I'm finally back long enough to have actually written something and post it. Most of the reason I've taken so long is because I got a summer job so that also means the possibility of writing more during the summer than the school year is gone. But I'll still grab chances to further my fanfics when I can. Now, without further ado, the fifth chapter of "Star-crossed Fox",…

Plans Revealed

In comparison, the Mobian moon wasn't that different from Earth's stellar neighbor. Apart from a slight size difference in favor of Earth's moon, everything else was about the same. The two were both pockmarked with craters millions of years old, both circled their respective planets in elliptical orbits, and both even went through the very same phases; which included lunar and solar eclipses.

However, Mobius' satellite contained a secret unknown to all those living on their world. Just below the crust was a structure of steel and iron, made over a decade ago for a sinister purpose. When Robotnik was still in power, when he still had access to the resources of Mobius, he had begun the project of constructing a hidden base inside the moon.

It was to be his secondary fortress, unreachable except for his teleporter. Both of them were secrets more carefully guarded than his Doomsday Project. In fact, he had an entire closed circuit computer network solely dedicated to them. The reason the ruthless scientist wished for a moon base was as a precaution in the (highly) unlikely event his base in Robotropolis was compromised by the Freedom Fighters.

Even Snively had no idea of its existence until after his uncle met his fate at the hands of Sonic and Sally by means of the Deep Power Stones. One could only imagine the shock the diminutive human felt when he did discover what had been going on behind his back. The only reason he had uncovered such a secret was because control of the system had turned over to him when Robotnik had died.

A message prepared for him by Robotnik had appeared on the main view screen. It merely said to check the secondary computer in Junction B under the file Silo. There was only one security measure put in place; a DNA scan. The secondary computer was apparently the main computer for that single project. This was quite a bit for Snively to soak in at the time, especially so soon after the Doomsday Project had been annihilated.

Why the system was programmed that way, even Snively didn't know. Robotnik usually appeared to have despised him, although not as much as he did Sonic. It was still enough that he never had told him anything about of the project while he still lived. But that was of little importance now for he was in command of the installation, and command it he did.

One of the most fortunate events was the fact that Robotnik already had a source of energy in place for the base; solar energy. The solar panels were placed beneath the crust of the moon's light side, the only place where the sun's rays hit the celestial body.

They were covered by sheets of metal built to look like the surrounding environment which would retract to allow them to continuously store power for however long he wished. The reason this was included into their design was for the inevitable event that the Mobians would create their own satellites to study the moon and he couldn't have them investigating such important aspects of his base.

But Snively did make some changes to the design within the year he remained in power in Robotropolis. It was only then that he had access to the resources required for what he wanted. Because of this, he was only able to add or change some aspects of the base, which he did with relish. He saw his changes as improvements which his former superior would never have thought of.

First off, he had to do something about the amount of forces being sent up. There were already two-dozen SWATBOTS and numerous worker bots stationed there doing routine maintenance and other similar tasks. What he did was drastically increase the number of SWATBOTS there to preserve what little forces he had left. They were also to replace the worker bots that had to be returned to the planet.

He evacuated the worker bots because, for all he knew, some of them might have been friends or family of the Freedom Fighters, and if they were discovered missing, he was sure the Mobians would spare no expense in trying to locate them. This was something that he couldn't risk. He wanted to make sure that the moon base stayed a secret from them for as long as possible, which was also why all of Robotropolis' systems were set to wipe themselves clean right after he teleported himself. Besides, a second roboticizer had already been built there and he could simply re-roboticize anyone who was de-roboticized once he had regained control. That is, if the Freedom Fighters managed to build a working de roboticizer at all.

After that, Snively had to solve the problem of food supplies for the base. Robotnik had originally intended to bring up such supplies from a separate site located in the Great Unknown, but the temporary dictator knew he would not have such a luxury. It was for this reason that he drew up plans for a botanical garden.

Unlike Robotnik, who absolutely hated anything natural, Snively, at times, actually preferred the texture of fresh fruits. The overweight oaf just genetically engineered something that was to replace fruits and vegetables nutritionally, but never mentioned exactly how it was made. This had unnerved Snively almost to the point where he would only just be able to choke down whatever was served, not only was he nervous of what it contained, it also simply tasted that bad.

Unfortunately for him, those were all the changes he was able to make. It had taken more than a month for him to completely look over the original blueprints and even longer to find room for his gardens. Not to mention the actual time it took for the construction. The most pressing concern was proper soil for the gardens since the lunar landscape was more than a bit inhospitable towards plant life.

