Samuel learns of Mittens' dire situation via the sensors in his cybernetic implants and realizes that if Mittens is interrogated there is a strong chance of Aquarius being located, which means that his shuttle's location would be compromised. Samuel knows he can't allow for that information to fall into Robotnik's hands.

Samuel quickly grips his gauss gun in both hands, seemingly to steady himself, in fact he's relying on the cybernetics in his left arm to aim for him as he knows he can't make this shot on his own. Samuel quickly shoots the SWATBot that  has taken Mittens prisoner with his gauss gun and then fires off the underslung grappling hook at Mittens' armor knowing that it will magnetically lock to her armor and due to the weight difference between Mittens and Samuel will reel her towards Samuel without harming her or her armor.

Samuel quickly takes his left hand off the gauss gun as it begins to rapidly pull Mittens towards Samuel while Samuel fires off his second grappling hook at a precise point near the roof of a tall building so that he, along with Mittens will be pulled up to get clear of the approaching robots.

Samuel is lifted off the grounds only seconds before several SWATBot's fire on the location where he was as Samuel mutters in Dinonian about how pathetically slow SWATBots are, but to everyone else it no doubt sounds like a cross between a bird call and a lizard growling and hissing as Samuel mentally activates the antigrav functions in his boots to adjust Mittens and his trajectory just enough to allow his plan to work as SWATBots continue to shoot at him but are always too slow as they continue to fire at where he is instead of where he is heading, which is a poor tactic against a rapidly moving target. 'It's a good thing these SWATBots don't have the processing power to anticipate where someone is going to target their fire there or this plan would never work,' before he says to Mittens, "You really need to work on your exit strategies since I know Freedom Fighters such as Shelly do not approve of suicide missions."

The grappling hook magnetically attached to Mittens' armor reels her to Samuel seconds before Samuel's second grappling hook would reel them to near the rooftop, however instead of the reeling slowing down slightly when the wire gets shorter as the grappling hook attached to Mitten's armor did, this grappling hook continues to reel in faster, and a second before it would be completely reeled in, it releases from the wall, leaving Samuel and Mittens' forward and upward momentum carrying them up and past the rooftop due to the trajectory readjustment from the antigravs in Samuel's boots.

Once clear of the Rooftop, Samuel works to shift Mittens' so that she's being carried over his left shoulder not unlike a large sack of potatoes before he detaches the grappling hook from her armor just as the two reach the apex of their 'grapple assisted jump'. Samuel then fires the grappling hook that is attached beneath the barrel of the gauss gun at the wall of another building as Samuel uses his boots to continue to adjust their trajectory to both make it harder for the SWATBots to hit him as well as to make sure that the two don't swing into a building as Samuel now swings tarzan style to get clear of the robots that had tried to cut off his escape.

As soon as Samuel and Mittens are past the robots, Samuel has his grappling hook detach so that he lands on the ground running away from the scene to rendezvous with the others, but not before he uses his left hand to toss his last grenade behind them to help cover their escape.

(OOC: Would have posted earlier, but I needed to wait till I had gotten an Okay from Mittens before I could post as well as having stuff in RL to deal with.)

Michael replies, "It would seem so. I hope Katy explains how a simple gathering mission turned into a jailbreak," as he looks through the binoculars. Michael then sees an explosion and mutters under his breath, "I just hope they all make it out of there safely, that place is a warzone."

  1/2 dazed from the fall (or rather, the sudden stop) Mittens just enjoys the new amusement ride "Swinging Spaceman Sam" with a cuppy-cake smile.  :3

  "Exit strategy?" Mittens answers, "When things went bad, I became the exit strategy...  Distract the dragon so it doesn't barbecue everyone else...  and pray I don't become roast kitty myself."    o.o

  "By the way, thanks for the 'Yes' answer to that one!" she prays, then realizes she hasn't thanked the flesh-and-blood answer.  :o

  "In any case, thanks for the save, Sam!  ^.^"
This message was last edited by the player at 04:13, Fri 25 May 2007.

