Four small objects fell toward the oncoming world, their descent fueled by the gravity drawing on the vessels. The fall toward the planet took the better part of an hour and, eventually, they burst into crimson flames as they fell into the atmosphere.

To any lucky spectators, the show would be considered beautiful and inspiring, the dark veil of the night sky lit by fire. Few would fail to be awed at the beautiful show as what seemed to be four meteorites soared across the heavens in a magnificent arc. An amazing show to those that watch, however those that experienced the event would not find the view nearly as beautiful from inside.

Loud warning sirens wailed from each of the objects as they quickly fell closer and closer to the surface, drowning out any and all sounds that may have been emitted nearby. They raced faster and faster until running parallel with the slope of a hill a little more than a few meters below. Nearby, small animals fled in fear of the vessels and the uproar they brought into such a quiet area. Their stop was abrupt and crippling as the first vessel blazed and plowed into a large boulder, shaking the ground and shattering the stone to pieces. The following vessels smashed into the rear of the first, crushing it and all the pieces in between on both sides.

For several minutes, the hill was quiet and lonely, save the sizzling of the vessels as their fires began to burn out. Not even the animals dared to make a sound. All was lifeless and still, as if all were dead.

Then the four objects began to emit a quiet hum, and a voice echoed through each one of them. The voice was strong and firm, but, without any translation, was in a completely different language and dialect than the ones known in these local areas. "Yajus speaking, this is your Yajus speaking," it said. "Addressing all units." The voice began its list, as if reading from a script. "Tech and Science Jaynu?"

A voice that seemed too depressed to be affected by the recent fall answered. "Check."

"Scouting?"

The soft, yet strong voice of a young woman. "Here, sir."

"Armory?"

A raspy, almost chilling voice. "Here."

"Artillery?"

A voice that seemed rooted and steeped in anger. "Here."

"Good. Navigation?"

Silence filled the air for several seconds before the voice spoke again.

"Navigation? Navigation, answer me!"

The woman's voice answered. "...Um, Yajus...?"

"Jaynu?"

"Spring didn't come with us. He insisted we go ahead...without him."

The Yajus clenched both fists tight, anger and rage filling him.

"Spring is still at the Bolt..." the girl almost whispered.

In a blind fury, the Yajus bashed both arms through the control panel of the pod, sending electricity flying in every direction, roaring to nobody in particular, "THAT DAMN FOOL!" In truth, despite the emotion he radiated, he was more worried than enraged.


Mobius was becoming more and more the peaceful and boring world as the predictable days crawled by with painfully little or even no hurry. Very little ever occurred there anymore, or at least none that any were aware of.

"A little more to the left, and..." Tails adjusted the view of his newly made telescope sideways until it rested on a nearby star. Camped atop the lone hill in a clearing of a forest, he'd assembled his telescope, aimed for the clear night sky and its sparkling inhabitants. Perhaps it was in a sense of nostalgia that he was lately so transfixed on the night sky and all of space itself, or perhaps it was a feeling of guilt of what had transpired up beyond the sky. Whatever the reason, Tails had camped out at this very location and studied the night sky day after day for many weeks.

He focused in on a particular, rather curious arrangement of stars. They burned very brightly, brighter than any other stars in the sky. Plus, according to his star charts, they had never appeared before. They seemed to just pop into existence, out of the blue, or, in this case, the black. Such a strange phenomenon, he thought. Slowly, they burned brighter and brighter and seemed to grow the longer he stared at them.

He pulled his head away from the instrument and stared up at them for several seconds with his bare eyes, noticing that they were indeed growing in size and illumination, and that the ground was actually beginning to shake. Oh, no. The "stars" were beginning to roar as they grew, and the woods quickly became noisy as many small animals began to dart through the trees, away from the hill. These four "stars" were obviously falling, apparently in his very direction.

