San Canyon Strikers

Episode 2: Deal the ‘Bot

Part 2

J.G. slowly opened his eyes as he recovered from the fall. The first thing he noticed as he looked down towards the sky was that the sun had fully set, casting the entire canyon into darkness. Small pricks of light shone far below as the stars began to come out, adding light to the otherwise endless darkness. The second thing he noticed as he continued to look down at the sky was that he was upside down, and in a tree no less! The wreckage from the shadow-bot body slowly burned about 10 feet above him on the ground, illuminating the small clearing he had landed in along with…Mik!

"Mik!" he whispered urgently as he struggled to move around, only to find that whatever was keeping him upside down was also keeping him firmly in place. "I can’t lose you too!" he muttered angrily as he struggled to release himself from the soft mesh that seemed to be holding him in place.

"What, do you want them to hear you yelling your head off?" came an angered response from below, followed by the sound of a tree being kicked.

"Mik!" cried J.G. as he saw his friend illuminated in the firelight below, "You’re alright!"

"Well I wasn’t knocked silly like you," smiled Mik as she fingered a rather ugly bruise on her head, "I’m just lucky I have a rock hard noggin! While you were playing in a tree, I went crashing straight into the ground!"

"Heh, lucky," said J.G. as he went on thrashing in his bonds, "if I was lucky I’d be able to get out."

"If I’m lucky, you haven’t destroyed my poor hammock!" said a raccoon as he stepped into the light of the shadow-bot’s flaming husk.

"Who are you?" asked J.G. as he tried to flip in his bonds to see the visitor.

"One of the few people who knows to call you Jagar and Michelle to really tick you off," laughed the visitor.

"DON’T CALL US THAT, GEOFF!" cried Mik and J.G. in unison, any idea of keeping quiet forgotten in response to their real names being used.

"It’s good to see you guys too," laughed Geoff, "you guys haven’t changed a bit in the past 5 years."

"Neither have you!" cried Mik as she bopped him on the head with her fist, "and keep the full names out of it, GEOFFREY!"

"Nice comeback," grinned Geoff, "I just wish we could’ve had this reunion under better circumstances…"

"Yeah," whispered Mik as his words brought her crashing back to the present.

"Yeah, could someone get me outta this tree?" asked J.G. as he swiveled back and forth above them slowly.

"I got ya," said Geoff as he scampered up J.G.’s tree and cut him free of the hammock mesh.

"We’d always heard stories about Robotnik," said Mik as J.G. crashed to the ground beside her, "but they were all these fantastic tales about the Freedom Fighters, I’d never thought Robotnik would come…here."

"Neither did anyone," said Geoff coldly, "perhaps me most of all."

"You know what happened?" asked J.G. as he ruefully rubbed his spines, "I thought you just got here."

"Not quite," said Geoff as he dropped to the ground beside J.G, "after my travels abroad I set up a home of sorts all the way along this valley. For the past year or so I’ve been exploring and living all along this valley."

"Why didn’t you come back?" asked Mik, "it would’ve been nice to see ya again."

"Too much of a loner I guess," mumbled Geoff, "or maybe just my pride…" he looked up at the stars covering the sky, averting his eyes from the dying flames of the shadow-bot shell. He sighed and continued, "It was just a break really, before I returned to travelling, and I didn’t exactly want to face the village without something important to say…some grand adventures of defeating Robotnik’s forces in battle or something…but now, it hardly matters."

"You saw what happened?" asked J.G, "with how Robotnik robotanicized them?"

"Robotocized, moron," muttered Mik.

"When Robotnik’s ship arrived I believed the worst," said Geoff, "but you know what I did? NOTHING. I wasn’t too sure what to expect from this "new" Robotnik. I had heard virtually nothing about him, so I hoped he would just leave San Canyon alone…." Geoff struck his fist into the nearby tree trunk, "What a fool I was, believing that some new Robotnik would magically be different than the old tyrant. I had never been more wrong in my entire life."

"We were wrong too," sighed Mik, "we were busy taking out just one shadow-bot, and Robotnik robotocized the whole village!"

"Fat lot of good we are," agreed J.G.

