Lucky is visibly relieved to hear Maverick's voice and immediately offers a big hug.

"Oh Maverick!  I was so worried for you.  Good to see you again.  How you doing?  Find any secrets?"

He nods to Joe.  "Pretty much.  But I had in mind to ask our resident stealth expert what color and material works best on a frozen lake."

  Joes of the Darkthorne and otherwise variety have literally used jackhammers without people noticing, but relying on that to happen when convenient is never a good idea.  So Maverick's common sense will probably be a better plan, yeah.

Maverick takes the offered hug and smiles. When the older boy asks Maverick how to stealth and calls him an "expert", Maverick blushes and tries quickly to find a way to not let Lucky down. "I like your idea...." he begins, "Though just white might not be good enough. Maybe an off-white. Like a very light blue or very light grey. We should get a picture of the ice above and try to match its pattern and color."

Lucky is relieved that Mav didn't find any worrisome secrets.

He smiles, pets Mav, and nods.  "That's a great idea, Maverick!  We should mention this to Shelly.  Think it's time to let her know you're here?  She might have use of your skills."

  If only the ACME catalog still delivered in these dark times.

  "I'll help you out with making it then.  And we probably should if he's going to be using their stuff to make stuff to save stuff." good wording, Joe!

Mav nods. (Third time skip in a row for one of my games!)

Shelly is happy to see Maverick and cuddles him with a happy otter-squeak, causing the boy to blush. But smiling. The tarp is thankfully relatively easy to put together... there are plenty of white and light-blue blankets in Aquarius, and the colors match enough that unless someone was obsessively eyeing the frozen lake, they wouldn't be able to pick it out.

Successful camouflage.

Lucky is sure to pitch in as best he can and check in on Milloni from time to time.  Otter squeak cuddles and blushy overlander boy smiles melt his heart and he's quick to remind the adorable pair how much he loves them.

Nothing quite like expecting to find the dead body of your friend in nightmare ocean land to make your already lovey-dovey character all the more gushy with friends while they still live.

Yes, one narrator to the next, a living Emerald (and robot emerald) is more heartwarming than a dead one.

"Yet another day I wish I had a giant laser." Well, at least digging down through ice would be easier than digging down through rock.

Shelly decides it would be best to pick away at the ice at first, but Milloni is done her nap and reveals a strange-looking... gun? It looks like those bar-code readers at a store. "I tried fire, but since it isn't cold temperature that froze the water, all that did was change the shape. Anyways, I'll be getting molecular readings with this."

Mei Ling shows up and says, "Perhaps I could propose thermite? If the water is iced due to chemicals, then maybe fighting it with an unquenchable chemical is in order?"

"But...

"Are you saying this ice isn't cold??  Strange."

Lucky isn't familiar with thermite so he doesn't flip out over safety issues.  Instead he smiles, shrugs, and suggests standard paranoia.  "Probably best if we wait for Milloni to find out exactly what's going on before experimenting with chemical solutions.  Don't want some un-expected chain reaction to harm the lake's flora or fauna."

  First of all, Mei-Ling is awesome.  Second, Joe you should be ashamed as a Darkthorne for not considering explosive and combustible methods.

  "Well, Thermite would slice a car in half so it would probably work here anyways, it not as well.  Though it would be for the best to examine the sorta kinda ice first, in case of an undesired reaction."

After an examination from Milloni, she gives the chemical composition to Mei-Ling, who thinks about it and says, "...yeah. There IS another solution, but it would probably be best to go with thermite for expedience."

Thermite is great for working from top to bottom. Not so good for working from bottom to top. So yeah... the AFF really needed Joe, Lucky and Mav to arrive and "dig them out" as it were.

Mei-Ling goes over the safety procedures of working with thermite. Shelly says, "There is one last precaution. Maverick, you like staying hidden while keeping a watchful eye. It would probably be best if you watched Joe and Lucky from the trees. If an enemy were to happen upon our lake only to see what looks like an icy bulge, chances are they would go check it out and apprehend Joe and Lucky."