  There's one advantage to being carried potato-style by someone of the opposite gender...  a nice view!  Between that and Katy's encouragement, Lucky snaps out of his daze just enough to begin to be embarrassed that he's being rescued by a girl.

  "Uh... thanks," he answers hesitantly, "Ya know...  I think we may go faster if I were on my feet."

Samuel replies to Mittens as he continues to make a 'tactical retreat from Middletown while carring Mittens over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, "Your welcome, but next time, please don't forgot an exit strategy for yourself."

Samuel silently thanks Markus for all the times the two of them played '3D tag' at Tanelorn as children when Samuel had to use grappling hooks all the time to swiftly evade Markus' ability to fly, or to pursue the Dinonian when Samuel was 'it'.


(OOC from Timothius: Note - All I edited was the color in the brackets. The color wasn't showing up due to a misspelling inside the brackets. The actual pose content was not messed with.)
This message was last edited by the GM at 11:51, Sun 27 May 2007.

  While Joe might be able to claim 'I did that first' if he had wanted to regarding the grapple hook rescue method, he didn't cause nearly as much violent carnage during the process compared to Sam.  Again, 'crude' explosives will be popular if the guy maintains his keeping them to himself unless already armed stance on demolitions materials.

  "I guess it would be considered bad form to comment on how we completely failed the reason we came here.  The whole value of life thing being more popular in general."

  Seriously, the only one of the original group who got what they came for was Sam.  And decapitating a Swat wasn't exactly a noteworthy accomplishment in itself really.  Nevermind the well thought out and obviously would be explained in great detail if slightly questioned reasoning and potential end results.  It could have the Death Star plans on it and it would still just be swat bot related violence which even some of the scared out of their eyeballs additions to the group had been able to make some use of.

  "Or asking if we were hoping they would just kinda stop chasing us after going ten feet past the city limits which seems to be the usual oddly  convenient situation."

Katy smacks her forehead. "Joe's right! Last time, we outran them and lost them in the woods. But something tells me they won't give up the chase in this particular case. Too many of them and too much taken from them..." Katy hides behind a building and puts Lucky on the ground as she starts to think about what to do. "I've got it! We'll have to lose them in their own turf, but it's doable..." She looks about for Shelly and sees Shelly is barely half-running along, looking like she'll collapse any second. Katy rushes out to catch the seabear who is remaining contious for the time being. "Shelly... for survival sake, our groups are going to have to split up. There are sewer entrances nearby. I'll lead you and your freedom fighters to one."

Shelly coughs some and says, "What about the escaped prisoners? There are too many of them. That giant robot is likely to follow the prisoners with SWATbots since that is likely all he needs to send after them."

Katy mrfs... Shelly's right. This situation is getting worse. Someone needs to think of something and fast. She really REALLY hates to have to part with Joe, but Katy sees her choices becoming fewer and fewer. She becons to Joe, who thankfully since he was in hearing range earlier, should no doubt be closer to Katy and Shelly now. "Joe! I need you to run ahead of us and tell the Channelwood Freedom Fighters what's going on. You can get there faster than most of us, no doubt, on foot if not graple. Tell them to lure the SWATs away from Channelwood and to create an ambush."

Maverick has already made use of climbing a tree and started to make with the disappearing, knowing he could very well get caught up to. Sadly, he is seriously lacking in the equipment department. So all he can do is sit in the tree, scared, hoping he won't get spotted by the enemy.

Emerald headshakes. "We should go there... we should help. Somehow... if nothing else, we should make sure the prisoners will make it here without being followed. If SWATs follow them here, that will be devistating to Channelwood." She starts to make her way into the tree elevator. "Coming, Michael? Unless you have a better idea..."