"I snuck up to the village right after they were finished robotocizing everyone," continued Geoff, "I almost lost all hope right there when I saw our whole village as mindless slaves to Robotnik, but I decided to fall back and try and come up with a plan."

"A plan for what!?" yelled Mik sarcastically, "bad guys have the village, our friends and family are robots, and we’re stuck here alone, three kids against an army of ‘bots!"

"We may not be able to save them," said Geoff slowly, "but if we continue to oppose Robotnik here, we can perhaps save some of the other people in the Sandan Desert. We can’t let Robotnik go unopposed here!"

"I agree," said J.G, "it’s what my Grandpa would’ve wanted! The needs of the many outweigh the needs of everyone else, or something!"

"What about our family?" asked Mik as she sniffed back a bit of a tear, "we can’t fight them."

"I’m hoping we won’t have to," replied Geoff softly, "but if we don’t stop Robotnik now, others could be put through what we have been."

"Remember all our adventures we’ve been on as kids?" asked J.G as he held his hand out for Mik, "we’ve pretended enough times, now we’ve got ourselves a real chance to make a difference, we’ve got to take it!"

"All right, guys," said Mik as she gave J.G. a hug, "we’re a team! We’ll go make a difference for all of Mobius, by taking down Bison!"

Geoff smiled and blew his nose into his glove, "Yuck, I think I just blew a big chunk of emotions into my glove."

"I didn’t miss THAT!" giggled Mik.

"Well ‘fearless leader’" chuckled J.G. as he mock-saluted Geoff, "as our resident Robotnik fighter, what should be our plan of attack?"

"Not sure," said Geoff as he kicked out the last of the flames, "but with them working around the clock we don’t have much time!"

"Maybe if we blew up something…" yawned Mik.

"Or if we could somehow, uh, derobotmakeanize everyone," said J.G. as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

"I have no idea what you just said," muttered Mik, "but it was probably pointless."

I think we’re all too tired to think right now, said Geoff as he gazed up at the rising moon, almost directly overhead. "It’s late, we should rest a bit before doing anything." Mik and J.G. nodded and immediately fell upon the ground in an exhausted sleep. "Who knows what some daylight will bring…" said Geoff softly as he fell asleep beside his friends.

J.G. awoke early the next morning, his eyes opening in the shade under their leafy canopy with a bit of déjà vu after the previous night. "Wake up, sleepyhead!" he cried as he prodded Mik awake with his foot, "we’ve got to get going!"

"Go where?" mumbled Mik sleepily as she rubbed her eyes, "we’ve got to figure out what to do first!"

"Well, yeah," said J.G, shivering a bit despite his fur, "Brrr, I forgot how cold it can get in the desert without a fire."

Geoff dropped down between them with a start, "Hey guys, breakfast’s ready!" He dumped a handful of fruits between them, "Hope you like stuff that grows on trees!"

"What are they?" asked Mik as she stuffed a few orangish fruits into her mouth and chewed.

"Er, well those ones you’re supposed to peel first," chuckled Geoff as Mik started spraying juice from her mouth, "otherwise it can get a bit…difficult."

"Who knew there was all this stuff just growing in San Canyon!" said Geoff as he tasted each of the fruits in turn, "we barely come down here anymore, except to work on the pipes."

"Get used to ‘em, we may have to eat them for awhile," said Geoff, "we’ll use all of San Canyon as our staging ground against Bison."

"Don’t be surprised, I did a little checking out of the village earlier, before I got our breakfast," chuckled Geoff as Mik and J.G. stared, "Bison is Robotnik’s underboss for this area, and he’s already begun to build up the complex. They’re constructing a factory for ‘bots, a couple of oil refineries, they even have a main HQ set up by converting one of those smaller ships into a command base for all their operations."

"How the heck are we supposed to take all of that out?" asked J.G, swallowing his fruit nervously, "I bet they’re heavily defended."

"The Mobians are being forced to build, while the Shadow-bots are on guard duty," explained Geoff as he began to sketch a diagram of the village into the dirt with his finger, "their refineries seem to be their top priority, probably followed by the factory. I’m not sure how they’re planning on getting oil to Robotropolis."

