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."