A Tale to Tell . . .

Destiny, they say is what will happen and what was meant to happen, to us for us and to everyone/everything around us . . .

As day was just breaking for the small planet of mars, signaling another day of work, another day of having fun and another day of learning. Coo-Coo, Coo-Coo! The sound of a clock echo threw out a small bedroom upon the second floor of an old looking brick building. Sunlight breaks threw the biggest window of the bedroom which happen to be right next the head of the bed, a muffled grumble comes from under the sheets and pillows as then one of the pillows is flung at the clock hanging on the wall far across from the bed.

A young woman wakes up from her deep sleep, stretching her arms out, her tan colored fur messed up in spots from the sleep as well as her semi-waist long, dark brown hair of hers as the young Martian mouse woman slowly walks over toward her white yet some how always dirty looking bathroom. She pushes a small pile of clothing from her sink and then looks into the mirror to check upon her looks. Her almond shaped, red eyes shimmer as she then plays with her tank top, looking at it a bit as she then moves her hands to her pinched in waist, making a mental note to work out a bit more and then looks down toward her chest. She grumbles and makes a comment about how being young can sometimes suck, she then disrobes and turns on the shower, waiting for the water to warm up before hopping into it, closing the blue curtain.

Just as the first young woman woke up three more did as well, all within the second floor of the tall, old red brick building. The first was a classic tomboy, short blue hair to contrast with her dark grey fur, army style camouflage clothing as well as her strange bedding area and decor of her room. Nothing but weapons here, funny if appropriate posters and an open closet that held her clothing, boots and other such things, as well as a hanging punching bag. The woman takes off her headband and then rummages threw her stuff, looking for something, her athletically toned muscles flexing as she does so. The second was the second eldest, a woman of shoulder length flame red hair, a tattoo of three claw marks of equal crimson across her left cheek and under her cute looks as she is already flipping through a book or two, resting in her bed. Her bed; Which is a hammock sways slightly from left to right, using her tail to make it do so as she then flips some more pages again, absorbed in her reading as her eyes scan through sentence to sentence. Just like the rest, she hasn't slept that much and already shows signs of being tired but continues on reading as if she 'needs' to.

The third and last young woman was the third eldest, the youngest being the tanned Martian woman. This woman had fur as white as snow, hair more gold then the sunshine, which fell almost to her calves and a petit figure to match her almost stunning looks. She was almost always in front of her vanity dresser, always checking up on her figure and etc.

The first young woman was done with the shower and whistled loudly before poking her head out her door "OKAY! Showers up!" she shouted out signaling to the others that it was their turn for their showers. The tan furred young woman went back to her closet, looking threw shirts, skirts and other such things, trying to find the perfect outfit for today, because today was a very special day. "Shopping!" the tan woman giggled as she held up a tight looking pair of denim pants and was now trying to put them on.

"Thank Sandy!" the blonde young woman called out before brushing some of her hair and then disrobed and then turned on her shower, instantly pouring some liquid soap onto a small sponge, the scent of roses filling the bathroom. Across her room, the tomboy was busy listening to her heavy metal music, sitting on the side of her bed, lifting a heavy yet very small barbell with one hand. She was slightly sweating, but her dark blue hair is split down the center but falls to surround her face, her long bangs touching her cheeks. Next to her room was a door with the red words 'Flare' upon it, the door it's self looking quite scratched up.

Flare, the red head, was too busy working on some sort of small, a hand-held device, screwing a couple of things into place before she then blinks hearing "YOUR TURN!" from the blonde one's room. Flare then put up her screwdriver and the small device as she then made her way to her own, red bathroom, sunlight shining threw the small window above the shower as she then disrobed and hopped into the shower. Soon it was the tomboy's turn, Flare shouted out her name which caught the tomboy's attention.

"THANKS FLARE!" she called out before rubbing the back of her head "Damn . . . I'm right next door, she doesn't need to yell. Why not just tap on the wall and say 'Hey Aqua, your turn.' But hey . . . that's just me." Aqua then did the same as the rest and got into her warm, steaming shower. The tan mouse was now at the kitchen, cooking breakfast for the others so she had to make a lot, though the blonde one didn't eat much anyway.

"Thanks Sandy for cooking breakfast." She said mockingly to herself as she then sighed, cracking an egg into a nice hot pan. "It's not like I ask for much, but some thanks would be nice now and then . . . I wonder why Rose doesn't eat much anyway?"