"What if they start sending more ships here?" asked J.G.

"No, usually Robotnik makes his underbosses independent, everything should function from here," replied Geoff as he scratched his head.

"The smaller egg-pod!" cried Mik as she leapt to her feet, scattering the fruit from her lap, "the one that also functions as the Robotomicizer, it could be their supply ship!"

"You mean Robotocizer," chuckled J.G.

"I know what I said," muttered Mik as she stuck her tongue out at him.

"That’s their robotocizer!" cried Geoff, ignoring Mik and J.G. as they began to pummel each other, "I never would have guessed! I thought it was just a smaller transport pod, but I guess it makes sense for them to multitask their devices sometimes…"

"We should take that out first," said Mik as she removed her fist from J.G.’s face, "that way they won’t be able to transport anything!"

"And it could also keep them from attacking the other villages and robotocizing them!" said J.G. as he ruefully rubbed his injured nose.

"I agree," said Geoff as he added the egg-pod to his sketched diagram in the sand, "they’re working too fast for us to defeat them by ourselves, but if we can isolate them from Robotropolis…we may have a chance…"

"Well what are we waiting for?" chuckled Mik as she strapped her swordbelt around her waist and adjusted her jacket, "We’ve got a plan, now let’s do it!"

"Do you actually think we can sneak into the village?" asked J.G, shuffling his hands together since he didn’t have any clothing to ‘adjust’.

"We shouldn’t have any problem yet," said Geoff, as he shouldered a small pack of supplies, "they think you’re dead, so putting up a defense isn’t their first priority. As long as we’re not seen by the shadow-bots, we should be fine."

Mik and J.G. nodded as the three friends left the safety of their forested shelter and struck out for the canyon wall nearest to the city. The sun had reached midday by the time they reached the canyon wall, and the sweltering heat reached them full force as they left the cover of the trees and stopped before the rocky wall.

"Best drink up a bit first," said Geoff as he pulled a small canteen out of his pack and passed it around, "we sure as heck don’t wanna pass out from sunstroke while we’re up there."

"How are we going to get back up?" asked J.G. as he gulped down some of the water, "are we gonna take one of the elevators?"

"Not likely," said Mik grimly as she peered back and forth along the canyon wall from atop a nearby rock, shading her violet eyes from the sun’s glare, "it looks like they smashed the elevators along this wall. See? There’s the main one, smashed on the ground!"

"Ah well, it may be for the best," said Geoff as he and J.G.’s eyes followed to where she was pointing, "the elevators are a bit too far from the village anyway. We’d have a much harder time making it across the open desert without being seen than the small area between the village and the canyon edge right about here."

"We’re going…up?" asked J.G. as he looked straight up the vertical cliff face.

"Of course!" chuckled Geoff as he fished a few metal spikes out of his pack, "up and over using these!" He held up the metal spikes for J.G. to see. Mik hopped down from her rocky perch and joined J.G. in examining the spikes.

"I’ve seen them use those before," said Mik as she poked at one of the spikes, "some of the older guys used to go cliff climbing with them at least once a week."

"It’s easy," said Geoff as he jammed one of the spikes into the cliff above his head. He pulled himself higher with his one arm and jammed another spike into the rock, pulling himself higher as he did so. "See?" he said, looking down slightly on J.G. and Mik, as he retrieved the first spike, "one after the other, easy!"

"Looks quick enough," said Mik casually as she jammed her own spike into the wall alongside Geoff’s path, "you’re already a bit off the ground."

"Shouldn’t we have a rope or something?" gulped J.G. as he followed her example and jammed his own spike in beside Mik.

"Yeah, probably," said Geoff as he started upwards again.

"We’re all gonna die," moaned J.G. as he and Mik started pulling themselves up the cliff face.

* * *

It had been an hour, but they were almost up the rock face. Clinging to their spikes, hands numb with gripping the stupid things for so long, the trio strived onward, ignoring their discomfort.

"This sucks," muttered J.G. for about the 20^th time, "we’re never gonna make it!"

"I wish I was a two-tailed fox right about now," groaned Mik as she looked down between her sneakers at the canyon floor far below.

