A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

...well, ok, not THAT long ago. And the galaxy's actually pretty close. But the point is, this is still taking place in space...

2007 A.B. (~13 years ago), somewhere within the Goiky Way galaxy

Seekayaitch tapped his fingers against the control panel nervously, waiting for his brother to finish gearing up and enter the chamber. What they were attempting was not only risky beyond belief, but it was also thought impossible.

Humanity had been around for ~10,000 years on earth, and close to 5000 years in space. During that time, both they and other sentient species had done enough science combined to cover almost anything you can think of, including the multiverse theory. Yet, it's never been proven that any other universes actually exist outside of theirs, despite multiple scientific papers claiming that it most likely does. If there were other universes, there were no known reports of anything or anyone traveling between their universe and another one, or vice versa.

The Aitchtwins, however, thought otherwise. Years ago, when researching one of the planets that used to be inhabited by the Agclusidae (before they all migrated to the planet Tlep and met their untimely demise), C had come across an old research station originally set up by the Agclusidae. After the Blueshift, many different species had scoured planets which the Agclusidae had previously tried to settle on, trying to relearn and save as much information about the extinct species as they could to honor their memory. But even though (mostly) everything about this particular research station had already been documented by others years before, C wanted to see the place himself.

He had never expected to stumble upon a hidden room with a nearly-finished machine inside...

Knock knock knock.

The sound of a fist rapping on glass jerked Seekayaitch back to the present. He glanced up to see his brother, Emwhyaitch, knocking on the condensed glass pane that currently separated the two. An older spacesuit model protected his body; a loose but airtight outfit with a large oxygen tank on his back and a reinforced glass visor that allowed him to see. It was by no means modern for their time, but this specific model was necessary for what they were doing.

Are you ready? Emwhyaitch spoke in his mind, communicating telepathically.

Seekayaitch sighed. As I'll ever be, I suppose...

Em nodded and turned around to walk towards the object dominating the room. He was inside a repurposed airlock in the brothers' spaceship. The object in question was a large cylindrical machine, about seven feet in height, four feet across, and brown all over. It was unassuming from the outside, but one glance at the inner workings — impressively compressed within the three-inch thick walls — revealed that this was one complicated contraption.

While C began flipping switches on the control panel to activate it, he continued to think back to when this all started.

The Agclusidae were an alien species of arachnids, and probably the most technologically advanced race known to anyone residing within the Goiky Way galaxy. However, they were misfortunate enough to lose their home planet to an asteroid collision, and their unusually specific set of needs for survival made it very difficult for them to locate a new place to live, even with the help of other alien species. They attempted to settle down on dozens of planets before finally finding a temporary home on Tlep... which, in the end, didn't quite work out either.

C had visited one of these planets in the past. Although there was likely nothing more to learn from the abandoned Agclusidae research station on its surface, he still wished to see it for himself. And through a series of frankly quite bizarre events he still didn't fully understand himself, C had come upon a small, hidden, and long-forgotten underground section of the station. That place was more like a lab, really. Most of the experiments in there had fallen apart due to the passage of time, but there was one thing that was still almost completely intact.

He almost didn't believe the notes and work that was also left behind with the mysterious device after reading them. But after getting over his initial shock, C realized that in front of him was something powerful enough to transport objects, and people, between universes. Intensely curious — more so than he had ever been in his entire life — the human left the planet to retrieve his brother to see what he thought. Together, they decided to take the machine, finish it, and prove that the multiverse did exist.

That was eleven years ago. Since then, the brothers had slowly been collecting resources and storing enough energy to operate the multiverse machine long enough for a few round trips... assuming it worked.

(An interesting note about this: if the two had just waited approximately another thirteen years, the existence of the multiverse would be proven to their universe by a very determined test tube accidentally punching a hole from her dimension to theirs. And, while it wouldn't be the first time doorways were opened between universes, it would be the first time anyone had ever opened a way into, or out of, the brothers' universe.

But of course, they had no way of knowing this. So they continued with their work.)

With one final knob turn, the multiverse machine's door opened and it was ready to go. It began to hum and vibrate ever-so-slightly as a massive amount of power pumped into it from the thick electrical cables sticking out of the walls. Inside the airlock, Emwhyaitch stepped into the device.

