Absolute Power: Lord of Time

by Chronos the Cat

When a future Robotnik who has mastered time travel sets out to get revenge on everyone who ever stood in his way, the Freedom Fighters find themselves fighting impossible odds with the fate of not just Mobius but the entire multiverse hanging in the balance. (Note: This is a separate continuity from my previous "Absolute Power" stories.)

2. Second Chances

Absolute Power

by Chronos Cat

Part II: Second Chances

Arrival

The Acorn Palace, 3217. King Acorn was discussing the war against the Overlanders with Warlord Kodos, when there was a flash of light, and standing in the middle of the room was a fat, bald, mustached Overlander with a robotic arm, red glowing mechanical eyes, and an outlandish red costume with pointy shoulder-guards, yellow accents, and a yellow cape.

Kodos immediately decided that the Overlander had come to destroy them, and attacked. However, the Overlander easily knocked Kodos aside with his mechanical arm. The stranger held a ready, aggressive stance, but did not push his advantage; instead he demanded to know where he was – and when.

King Acorn had seen the stranger's look of confusion upon his arrival, and believed that the stranger wasn't there by choice. The King answered his questions, and the stranger's expression turned thoughtful. The King then asked to know who the stranger was, and to hear his story.

The stranger introduced himself as Dr. Julian Kintobor, an Overlander scientist from the year 3235. He had been testing out an experimental device with the potential to warp space and time when something had went wrong, and the next thing he knew he had found himself here. His first thought had been that he had been sent back in time; however in the world he remembered, he had been living in Mobotropolis in 3217. If Kodos and King Acorn didn't recognize him, he could only conclude that the device had somehow created an inter-dimensional breach, and deposited him in an entirely different Zonal reality.

Kodos was suspicious of this story; not only was the idea of time and Zone travel preposterous, but even if all that was true, they were in the middle of a war with the Overlanders – how could Julian, an Overlander, have been living in Mobotropolis in that alternate reality?

Julian claimed that he had always been sympathetic to the Acorn Kingdom's cause, and had fled Overland for fear of being persecuted as a traitor. In his own world King Acorn had given him refuge, and in return he had designed and helped build an army of robots that allowed them to win the war with minimal loss of life.

Julian offered the King the same deal, with the added benefit of some advice based on his knowledge of the future. The King accepted.

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Rise to Power

With Julian's advice and mechanical designs, the Acorn Kingdom made amazing technological advances. Julian soon became chief scientist to the Acorn Kingdom, and factories soon sprang up on the outskirts of Mobotropolis, building Private and Elite class Com-bots as well as other war machines that were cutting edge in 3235.

Meanwhile, in secret Julian built a working test model of the Ultimate Annihilator and began experimenting to determine what had went wrong. He determined that the device did in fact have the potential to breach Zone boundaries; if some of the settings were set incorrectly it was possible that rather than destroying a target the Annihilator would simply push the target into another Zone. Of course for the device to have affected him at all, it would need to have either had a catastrophic mechanical flaw or to have been deliberately sabotaged – presumably by someone unaware of the fail-safes he had built in to protect himself. In fact, experimenting further he determined that if the device had been targeted on him without the fail-safes being removed, it would result in exactly the kind of dimensional warp which could result in a subject being pushed into another Zone.

It seemed almost certain that he had been betrayed – and the list of those with the knowledge to sabotage the UA was extremely small. This made him eager to return home and punish the perpetrator – however, while he could open a Zone portal easily enough, he wasn't quite sure how to find his way home. He decided to build a dedicated Zone-portal device and send robotic scouts across the Cosmic Interstate (a network of roads floating in the void between universes) looking for his home world.

And in the mean time, Robotnik decided to focus on conquering the world he found himself on, starting by winning the war...

This time around Julian was unable to bring himself to pretend to humility or to take his time as he ingratiated himself with the King; as a result he and Kodos wound up rivals rather than allies. Kodos continued to be suspicious of Julian, even going so far as to periodically investigate Julian's factories and main laboratory. Growing tired of this, Julian allowed Kodos to learn of his secret laboratory – but booby trapped the lab so that the UA test device would blast Kodos the moment he tried to tamper with anything. The plan worked, and soon the position of Warlord was open.

Julian convinced King Acorn to give him the position of Warlord, and between his advanced robots and knowledge of the future he was able to bring the war to a swift conclusion; by the end of 3220 Overland's army had surrendered. Despite King Acorn's inclination to be merciful, Julian insisted on harsh terms of surrender which made Overland a vassal state of the Acorn Kingdom in all but name.