"Almost there, guys," said Geoff as he surged forward again with his spikes, "I’ll see if I can check out up top and help you guys up when you reach it!" With a surge of effort, Geoff hauled himself up the last bit of rock and clung to the lip of the cliff edge.

"He made it!" gasped Mik as she struggled to pull herself higher up, "I’ll be danged if I can’t make it too!"

"Hey, slow down," moaned J.G. as Mik pulled away from him, "some of us can’t go—" as he was speaking, his latest handheld suddenly gave way, throwing all of J.G.’s weight out into thin air, and the spike spiraling down into the canyon below.

"J.G.!" cried Mik hoarsely, afraid to yell too loudly now that they were close to the village.

J.G. hung there on his one remaining spike, barely clinging on with both hands. "Little help here," he said through gritted teeth.

"Dang," muttered Geoff as he took in their position below him, "I never should have left J.G. and Mik by themselves!" Quickly, he pulled free one of his spikes and started back down towards his friends.

"Okay, just hold on," said Mik calmly as she maneuvered herself back down the cliff a bit on her spikes, until she was just above J.G. to the right.

"That’s about all I can do," said J.G. sadly, "I just knew this was a stupid idea…"

"Don’t worry," said Mik as she gazed up the wall, "Geoff’s coming back down, me and him’ll be able to save ya."

"I don’t think I can hold it much longer," whimpered J.G. as he trickled of sediment started to fall out of his handhold, "the rock’s about to give way!"

"Ok, then here!" cried Mik as she kicked out her scabbard over J.G.’s head, "grab my scabbard and I’ll help pull you up a bit!"

J.G. pulled a hand from the spike and grasped the scabbard, just as his handhold gave way.

"Geeze, you weigh a ton!" gasped Mik as she was pulled downwards, nearly breaking her arms, "get up here!"

"Sorry," said J.G. as she pulled himself upwards using his remaining spike and Mik as leverage, "but thanks for saving me, Mik."

"You guys alright?" asked Geoff as he dropped down above them, "what happened?"

"Lost a spike," said J.G. as he let go of Mik’s scabbard and grasped onto one of her spikes.

"Now we’re a little stuck, it seems," said Mik, "three spikes and two peoples."

"Take one of mine," said Geoff as he dropped one of his spikes into J.G.’s outstretched hand, "I can make it up with only one."

"Are you sure?" asked J.G. as Geoff continued upwards with only one.

"Hey, I am a raccoon, aren’t I?" chuckled Geoff as he looked back down, "opposable thumbs, remember?"

"Big deal, we have them too," sniffed Mik and J.G. as they followed up after Geoff.

They finally reached the top of the cliff and hauled themselves slightly over the edge to rest. Before them stood a strange mass of metal and machinery that one could scarcely tell was a village less than a day before. A trail of black smoke was snaking up into the sky, fueled by many of the village’s former huts in a huge bonfire. Robians were busy about the area, attaching different metallic parts in the construction of various buildings that now made up the quickly growing "city". Meanwhile, shadow-bots marched slowly among the structures, looking for anything out of the ordinary to report.

"They’ve done all that in a day!" gasped Mik as the three friends scrambled over to some cover behind a few nearby rocks, "how can we compete with that?"

"By selecting the target that will hurt them the most," said J.G, "the Robotocizer!"

"See that taller building in the center?" asked Geoff as he pointed to it, "I think that was the first building they set up, right on top of the second egg pod! My guess is, it’s Bison’s base."

"Yeah, we need to go after that too!" said J.G.

"Remember, the target that’ll hurt them the most, the Robotocizer!" whispered Mik.

"Oh, yeah, right," said J.G. a little sheepishly.

"Okay, we’ll wait for a break in the shadow-bots and then we’ll have to make a run for it," said Geoff, "straight to the closest building, understand? We’ll need a bit of luck to not be seen, but we should be alright."

"Hang on, I’ve got a better idea," said J.G. as he snatched the canteen from Geoff’s pack. He uncorked it and poured the whole thing over his head, dampening the fur up and down his body.