Remember, Seekayaitch broadcast to him, record everything you see, and make sure to take something with you. The Tether will automatically pull you back after exactly two minutes. The Tether was a small device attached to Em's spacesuit, and it was absolutely crucial to the operation. It had two functions: to serve as a sort of homing beacon for the multiverse machine, and as, well, a tether for it to pull Em back into his universe. Without it, the trip would likely be one-way.

Em smiled reassuringly at his brother. Don't worry, we've gone over this a million times. Record everything, grab something, two minutes tops. In and out. Simple.

Simple, repeated C, trying to match his brother's confidence.

The other human pulled the door closed and tapped away at a keypad inside for a few seconds. Then, with the hidden connection that one can only truly get with someone else from being a twin, both men pressed their respective "activate" buttons at exactly the same time. The multiverse machine's humming grew to a crescendo of noise, and with a sudden, blinding flash of light from inside, Emwhyaitch was gone.

Seekayaitch looked at a clock on the wall and began counting the seconds. This is going to be the longest two minutes of my life.

--------------------

???, a few seconds earlier

Emwhyaitch made sure to close his eyes when the multiverse machine activated as to not get blinded by the flash. But nothing could have possibly prepared him for the sensation of traveling to another universe.

Since our tiny human minds couldn't possibly comprehend what's actually happening here, let's put it in terms that we can understand. The simple explanation would be that Em felt like he was being squeezed through an impossibly small tube. The slightly more detailed explanation is that his very atoms were actually being squeezed, just through spaces too small to even speak of. There were other things, too, but Em didn't dare open his eyes during the several seconds that the trip lasted. If he had, he likely would have gone insane.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the crushing sensation ebbed away. Em felt himself softly touch down upon what seemed like a metal surface. Keeping his eyes closed, he reached up and fumbled around his helmet until he located the camera and turned it on; although he had limited time, the trip had muddled his senses quite a bit, and he needed a few seconds to recover, but the camera would record whatever he may have missed.

The ringing in his eardrums faded away after approximately half a minute, and the noises of faint beeping and whirring — as well as something that sounded like an engine — filtered into his ears. He decided to crack his eyes open and find out where the hell he was.

Firstly, he was in a spaceship. That was immediately obvious to him, even in his slightly disoriented state. Whatever craft he was in, though, didn't look very well built — it could withstand the vacuum of space, he guessed, and move, but that was about it. The craft itself was pretty small; mostly metal walls with a glass front that revealed they were traveling above a red landscape, a control panel, a pilot's seat, and a couple other seats in the back with basic restraints. There was a door on the back wall, presumably an airlock of some sort. Above the glass front was a small screen that read Escape pod Tango-Hotel-Romeo-Echo-Echo Golf-Sierra. After a moment, the text flickered and changed to read Flight in progress. Destination: Earth. Then it looped.

The second thing Emwhyaitch noticed was the pilot. They were...

For a moment, he wasn't sure if he was seeing things correctly. But from the back, the pilot appeared to be a roughly human-sized iPhone. He remembered those things from his history lessons; humans used to be addicted to them before the Convalesce Catastrophe occurred. But what was even odder was that the phone creature appeared to actually have limbs — thin, rubbery, black limbs, with spheres for hands and roughly circular feet. As he watched the pilot work the controls from behind, he saw small digits protrude from the sphere hands — probably fingers — to push buttons or pull levers before sinking back into the inky spheres. It was, to say the least, quite bizarre.

Emwhyaitch shook his head and tried to clear the foggy feeling that still lingered. He had a job to do, and just over a minute to do it. Looking around, there wasn't anything that he could easily grab. The only objects that weren't bolted down (other than the pilot) were two unusually large and oddly-shaped eggs, one pink and one green but both with a zig-zag pattern on their shells, comically strapped into two of the other seats. Bogged down by his spacesuit somewhat, the human dragged himself to a kneeling position and began to crawl.

"HEY!"

He froze. A slow turn of the head and he saw that the iPhone, or whatever it was, had seen him and was looking directly at him. A black, pixilated face on a grey background stared at him, wearing a bewildered expression. Its screen was majorly damaged, with several cracks originating from the direct center and spreading outwards. "What..." it said, its face glitching slightly. Its voice had a tinny quality to it, like it had been built with bad speakers. "Who- who the heck are YOU?! And how did you get aboard this pod?"