Sandy shrugged and then put on a happy face seeing Rose; the blonde beauty walking downstairs, she had only dressed in a tight white belly shirt, a sleeveless pink jacket and a small pink skirt to match her small frame with long, slightly darker pink boots to match her outfit. Rose smiled to her and waved "Hello Sandy, nice morning isn't it? Oh nice spread, let's see. . . I'll take some toast and maybe some eggs thanks." Sandy just grumbled and handed Rose the toast and some of the scrambled eggs. 'Well at least she is eating this time. . .' Sandy thought to herself before she then placed the bacon, eggs, milk, juice, toast and waffles out on the table, the others soon came down stairs.

Flare was still semi busy reading threw a book as she then smiled to the others and took her seat at the table, dressed in a some what cut up looking black shirt with a dark blue vest on to match her dark blue, cut up looking shorts and some black hiking boots to match her 'tough' ensemble. Aqua came down last, stomping her way down the old steps, wearing something she always wore, a camouflage tank top with pants to match and black combat boots to complete the 'army' look. Aqua took her seat at the table and began to dig in, almost hogging most of the food.

"So is there anything for us today gang?" Sandy asked, taking her seat as well and helping herself to some toast. Flare looked up from her book and grinned slowly taking out a piece of paper and handing it to her. Sandy smiled and then took the small piece of paper and began to read it. "Ah! So I see, we have to go out towards Saturn to pick up some missing cargo, well we'd better get to shop like your promised Flare, otherwise. . ."

"You'll throw a tantrum like a 12 year old?"Rose commented and smirked to her, for a moment they gave each other the 'death' look before they then tried to reach for the last piece of toast. Their forks clanked as they stopped each other and tried to force each other off by pushing with force on their forks, their eyes stuck to each other in a glare. Aqua sighed and slapped her forehead as she looked to what was happening, she then quickly takes the toast from both of them and quickly devours it. "Hey! Aqua I was going to get that!" Rose said frowning to Aqua who simply chuckled and shrugged.

"Well I guess we should get going huh?" Flare then got up, finished with her breakfast as she then made her way up the stairs to get her things. Aqua soon followed and so did Rose, though Sandy and Rose had a bit of a tiny food fight before leaving. Sandy sighed un-happily as she then collected the dirty, empty plates and then began to wash them and put them back into the cupboards. Soon it was time to go, all of them by their ship which looked like a strange sort of craft, though it was very new looking, the ship being shining silver with a circle on the front and sides of the ship.

The circular icon had the colors blue, pink, red and violet together in a pie chart looking design, each color representing a person on the team. Aqua was doing some last weapons check while Rose was checking up on mechanics of the ship, Flare was just typing away at the main computer of the ship, checking threw the files as Sandy was just cleaning the inside of the ship. "Personally I think you all just got me onto this team as a janitor." Sandy said glumly as she looked to Flare, who simply replied saying that if Sandy had any special talents other then cooking and cleaning then she should say something. This made Sandy a bit madder, since she wasn't an expert on weapons like Aqua, technology like Flare or even a good mechanic like Rose.

"Systems check done and ready, everyone prepare for lift off in T minus 30 seconds." Flare announced, by pressing a small communicator button near her computer screen. Aqua and Rose quickly got up into the ship and took their spots on either side of Flare, Aqua was in charge of weapons and navigation as Rose was in charge of the ship herself like making sure the engines started correctly. Flare had the toughest job, controlling and steering the ship threw space, Sandy though. . . just sat in the back of all of them, making sure to just hold on and not throw up as they took off.

The engines started getting louder as Rose pressed a couple of buttons, slowly the big, underground garages doors opened, revealing the hot day out, the sunlight pouring in. The ship was revved up now, ready to launch, it's 'legs' then tucked into the bottom of the silver, swift looking ship. Suddenly they all pressed the same red button letting out a 'HEYA!!' as they shot off threw the hole in the ground and zoomed out threw Mars's atmosphere and were far off into space, heading towards Saturn.

"Artificial gravity activated, all systems check out. . . Okay, now beginning auto pilot mode in three, two, one!" Rose smiled as she pressed the button that allowed them to do what they wanted to. Sandy got up out of her seat and then reached under her seat to the ice chest and pulled out a root beer as she then sipped at it, watching as the others come and reach in for the root beer as well.

"I thought you models weren't suppose to have soda?" Aqua said smirking to Rose, not liking those type of people that much. Rose smirked and pointed out it was 'diet' root beer and winked before walking back to her seat and pressing another button which made a medium sized screen slowly come down in front of the 'cock pit' part of the ship. Some sort of television image was seen of an alien racing competition was on. As a red motorcycle suddenly zoomed by the screen Rose almost spit up on herself seeing it.