Julian now took the opportunity to discreetly look into the Overland records to learn what had happened to this world's version of himself. He discovered that much like himself, this world's Julian Kintobor had fled Overland after being convicted of various crimes (including but not limited to murder) stemming from his early Ultimate Annihilator experiments. However unlike the Zonally displaced Julian, this world's Julian was unable to reach the sanctuary of the Acorn Kingdom, instead being shot dead in the wilderness by the troops sent to hunt him down. Julian was actually rather relieved to learn this, as it meant he wouldn't have to fight with another version of himself for control of this world.

Julian was not surprised when a few weeks after the end of the war, the King dissolved the position of Warlord and demanded the decommissioning of the robot army. Julian played along just long enough to take care of a few last details, such as arranging for the tragic deaths of several infants: Rotor Walrus, Antoine DeCoolette, Bunnie Rabbot, and Sir Charle's nephew Olgilvie Maurice Hedgehog. (Olgilvie died a painful death from food poisoning due to tainted chili dogs.)

Now, just as he had done in his home world, he staged a coup, using his Com-bots to take control of Mobotropolis and by extension the Acorn Kingdom and Overland. The King was taken captive shortly after the start of the coup, but Queen Alicia and the royal nursemaid Rosie were able to escape with the royal children Prince Elias and Princess Sally. They headed for Knothole, the secret royal retreat in the Great Forest – but they found Com-bots there waiting for them.

As their master did not want to risk any of the royal family being the focal point of a rebellion, the Com-bots immediately executed them all.

Back in Mobotropolis, Julian had King Acorn brought before him. To the outraged and shocked King, Julian revealed at last the one critical element he'd left out of his stories of his old world - the fact that after winning the war he had taken control of the nation for himself. Now Julian took the name Dr. Ivo Robotnik once more, and declared that Mobotropolis was to be renamed Robotropolis. As for the King, the first time around Robotnik had merely exiled him, but now Robotnik knew that he was far too powerful a symbol to be allowed to live; instead he was to be publicly executed.

All of the citizens of the city were rounded up; as many as could be fit were placed around a stage set up in the center of the city's largest park. A nervous, disbelieving quiet settled over the crowd as their King was forced to kneel to their new ruler, Robotnik. King Acorn was then brought over to a makeshift chopping block, where he was forced to kneel again. The executioner was a Com-bot painted black, and armed with a laser axe; one swift stroke and the King's head was rolling across the stage.

The crowd now broke out into cries of horror and outrage, but the Com-bots forcefully quelled the chaos, using stun beams on the citizens when necessary. A few Mobians were allowed to escape to spread the news of what had happened; the rest were systematically brought to the roboticizers Robotnik already had set up, for conversion into robots.

And thus was Robotnik's second empire founded.

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Conquest

With his weapons of war at least ten years in advance of what was available to the rest of the world, as well as his knowledge of the future and his experience in conquering the world, the nations of this world fell to Robotnik even faster than they had in his own world.

By 3228 Robotnik had defeated and taken control of all of the world's nations, unifying them into his Robotnik Empire. His plan to roboticize the entire world population proceeded much more slowly, which gave the people time to form various resistance groups. However, most of these groups he was prepared for and was able to eliminate before they greatly inconvenienced him; with the Knothole Freedom Fighters prevented from forming there were none who truly threatened him.

While he firmed up his control over the planet, and continued systematically roboticizing the population, he continued to build up his armies – for one world was not enough to satisfy him. He had his inter-zonal scouts shift from searching for his home world to seeking to learn anything they could about neighboring Zones in preparation for eventually invading them. In addition, he began building space ships with which he could send his robots to colonize other planets.

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Secrets of Space-Time

Even as he put much of his effort into conquest, Robotnik kept up a number of advanced scientific research projects, including Zone boundary manipulation and inter-zonal teleportation. One project that began to consume his personal focus was research into space-time warps, key to both time travel and faster than light travel.

Back on his old world he had constructed a crude time machine, but it had been highly imprecise, and he had initially thought it's inability to break causality a fatal flaw. However, in light of how he had been able to use knowledge of the future of one zone to conquer another, he now realized a working time machine could be an invaluable tool for intelligence gathering. More importantly, if he could control the arrival point precisely enough, he could use it to transport himself (and his troops) anywhere in the universe he knew the location of.

