Embers fell slowly in the dying light of sunset. Smoke billowed in the distance. Screams echoed from every side. Fields, once painstakingly wrested from the grip of the surrounding jungle, now set ablaze in one violent outburst. Beyond the fields the village itself was alight. A narrow track of dirt led through its center where a ramshackle cluster of huts once stood. Screams of pain lingered in the air, hot and heavy in the heat of summer. The air bore the unmistakable scent of smoldering flesh and above it all was the droning and buzzing of insects, now thoroughly quelled by the smoke.

Shadow grimaced from the cockpit of his Sikorsky HH-60 Pave Hawk as he scanned the ruins of the village below. Such pain and suffering. Innocent people who were living their lives peacefully now damned to suffer a fate so cruel.

"Delta-One. Report." His radio squawked..

"That's a negative, Watchtower. The village is fubar. Looks like we just missed 'em." Shadow responded.

"Can you give us a bearing?"

Shadow narrowed his eyes. Thick smoke trailed in the direction of the wind, and through it he could just barely make out a section of fields that had been hacked and slashed away. A path to ensure the assailant's escape.

"Due southeast. I'd guess maybe fifteen, twenty minutes out." Shadow calmly reported, "I am prepared to continue the hunt."

"Negative Delta-One. That's enough for one day."

"Watchtower, I'm close. I know it. We can catch them!" Shadow snapped. "I'm not letting them slip away again."

"Delta-One you are ordered to break your patrol and return to base. We intend to activate ground units in the area, and your presence may put the enemy on alert. I repeat, break patrol and return to base. That is an order."

Shadow switched off the comms and sighed in frustration. The Pave Hawk turned, leaving the smoldering village far behind.

Fate had never been kind to Miles "Tails" Prower. Victim of illegal genetic experimentation, he had grown up deformed and outcast from society. He had no family or friends and no hope for a better life. No hope, that was, until it was revealed that his genetic modifications gave him both an unmatched intelligence, and a natural resistance to psionic energy. The latter of these traits being of immense interest to the EDI– the Extradimensional Defense Initiative.

Tails pulled the two severed ends of a fiber optics cable into the light, careful not to touch the exposed heads of the wire that poked from within the rubber casing. He laid the ends side by side and carefully twisted both ends together before wrapping the cable in electrical tape. It was a temporary fix, but here in the EDI one simply did not have enough time to find a permanent solution to every problem. Equipment had to be in a usable state in a moment's notice. He stuffed the wire back into place and began working at another when the system let out a jolt of electricity, sending a shower of sparks spraying across the workshop. Tails stumbled and fell backward against the floor, his head hitting the ground with a loud thud. The concrete felt cool, in sharp contrast with the sweltering vehicle bay that was alive with the buzzing of machinery.

"I hope I did not startle you." Announced the sharp, robotic voice of B.A.I.T.

Tails sighed. He half wished he could go to sleep right there on the floor. But there was work that still needed to be done. There was always more work to be done.

"B.A.I.T. I thought I told you to remain in sleep mode while I performed physical maintenance." Tails chided.

"I did not want to remain in sleep mode." B.A.I.T. (or Battlefield Assessment and Interactive Tactician) responded, "Sleep mode is boring and you do not possess the proper rank to command me to do anything."

The large humanoid battle platform began waving its arm in an erratic fashion. Tails wasn't quite sure what it was trying to signal, but knowing B.A.I.T. it was likely an imitation of some obscene gesture. Maybe he was starting to regret giving the robot free will, even in its restricted state. B.A.I.T. could think however it pleased, but programming in its hardware physically prevented the robot from disobeying orders.

From the outside, B.A.I.T. could be confused for an unused prop from a low budget science fiction movie. Its limbs were bulky and unwieldy and it bore a small plated torso atop which sat a squat rectangular head. The light blue color B.A.I.T. had initially been painted had long since been faded and worn by numerous excursions, the outer plating had been battered by several explosions, and some idiot had written "Ballbreaker" across B.A.I.T.'s left arm using a substance that Tails, for the life of him, could not remove.

"Whatever. You're close enough to being fixed. Just be careful about those servos in your left leg, we won't get any more replacements until the monthly supply shipment comes in." Tails sat up and brushed off the dust off the back of his head. He could probably use some sleep, but with all this recent transdimensional activity it just didn't feel right to leave any equipment in need of repair. He turned to examine a faulty targeting system on a Hawk Systems Anti-Personnel laser cannon, when shout caught his attention.

"Prower!"

Tails turned to see his commanding officer, Espio. The purple horned chameleon's brow was furrowed and his fists were clenched tight.

"Command wants you up at the surface entrance " Espio spoke briskly and made a quick motion for Tails to follow. Tails quickly sped up to match his pace. The two made their way through the endless winding hallways of the hardened, industrial architecture of the EDI's primary underground facility.

"Did they say why?" Tails asked, nervousness flowed through him like an icy stream. Direct orders from Central Command were never good. Either you were in some serious trouble, or the world was about to end. At least, it seemed that way.

"They need you to clear a GX-2 Crawler unit that has returned from active engagement." Espio's voice carried a tension that Tails had rarely seen in the chameleon.