It was possible that he could extract what soil he needed from the planet itself, but he couldn't risk any Mobian observers witnessing a SWATBOT obtaining such a thing. It had the possibility of arousing too much suspicion. So that left Snively in the predicament of devising artificial soil that the greenery could thrive in. This may have been similar to what Robotnik did before, but the difference was that Snively tried to duplicate the natural compounds as best he could. Of course, naturally, the presence of plants also had the added benefit of providing a free source of oxygen, an advantage to greenery Robotnik had overlooked.

That had taken place nine years ago. Right now, Snively was watching the SWATBOTS tend to the garden from an overhead observation deck. They ensured that it was watered along with several other menial chores; except for weeding. There was no need to weed the garden because no seeds of them were brought up. Normally, he enjoyed the bittersweet irony of robots in even a semi-natural environment. The needle-nosed human had no doubt that his late uncle would have had the fit of his life if he were around to witness this. That one thought alone almost made him forget what had been troubling him for the past twelve hours.

But how could he stop remembering what had happened? It was to have been the beginning of his own scheme to rule Mobius. It was planned down to the last detail, every possible scenario played out both in his head and on the computer. No stone had been left unturned, no factor had been forgotten, not even Sonic himself. It would have worked too, if not for one little unforeseeable complication: his target had unwittingly escaped capture!

Just thinking about it made Snively burn with rage and indignation. Now he knew how Robotnik must have felt when his plans were always ruined by that hedgehog. In fact, Snively would have hit something in a blind outburst if there were something to hit. That too, was a feeling of what the former tyrant had, but there had always been his lackey for him so what did that leave for Snively. Nothing.

Realizing he would have to find a different outlet, the human chose an ancient stress-reliever; slowly counting to ten. Much to his surprise, it had some degree of success. He may not have felt completely calm, but it was enough to where it was bearable. Now he could focus on what was truly important.

Snively played the events over in his mind for what seemed like the umpteenth time. The teleporter had been activated to bring the fox to this very installation, but somewhere between where he was and where he was to end up, something completely unprecedented had occurred. Without warning of any kind, without even the slightest hint, the portal that should have opened to allow his would-be prisoner into his clutches never opened. It only took a few minutes for him to realize that something had gone terribly wrong; something unforeseen.

Anger began to boil up within him again as he began to clench and unclench his fists. The teleporter had worked perfectly during all of its past uses. So what had been the temporary flaw in its programming that had let his goal slip through his fingers without a trace? All of the diagnostics he ran both before and after the intended relocation didn't show him anything useful. Then, as if there wasn't enough for him to stew over already, he couldn't even get the coordinates of where the fox had actually been sent. It was like the entire universe was conspiring to upset his well thought out and ingenious plot.

But it was no use brooding over what had happened; now he had to try and turn a blunder into a plus. However, it would be more difficult with the Mobians obviously aware of the disappearance of one of their own. That would only have been to his advantage if he had the bargaining chip he was aiming for in the first place. Sure he could just try the same thing with any other given Mobian, but he wanted someone close to the royal family who would be easy to break and be the least likely to escape. From his past run-ins with Tails, it seemed to him to be the obvious decision. Every other Freedom Fighter was just far too unpredictable to be kept imprisoned for any extended length of time.

Beginning to become bored with the SWATBOTS perpetual and monotone duties, Snively headed for his command room, which he liked the sound of. Yes, it was HIS command room, not Robotnik's. Now everything belonged to the tiny tyrant and he wouldn't squander it like his predecessor. It was time to consider what options were available to him. The only bright side to all of this was that no one still had the slightest clue he was even alive, nonetheless on the moon.

-----Earth: Shinjuku Park-----

It was hard to believe that it had already been a week since his unintentional move. Tails had adjusted quite well to what was promising to be his new home for a while, but it still didn't alleviate how much he missed Mobius. In almost a decade, Mobitropolis had been mostly rebuilt and he had finally been reunited with his parents. Now he was once again separated from them, but this time the hopes of locating them had suddenly and sharply gone down.

But those weren't the only thoughts he had concerned himself with over these past seven days. He may not have wanted to admit it at this time; however, his attraction to Renamon continued to grow. In addition to that, despite his best efforts, he couldn't seem to extract any useful information about her. Something; her likes and dislikes, her hobbies, anything would do that would hint him in to her personality more than he already was.

The twin-tailed fox felt that if he wasn't able to learn anything about Renamon then his feelings towards her would remain superficial and that wasn't something that he wanted. But as it stood now, he didn't have anything else to go on and the few times he worked up the courage to even attempt to start a casual conversation with her, something came up. To further complicate matters, she didn't seem like the type of individual who would simply open up to a complete stranger.