"What are you doing?" hissed Geoff, "we might have needed that!"

"Bye water," moaned Mik as she licked her dry lips.

J.G. ignored them and flopped to the ground, rolling back and forth to accumulate as much of the sand to his wet body as he could. Finally he stood up, "How do I look, guys?"

"Odd," said Geoff.

"First blue, now yellow…" muttered Mik.

"It’s called camouflage," explained J.G. patiently, "it’s so the enemy won’t see you coming."

"We know what it is, you just don’t look like it," said Geoff and Mik.

"You’ll see," said J.G. as he started moving across the sands toward the village, "I’ll check things out."

"It may actually be working!" said Geoff, "I’m a little surprised."

"J.G. actually had a good idea!" said Mik in disbelief, "nuts!"

J.G inched along through the sands, dragging himself slowly along the ground by his hands and feet. His progress was slow, and he had to halt and shut his eyes whenever a shadow-bot pair crossed between the two buildings, but at last he finally reached the edge of the nearest metallic structure.

"Crud," muttered J.G. as he looked into his former village. Now able to see the whole of Robotnik’s changes to his once peaceful home, he was practically speechless.

The center of the village was now taken up by a huge domed building that stretched into the sky. The second egg pod seemed to have been fused to another building to create the monstrosity which now dominated the sky from within the village. J.G. himself was in the outer ring of smaller buildings, mostly storage areas for supplies, while the easternmost half of the village was where the various factories were under construction. To J.G. it seemed as if every single robian in the village was crawling over the factories’ structures, rushing to bring their master’s goal closer to realty. Jet black smokestacks reached into the sky, waiting to spew toxic chemicals into the air, even as half-finished pipes angled towards the valley itself, awaiting their own chance to defile the land.

"Can’t let it get to me," growled J.G. as he chanced a look back at his friends’ hiding spot, "we have a job to do today, and we’re going to finish it!"

He flattened himself against the ground again as the latest pair of shadow-bot guards marched by, then took his chance and swept a rather large looking rock off the ground and hurled it as hard as he could at the building the shadow-bots had just come around.

With a crash, the rock smashed through the open window of the building and landed amongst some spare machinery parts. J.G. turned around and waved wildly to his friends as the shadow-bots rushed to investigate the noise. He then sprinted across the sand and skidded to a halt around the corner of the building nearest the Robotocizer pod, followed closely a few seconds later by his panting friends.

"See? Piece of cake," laughed J.G.

"We’re not through yet, hedgehog," giggled Mik as she smeared a bit of the sand on J.G.’s face into his eyes, "this was just the fun part."

"Well, we’re through the guard ring at least, but we’ll be working right under the shadow of that thing," said Geoff as he pointed at Bison’s base, "who knows what surveillance they’ve got?"

"Well, the Robotocizer IS just sitting there," said Mik, "maybe they don’t think they’ll have much use for it."

"Or it’s a trap," mumbled J.G.

"Who would they set a trap for?" scoffed Geoff, "they think you’re dead!"

"Well then there’s nothing to it, but to do it," said J.G., more to reassure himself than anyone else, "let’s go!"

* * *

With brisk metallic steps, a robian wolf hurried emerged from the confines of the elevator lift as the doors opened upon the headquarters’ top floor. The control center spread out over the whole floor, with various computer stations and monitors operated by different robians to oversee the entire base’s construction. But dominating the center of the room from the top of a raised dais was Bison’s official command station, giving him the perfect vantage point to look out over the village through the domed glass ceiling that covered the floor. Vick stepped through the computer terminals and reached Bison as he calmly observed the robians’ flurry of activity.

"Status report, sir," saluted Vick, as he handed a small information storage pad to Bison. The former team leader of the disaster force now served a similar role, head of all base defenses and Bison’s official second in command.

"Excellent," rumbled Bison as he read over the information, "how soon until the defense system comes online?"

"It shall be ready within the week," said Vick as he rubbed his metallic hands together in anticipation, "with the system fully in place, our headquarters will be impenetrable!"

"Good, it’s only a matter of time before some of the more remote cities find out what we’ve been up to, and a bunch of hotshot heroes trying to foil my plans is the last thing I need!" growled Bison.