The woods became quiet except for the roaring of the celestial objects, proving that the local wildlife had already fled the scene and left Tails alone on the hill. The tactical part of his mind kicked in as he began to "analyze" the situation. Let's see, I have four... he looked up at the objects which were definitely not stars, ...cosmic anomalies...falling at me. He looked down at the terrain around him. I am on top of a large hill and the only cover is... his gaze turned to the surrounding forest. Trees. Lots and lots of trees. The entire process took the better part of a minute.

These objects were far too close now. He didn't really have much time to run. Even if he did, it was unlikely that he would escape the turbulence that they were sure to cause. Given the circumstances, Tails concluded that there was only one logical option...

He quickly ducked down to his knees and covered is head just as the first object fell over him. It screeched furiously and burned brightly in its decent. Tails could feel the heat radiating from it across his back for a small moment. About a second after it passed over him, the turbulence chasing it quickly lifted him into the air and threw him off the hill and straight into a nearby tree, tearing his consciousness from his grasp upon impact.

After what was likely several hours later, the kitsune had managed to pick himself up off the ground. For a few seconds, he pondered exactly why he was sleeping at the foot of a tree, and not in a sleeping position. Piece by piece, and second by second, the event that had just transpired replayed in his mind and he regained his calm.

Tails' curiosity kicked in and he slowly limped around the base of the prominence until he located the crash site, and one word instantly flew through his head: pods. There were four of them, each smashed, beaten, and scorched black over most of their frames. The one that seemed to have traveled the farthest distance had an end flattened against what looked to be a cracked boulder. All of the successors had smashed into the back end of the first and flattened its rear. Although difficult to tell from the damage, the pods seemed to each be in the shape of a teardrop, large and round at one end that thinned up to a point at the other.

"Hmm..." Tails placed his hands on the burnt hull of the nearest one, still warm, but no longer burning, and brushed aside a large layer of ash. Beneath it, carved into the hull, were many symbols that seemed to swirl and shift in size and shape. He studied them closely for several moments before resigning. He stepped over to the pod to the right of it, the least structurally damaged, and placed his hand on the rear of the hull. He snapped his arm back as the pod suddenly hissed loudly and without a warning, and a side of the hull slowly slid to the side until it reached the other end of the rear, revealing a hollowed interior.

Tails' eyes lit up as he viewed the contents of the pod. Many small batteries, tools, and other gadgets littered the inside. Technology. And not of this era, from the looks of them, or even of this planet.

An idea suddenly popped into his head, a project he had been working on. With these... he thought, pulling out a couple of small gadgets. Maybe... just maybe. He rummaged through the machinery and pulled out as many parts as he felt he would need. With his arms full of equipment, he turned back around and headed for home, completely forgetting his telescope, the pods, and what else may be inside them.

Now, nothing was more important that his plan.


"It's the middle of the night, Tails," Sonic numbly stated through a yawn. "Why are you waking us up this early?"

Sonic and Knuckles stood in a large dome-shaped building next to a large wall of glass. On the other side of the glass divide was a large...something. Whatever it was, it was composed of many large pillars and batteries with many blinking lights that were linked up to a large glass cylinder in the middle of the room. It looked like something straight out of a scientist's fantasies. In a far corner of the room inside the glass was a small cubicle where Tails proceeded punching in numerous codes into a computer. "Trust me, Sonic," his voice echoed across the room, "it's for a good cause."

"And what cause would that be?" Knuckles asked.

"You'll see." He pressed a few buttons at his computer and a couple of the pillars began to hum lowly. "Don't worry."

Knuckles shook his head. "'You'll see?' That worries me."

Tails acted as if he hadn't heard the comment. "Are you two behind the shock glass?"

"Yeah," Knuckles answered, lifting his arm at the glass. "We are!" He curled his fingers into a fist and slammed it against the glass, producing a loud, echoing pong.

"AHHH!" Tails fell backward out of his chair, cupping his ears. "It echoes in here, you know!"

Sonic waved his arm at the metal complex. "What is this supposed to do?"

