[Deleted]

Daisy paused to think it over; the Kid made a good point - maybe K.Rool was planning on doing exactly what she was worried Bowser would do, and here she was doing all the dirty work for him. She frowned; she felt like she was in over her head with all these dealings. But she couldn't back out now.

"Fine," She sighed, "We'll take the deal, but we do this fast. We get in, we get the generator, and we go straight to K.Rool for payment. The sooner he can move his forces over to the tower, the sooner he can flush out these rats and he and Bowser will... sort of... cancel each other out. Then nobody wins, except us." She could hear how flimsy the plan sounded coming out of her mouth but it was the best chance they had at keeping clean in this mess. She nodded back over to Mouser and started heading back over in that direction.

"Okay, Mouser, we're in," She said firmly, "So, let's figure out this plan together. The Kid and I will get in on the premise of picking up a package using the paperwork here in my hand. This will get us as far as the waiting room inside. Once we're in, your people will cut the power lines and we'll just go about our business from there. Agreed?"

[Deleted]

Daisy sounded kinda upset about realizing how involved she'd become with these gangs. Skull Kid wasn't so excited either. This could easily put them on any of the gangs' maps, whether it be good or bad. Robotnik would likely be VERY upset to find his tower attacked by two rival gangs because of some spunky "heroes". He might seek revenge. On the other side, K. Rool might come to either of them in the future with more jobs, knowing now that they were willing to work with gangs. Getting involved was likely a really bad idea, but it was too late to think about that now. Just as Daisy said, they'd have to get in and get out. No more time should be invested than what was part of the original deal.

Daisy confirmed their acceptance of the rat's help, and let him know that that was where their dealings ended. It seemed that she was hoping for this to be the last unexpected variable in this mission, but a world without surprises seemed like a completely separate reality compared to the one they lived in now. With so much going on, so many people seeking vengeance, power, and justice, the variables were endless. Someone could waltz in and claim the gang dealings to be out of order, then try to blow the entire tower up to deal with all the gangs. An unknown rival of Daisy's could show up and blow their cover, bringing the whole plan down in one fell swoop. It was all so unpredictable, but Skull Kid would have to deal with whatever happened from here on.

Wow, he'd looked way too far into this. Leaving the Forest had really cleared his mind, but that had made room for all these doubts and hopes that he never really worried about before. Did everyone deal with these everyday? Suddenly Skull Kid deeply missed the Forest.

[Mr. Game & Watch]

The mouser looked back at Daisy when she finally agreed to their involvement in the plan. His revolting yellow teeth revealed themselves once again in the form of a gritty grin. “See, I knew you were sensible enough to agree” the rat stated simply.

He listened closely to Daisy’s commands and analyzed every section to the plan while nodding his head. His mouth indicated when he seized his thinking as he smirked once again. “Yeah, yeah, that sounds easy enough. Couldn’t come up with a better rat-trap myself” he slyly commented as he laughed slightly. “We’ll head on over right now an’ wait for yah” he continued as he turned to his horde of brethren. “We know of a way over, the cameras will be occupied on youse two we’ll get in no problem.”

When he finished speaking, the army of similar looking mousers scurried up the wall of the building that created the alley. Once they all climbed over the roof they were completely out of sight from the two.

From the alley way led to a large plain of semi-well-kept grass, there was a path toward the tower made of concrete tiles that was further up. Daisy and Skull Kid weren’t too far from the base of the tower, in fact the steel doors could probably be seen from where they were. It was a bit of a travel, but not too long.

(OOC: you guys can just quickly have your characters be there within your next post.)

[Deleted]

Daisy scowled up after the retreating rats as they disappeared over the building. She didn't like where this was heading, but she shook the doubts out of her head and set her mind on the task in front of them.

"Okay," She said, "So, from now on until the power shuts down, we're just, uh..." She paused and looked doubtfully down at Skull Kid, "Two work colleagues... picking up a package. Y'know, for work." She cleared her throat and tapped the toes of her running shoes on the ground, one foot at a time while looking out from the alley towards their destination a short walk away across the grass plains.

"Are you ready?" She asked one last time, looking over to Skull Kid for the agreement to move.

[Deleted]

The rat and his posse disappeared over the side of a nearby building once their conversation had ended. Skull Kid listened to what Daisy had to say about the next part of their mission. She may not have liked this new development, but she was still so sure they would succeed. It even sounded easy the way she summed it up.

That's good, he thought. If she's this sure of herself, then there's not much that could stop her. Skull Kid just needed to stick close as she made decisions and took action. They would make it through this mission, no doubt about it.

He looked over at the base of the tower and the path leading up to it. He inhaled deeply to prepare himself both physically and mentally.
"I'm ready whenever you are."