"We should just crush them all," sneered Vick as he fingered the blaster weapon mounted on his wrist, "with my team behind me, we could capture every other village!"

"Not yet," said Bison as he strode over to his station and flipped a few switches, immediately a 3-d view of the village appeared, showing blue areas of completed construction and many more red areas of work still to be done. "We’ve made progress, but there is still much to be done before we can start shipping to Robotnik."

"Rene and Tiryn also returned from their scout of the valley," added Vick as Bison closed his viewscreen, "they found the remains of the shadow-bot, but none of the children." He pulled a few metal pieces from a panel in his chest and dropped them onto the instrument panel, "These are some bits of the husk that remained, not much was still intact."

"Should’ve sent them last night," muttered Bison as he rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"You don’t think they survived the fall, do you?" scoffed Vick, "they’re just children after all!"

"Was anything else found?" asked Bison.

Oh, just these frayed rope pieces," said Vick as he tossed the small bits of rope alongside the metal pieces, "they found them lying on the ground near the hull and thought it was important. I don’t see how they could’ve done anything, they’re all just tiny ripped pieces."

"No, nothing at all," mumbled Bison as he examined the cut net pieces.

* * *

Slowly, the three friends scurried from their hiding place and crossed the distance to the robotocizer pod, sliding under the pod’s frame to take cover between the two support beams holding it a few feet off the ground.

"I don’t think we can all fit under here," complained Mik as Geoff elbowed her in the face.

"Oof, I agree," coughed Geoff as he rammed his head into the pod’s underbelly.

"S-ss-sword…" gasped J.G. as he slowly inched away from Mik’s blade point that was hovering a few inches from his face.

Geoff pulled a panel off the bottom of the pod and began prodding inside the machine with his hands, "I think maybe I can rip a few pieces loose from out here!"

"Let me see what I can cut loose!" cried Mik as she drew her sword, much to the relief of J.G., and maneuvered its blade up into the access hole.

"See what you can cut, but don’t blow it up or anything, okay?" said Geoff as he pulled his hands from alongside Mik’s blade and backed away to give her room to work.

"I hope you know what you’re doing," said J.G.

"’Course not!" chuckled Mik as a few sparks shot out of the hatch, forcing her to shield her eyes with a gloved hand, "that’s the fun of it!"

"Maybe we could capture it…" mumbled J.G. as he crawled along under the vehicle and peered out from under the hatch to the pilot seat for the pod. Seeing that the coast was clear, he slid out from under it, pressed the door release and slipped into the pod’s pilot seat. It was only protected by a bubble covering from the outside, and the sheer number of controls and buttons made J.G.’s head spin, but he was pretty sure he was in control…of something.

"Looks like this has only room for the pilot," said J.G. as he checked over his shoulder to only find more machinery that led back to where the robotocizer was stationed.

"He climbed in the pilot bubble!" hissed Geoff as Mik’s prodding was rewarded with another shower of sparks.

"Could be good," said Mik, "maybe he can brake it from inside."

"Or he could set something off," growled Geoff as he began inching over towards the pod’s head, "I should help him."

* * *

"Hm, what’s this?" rumbled Bison as he checked the red light blinking on his control panel, dropping the frayed netting to the floor, "someone just entered the robotocizer pod!"

"No maintenance has been authorized for the pod," called out one of the robian technicians as he fingers flew over her control panel’s keyboard with the ring of metallic efficiency.

"In that case…" said Bison as he turned to Vick.

"It may be an intruder," grinned the robotic wolf as he pressed a few buttons on the control panel, "I’ll try out one of the newer systems and recall the robotocizer pod from here."

"Good," smiled Bison as he strode over to the domed glass and gazed down at the roboticizer pod, almost directly beneath his command center.

* * *

With a rumble, the jets on the robotocizer pod activated, spewing a cloud of sand into the air. The craft lifted off the ground slightly and began to rotate, aiming directly towards the domed base. Underneath, Mik and Geoff tried their best to not be hurled out on a gust of air from under the craft.