Somehow, he had to figure out a way to get some kind of clue to her personality other than what he had figured out thus far. At the moment, he was fairly sure that Renamon was more than likely one not to cross. Everything from her attitude to her expressions told him that. Second, she seemed to be someone that took things in stride, especially events as strange as a fox with two tails falling from a portal. Finally, from what he could tell, she was definitely an extremely focused individual; never wavering from her actions that she chose to endeavor in.

This whole situation was something he had pondered over at least a dozen times already, yet he was no closer to getting an answer. Sitting at the edge of the lake where he had made his grand entrance, Tails continued to weigh his options; which were few. His first choice, the straightforward approach, wasn't turning out like he would have hoped. That left the second, and probably only other choice, probing others who knew her for information. That was an incredibly undesirable venue for him to venture down. It involved going behind someone's back, and that meant being sneaky, devious, and, quite possibly, immoral.

The wind chose that moment to pick up. It reminded Tails so much of that fateful day when his life took such a drastic change in direction. Even now, the event was still difficult to fathom and the question of what exactly had happened was no less a mystery now than then. Overwhelmed by the brief surge of memories, the displaced Mobian lay back on the soft grass and simply stared off into the bright blue, late afternoon, cloudless sky.

It was kind of unnerving how much it seemed like the very sky he had grown up under. Knowing that somewhere out there was his home world didn't ease his feelings of longing to return. If anything, it strengthened them to the point where he had to close his eyes to avoid remembering what was now out of his grasp so vividly. It wasn't like he wanted to forget it completely, just that he didn't want the devastating truth to be too overpowering for him.

So he lay there, stretched out upon the blanket of greenery, doing absolutely nothing. That is, until something landed squarely on his chest, nearly knocking the wind out of him. Tails' eyes shot open as he looked down at what had caused the interruption of his solitude. Somehow he wasn't surprised to see Calumon staring at him wide-eyed with anticipation. In anticipation of what was uncertain, but it would likely lead to some type of new game with outlandish rules created on-the-spot by the energetic Digimon.

"Watcha doing, huh?" That always seemed to be this Digimon's default question whenever he began a conversation. It showed just how curious he was about everything and everyone around him, even if he already knew about them.

"Just thinking." Was the only reply Tails gave. He didn't feel like talking to anyone about his dilemmas yet, not while he was still trying to sort them out.

"Really? Are you thinking about the sky? Or maybe the clouds?" The tiny Digimon surmised. "I think about the clouds sometimes. I wonder what they're thinking. Do you wonder what they're thinking?" It was quite humorous to watch Calumon babble on like that. It was as if he or someone else had to constantly be talking.

Then another voice was heard nearby. "Hey Creampuff, you bothering someone else now?" It was none other than Impmon. He missed the first meeting because Rika had known that he was babysitting Ai and Mako, his Tamers. The two of them were only four years old and both of their parents worked during the day, basically making Impmon a free babysitting service. That was about the only reason the twin Tamer's parents didn't mind having a Digimon around; that and the fact that the mischievous Digimon made an excellent equivalent to a watch dog, not that either of them would ever say that in front of him.

"Nah, Calumon's alright." Tails informed Impmon casually, propping himself up on his elbows and looking over to the second visitor once Calumon had jumped onto solid ground. Impmon was about a half-foot taller than Calumon with a predominately purple color. There was a pair of regular red gloves on his hands that matched the scarf around his neck. His eyes had an emerald green color and emblazoned upon his stomach was a yellow smiley face with a toothy grin.

"Back here again aren't you, Foxboy?" Impmon observed, he had wasted no time in giving the newcomer one of his patented nicknames he assigned to pretty much everyone he knew, or at least to every Digimon he knew. But that made it a bit odd that he had a nickname for Tails since he wasn't a Digimon. It was probably too easy for him to think of that particular name or to pass up such a rich opportunity.

"Yeah, I was hoping to get a kata in sometime today." After Robotnik's initial defeat and during Snively's rise, Sally had insisted upon Tails learning martial arts. It was well known, if not said often, that she only wanted to be sure that the young kit could take care of himself if he got into any trouble in Robotropolis since he was going to be a full-fledged Freedom Fighter. Of course, Bunnie was more than happy to oblige to teach him. She had learned a few tricks before the coup happened and used them to her advantage while on raids.

Once Robotropolis fell and everyone had been deroboticized, Tails still wanted to pursue the discipline along with Bunnie. Together, the two of them found a sensei and managed to fit their sessions in alongside helping to rebuild with the others. As of recently, Bunnie had reached a fairly high level of training, but the vulpine was no slouch and figured that while he was here, he might as well brush up on the techniques that he had learned thus far and katas were the best way to do so.

"Alright then, see you later. Coming, Creampuff?"

"Nah, I wanna watch the kata. I can, can't I?" Calumon pleaded with Tails using one of the most hopeful expressions one could imagine.