[Mr. Game & Watch]

---((MOD POST))---

The steel siding of the building was so crisp and clean the two would be able to see their reflections as clearly as they could with a mirror. The sheer size of the building was astounding as it was easily the tallest tower in the Life Sphere. There was no sign of any beings around the exterior of the base, but that didn’t necessarily mean the two were alone or unwatched. Two security cameras near the arch way for the door zeroed in on their location as soon as they were close enough.

A broad green scanning laser analysed the two of their bodies. When the scan was complete the machine answered “Scanning units for Kremling and Koopa DNA. Test negative, you may proceed.” The thick steel doors then proceeded to slide open revealing the innards of the building to the two of them.

The walls on the inside of the tower were a stark white, as was the floor and just about everything else on the inside. The only exception was the Egg Pawn robot standing behind a counter at the end of the hallway. The machine was more so focused on the monitor next to it, its humongous fists typing away at the keyboard.

It wouldn’t be too long of a walk to get to the counter and there wasn’t much of a crowd to cut through. The head of Eggman’s minion twisted to view the two. “Enter, please” it commanded in apathy. With that, its head twisted back to its monitor to continue working.

[Deleted]

When he reached the building, a strange green light went up and down over his body, and a monotone voice insisted they were not two things he had never heard of before. The magic in this world was called technology, and it far surpassed anything Skull Kid had ever seen, or he was pretty sure it did. Once the doors opened and the inside of the tower was revealed, Skull Kid was let down. He imagined a place so big and amazing looking from the outside would be filled with colorful things with strange uses and mystical value. Sadly, the only very colorful thing in sight was an armored guy behind the counter in the very middle of the room. Why did he need armor inside, was this place that dangerous? He dismissed this thought, as his understanding of the new world called Li was minute, and armor could have totally different uses here.

"Enter, please" it said in a voice very much like the one right outside that opened the door. He realized it was not a man, but a robot, one of the strange new creature encountered often on Li. He only knew of one other robot, and that was the one from the first big battle in the Life Sphere. His name escaped Skull Kid, and that was kind of upsetting, but he was glad he was able to make these connections in this grand new world. He entered promptly and approached the desk, getting a good look at the people he had to go around or pass by to get there. At the desk he waited, hoping for further instructions from the colorful robot man.

[Mr. Game & Watch]

The mega-fisted robot paid little attention to the two approaching its desk. It didn’t need to look over at them anyways, the monitor in front of it gave it a clear image of everything around the desk from a variety of different angles. Though, once the two were set in front of its desk its programing to act human around others cased it to turn its spherical and crude head. The bulbs in its pale blue optics pierced with bright light as it investigated the two.

It noted the clipboard in the taller woman’s hands. “Right then, you have a package waiting for you in the other room. Your colleague is permitted to the waiting room while we speak with you privately. Please proceed through the hallway to the right” it spoke as it directed Daisy with its oversized fist. The head of the Egg Pawn then twisted unnaturally toward the small scarecrow looking being. “As for you, the waiting room is down the left, once the processing is done we’ll let you know” it finished as it turned back to its keyboard.

The room in question wasn’t down a long hallway like the place Daisy was sent to, in fact most of it was very visible from the desk. It was the same sleek white plastic looking décor that encased the rest of the insides of the advanced building. The room, like all waiting rooms, had rows of shiny white leather chairs lined up against each wall with a few stray end tables here and there covered with magazines and newspapers in nice neat stacks. The place was empty with not a soul or even robot in sight besides the one at the service desk. It was eerily quiet, the sound of the blocky hands of the Egg Pawn typing away being the most prevalent sound.

[Deleted]

Once the robot man mentioned the waiting room, Skull Kid was reminded that the generator was directly beneath that. He decided to discretely take the grenade back from Daisy, as he would clearly be the one to use it. Once he got to said area, he stepped a little harder, testing the amount of distance between the floor of this level and the ceiling of the basement. Expectedly, it was a pretty thick floor, two to thee feet, but he could easily teleport several feet down. He decided to sit down somewhere as close to out of sight as he could (somewhere where the robot's monitor would be between them, or behind a sofa, if need be. He doesn't know about the cameras, obviously.). He sat for a minute wondering if the magic in this place could tell if he left the waiting room. He told himself that K. Rool would have warned them if that were the case. He didn't really have a choice at this point anyways, he was already this far.

Once he considered himself well hidden from sight, he gripped Tael and disappeared from the waiting room, traveling straight down beneath him to what he hoped would be the correct room to find the generator within.