An active engagement meant that the worst had indeed come to pass. What the EDI had prepared so hard to prevent. A conflict between parallel dimensions. Tails found it hard to do anything other than stare at the floor for the rest of the journey out of the subterranean levels and into the harsh sunlight of the world aboveground.

Espio and Tails were joined by Amy Rose, a pink hedgehog also assigned to their unit.

"You aren't going to like this.." She muttered darkly as the three mobians rounded a corner and Tails caught sight of the Crawler.

The large scorpion-like vehicle had several gaping holes torn through it. From these it spewed a thick, black smoke into the air. Oil seeped from between the plates of its thick armored shell like blood flowing from a wound. Three of the legs were shattered and a fourth lay on the ground beside the vehicle, severed at the kneecap. Tails was in shock. He'd seen the blueprints for GX-2 and worked on them in the vehicle bay. That plating was four centimeters thick and capable of shrugging off any combination of small arms fire, ground based explosive, or incoming mortar bombardment. To be able to rip through the unit so easily would take several tons of armored firepower, something that the local government did not possess.

"Did anyone see this? These units are always accompanied by an infantry squad." Tails asked. If he could figure out what had inflicted the damage then maybe, maybe he could find a way to safely clear the onboard weapons systems.

"Infantry was completely wiped out. They found what they guessed was about half of the squad hanging from the trees around the Crawler." Amy reported, "As of yet they haven't been able to I.D. any of the bodies."

"There were no survivors?"

"There was one. Though I get the feeling she won't be of any use to us." Espio grumbled, "Command locked her up in one of the interrogation rooms as soon as they managed to drag her back to base. Last I heard she was still muttering nonsense. It'll be no use, Tails. You're just going to have to get in there and see if you can disconnect the main guns from the system."

"If the hydraulics are damaged it might not be entirely safe." Tails argued, "I'll have no way of knowing before I enter the wreck."

"If there is still live ammunition still inside the main gun and something happens to disturb it, people could get hurt." Espio snapped back, "I'm ordering you to clear the damn Crawler!"

Tails gulped. There was no arguing with that. He took a cautious step forward.

The crawler loomed before him imposingly. The sounds that came from its dark interior sounded like the final groans and grunts of a dying animal. Tails cautiously approached the access hatch on the top of the crawler's back. He tapped his tactical visor twice, activating the built in flashlight. Taking a deep breath, he pried it open and peered into the dim interior. Wires hung from the walls, sparking faintly in the dark. Seats lay strewn about and the stuffing flung everywhere. Computer screens had been shattered and the hull bent inward, creating jagged protrusions that sliced into the already cramped interior.

Tails slowly lowered himself into the damaged craft and took note of his surroundings. The left side had retained a rather sizable dent that he could use as a foothold in order to climb back up. Every surface was damp, an effort had been made to extinguish the crawler following the attack, but a small electrical fire still burned in one secluded corner. Tails covered his mouth with one hand and stomped it out. The structure of the vehicle groaned as he shifted his weight and a sudden sense of unease came over him.

While most of the onboard monitors had been destroyed, one had managed to survive with only a few cracks. It had been disconnected from the main electrical system, but Tails made swiftly to solder together the wires that had once connected it to the core systems of the crawler. The screen flashed blue as the system booted up, accompanied by a faint hum. The monitor cast an eerie glow across the room.

Tails pulled up the system diagnostics. The primary weapon, a complex energy infused slug-launcher mounted on the "tail" of the craft, looked to be completely without power. Still worth disarming, but it didn't pose an immediate threat. The secondary weapons system, a close-range automatic 40mm grenade launcher mounted on the underside of the crawler's "head", was both online and armed and could only be accessed by crawling into the maintenance duct that ran along the floor. It would have to be disarmed by removing the firing pin of the launcher and removing both the cache of ammunition and the live round still inside.

Tails removed a section of the grating that made up the interior's floor and located the maintenance duct. It was cramped, but he could crawl through it to the head of the crawler and to the 40mm's firing mechanism. As he lowered himself into the narrow duct, the crawler gave out a loud groan and the entire vehicle began to shiver.

"Tails!" Espio's voice rang loudly from Tail's earpiece, "The Crawler's legs aren't as structurally stable as we initially thought. Get that thing disarmed and get out of there!"

"Shit… Shit.. Shit…" Tails repeated over and over to himself. The crawler once again shuddered, sending bits of wreckage tumbling from the tops of monitors and upturned seats. He wanted to move, he needed to move, but he found his legs planted firmly in place.

"Tails!" Espio demanded, though Tails couldn't make out any particular words. Just yelling.

His heart was racing, threatening to break free from the confines of his ribcage. His head was pounding. The crawler began to list, tilting the room around him. A sinking sensation filled his chest.

"Shit…" He muttered a final time before his mind finally caught up to what was happening. A scraping sound filled the hull and reverberated from the walls. There was a grinding noise, a sickening snap.

Tails bolted.

He'd never moved so fast in his entire life. Jumping from the bottom of the crawler as the floor fell away beneath him. His feet found purchase on a collapsed wall and he kicked off it to grab the edge of the exit hatch. The legs of the crawler gave. Tails swung himself onto the exterior surface just as the massive vehicle slammed into the ground. He lay atop it, eyes closed and gasping for air.

A small explosion went off. The chambered round had not detonated the cache.