Tempted as he was to answer (in fact, he suddenly wanted to speak to this being from another universe almost more than anything else), Emwhyaitch stayed silent. His internal timer was telling him he had less than a minute now before he was pulled back, so he forced himself to look away from the iPhone(?) and continued to crawl towards the eggs(?) instead.

The pilot followed his path with its eyes and stiffened. "Oh no you don't," it growled, its speakers making the sound come out as mostly static.

It lunged towards Em, and suddenly, the human's senses finally snapped into place as his fight or flight response automatically activated. Adrenaline now fueling him, he pushed forwards and nearly managed to touch one of the eggs before the pilot slammed into him. Phoney (which is the nickname Em spontaneously gave it, as the human brain tends to do things like that under pressure) pressed him down to the floor and growled again. "I lost countless comrades and went through hell to get those Shimmer youths for Cobs. I'm not letting some random creature take them away from me!"

Forty seconds. Em struggled and shoved Phoney hard. The anthropomorphic device flew backwards and slammed into the pod's control panel. Em turned away and reached towards the eggs.

Warning, a soft, genderless voice announced from hidden speakers in the ship. Airlock opened mid-flight.

Despite having only thirty seconds, Emwhyaitch froze again, this time in fear. When you lived in a spaceship most of the time, words like those were a death sentence. He whirled around to see Phoney groaning and pushing itself away from the control panel. Its hand had been on a large red button. Then, the cabin depressurized and Em felt himself get violently yanked backwards. He managed to catch a good look of Phoney desperately hanging onto the control panel for dear life before the human was sucked out of the airlock.

Twenty seconds. The human tumbled through space, catching glimpses of a barren, red planet below as he spun around — the same one Phoney had been flying over. Some part of his brain recognized the planet as Mars, but he didn't acknowledge that part, as he was currently occupied with the fact that he was tumbling towards certain doom.

Fifteen seconds. Something slammed into Em, almost knocking the breath from his lungs. It was the chair with the two mysterious eggs strapped to it.

Ten seconds. Grappling for a good hold, he located something that looked suspiciously like a parachute string and yanked it as hard as he could. The good part: the parachute opened, and it actually functioned, as Mars had an atmosphere. The bad part: there was more than enough air to decelerate the chair fast enough that it was ripped from Em's grasp. He was free-falling towards the planet once again.

Five seconds. He suddenly saw that, while the green egg had been secured to the chair enough to stay there, the pink egg had also been ripped away. It was only a few feet in front of him.

A tug. Not on any specific limb, but on his body in general. His time was up; the Tether was activating. As the rocky red surface of Mars rushed towards him, Emwhyaitch reached out as far as he could. The last things the human saw before suddenly being wrenched out of the foreign universe were his hands closing around the egg.

--------------------

The Aitchtwins' ship, somewhere within the Goiky Way galaxy

Seekayaitch breathed out a huge sigh of relief when the multiverse machine began to hum again the moment the clock hit the two-minute mark. It didn't take long for another blinding flash of light to appear and almost instantly disappear, signaling Emwhyaitch's return.

As the machine's door automatically opened, Seekayaitch prepared to activate the airlock's decontamination system, which would release a cloud of sanitizing gas into the room with the machine. It was standard nowadays for ship airlocks to have these, and it was part of the reason the two brothers had integrated the machine into their airlock in the first place — there was no way of telling what kind of horrendous bacteria they could bring back from an entirely different dimension.

But the instant he saw Emwhyaitch lying on the ground, curled up in the fetal position, he completely forgot about the decontamination. Eyes widening, C slammed his fist onto the Open inside airlock door button so hard he cracked it in the process. The entrance seemed to take an eternity to unlock, so C wriggled through it once there was a space large enough for him to squeeze through and rushed over to his brother's figure.

"Oh thank god," he audibly spoke when he realized that Em was alive. But the tension didn't disappear from his system yet. As Em began to shift, C worked on unlatching the helmet from his suit, throwing it to the side when it fully detached. "Em? Em, are you alright?"

