Robotnic in the...  Yeah...  Can't blame him for being distracted.

She rolls her eyes when Nautilus attributes the comment to her.  She opens her mouth to reply, but Thomas adds his 2 cents, and her jaw nearly hits the ground.

"Wooow!" she says, staring at Thomas with widened eyes, "I've never met, read of, or even heard whispered legends of anyone that even approaches your negativity!  I've heard a story of a star descending from the sky and taking on the form of a beautiful woman, but never a black hole becoming a Mink.  If you were to shake hands with the Princess, the resulting short circuit would envelop this galaxy with such a massive EMP...  Heeey...  That actually might just work!  You could beat Robotnic's entire robot army with a handshake!

~God save me from my allies!~ she prays, ~Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Thomas...~

~Could be worse,~ her guardian angel thinks to herself, ~You could have FISH for a conscious.~

~What's this chill running down my back?~ Mittens wonders.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:37, Sun 07 Feb 2010.

Mika strikes a thoughtful pose, rubbing her chin, "Hmm, I think the niños can get along eventually. They will have to if they want to survive in this world." she says in a similar tone to Katy ie: so the kids can hear, too.  "As for what they want and need.  They want what they need, and want to know how to be useful.  I can only teach them what I know, but if we split up the...  ahh..." she ponders the correct word, "Cliquês, and have the children learn from the other craftsfurs in the village the children will be too busy to bully each other." she offers.   She gives a glance back towards the children, then smirks at Katy, "However I can send any children who do not respond to my gentle dicipline to you."

Samuel sighs and glances at Mittens and then Thomas as the group continues on it way while softly saying, "I doubt she has a death wish. I suspect she views this all as some warped game or fairy tale and has not yet grasped the reality of how grim and cruel existence can be. If she survives long enough, I suspect she will outgrow this naivety. But I do believe she means well. She just needs to get her head out of whatever fairy tale she thinks we are in and focus on the mission at hand." It is clear that Samuel doesn't want his voice to be heard by anyone possibly hostile to the group so he makes sure to keep his voice low.

Samuel silently wishes it was possible to defeat Robotnik with something as simple as a handshake, but he knows that such childish hopes and dreams will never come to pass, and that if he wants to achieve his own dream of rescuing and deroboticizing his fellow crewmembers and getting the heck off the planet back to what he feels is true civilization, he has to act.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:35, Fri 12 Feb 2010.

Without looking away from the map, Michael replies to Raichel's comment with, "Well I thinking that a group of four should be the right size for this mission and both myself and Daemon will be in the group, as I'm leading the team and Daemon will be the one hacking the system to get the data we need about the settings for Ra's energy charger."

When Phillip asks where the charger is located, Michael replies by saying, "The charger is here," as Michael points to one of the buildings in the central of the map as he continues, "This is also the building that houses the computer system Daemon will need to hack into to gather the data we'll need, but the computer system is in an adjacent room on the same floor, and the same ventilation shaft reaches both rooms. Thus this mission will also work as a dry run on getting to Ra's charger without being noticed. But for that follow up mission we may need a second team whose goal is to get Ra to run low on power, that is if we can't find a daily routine on when Ra recharges. If we can find such a daily routine then we can simply time the follow-up mission to occur just before Ra would recharge on his own."

As Valin recognizes that there seems to be two primary conversations going on in the mess hall and of the two the one that Michael and the two guests are in seems to be related about a mission, and thus he really shouldn't stick his nose into that without being asked.

However, Valin overhears Katy's conversation with Mika about teaching the kids and figures that he might be able to contribute to that conversation since Valin thinks that it might be a good idea to keep the children busy, but in a way that is both productive and fun for them. After all, Valin remembers his own parents doing similar tasks with him when he was a child as 'idle hands' can lead to trouble.

Thus Valin walks over to Mika and Katy, but instead of just butting into the conversation, the gorilla simply waves to them and awaits a response before saying anything.

By this point, Nautilus has no doubt that they are on the right track towards the Armory. He keeps himself mostly quiet, letting the others talk quietly amongst themselves.  Mittens' reaction causes him somewhat off-guard enough to make him look at her before giving a heavy sigh and focusing forward.

He nods at Samuel's words, speaking softly as well, "Existence may well be cruel... but the depths of the joys to be found in it are deeper than any ocean.  Those joys are what we are fighting to reclaim... Mittens, I ask you to settle your enthusiasm for now. Silence is our weapon and our ally in these waters..."

Although he does not directly address Samuel or Thomas, he assumes them to already understand the importance of silence in a stealth mission, especially when he, along with the rest of them, were told that the guard in this part of Urser was light, but not gone.