Blipvert takes a squad of SWATbots with him towards the woods, persuing Hart and the prisoners. He orders the SWATbots to go two seperate directions as if preparing an ambush himself. He has absolutely blinding lights on his backside so that should anyone try to sneak up on him from behind, it will be too hard to see what they are trying to hit. Which will give him a better chance to react.

Michael follows with Emerald as he says, "As a matter of fact, I do. But we'll need some help to pull it off so we'll need to round up a few others. Swatbots aren't heavily armored so we can pull a distraction by pelting them with larger rocks, for example, Valin's strong enough to throw a large enough rock with enough force to decapitate a SWATBot. Also we can dig pit traps with spikes so the SWATBots are taken out by stepping where they shouldn't. So we will pelt them with rocks from various directions as they chase after the prisoners. In short, we use the fact the robots will chase escaping prisoners anywhere to have the robots walk into a trap. But we'll need Valin and a few others to help. After all we'll need people to dig fast, and cover up the pit traps, while others get rocks, and yet others join up with the prisoners to lead them through the traps safely."

Samuel continues to run with Mittens over his shoulder as he meets up with the others while asing, "Mittens, are you able to walk, or should I say run, on your own? Since I can't really fight while carrying you. I may be out of grenades, but I still have my gun and pistol and they aren't out of ammo. If we inflict enough damage to those that chase us, they will be forced to abandon the chase," as Samuel is quite willing to 'drop Mittens off' with Shelly and Katy if Mittens is able to move on her own.

  Had he been paying attention, would comment that killing every single swat that was within a three hundred foot radius would indeed discourage them from chasing them.  Crawl along after if they still worked in a 'torso only' situation, but you get the idea.

  Shame he was listening to Katy then.

  "I would still suggest fleeing like the proverbial frightened little girl as fast as possible for the rest of them."  This completely unhelpful comment made Joe was already on his way to disregarding gravities usual end result by way of grapple gun swingage.  It's still unclear whether or not a Swat head crushed into its shoulders is an efficient stepping platform, but at least it's amusing.

  The real problem would likely be seeing if Joe would explain the situation in a coherent manner when he shortly gets to the requested task.

  "Yeah," Mittens answers, wiggling her feet, "I think all my parts are in working order.  ^.^  It's a miracle the only thing that broke in that fall was the swat I landed on."  :o

Katy looks up and over at Samuel. "We can't risk that the dragon bot will decide to stay behind. But you are on to something. If we cause enough damage, perhaps they will chase US instead of the prisoners. I was just telling Shelly: We need to draw their attention away from the prisoners. And I know this place well enough to lose them in their own turf." She glances at Shelly who seems out of it. "...Mittens, you did great. But do you suppose you could help Shelly get out of here? She looks to be spent."

Katy realises her numbers are greatly diminishing. Having sent Joe away, Shelly being out of it, Hart handling the prisoners and now Mittens... this isn't good. That leaves just herself and Samuel. And she's afraid because Samuel most probabley has whatever he came here for by now. She also knows that alone, she doesn't stand enough of a chance against these odds to even buy enough time for the others. She does NOT like the idea of Ra starting a forest fire and then sitting back laughing while the Freedom Fighters' doom is at hand. She relents to what Samuel was suggesting. "On second thought, Sam... you have a point. I don't have enough people with me to divert them. To maximize damage, we need to ambush. To the woods... we'll worry about whatever forest fire Ra causes later." With that, she takes Joe's advice and runs to the woods like a little girl. She sure can run for someone her size, but thankfully, that's partly due to not having Lucky to carry.


(OOC: Please check the OOC thread.)

This message was deleted by the player at 19:43, Wed 30 May 2007.

Emerald nods to Michael. "I'll get Valin and a few others. Meet you at the ground level." She rushes off towards where she last heard Valin was supposed to be.