"H-hey wasn't that Vincent?" Rose asked looking to the others who's ears had suddenly perked and then came around Rose looking to the screen. Rose pointed towards the screen and then squeaked as she was squeezed between Flare and the rest as they rushed to see if it was who they thought it was. "H-help. . . C-can't breathe!" she was turning a shade of blue before everyone got back enough to give her room to breathe.

Flare smirked and then pointed out something on the screen, towards the stands of the race. "Hey! It is them, look there's Throttle and Modo, right there." she tapped the screen pointing out the two cheering figures in the TV. Aqua's ears perked at the mention of the name Modo, she then turned around as she crossed her arms out in front of her chest, trying to seem like she didn't care at all.

"Well I don't know about you lot, but I think we have some better things to do instead of worrying about a group of idiots!" Aqua then, in a humph walked off to the back of the ship, opening the door to the cabin of the ship and to her quarters. Flare, Sandy and Rose all looked at each other in bewilderment at Aqua's actions but shrugged it off as another one of Aqua's tomboy acts.

"Is she still mad at him? You know. . . for not returning the favored feelings." Sandy asked, though trying to sound concern, she was smiling as she was always interested in knowing more about her new found friends. Flare tried to make Sandy drop the subject but almost couldn't until Rose began on the subject of her own and Flare's relationships.

"Well at least we had our first loves here and gone and where are you? A little girl without a boyfriend, nothing but crushes and puppy love." Rose smirked as Sandy then glared at her, Rose giving her the glare back, they were always nibbing at each others heels. That suddenly brought up some old memories for all of them, first dates, flirting, having fun and always being shown a good time. "With Modo and Aqua though it was a bit strange but in a good way, it had all gotten too serious too soon and they both weren't ready to settle down just yet so. . . They decided to go their own ways and leave with mixed feelings." Rose sighed and looks to the cabin's door, feeling sorry for Aqua as she had also felt sorry after Vinnie.

"Hey but didn't you and Vincent fight a lot?" Flare asked smirking, trying to pick up the mood in the room. Rose tried to deny it, but Flare kept pressing on, gently poking her in the side "Yeah! You both kept flirting with other people while in your relationship." Flare was suddenly tackled by Rose as they then began to tumble around, though not out of hate or anger, but out of playful rough housing. Sandy just stood there looking at them, trying not to get involved but was yanked into it anyway.

They all soon arrived at their destination at the space port, like a big junkyard floating in the blackness, emptiness of space, around the orbit of Saturn. As they were all unloading of course they got some attention from the others at the space port. Whistles, taunts, rude gestures and other 'flirt' techniques being flung at the all women mouse crew, drowning them in their stupidity. "Man. . . why do we always have to come when all the damn perverts are around?" Sandy asked as she walked by a captain who suddenly slapped her rump. Sandy froze up and turned bright red but before she could do anything Aqua came up and socked the guy across the jaw with a hard right hook, knocking him on his ass.

"Yeah, but you gotta give em some points for courage." Aqua grinned and flexed her arm before Flare and the rest chuckled. They all walked down the big hallway of the dirty, run down looking space port that looked more like a junkyard to the front office. "Were here to drop off some cargo?" Aqua said handing the rat at the front their papers. The rat man looked over the papers and in a raspy, deep voice he told them where to go to get their money, giving Rose a look over suddenly. Rose turned her head to the side in disgust of the rat, who just chuckled and pointed them down the hall.

"Rats! It's always rats, why do I always attract creeps and rats?" Rose said rubbing her hands threw her hair, already getting herself in a fit. Aqua just grinned and pointed back towards the desk, giving her the 'would you like me to beat him up?' look. Rose just smiled and waved her hand "Maybe later." They soon arrived at the counter in the back where again they met a rat, expect this one was of a different color, older, fatter and a bit more. . . forward then the other one.

"Why HELLO ladies, how can I, a humble rat help you lovely women today?" he grinned and waggled his eyebrows at them, making them have different reactions. Aqua was raising a fist, Flare just ignored him, Rose was blushing and Sandy was. . . behind the desk, taking a look at things. "H-Hey! No customers are allowed behind the counter!" the guy said as Sandy then poked up her head "Then again. . ." he grinned and looked down to her but she was grabbed away by Aqua before the rat could do anything.

As Aqua was about to shout at him Flare interjected with a sweet smile to him, her hands together at her hips, giving him a most beautiful smile. "Excuse me kind sir, we were here to drop of this." she handed him the slip of paper "We dropped off some cargo earlier and we'd like our money please." the rat seemed reluctant but then stamped the slip of paper and handed them over a small pouch full of something. "Wonderful, thank you sir, good day." she giggled and took Aqua and Rose by the arms in her own and with Sandy following behind slowly walked out the shop, the rat left to scratch his head in bewilderment.