Hart raises a brow at Timothius' speaking up, but he simply shrugs, unperturbed, "Fair enough. I didn't know we were in that big of a hurry..."

He nods to Angel, giving a slight smile, "Yeah, I'm guessin' it'll be better for you to look around later anyway, once all the others are back.  It's not fancy, but it's home.  Personally, I'm all set to go as is. Don't think I'll be needing a big weapon or anything for a visit like this." He looks to Timothius, "So, if you're set Tim, then it sounds like we're ready to make a line for Channelwood."

Emerald hrms and says, "Don't underestimate the power of asking nicely. Sweet words and sugary actions can go a long way. Especially with children. Still... you have to have some self esteem before you can tell children how to act. People underestimate how easily children can see right into your soul and know whether you are someone worth listening to or not."

She pauses and stares at the spade she was using as she fights back a sad expression and forces a smile.

Maverick is chopping harder as he hears the conversation. His face contorting in annoyance. <Survived fine on my own for years...> Maverick thinks to himself. <I only got caught because of a traitor...> tears form in his eyes and he frowns more, trying to hold them back. Of all the annoyi- he hides his head in his arms, having let go of the knife. <Why do they care...? That overlander didn't give a hoot. Why should they?>

Candy stops what she was doing to go and gently pet Maverick's back. He's just glad he has the uncanny ability to stay quiet.

Katy watches Maverick and gets an uncharacteristically caring / wtf expression. She looks at the ground for a moment, then gets a serious expression. "I'll do the chopping, Mika..." she offers, picking up the knife.

Raichel says, "Just say where and when. We're here to help. We may not be miracle workers, but we are allies."

Thomas wags his big, fluffy tail like a squirrel would and looks around, alert. He hides and motions for the others to hide.

A pair of SWATbots walk down the hall towards the group, apparently not having noticed them yet.

Timothius nods and follows Angel to the motorcycle and huhs, trying to figure where he'll sit. It looks like it'll hold 3 people, sure, but is he in the back? Or between?

Angel leads Timothius and Hart to her motorcycle. "This is my bike. I call it the Energizer." she grins. "All aboard, and in whatever order you want. S'long as I'm driving." she sits at the front and scoots forward slightly to make as much extra room for the others as possible. She puts her helmet on and revs the engine.

Once the others are aboard, of course, she would then take off for Channelwood.

  Joe's lack of social skills wasn't quite so bad off that they couldn't notice 'noteworthy forced smile' on the face of someone he was looking at (even if 'putting up a happy front on a long term basis smile' was often beyond them).  "I still try asking nicely, but maybe 'please stop trying to kill me' may not be the intended situation for polite words.  As for self esteem... Eh, it's a very weird subject for me."  They don't stop their work as they consider what to say next, but after a moment realize figuring sensible wording could take, like, hours.

  "Here I am, backflipping grappling hook swinging murder machine.  Gardening.  I feel useful doing this, I should feel useful for the violence, and there are some who probably feel so useful about the latter they don't bother with anything if there is none to be had.  I still wish I was better at the non-violence, you only make it look easy."

Lucky's heart melts like butter in a microwave.  Any negativity he had for Maverick dissolves into complete emapathy.  He doesn't need to know the details to know that Maverick probably has plenty of horrible memories that could be triggered by anything.

"Just as well, I needed Maverick's help," Lucky lies, hoping to make the boy feel a little less rotten.

Lucky glances around and notices Valin.  He points Maverick out to Valin.

"He's bigger than me, and we need wood."

Eyes on Valin, Lucky nudges his head toward Maverick, hoping the kindly gorilla picks up on the fact that Maverick could use a manly chore right now to boost his mood.

Something about that 500 lb gorilla sets Phil ill at ease.  Perhaps it's the fact that the guy's arm is bigger than Phil's waist.  But since Phil is always tense, his brow always furrowed, and his general demeanor always at edge, the only clue he gives is that his eyes follow Valin as the gentle giant moves to help in the kitchen.

~Stop staring at the man, Philip,~ Devil Fish chides.

~I know you think he's hot and all,~ Angel Fish continues, ~But he's out of your league, Philip.~

~And I doubt he swings that way.~

~Even if he did, he'd be too much man for you to handle.~

~The kitchen's getting hot, though.~

~Two women, three children, and a giant!~

~You're about ready to just BURST with excitement, aren't you, Philip?!~

Devil Fish is right about one thing.  Phil IS about to lose it.  The rage welling up inside is overwhelming, and there's no outlet other than fantasizing about tearing a giant robot dragon to pieces.  But once again, few visible clues beyond his pupils shrinking to slivers.  Phil refocuses his eyes on the map and nods as if indicating he agrees with the plan.
This message was last edited by the player at 07:02, Tue 02 Mar 2010.