Samuel puts Mittens down feet first once she acknowledges that she's okay.
Samuel then thinks to himself, 'I'd rather not have to do this but I have no choice...if I hold back now, things will only get worse.' as he doesn't even pause for a second as he unholsters his laser pistol with his left hand before he starts firing both his gauss gun and his laser pistol at any pursuing robot he gets a clean shot on while running backwards to keep up with the others as they flee for the woods.

If anyone pays close attention to Samuel during this time, they will notice a few things that seem a bit odd, even for Samuel. One is that Samuel's accuracy with the laser pistol in his left hand seems to be far greater than the accuracy of the gauss gun in his right hand as while one shot is often enough to drop a SWATBot, it takes Samuel 2 or 3 shots with his gauss gun to reliably drop a SWATBot due to the decreased accuracy, which seems rather odd given that the gauss gun is probably the stronger weapon of the two. Another is that Samuel seems to have eyes on the back of his head as he has no trouble running backwards in battlefield conditions in a place he's not very familiar with without even stumbling once. However Samuel knows that pretty soon he's going to have to reload both his pistol and his gauss gun, although fortunately not at the same time, it's still going to be annoying to have to reload either without protective cover as right now Samuel is relying on shooting on the run to lay down cover fire for himself and those near him.

Samuel figures that his current tactics are no doubt going to require a bit of explaining afterwards, he'll have to think of an excuse to explain how he can pull of these 'tricks'. Samuel continues to think to himself as all this is going on, 'Well since I don't want to reveal my trump card of having cybernetic implants anytime in the near future, I guess I'll have to come up with an excuse on how I'm pulling this off that the natives will believe. But for right now I have to focus on this fight...I wish I had my brother-in-law's space forces training as relying on my cybernetics and other technological tools will only get me so far in combat and I'm rapidly approaching the limit of what I can do, and I know it's not enough.'

Michael nods to Emerald and heads off by climbing through the trees to get to the workshop to grab a few tools  Michael suspects will be needed before heading to the ground level again via the trees with an ease that comes naturally to a chimpanzee.

Valin is tending to the some of the gardens on the first level when Emerald finds him as the gorilla is currently unaware of the situation currently going on at Middletown, although that is likely to change in the very near future.

Emerald spots Valin and rushes over to him. "Valin! You're needed! We're going to the edge of the woods and we'll need you and whoever else is willing to create an ambush. Katy and the others are in trouble!"

One might also wonder why Samuel's shots are all so accurate. Ra is bloodlusted, but at least now he can see Samuel clearly and can put a face to the newest threat. He's about to ask permission from Robotnik to do whatever is neccessary to eliminate the problem that is Samuel when he gets a call from Robotnik.

Whatever it was that just happened, Ra stops running towards the woods. He looks angrier than before as his mechanical eyes narrow. "You are lucky I don't melt you where you stand, Freedom Fighters. Especially you, Samuel! However, I have more important matters to attend than the likes of you!" With that said, he spreads his wings, causeing a gust of wind in the proccess and takes off, giving commands to the SWATs to persue while the bulk of them fallback.

One SWATbot looks at another. "It's the priority one hedgehog." and that is all that need be said for any nearby who heard it to understand. However, just because Ra and a bunch of backup is out of the picture, doesn't mean the fight is over as well over 20 SWATbots are still chasing the prisoners.

Samuel suddenly stops shooting with his gauss gun as he knows the clip in it has run out at the same time the encrypted 'priority one hedgehog' communications are sent out. Although Samuel hasn't uploaded the decrypted 'SWATBot Brain' into his bracers and cybernetics yet, when a SWATBot mentioned the 'Priority One Hedgehog' Samuel figures the transmission must be a lucky break.