Lucky listens carefully to all safety instructions then exhales in relief.  "Comforting to know we've got Maverick watching our backs.  And that this chemical works fast.  I was worried about being out in the open picking at ice for a long time.  Even with camo precautions, it's still scary."

  One of the benefits of being friends with Maverick is that you already know he's watching you from the shadows...  We were trying to talk about comforting things right?

  "Well, certainly faster than having to do it by hand, yeah.  Thanks again you two."

Shelly squeaks with happiness and gives a thumbs-up. Mei-Ling gives a light bow and says, "You are more than welcome."

Some padding is given to Joe and Lucky for the dual purpose of not having to rest their knees on a hard surface for a long time as well as having a bit of protective gear concerning if stray thermite spews at them. Thankfully, the tarp is large enough to cover Joe, Lucky and Mei-Ling. She is, of course, joining them.

Soon, the group is able to climb up and Maverick heads to the trees as requested.

When the trio is in place, which took some coordinating, Mei-Ling decides to start first so that the other two can see her using the thermite and learn by example. When her portion burns out, she lets Joe take over. "Because of how dangerous this stuff is, we need to be very careful the amount we use at one time. Just use a little, spread it out, then let it burn out before you start again."

Lucky loves Shelly's adorable squeaks and mews in reply.  He really appreciates all the safety precautions...  and the other two going first.

"You two are amazing!"

When his turn comes up he does his best to look competent.

  "Having the luxury to handle this sort of thing properly is a change of pace, yeah."  Joe patiently applies the science burnings.

  As for lucky, he probably wont light himself (or others) on fire, so looking competent is quite likely!

With the team on high-alert, they are able to carve their way at a surprisingly fast pace. Lucky is the one to first find the "bomb", so it is up to Joe to finish removing it and/or disabling it. Mei-Ling explains that because this is a technological device, while she may understand the chemical properties of what it does, she does not know the first thing on how the machine itself works.

Meanwhile, Maverick can be heard giving a caw-ing crow-call sound (because using a two-way radio could be detected by Robotnik's folk).

Lucky's so on edge he slaps his hands over his mouth to keep from screaming in alarm when he finds the bomb.  He had to fight himself to keep from immediately bolting for shore.

"Let's just get this thing to cover..."

Too late!  When Lucky hears Mav's warning he dives under the camo tarp!

  Well, at least being near the device means he's already under the tarp.  He resists the urge to attempt disarming it for now because if it's still working, that means there is totally nothing suspicious going on honest.

Sounds can be heard of a hover craft landing and SWATbots exiting the craft!

One of the robots points its wrist at the lake's shore and scans it.

Bot1: "Test confirmed. Success."
Bot2: "Report back to Ra."

Assuming the freedom fighters remain hidden, the SWATbots return to the craft and take off.

Between being terrified and lying prone on a frozen lake, Lucky is shivering eount to rival even Antoine.  Good thing these SWATs are the standard un-observant kind.  Once they leave, Lucky bursts into tears and hurries to hug the friends he nearly just lost...  (Mav'll have to wait for his hug till after he comes out of hiding.)

"I'm so glad you're ok!  I was so worried that it was the end.  That we would be spotted and roboticized!"

  See, this is why Joe is a failure as a brooding badass.  He didn't destroy the swatbots anyways while yelling about how much Robotnic ruined his life more than anybody else's.

  "Right, would people prefer if I tried to properly disarm the thing, or just break it."

Probably for the best. If anyone attacked and destroyed the SWATbots, their lack of reporting back would have this lake investigated further when it was merely a "test site" before.

Mei-Ling is scared stiff and is clinging to Lucky with a death grip. She tries to answer, but has to take a few deep breathes first. "P-p-proper... please..." She looks back to Lucky. "I thought so too. But its not over. We're here."

Unsurprisingly, there is no sounds coming from Maverick.

Lucky appreciates Mei-Ling's bear hug for the sake of his own nerves but does his best to forget himself to try and comfort her.  "Yeah.  It's over."

He's still having paranoid imagining of Joe spontaneously freezing or exploding or both.  "Please be careful, Joe."