"I'm..." came the reply, slightly delayed. Em took a deep breath in and continued, I'll be fine. I'm not hurt, just... a bit dizzy from the fall.

Fall?? No, never mind, you can tell me later. I'm just glad you're alive. Seekayaitch leaned forwards for a hug, but Em warned, Careful!

Curious, C drew back and gazed down at what his brother was holding... an egg. A pink, unusually large egg, with magenta zig-zags running horizontally across its surface. What in the... he began to think, before trailing off. Is that... an egg?

Seems like it, Emwhyaitch responded.

Seekayaitch looked at his brother's face, then back at the egg, then at his face again. You... you decided to take an egg with you? Where the hell WERE you?? Wait, let's see the footage-

He cut himself off. He could see the helmet from where he was sitting, and the small camera on its front was smashed to bits. Confused by the silence, Em followed his brother's gaze and realized what was wrong. Oh. Oh, dear.

How did that happen?

It must have broken in the struggle.

The-? C shook his head. You've clearly been through something bad. Get out of that suit, take a rest, and then tell me everything.

--------------------

Once Emwhyaitch had taken a long nap and quickly decontaminated himself - just in case - he filled Seekayaitch on everything that happened in the other universe. The two humans now sat across from each other at their table, with the egg on top of a counter nearby.

C was silent for several moments after Em finished. Alright, he finally went. As much as I would like to theorize about "Phoney" right now, and how it came to be, I think we first need to focus on what to do with... the egg.

I agree. Em nodded his head. I believe the safest way to keep it alive and well while we study it is to use-

That's not what I meant, interrupted C. We need to go back and return the egg to... Phoney? Maybe? If not Phoney, then we also need to find out who, or what, it belongs to.

Are you serious? We've spent years storing enough power to get that machine to actually work, and now that we've gone and done it, you want to just... Em gestured to the egg. ...throw it away?

Flabbergasted, C stared at his brother for a second, mouth wide open. I- what? I NEVER said that! What the hell??

Em almost said something else, paused, thought about it, and sighed. Sorry. I... jeez. I didn't mean to phrase it like that. I just meant... I can't get why you'd want to stop now.

I DON'T. We both invested too much time, effort, and money in this to stop now. But that egg? That's not ours. It belongs to someone or something else.

So? Our goal was to bring something back from that other universe, and that's what I did-

IT'S ALIVE!! Seekayaitch slammed his fist on the table. If that thing really is an egg, then someone or something laid it! We haven't taken some random inanimate object so that we can learn more from it. We've KIDNAPPED someone's child! Some- something's YOUTH!

He got up and began to pace, visibly stressed. We can go back and get something else. Something that isn't alive. We can still study this other universe; there's more than enough charge left in the multiverse machine for a few more excursions. But our top priority needs to be returning that egg to its parents. We don't even know how to keep it alive, or- or if it can live at ALL in our universe.

As C paced in circles, Emwhyaitch realized his brother was right. He'd been so caught up in how they could study the egg, and what information they could learn about it, that he hadn't stopped to actually consider... it was a living being.

What kind of people would they be if they experimented on innocent creatures, with no thought or regard to the victims' wellbeings?

You're right, Em admitted. He suddenly pushed his chair back and stood as well. We must return this thing right now.

--------------------

Ready?

Ready.

Less than an hour later, Em was back in the multiverse machine, and C was back at the control panel. Em had donned his spacesuit once more, and this time, he'd wrapped the egg in several protective layers of bubble wrap, just in case. Nodding at each other, both humans pressed their "activate" buttons once more, each feeling a unique sense of deja vu from earlier. The machine's whirring increased and increased until it was almost deafening, and then...

...nothing happened.

Seekayaitch blinked in confusion. The device should have transported Emwhyaitch away by now.

What's going on? Em wondered in his mind.

Shaking his head, C answered, I don't know. He examined the control panel and saw that its small display was flashing. The control panel's giving an error message. It reads, "Universe not... found?" What the hell? The screen suddenly changed. No, wait, now it says, "Universe inaccessible..." That's still very confusing.

"SEEKAYAITCH!"

Startled by Em's sudden cry, C looked up. He gasped - distracted by the control panel's warning, he'd completely failed to notice that the multiverse machine's humming wasn't stopping. In fact, it was continuing to grow, and the previously-minute vibrations were now getting dangerously intense. "Shut it down!" Em yelled, having to shout over the noise. C slammed his hand on the Manuel Shutdown button.