"What’d that idiot do!?" cried Mik as she clung for dear life to her small opening in the pod’s underbelly.

"Must’a triggered an alarm!" coughed Geoff as the craft suddenly jolted into the air and headed towards the dome, "hang on, we’re going up!"

"I’ll kill him!" cried Mik.

Meanwhile, J.G. was trying to flip right side up in the small pilot’s compartment after finding himself tossed upside down by the pod’s sudden liftoff.

"Dang," muttered J.G. as he banged his head into the glass shield, finally righting himself in the pilot’s seat, "I didn’t even touch anything yet!" Rubbing his head ruefully, he gazed upwards as Bison’s base came into view, filling the entire viewscreen.

For a second it appeared as if the pod would crash straight through the dome, but no, a circular opening appeared on the bottom overhang of the dome’s surface. The robotocizer pod shot straight into the opening and alighted on the deck of Bison’s control room, only a foot or so off the floor. A small control arm emerged from the floor and clamped onto the pod’s side, securing it in place as the pod’s repulsorlifts shut down. With a hiss, the opening slid closed, trapping the pod inside the base.

"Well, well, well, what have we here?" smiled Bison as he strode over to the pod, stopping in front of it’s domed pilot compartment, "some hotshot hero who thinks he can take me down on the first day of my empire’s reign?" He grinned evilly as he stared straight into the glass canopy, "The tinted screen allows you to see me, but not the other way around, hero. Enjoy your last few moments of advantage, before you find yourself in the other side of that pod!" Bison slammed his fist into the side of the pod and the bubble flipped open with a spring

"Like what I’ve done with the place?" grinned J.G. as he shoved a mass of computer parts out of the pilot seat, "that shadow-bot sure gave me a lot of experience with pulling computer thingies apart!"

"It’s that small hedgehog again!" cried Vick, "I thought we already killed him!"

"Resilient little thing aren’t you, J.G?" grinned Bison as he pulled him roughly from the pilot’s chair by his headspines, "but it looks like your partner in crime wasn’t so lucky, what happened to your little friend?"

"She’s right here, dangit!" said Mik as slid out from under the pod and her slashed her sword down upon Bison’s arm.

"Gwargh!" cried Bison as he fell back, clutching his dented arm, "you’ll pay for that, fox!"

"Glad you guys could make it!" laughed J.G. as he skidded to the floor, free from Bison’s grip, "What took ya?"

"We thought you were gonna jump ‘em!" said Geoff as he squeezed out from under the pod as well.

"Well, at least you came to rescue me," grinned J.G.

"Well we WERE kinda stuck on the bottom of the pod," explained Mik, "we didn’t really have a choice."

"My friends," muttered J.G.

"Attention, all shadow-bots to the control room, immediately!" barked Bison. "You’ll soon be joining your families, rodents," he smiled as he turned to the three friends.

"Y U!" cried J.G. through gritted teeth.

"Hold it, we’ve got to get out of here!" hissed Geoff, "our mission’s failed, and if those shadow-bots come, we’ll have no chance to escape!"

"We’re not done yet," grinned Mik as she advanced on Bison, "What a chicken, calling on your precious bots to save you!" she sneered.

"Better safe than sorry," said Vick as he shot a double laser blast at Mik.

She dove to the ground just in time, only to be met with a swift kick by the wolf as he dashed towards her.

"I’ve got your back!" cried J.G. as he quite literally leapt upon Vick’s back, trying to pin the wolf’s flailing metal claws.

"You’re incredibly brave, and stupid," laughed Vick as he flipped J.G. over his head and slammed him to the ground.

"Eat it!" cried Mik as she jabbed her sword straight at Vick’s face.

"You’re still here?" chuckled Vick as he caught her blade in one of his hands, "I guess I just need to hit you harder!" He backhanded Mik across the face with his metal palm.

"I’ve been hit harder by J.G." sneered Mik as she rubbed her swollen cheek tenderly. Grasping the hilt of her sword in both hands, she twisted it fiercely, snapping off Vick’s clutching hand.

"You little…" growled Vick as he gazed at his sparking robotic stump.

"Keep your hands to yourself then!" snapped J.G. as he hurled the robotic appendage back into the face of its owner.