Mittens grins and gives Nautilus an enthusiastic thumbs-up.  Inspired by her earlier fantasy, she pretends to be a ninja and melts into the shadows as silently as an ant walking on cotton.  She becomes motionless, stealthily waiting for the bots to pass.  A drop of sweat slowly makes it's way down her cheek to her chin, and threatens to drop onto the ultra-sensative pressure plate she's hanging over by a rope.  Just kidding.  That last bit was just her imagination again.

Mika had her back turned to Maverick, so it isn't until Katy makes her way to take over his chopping does she notice his disquiet.  As Candy, Katy AND Lucky are already over there trying to console him, she turns heer attention over to Valin, "Que pasa, gigante?" she asks with a put on smile, guessing he already knows lunch won't be for another hour or two.

((NPC'd by GM with permission. Thanks, Mike! Hope school goes well.))

"Katy... couldn't you have dealt with the guests?" he thinks to himself, slightly worried that he's not doing this fast enough or efficiently enough. Did he miss something? "Then again, now is not the time for doubts." he thinks decisively before facing Phil and Raichel. "There is actually something you two can do. We will need some reinforcements to fall back on if things go sour. I'd like you two on guard duty at the building Daemon and I will be infiltrating. You can let us know if someone is coming or if some other danger is coming up. You can also break us out if we find ourselves suddenly locked in. It's important. Usually not a luxury we can afford two extra people for, but you came and offered, so there you go."

((NPC'd by GM with permission.))

Valin looks at Mika. "I was just thinking... the new kids could also be helping with gardening and learning a bit about wood working. When they aren't helping you here in the kitchen, of course. I think the experience will not only make them feel more useful and thus have better self-esteem, but can be fun." In his experience, a good teacher makes the subject fun and thus thoroughly memorable.

((NPC'd by GM with permission.))

Samuel notices Thomas's indication and hides immediately. The Swatbots passing by, Samual wishes he was wearing his special SWATsuit right now. But he isn't. "It's always *after* you need something that you have it." he thinks to himself. He doesn't bother checking his bracer since even movement could give him away where he's hiding.

Once the SWATs pass, though, he looks towards Nautilus as if waiting for either an order to attack or an order to sneak to the next spot. At least the worst is over and the SWATs are all facing their backs to the group.

At Thomas's signal, Nautilus hides as well, pressing himself firmly behind a minor outcropping of the wall. He keeps his muscles poised and his expression grim as the 'bots pass, prepared to jump into action if they have to. However, once the SWATbots pass without incident, the old sea bear relaxes visibly.

At Samuel's look, Nautilus shakes his head, motioning for him and the rest of them to sneak away and keep pressing on towards the next hall. Despite wanting to do away with any potential threat in their path, he's almost certain that attacking these 'bots would end up alerting others. That's the last thing they need right now.

"Cute name." Hart quips upon seeing Angel's bike, giving it a brief once-over.

Nodding lightly to Timothius, Hart guides his friend to get on ahead of him, taking a seat right behind him and keeping the lightest of them in the safest position.

Looking ahead, he calls out to Angel, "So, not that I'm worried or anything, but how fast does this thing move? Don't think I've ever seen something quite like it around here... Should we be holding on to something?"
This message was last edited by the player at 06:12, Fri 26 Mar 2010.

Emerald giggles some at the 'please stop trying to kill me' comment. She smiles brightly (not fake this time) at Joe's other comments, however. "Well first off, you don't have to ask children to not kill you, so that isn't an issue with the asking nicely topic. But on the other topic? Non-violent skills, just like violent ones, simply take some practice. If I'm catching your drift correctly, maybe you should take a couple weeks off from missions and just do something less violent during that time. Such as gardening, repairs, etc. If I'm reading you right, you're a little tired of the constant trips to Middletown? If that's so... I highly recommend you talk to Katy about it. Unless you want ME to."

Maverick hears Lucky's words "I needed Maverick's help" and takes them to heart. Quietly. Secretly. Valin didn't miss Lucky's head-nudge, but before Valin can volunteer Maverick for the task, Maverick stands up, having somehow wiped his tears away without anyone noticing (though it's obvious he was crying) and says decisively, "I'll get the wood then."

Candy retracts her hand as Maverick stands tall again like he wasn't upset. She gives him an unsure smile, wishing the boy didn't cover up his emotions, but at the same time admiring his strength of heart. She doesn't yet understand how necessary it is for most boys to demonstrate strength in every way they can, but she at least knows better than to ask a boy to cry when he's doing such a good job holding back the tears.