[WolfEx]

From the halls connected to the room the foot steps of a particular hedgehog can be heard jutting across the ground. He didn't mean to be so loud when he walked, but he felt like using his jet boots to skate across would be even louder. By now everyone in the room not far ahead would hear him coming. He made the decision to roll into a ball in dash the rest of the way there. In seconds he rolled into a strange room with a giant robot and a desk. As he uncurled himself from his ball like state he eyed the robot a little more closely. His eyes grew wide when he saw the structure of it, there could only be one man who could make such a machine. He muttered the name aloud without question. "Eggman..." He wasn't going to turn this place inside out or blow up the poor robotic creature, at least not yet. It was too heavily guarded, he noticed the cameras up above a few feet back and was careful not to do anything too hectic to set off any alarms or cause the cameras to go haywire, let alone the robot. He just winced as the robot clacked away on a keyboard and asked the obvious question. "Where is Eggman? Spill it. You know me, I know you do. Scan me for all I care, I thought Eggman to be dead, but now I know that's not true at all." He was like a man on fire, determined to find Eggman and receive answers what he was up to. He may owe Eggman for his life, but when it came to criminal activity, he would not allow it, especially not in a time of war and disease.

Shadow was trapped, and he knew this, but if he didn't get the answers he wants, regardless of how much pain he might endure, he would not hesitate to unleash chaos upon the area if it came down to it. Right now he had to play it cool and see where his good manners would take him. Robots didn't care about a good attitude, they were built to do duties and work, programmed to follow orders. Shadow could be as cheeky as he wanted with the egg machine and still the robot would act the same way. Shadow always admired Eggman for his genius and ability to create great things out of virtually nothing. He was like Samus in some ways, except much more sinister and very much evil. When Shadow had heard about gangs forming, he knew he had to investigate. Life Sphere was already in danger enough, and he wasn't going to tolerate additional problems. Whatever Eggman and the other bad eggs were up to, it couldn't be good, and it had to be out of insanity, because no sane being would even think about plotting evil at a time like this. Shadow was about to find out just what he had stumbled into pretty quickly. He prepared himself for a battle.

[Mr. Game & Watch]

Skull Kid’s hunch of teleporting beneath the floor was correct. The room he materialized within though was vastly different in appearance from the rest of the building he had seen so far. The place was dark with very few sources of dim lights from machinery that engulfed the walls around him. Large black cords were very common place for the décor with tons of them leading in a variety of directions. If there was even walls behind all the technology there was no evidence from the outside suggesting it. Despite how cluttered the room was, it wasn’t small or cramped. No it was a large area with a ceiling that spanned a good ten or so meters. Length wise it seemed endless, but of course most of the room was shrouded in shadows.

The most light that was prevalent in the technologic room was a large terminal not too far behind the non-tech savvy being. The screen of which had a display of code he probably had no chance of understanding, but it was easily the best guess toward what K Rool was looking for.

Back at the surface, a familiar black hedgehog made an appearance at the operator’s desk. It spun its head around and ceased its typing. The expressionless machine stared at Shadow for a moment or two before it responded. “Dr. Robotnik is busy at a meeting for the moment, please escort yourself to the waiting room until a time is open” the orange cladded pawn spoke as it pointed at the waiting room once more.

Not two seconds later however, all the lights in the building shut off along with anything that needed an outward source for power. The pale blue eyes of the Egg Pawn were about the only thing visible in the immediate area despite how sunny it was outside. The floor the two were on had a severe lack of windows. “We are experiencing technical difficulties at the moment, please step outside until we can bring the power back online” the vibrant eyes of the mechanism glanced back at Shadow.

In the basement, given that there weren’t too many lights as it was already there wasn’t much of a difference until the emergency backup lights switched on. The entire room was now lit up with a bright hue of red and everything that had been casted in shadows were completely visible. It would come to Skull Kid’s surprise to find that despite the fact that he seemed alone at first, the change in lighting would prove him wrong very quickly. The dark corners of the room showed that not only was there a hidden army of Egg Pawns behind the cords and machines, but also a larger Egg Pawn-esque robot that Eggman liked to call the Egg Breaker. Who else could be in the pilot seat, but Eggman himself.

“Get a load of this, K Rool only sent a lone child after me. I feel insulted” the round man spoke with the distinctive rasp in his voice unique to only him. His giant mechanism took a few steps forward which slightly rattled the entire area around them. “Let’s talk shall we?” he continued, his large grin being obstructed by his large creation.

[Deleted]

Skull Kid landed safely in the basement, which was very dark, only lit by the various machines that filled it. He hadn't even begun to look around when the lights went out, and everything went black. Thankfully, red emergency lights came on, completely illuminating the basement. He was already fairly confused, then he noticed an incredible number of robot men in all directions, as well as one large robot, with a strange looking man inside of it's head. The biggest robot man was terrifying, with a large spiked mace for one hand and just a generally evil look on it's face. The man inside it's head quickly identified himself as Dr. Robotnik by assuming K. Rool had sent Skull Kid to attack him. His robot took several steps in Skull Kid's direction, causing tremors that seemed to shake everything in the room.