"This," he answered, standing back up and steadying his chair, "is a little something I've been brewing up for the past few months..." he stopped for a moment to calculate in his head, "six and one-third to be exact. I couldn't finish it before since I couldn't locate necessary pieces of equipment to accomplish the construction of the power adapters, and-"

"What?" Knuckles mocked, cocking his head to one side.

Tails' head poked out from behind the cubicle. "It's a DNA regenerator." He then leaned forward to the computer.

"But what's the glass for?" He raised his arm again and lightly tapped on the glass.

His head poked out again, only with a serious, disapproving look marking him. "Knuckles. Don't." He turned back "It's for your protection."

"Protection from what?"

He remained silent and continued to type.

"Protection from what, Tails?"

"...Things explode."

The two naturally took a few steps back.

"I don't get it." Sonic continued to eye the machinery nervously. "What's it for?"

Tails' voice echoed from his desk. "Okay, here's how it works."

"Okay."

"You feed the pod a sample of someone's deoxyribonucleic acid."

"Deoxy..."

"DNA."

"Right!"

"The computer scans the DNA."

"Okay."

"It searches for matches."

"Following you."

Then Tails spoke quickly, figuring the two would keep up. "Then through complex adhesion and cohesion, it extracts all particle matches found from anywhere in this dimension to the DNA sample, rebuilds it-including physical features, memory, brainpower, and all- to its original state before the DNA was scattered. It's perfect."

"Uh...what?"

A sigh. "Rather than being told about it, I think it'd be best to show you." He picked up the DNA sample from his desk: a small potted plant. "...I just hope it works..." He stood up from his desk, stepped over tot the center pod, knelt down, and set the pot on the floor.

Simply from the sight of the plant, the entire plan became evident to the two. "Wait a second," Sonic called, straightening himself up, "isn't that the seed that I found..."

Tails pulled out a scoop and began shoveling out soil from the pot onto the floor. "Yes...it is. According to my theory, this should regroup the DNA."

Knuckles placed a hand on the glass, but not to knock this time. "You mean...bringing her back?"

He nodded, gently lifting the plant out of its pot with both hands and placing it on the floor of the pod. "If it works." He stood back up and closed the door to it.

Sonic glanced back and forth between the plant and tails. "If? What if it doesn't?"

He took a few deep breaths before answering. "...Given the power of the magnetism needed...the plant will collapse in on itself." Silence filled the air. No one wanted to consider the possibility. "We'll lose her. And this time she won't leave a seed..." He took uneasy strides over to his cubicle.

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

Tails had to stop and consider it for a moment. Is the risk worth it? What if it doesn't work? What if there was a small miscalculation? But, then again, what if it did work? With reluctance, he decided. "...Yes. For my friends, I will have to take the risk." He looked at a small key on his keyboard, the key that would begin the sequence. With a deep breath, he reached an arm out, and pressed it.

The procedure started off slow, simple, and boring. A few hums from the computer and some beeps. Basically nothing special. Then, several minutes later, the process became interesting. With absolutely no warning, one of the towers exploded with a huge BANG, the echo throwing Tails out of his seat. The explosion was followed by a series of other towers collapsing at random intervals, some simply toppling over while others abruptly combusted. Finally, a bright light show came from the remaining towers, engulfing the entire room in a thick, white veil.

"All part of the procedure!" Tails shouted, cupping his ears.

After a few seconds of light, visibility returned and everything was...normal, minus the debris. The equipment had all fallen in various piles and looked to be damaged beyond repair. Everyone looked around, expecting to see the roof cave in or a wall fall out. Nothing. Then one difference caught everybody's eye. Movement in the pod. No one failed to see as a small girl fell limply against the interior of the pod.


"Yajus?" A voice crackled over the radios for all the pod-dwellers to hear.

"Yes?"

"My scanners detect a large power surge not too far north from here."

The Yajus grinned. "Good. That surge was probably from our tech." His grin disappeared. "I want to meet the guy who actually had the guts to pilfer GMF equipment..."


SM) Not much better than it originally was, but I had put this off for far too long. The following chapters will all be edited, as well. Hopefully this wasn't as painful to read through as it once was.