"Dude, we rock," grinned Mik as she and J.G. advanced on their enemy.

Vick lashed forward with his remaining hand, flinging two sizzling green bolts of energy at Mik and J.G. The pair dodged the blasts and J.G. swung under the wolf, his fist connecting solidly with Vick’s chin. The robian stumbled backwards into the robotocizer pod and slumped over the pilot’s compartment. J.G. vaulted over the fallen robot and landed on the bubble canopy, smashing it down on Vick’s torso, trapping him.

"I’ll let those two play with that one," muttered Geoff as Mik and J.G. hurled themselves at Vick, "If I can get to the control panel, hopefully I can get us an opening out of here!"

"Going somewhere?" growled Bison as Geoff rushed up the dais towards Bison’s controls. He swung a huge fist at the raccoon as Geoff dashed towards him.

Geoff leapt over the swing and sprang over Bison’s shoulders, landing nimbly upon the control panel.

"Now, if there’s anything I know about computers, it’s that there’s always a self-destruct!" said Geoff as he began madly pushing buttons. He stopped as a button push was rewarded with a rather ominous shaking of the floor.

Bison took Geoff’s momentary pause to smack the raccoon off the controls. "You only opened the access hatch!" laughed Bison as Geoff tumbled back down the stairs and slid to a stop beside the egg pod, now suspended over an opening out into thin air, "and it’s a long way down!"

"J.G.!" gasped Geoff as the hedgehog vaulted onto the pod, trapping a robotic wolf inside, "we’ve got our escape now!"

"Anything less high?" gulped J.G. as he looked at the ground far below.

"Nope," said Mik as the doors to the command center opened and the shadow-bots rushed in, "here comes their calvary!"

"Blast them!" cried Bison as the three friends scrambled onto the egg pod.

"Going down!" cried Mik as she split the brace in half, releasing the egg pod.

"Bye bye, Bison!" grinned J.G. as the pod, Mobians and all, disappeared from view amid a blast of laser bolts from the shadow-bots.

J.G., Mik, and Geoff leapt out into the air as the pod crashed to the ground. They hit the ground running and dashed as quick as they could back towards the canyon edge, cheering their victory the whole way.

"Wait, how do we get back down?" gulped J.G. as he skidded to a halt at the canyon’s edge.

"We do this!" cried Geoff as he wrapped his arms around Mik’s and J.G.’s waists and hurtled them off the canyon’s edge. As they dropped towards the canyon floor below them, a cloth fabric slid out of Geoff’s pack and slowed their descent.

"Pretty nifty, eh?" grinned Geoff as they slowly floated towards the ground, "a little something I picked up in Knothole, it’s called a parachute."

"We’ll tell you when our hearts start beating again," gasped J.G. and Mik.

* * *

Bison stood their, dumbfounded as he gazed down upon the smoking wreckage of his robotocizer. With a growl, he dismissed the shadow-bots and strode back to his command chair, dropping wearily into it. Around him, the clicking of type continued as the robian computer workers continued their duties, not missing a beat during the entire battle.

"Perhaps having them so mindless isn’t a plus," muttered Bison as the doors slid open and Vick dragged his mangled form into the room, "but then again, intelligence isn’t that useful either…"

"I…really…hate that hedgehog, sir," said Vick as he dropped to the ground before Bison.

"Don’t we all," sighed Bison.

"Here’s to a job well done," grinned Geoff as he held up an orange. The trio had retreated to another secluded clearing along the river’s edge to celebrate their first victory towards freeing San Canyon. "It may not have gone according to plan, but we made it out all right in the end, mission accomplished!"

"Yay," said J.G. and Mik as they held their oranges up and tapped them against Geoff’s.

"Here’s to winging it!" giggled Mik as she tossed her fruit into the air and caught it."

"Good thing I thought to fly us into the base," grinned J.G. "otherwise we never would’a done it! I’m the natural leader for us Freedom Fighters!"

With a splatter of juice, two oranges smacked straight into his face, pretty much summing up Mik and Geoff’s opinion of J.G.’s "leadership skills."

THE END