The wind was always there, blowing unabated since the dawn of time. There were few things that could be said to be eternal, to have no age or true time of beginning, and the wind was one of these. The mountain against which the mighty gales broke in an invisible tide was an infant compared to the primal elemental force it withstood, and yet it had stood against the endless blasts since its birth, and would endure them for many thousands of years yet to come.

It was at the very top of the mountain that the Warrior contemplated these ineffable truths. Here, where the wind was strongest and most savage, some ancient people, long lost to time, had sheared away the whole peak of the mountain, leaving it smooth and polished. The wind had added to their polishing, and the rocky surface had become as smooth and reflective as a mirror with the passing of ages. Hence the rocky edifice that bore this monument had earned the name Glass Mountain, though only a very few had ever seen the reason for the name, so treacherous was the slope and powerful the winds.

It is fitting that I should be laid to rest here, thought the Warrior, where so many have perished. Where they died in the attempt, I rest at the pinnacle, victorious even in my demise. Such is the lot of the hero.

Ringing the smooth surface of the mountain's highest point, huge slabs of stone were thrust out of the ground, bending inward like the petrified ribs of some long-forgotten behemoth of the primordial world. A globe of multifaceted crystal lay in the center of these ancient monoliths which ringed the orb like the soldiers of an older day who would kill themselves with their ruler to provide protection in the next life. Inside the globe, something stirred.

Paladin, I feel you, thought the Warrior. You are alive once more, I know it. Yet you are still deaf to my Voice, still you cannot hear my call for aid. Always you defended us, always you led us. Now you leave me here.

But the Warrior felt no malice. All she felt was an urgency to be moving once more, a need to take to the skies on wings that had been still for far too long. As she concentrated, sending her mind questing outward, she could feel the disharmony, the horrible disruption of the natural order of life and living that had gone on for so long unchallenged and unchanged. Mobius was a sacred sphere, and the Last Legion had always made certain it remained thus. Now there was death, and dying, and something far worse that the Warrior could not fully understand, a lingering metal half-life that seemed to have engulfed almost the whole of the small green and blue planet. It only accentuated the need that had already started in her fighting spirit. The need to make things right.

Come to me, Paladin, Unicorn! The mind of the Gryphon nearly screamed.

Only a few feet away from the crystal globe lay the razor-sharp metal spear she had once used, the brightly-colored fetishes that once adorned it long since blown away in the wind, and the resilient leather harness that held her quiver and bow. The long-feathered arrows rustled in their case as she turned her will upon them, and the unstrung bow bent a little from the need of the imprisoned Warrior. They had last been used against robots, the SWATbots of the traitor, Julian Ivo Robotnik. So many lives had been cut short by the deadly shafts, their owner using them with expert skill. Now they would serve another purpose.

There is to be a succession in power, thought the mind of Shrike, the Gryphon, from within the globe. Balance must be restored to this world gone mad, and there is no other way. There has never been another way.

As Shrike focused her mind, the bow bent still further under the will of its owner, and a long strand of crystalline string slithered from the side bag of the flight harness. With a slowness that frustrated the Gryphon's fighting heart, the composite bow bent back far enough for the string to loop around the ends and work its way through the twists that gave the bow its added strength. When the string was tied in place Shrike's mind relaxed its hold on the bow, and the string drew taught as the carved wood tried to resume its former shape. Shrike next turned her attention to the quiver. Selecting an arrow fletched with red and black feathers she focused all of her being on the single task ahead of her, and the arrow slid from the quiver and fell to the polished ground. Keeping the feathers off the rock as she pulled it towards the bow, to keep the flight of the shaft straight and true, Shrike felt an inner pressure building and knew she had little strength left. It was so hard to affect the world of the living, and what cost it might have on her later the Gryphon could only guess. With a supreme effort, the arrow slid into place against the bow, and Shrike drew back the glittering string as the rune-covered wooden bow rose from the ground, turning towards the only target Shrike could find within the range of her questing consciousness.

For Mobius!

The arrow shot off with a force only a member of the Last Legion could generate, and soon vanished into the mists of the surrounding peaks. Shrike, her purpose accomplished, felt herself falling back into a bottomless realm of darkness, her strength gone.

Soon I shall rise again, she thought as everything went dark once more, and the Gryphon faded into the half-sleep of the restless dead. And all will be made right once more.