"Let's talk shall we?" Robotnik sneered. Skull Kid had no response for several seconds, then he simply said "I'm just here to pick up a package." referring to the clipboard package, rather than making a clever jab by talking about the generator. He was scared witless, and had good reason to be. He had faced far less than this with a team and not faired too well, so how could he even begin to deal with an army and it's fearsome leader alone?

" ....isn't this the waiting room?"

[WolfEx]

Shadow was irritated by the robot's ignorance forcing him to sit and wait for a criminal mastermind. Shadow felt Eggman was not worthy of being waited upon at all, and just before he was going to lay into the robot with an attack, there was a power outage. Lights turned off and darkness ensued for a good few seconds maybe more. Shadow thought about making an escape and leaving the room to find another route to Eggman during the outage but he remained still, keeping his focus on the robot behind the desk. Soon after the lights turned back on into a bright red changing the mood of the place. Shadow was on alert worried he might have triggered an alarm of some kind, he wondered just what exactly was going on. He balled his hands into fists and grew hesitant at what he should do next. He spoke out to the robot again. "Let me see Eggman and I promise not to turn you into scrap metal." He was threatening the robot now, wooing it and daring such a machine to attack. He could have sworn there were other people in this waiting room earlier before he entered, but he could be wrong. He did know, however, that there was another path somewhere leading to Eggman much easier than a boring room somewhere nearby, and he was going to find it if Eggman didn't show up soon.

Shadow didn't mind waiting around most times, but this time was different, very different. He was here to prevent a crime and stop this little meeting of secrecy. All this time Eggman had been in the Life Sphere and Shadow didn't even know it, one would imagine why he was at least a little pissed off. Shadow was lucky he caught wind of a true rumor by a group of thieves in the Black Market of a meeting going down, his intimidation factor suited him well when he needed to use it. What was about to happen next however, was up to the busy robot and the level of Shadow's patience at the moment. At this very moment a villainous act could be committed and he was wasting time standing around, he wanted to stop it as soon as possible before things got out of hand. A stale mate for now, but a possible brawl fest later. Shadow was prepared for a fight.

[Mr. Game & Watch]

With the emergency light being activated even the Egg Pawn knew that meant nothing good. It transmitted an emergency beacon through its own mother board computer to warn of its fellow Egg-spawn brethren within the area and to locate the source of the error. To anyone around it sounded more like a series of low toned beeps than anything that was comprehensible.

The pawn then switched it view back over to the temperamental rodent. “Death threats will not be tolerated. You are ordered to cease and desist otherwise we will be forced to make a hostile response” the robot commanded Shadow while reaching under its desk for its matching big clunky gun. Not too soon afterwards another Egg Pawn came sprinting around the corner and halted once it spotted the black hedgehog. It pulled out a similar weapon and ordered as well “cease and desist.”

Meanwhile, back in the lower basement. Dr. Eggman eyed the Skull Kid as he made his response and proceeded to laugh wildly. He adjusted the frame of his glasses with two fingers and quickly glanced at the two armies of his lackeys at either of his sides. “Stand down and do not engage unless I say so. Get to work on bringing the power back online and hand me the report when I’m done” Robotnik ordered loudly. Without question all the robots turned away from the scarecrow and his pet to tinker with the vast amount of machinery.

Eggman’s head swung back over to the tiny figure. “Nice attempt, but I know everything that happens within the Life Sphere. Besides that crocodilian oaf wasn’t subtle in delivering his message in the slightest. I apologize for us having to meet in this manner, but I can’t take my chances when it comes to my generator” he spoke smoothly and sounding legitimate in his word. “This isn’t a ploy, I swear. If I wanted to skewer you, I would have already done so. I’m more interested in giving you an offer.”

[Deleted]

Skull Kid was entirely open to offers at the moment. He realized he could use the emp grenade and shut down all the robots, including the giant one, but he didn't for a few reasons. First, he was somewhat afraid to use the grenade. He only knew that it would turn all the robot enemies off somehow, and that the button on top triggered it. He didn't feel like he had enough information to use it properly or safely. Second, things could still be difficult after shutting the robots down. If Robotnik had created all of the robots, he could likely create something deadly that didn't run the same way the robots did, and, therefore, would not be shut down by the grenade. Lastly, Robotnik knew about Skull Kid being sent by K. Rool, and that he was supposed to steal the generator. He wasn't so sure the emp grenade would be a massive surprise. It might already be planned for.

"Umm, okay." Skull Kid said, glancing around at his surroundings. He'd done it now. He was sure Dr. Robotnik's offer would have to do with him taking one of the other two gang leaders down a notch. At the very least, it wouldn't be anything legal. He was really starting to wish he hadn't taken this mission, because he was already far deeper into gang affairs than he had ever planned to be.