...nothing happened.

"It's not working!" C yelled back.

"Open the door, then!"

Another attempt. "That's not working, either!!"

As Em started to desperately bang on the machine's door, C opened the airlock's inner entrance instead and entered the room. He grabbed the handle on the outside of the device and tugged, hard. It hardly budged.

"Stand back!" Em suddenly yelled. C jumped backwards just before Em kicked the door with as much strength as he could muster. The blow was enough to twist the lock out of place, allowing C to rip open the entrance and yank his brother out. Em was still grapping the egg tightly. They leapt out of the airlock together, and after a slam of C's fist on the Close inside airlock door button, the ship sealed off the airlock just as the multiverse machine exploded.

Well, to say it exploded is a bit of an overstatement... actually, no, exploded works. It just wasn't quite as big as one would probably expect when hearing anything to do with the word explode. But it was certainly powerful enough to destroy the machine, as well as blow a hole through the wall it was attached to, which instantly depressurized the chamber and sucked anything that wasn't bolted down into the outer reaches of interstellar space.

Fortunately for Em and C, the explosion was small enough that it was completely contained within the sealed-off airlock, meaning the rest of the ship was safe from the vacuum of outer space. Unfortunately for the twins, they were forced to watch as years' worth of energy and work vanished in a single instant, as well as any hope of returning the egg to its home.

One

year

later...

Hey, C, look at this. I've made a massive breakthrough.

Pausing what he was writing, Seekayaitch glanced up to see Emwhyaitch enter his room. For the last year, the two brothers had kept the egg in cryogenic storage to try and keep it alive. They had no clue how to hatch it, or what to do if it hatched, or even what exactly was inside the shell. Any scans they performed on it revealed nothing but a swirling mass of mysterious energy inside. They wanted to get a better look, but didn't dare x-ray the thing. Since then, the two had studied the egg scrutinously, hoping to learn something else about it, anything, really.

Em reached C's desk and laid down a small glass vial. The younger of the two had been more secretive than usual for the past couple of days, so C was intensely curious with whatever this breakthrough was. Now, please don't get mad at me for this... Em began.

Never a good way to start a conversation, remarked C, sarcastically but also in a light-hearted tone.

Rolling his eyes, Em gestured his brother to look at the vial. Peering inside revealed to C a teeny-tiny floating orb of white energy. What is that? he wondered.

That... is a small amount of energy that I've extracted from the-

"WHAT?!" Seekayaitch's audible cry of shock made Emwhyaitch jump slightly. C then took a deep breath before continuing in a slightly tense mental tone. Is this a joke? I told you, piercing its outer shell is too dangerous!

Raising his hands in defense, Em explained. Listen, listen. I used the smallest syringe I could find to extract the energy. It was in and out, five seconds, tops. I didn't even remove the egg from its cryogenic chamber, and its stats haven't changed at all in the past week.

You did this a week ago??

The egg's not harmed at all! You didn't even notice the puncture wound!

C sighed and leaned back in his chair, gently massaging his temples. Emwhyaitch, you know that was still dangerous. We know little-to-nothing about this creature, and trying anything is risky.

I'm aware. But hear me out. I've learned more about this substance in the past seven days than we have in the last year. For the most part, it's pure energy. There's... something else, though. I still haven't quite identified what the components are. But it's... it's not conscious, but it's consciousness. I managed to replicate it, and... well you should see for yourself. Turning towards the door, Em called out aloud, "We're ready!"

C tilted his head at this. Who could Em be talking to? They were the only ones that lived on the ship. Now, don't be alarmed when you see him, Em noted. He won't hurt you.

Who won't hurt m-

The gears in Seekayaitch's head abruptly stopped turning as a ball of fire with limbs and a face walked into the room. Every instinct in his body was screaming at him to run for the nearest fire extinguisher, but his brother's warning - as well as pure shock - kept him in his seat.

Human and object made eye contact. The flames grinned and waved at him. "Hi!" it cheerfully greeted. "I'm Firey!"

hah, I bet you were expecting another Goikian History excerpt, weren't you?