"I don't mind." Tails confirmed sympathetically.

"Whatever, your choice. I've got other things to do." With that, Impmon left without any further conversation on his part.

Shortly afterward, Tails stood and began to gather his concentration, taking deep, steady breaths to help, and started a simple kata with Calumon staring wide-eyed, mesmerized, and impressed.

-----HYPNOS-----

At the moment, the only thing Yamaki had concerned himself with was the herculean task set before him. Saying that this wasn't going to be easy would be the understatement of the year. He already tapped into commercial and military satellites in order to probe the outskirts of the solar system for a clue in which direction he should go to locate Mobius, but he wasn't sure how he was going to scan that far if he did. On top of that, he had to ensure that none of his superiors even had an inkling of what was happening. These factors combined led him to the inescapable conclusion that he needed outside help.

The only question was who he could ask. No one on Earth could possibly give him the necessary aid required for such a delicate operation, which left the Digital World. However, he was well aware of the fact that, even now, there were still some Digimon that resented humans. But he was sure the specific Digimon he had in mind would more than likely be glad to help.

This led him to where he was now, speaking to the four Digimon Sovereigns of the Digital World: Azulongmon, the dragon of the east; Zuquoumon, the phoenix of the south; Ebonwumon, the turtle of the north; and Haibumon, the tiger of the west. Fortunately, it actually wasn't that difficult to contact them. It was a simple matter of using a reprogrammed Yugoth probe. Whereas the original would attempt to seek and destroy a digital entity, this one was to seek and contact a specific digital entity. Since he knew that the Sovereigns had to have higher concentrations of data than other Digimon, it was obvious to send the probe out to locate those concentrations.

The message he encoded into the Yugoth was long enough that he got his meaning across to the Sovereigns but too short for him to go into any lengthy detail. So the four Mega level Digimon were quite curious as to what Yamaki wanted. They were situated within the confines of Zuquoumon's fortress that was rebuilt long ago after his battle with Megagargomon with Yamaki watching them on the 360o view screen. How they were observing him was a mystery.

Any individual Sovereign alone was quite a sight to behold, but all four of the Digital World's guardians in one place would take anyone's breath away. Azulongmon hovered over the ground. An average person would say that the eastern keeper looked like a classical Chinese dragon. He had a body seemingly composed of opaque sky blue clouds that always appeared to be flowing from his masked head.

Then there was Zuquoumon; watcher of the south. In the tradition of any fiery bird, his plumage shone with the magnificence of a raging inferno, tipped with yellow streaks. His four wings only added to the amazing sight of this Digimon and each of his dazzling tail feathers were large enough to make a roof for a house, not that he would allow such a thing to occur.

Third stood Ebonwumon, who steadfastly patrolled the northern sector, when he wasn't sleeping. He was most definitely the most unique of all four of them. Basically because he had two heads, an Irish accented and a Scottish accented head, each with its own personality included. Of course you couldn't forget about the whole forest growing on his back, no one to this day could figure that one out. But the one thing that was most unforgettable about him was that he was probably the most easy going of the Sovereigns, never really getting angry to anyone's memory.

Finally there was Haibumon, the western tiger, as majestic as any Digimon around as well as courageous. He was the first of the Sovereigns to directly battle the D Reaper. His coat was white with jagged blue streaks running down his back that concealed his muscular structure somewhat.

"So Yamaki, what is it that you want our help with?" Azulongmon questioned, his translucent body shimmering with a brilliant glow.

"Yes, do tell us why you wish for our assistance." The fiery phoenix added in a tone that showed how much progress he had made in burying his hatred of humans that flourished over a year ago.

"That would require a short recap of the course of events that led up to here. To be simple, but confusing, I have to find an alien planet without anyone but those present being aware of it."

"Aye he's right, tha is a wee bit of a confusing explanation." Ebonwumon's Scottish head spoke up. "Now Laddie, wha would the whole story be then?"

"To sum it up in a sensible way, an alien landed here on Earth and now he wants to find his way back home. But he has no idea where his planet is in relation to here so I'm trying to see if I can come up with anything. So far, I haven't had much to go on and hardly have a clue as to where to go from here. It's obvious that I need help and so that's why I'm asking you." Yamaki explained.

"Now I see. However, I'm still not sure how you expect us to aid you." Azulongmon replied. "I mean, we'll be happy to help in any way we can, but first we need to know exactly what you'll need done." The other Mega Digimon nodded their assent, even Zuquoumon.

"Thanks," Yamaki said to the Sovereign of the East, "there are a few things I've been wondering about for a while now."

Before I officially close this chapter, I must make one note: in past chapters I've referred to the HOVERUNITS as HOVERBOTS, this will be corrected in the future. Until next time, thank you and good bye.