Without loosing any momentum, Samuel quickly holsters the laser pistol and grabs a fresh ammo clip for the gauss gun with his left hand in a smooth motion. Samuel dodges a SWATBot's attack as Samuel then swaps out the Ammo clips in a second smooth motion, which ends with the empty clip hanging off Samuel's belt. It seems like Samuel has had a lot of practice reloading his gauss gun on the move, although Samuel knows it's simple to do when you have a cybernetic arm, but the Freedom Fighter's don't know that. What is known is that when Samuel grips the Gauss Gun with both his hands, his accuracy with it suddenly increases to what it was for the Laser Pistol when Samuel held it in his left hand as Samuel is now using the Gauss Gun to drop SWATBots in a single shot each, mostly because Samuel is worried about what if it is a trap so he needs to conserve ammo, and partially with all his dodging around as he runs backwards he's not having time to fire off more than one shot at any one SWATBot.

Samuel snarls in an angry tone of voice, "You now know my name and face. And one day, you'll know that I am far more dangerous than some pathetic hedgehog." as Samuel feels insulted that the appearance of some 'hedgehog' causes this sort of reaction, yet at the same time is glad that the reaction has occured as it makes his job easier. Samuel then shouts out in Latin, "Robotnik mos perceptum vereor mihi praeter nex ipsum!" as he wonders if Robotnik's robots will be able to translate the latin properly into 'Robotnik will learn to fear me more than death itself.' Although the tone Samuel uses lacks any specific meaning in Latin carries a clear meaning in Dinonian when combined with those words as it is the same tone used in uttering vows not unlike the one Markus uttered as his final words before being Roboticized. Samuel's thoughts momentarily shift to Markus and his crewmembers Robotnik holds captive as Samuel then repeats in Dinonian, the oath that Markus made before being Roboticized.

Samuel figures that if there are people on this world that know latin, then Robotnik's empire may be able to translate the first part, but only if they are able to extract knowledge from Samuel's crewmembers will they be able to translate the second part and if they are able to do that... then Samuel will have to significantly adjust his tactics as no one knows how Samuel fights better than his crewmembers as they know how Samuel fights. However even if Robotnik's forces can't translate Dinonian, they should easily be able to realize that the words Samuel just spoke are the same ones that Markus spoke before being Roboticized. In anycase, Samuel knows that to play it safe, he's going to have to change his tactics, and the tactics of those around him if he wants to rescue his crewmembers, which will be easier said than done. Samuel also knows that its easy to talk to the talk, but it will not be easy to try and bring the words he has spoken true.

  There really needed to be some kind of early warning system for 'majority of a robot army is after you' situation.  Being warned in the middle of the carnage just didn't seem to be as helpful, and those who would miss this kind of thing happening around then likely wouldn't be helped in either case.

  It probably doesn't help that people's nerves that they had to rely on Joe for passing along current events info.

  The convenient fact Valin was hard to miss as well as out in the open made it easier to head for him via skidding landing by him and incidentally Emerald.  He'll figure out how to completely ignore inertia and friction laws one of these days.  "I get the feeling you already have the general idea, but here's the official statement that last I saw about the entire local robot army was ready to chase only half the local prisoners.  Along with a complete lack of scuba gear for anyone.  Help in the whole 'people not dieing as much or needing to find a new home' efforts would be appreciated.  But I'm sure Mike's probably already getting on that."

  Incidentally, had Joe been back in town to see Sam's run and gun action, he'd think that A) He's left handed?  B) He's said he's used to this kind of thing about how many times now?  Considering cybernetics going along with his other tech, solely because he might not be able to even hit anything, reload a gun, or flee a killer robot army like is popular here with any skill at all is a distant C)  Or would that make it the new B) Because he wasn't as good as advertised?

Emerald does the reflexive cringing when Joe comes by and makes his surprise landing, though clearly she would have seen him comming a few seconds before hand. She then listens and quickly replies, "But you were there. You can tell us what our binoculars couldn't. Mike's on ground level. Go help him however he wants you to. Valin and I will join you shortly." She then looks back at Valin, "I'll tell a few others and meet with you on ground level. Sounds like we don't have much time!" with that, she scurries off to inform a few more people before heading for ground level.