As they headed towards their big black ship they all stopped for a moment to look out threw one of the windows to take a look at the big ship they had all made their home away from home. The ship looked like a cross between a sleek fighter models and a bulky carrier, either way it did them some good. They had spent hours on the black detail paint and then big cherry looking icon on the sides and 'wings' of the ship, instead of a stem a top the cherry there was a lit fuse, signifying their ships maiden name.

"Ahhhh!. . . the good old cherry bomb, man how I love this ship." Aqua said redoing her headband as she lead the rest of the crew towards their ship. At the main docking area; a big disgusting smelling, junk yard looking place they found their ships still in bonds as it was held to the floating pile of crap they call a space port. Flare stepped up to the left side entrance where a retina and code key were, to verify that they are the crew. Flare typed in some digits and then leaned over, brushing some of her very long flame red hair away from her eyes as the scanner scanned her eyes and let her in, closing quickly behind her.

Aqua was up next since she was second in command and typed in some digits and leaned down for the thing to scan her eyes, this continued on till all of them were aboard the ship, strapping themselves into their seats at the cockpit of the ship, looking out the vast, black space before them. Soon they were off now just floating in space, waiting for the next thing to do, Sandy cooking something up, Rose checking her make-up, Aqua fixing one of her many guns and Flare simply reading another book.

Suddenly, a call rang in at the front monitor, the big screen suddenly lit up reading out the message and the coordinates of where the message was being sent from. "XY7000! Come in, Cherry Bomb come in do you copy?!" the voice booming, catching all of them off guard. Rose had a line of lip gloss now along her cheek as a crash came from the kitchen. Flare blinked and looked to the rest before looking back up to the screen.

"Cherry Bomb here, what's your dis-function?" Flare smirked and then blinked again seeing Aqua slap her forehead in utter annoyance of such a stupid line. Rose, after whipping the lip gloss off her cheek was at full attention as well as Sandy who still wore her apron.

"Umm, your women?" the voice asked seeming now a bit nervous, this of course ticked them off, Aqua warned him that if he wanted someone else they'd be glad to just disconnect. "N-No! Please!. . Sorry about that but anyways, the thing is, is that we need someone to please help us, we came to this planet to mine for some ore for our company and now these, these THINGS have us cornered in a cave. We need- you–s.."

The message was cut short and the static took over, knocking out the transmission. The crew of the Cherry Bomb just sat in silence looking up to the now fuzzy screen. "What the hell do you know? Some action!" Aqua grinned readying her gun. Flare quickly slapped the gun from Aqua's hand "Oww!" Aqua softly rubbed her right, now red hand and kissed it, glaring at Flare.

"Look here Aqua we can't go in there and start firing, for all we know these people could be bandits or even worse, Plutarkians!" Flare shouted out a sudden 'ohhh yeah...' rang in Aqua's over pierced ears. Flare then began to quickly type something up on the keyboard, bringing up five mini-screens on the big monitor, maps, charts and other information was being found out about the planet the distress message came from.

"Cherry, scan the surface of the planet that the message came from and try and zoom in on where exactly was it being sent from, as soon as were near the planet." Flare said, continuing to type up something on the key board, making sure the ship was heading for the planet but only to it's orbit.

"God, more nerd chatter, that's it I'm getting myself a beer." Aqua got up, already bored and headed towards the kitchen, following the scent of beef stew. She got into the kitchen and typed a digit or four into the keypad onto the fridges door and it slowly swung open, showing food, weird drinks and of course her prized beer. Aqua grinned and grabbed one, opening it and chugging it gleefully.

"Oh what is that I hear?. . . Oh it's your liver it's saying your killing it." Sandy said in a sarcastic tone, still donned in her apron, holding a ladle in her right hand as she stirs the stew in the big pot. Aqua stuck out her tongue and passed by the stew, sticking her finger in it and then putting her finger to her mouth "HEY!" Sandy yelled out as she knew Aqua loved to tease her. . . not to mention Aqua wasn't the one to put person hygiene before anything else.

Rose was just sitting back in her big comfy chair flipping threw a magazine and then sighed tossing it behind her "Man this is boring, I mean at least with the guys we'd have some fun once and a while." Rose purred remembering her love and how much fun they'd have doing all sorts of things.

"Still pining for the pervert huh?" Aqua asked with a grin, the kitchen door sliding closed behind her. Rose puffed out her cheeks, glaring at Aqua as she made her way back to her seat. Sandy soon was walking out of the kitchen holding the big pot and pressed a small button that was next to the door with her tail. Without warning a small table like panel came from the side all of the ship along with some stools.

They all sat down at the panel table and began to eat the stew, having their lunch with more a less fighting. CLANG! The clash of forks was heard in the cockpit now turning dinning room. Aqua's and Sandy's fork had now crossed for the last piece of beef in the almost empty pot, their eyes met in a glare you could almost see the rage in their eyes glow. "Hey it's mine, I didn't have much at all, you hogged all the beef anyways!" Sandy said pulling her fork and the beef cube towards her.

Aqua slowly began to pull it back "Well you don't need so much protein anyways! All you do is cook and clean, I fight and repair things, so why don't you..." she yanks the beef a bit more towards her, bringing it closer to her maw "Just go chew on some celery– HEY!" Aqua blinked and shouted at Flare who just simply leaned over and ate the beef cube off of their forks, leaving them with their forks crossed between nothing. Flare only grinned at them.

"Hey I had to end that fight one way or another." Flare said in her defense before assigning Aqua to dish duty, which upset her very much but before Sandy could get out a snicker she was assigned to clean the windows and the monitors of the cockpit. Flare pressed the button on the wall, the panel table then going back into the wall just like the stools. Rose went back to her seat at the right side, making sure to do her job at navigating as Flare also went back to her job, being the captain watching Aqua carry off the dishes to the kitchen and Sandy grab a small bucket and a rag to do her chore as well.

Flare took her seat at the middle, head of the ship, in charge of driving and the ship it's self. Flare then looked towards the monitor and typed up something, the monitor came to life showing how long it would take before they were at the orbit of the planet. 'One Hour Captain..' the ship replied, in it's monotone yet some how female, soothing voice. "And how long till the planet comes within viewing?" Flare asked typing it up as well, the voice of the computer/AI of the ship said '35 minutes captain." Flare nodded again and sat back in her big, black leather chair and sighed, now only having to wait.

Slowly the planet of pink, purple and yellow came into view, the planet's surface looked like it was a big ball of clouds, the different colored clouds swirling around the planet's sky, making beautiful swirls at it's surface, making it look kind of like the top of a freshly made strawberry shake with the whip cream stirred in a little bit. Flare stared at the planet feeling both in awe and a little hungry for milk shakes, she then punched in a few more keys as the ship take a sudden stop making her and some things and people on the ship jolt slightly forward or to the side.

The crew all came out from their quarters on their big ship, Aqua having a lump on her forehead as she mutters something about the jolt causing her to hit her head against a barbell, Sandy who was cooking for later that night had burned her forefinger in the sauce she was preparing, wincing as she wrapped a band-aid around her finger. Finally Rose came out looking madder then the both of them, she was fixing her makeup when the ship jolted causing her to poke herself in the eye with her mascara and then fall backwards, kicking up her powder which made it of course fly into the air and dump all over her. Rose was looking much like a ghost with her hair, face, fur and clothing covered in the white powder.

Flare held up her hands defensively "H-hey now the planet is in view and the ship was ordered to stop at the orbit.. Only it stopped very suddenly ACK!" she yelped out as they had smacked their pillows at her, making her fall out of the side of her chair. Flare and the rest of the crew came slowly to the big screen window at the front of the ship, looking out towards the planet as the ship has already begun to slowly revolve around the planet like a moon or asteroid.

Flare had pressed a button which signaled the ship to scan the surface of the planet. 'Planet's surface is habitable, air consists of mostly oxygen and some co2, making it breath-able, some water sources on the planet, only one ocean. Water in most areas hot because of volcanic activity in the planet's core and islands. The planet is called Venus-12, founded 200 years ago by a unknown band of explorers, it was a tourist and resort planet some 83 years ago but was quickly abandoned due to wildlife over population resulting in more wild environment.' the computer read out, Flare read it all and sighed.

"So this is Venus-12 huh? Well the pleasure planet turned environment habitat is where the signal is coming from?... I'll get my guns." Aqua said with a grin, glad to able to use her firepower. Rose looked to the planet and mumbled something about the humid weather would really mess up her hair while Sandy was already preparing for the voyage.

Flare then began to lower the ship into the atmosphere of the planet, the ship shaking violently for a moment or two before she then typed in something to help the ship stabilize and soon, with a giant thud and one last shudder from the ship they had landed onto the planet's surface, only some tall, pink grass. Rose was the first to notice the color "Why is the grass pink?" she was then replied to by the computer 'it is pink because the water sources, ponds, rivers and some lakes contain strange chemicals left by the resort people to change the colors of the lakes to better help them show which area was safe and which were dangerous, the colors are blue, pink and red.' Soon the crew had gotten ready for their voyage and slowly the ships doors opened...