By 3230 he had devised a means to target past space-time points by following light-waves to their source. While he could not select a specific year in the past and travel to it, he could sample a beam of light then travel through time and space to the place and time it had originated. Furthermore, as the device always stored it's home coordinates, returning home was a simple affair.

Based on this research, Robotnik had several Wormhole Generators built and installed upon his most advanced and heavily armed space-ships. He then ordered the ships and their crews to begin systematically searching the galaxy for planets, moons, and similar objects which would be viable targets for mining, colonization, or conquest.

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Firestorm

In 3233 Robotnik completed the roboticization of his "subjects"; now the only living Mobians left were the few remaining rebels and a few others who had fled his robots but chose to hide rather than fight back.

Robotnik's eventual goal was the complete roboticization of the planet; however while he felt capturing and roboticizing all Overlanders and Mobians was within his power, roboticizing every animal and plant with roboticizers that could only handle one organism at a time would be far too time consuming. He considered building a new Death Egg and mass-roboticizing the entire planet; however that ran the risk of destroying the already existing robots (as attempting to roboticize a robot created destructive energy feedback) and while he could perhaps find uses for some non-humanoid animal robots, he didn't need the countless numbers of them that roboticizing the planet would create - and he had even less use for robotic plants. Instead he decided to eliminate the unneeded lifeforms by rendering the planet uninhabitable.

He had never bothered to make any attempts to limit the pollution produced by his factories, vehicles, or any other elements of his empire, so he was already off to a good start on this project. Robotropolis and many of his other industrial cities were blanketed in a constant cloud of smog, world temperatures were rising due to greenhouse gasses in the air, and the ozone layer was well on its way to becoming Swiss-cheese. However, it would take far too long at the current rate for all life to be driven extinct.

To speed things along, he conceived of "the Firestorm Project". The first step of this project: mass produce hundreds of nuclear weapons, as well as large supplies of combustible chemicals. While he was at it, he began shielding all of his critical computers and most important robots from EMPs.

Knowing that if this plan worked the planet would be uninhabitable to him as well, he built a Neruo-Overrider (based on the design of a device he had confiscated from Princess Sally one time he captured her in his original timeline), then using it to retain his free will, roboticized himself. He then installed various weapons in his mechanical body, and shielded himself from EMPs.

In the Spring (of the Northern Hemisphere) of 3239 he began the ultimate phase of the Firestorm Project. He started by firing nuclear missiles at any resistance settlement he had been able to locate that wasn't close to one of his cities. This was followed shortly by the near simultaneous detonation of hundreds of nuclear bombs across the world – some on or under the land, in order to create as much fallout as possible, some in the air to spread the fallout as far as possible, and some in the oceans so as to further pollute that vast reservoir of life. The bombs which were near or in forests created massive forest-fires so hot and fast moving nothing could survive or escape - the firestorms for which the project was named.

Robotnik now sent out airships laden with large supplies of fossil fuels and other combustibles. They began spraying these materials over those grasslands, forests, and wetlands which had escaped the nuclear firestorms (including those too close to his cities to risk using nuclear bombs), and igniting them, creating new firestorms.

Within a week, all of the planet's forests and most other places with large amounts of plant life had been burnt to a crisp, producing a cloud of ash and smoke that darkened the skies world-wide. Some of the ash fell back down to the ground, carpeting parts of the planet in a blanket of radioactive soot; however much of the ash and smoke remained in the skies. As the fires died out, worldwide temperatures began to plummet; meanwhile chemical reactions in the upper smoke clouds ate away at what remained of the ozone layer.

With most of the light from the sun blocked, plants began to die off even before temperatures dropped enough for nightly frosts to set in across most of the world. Within a few months, snow began to fall across the arctic and temperate regions of the planet (even in the Northern Hemisphere where it was supposed to be Summer)... Robotnik's Nuclear Winter had begun...

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Worlds Beyond

With the vast majority of the world's human and Mobian population roboticized, and most of the rest of the life on the planet dead or soon to die, Robotnik decided the time had come to expand his empire beyond the one world currently under his control.

Many of his robot slaves he put on ships not equipped with wormhole generators to colonize some of the rocky planets and moons of Mobius' solar system. Others he sent to the asteroids to begin mining operations.

However, much of his army he sent through Zone Portals to two neighboring versions of Mobius. He had selected these worlds in particular as they had few or no military forces to oppose him. One was a world which had been conquered by that world's version of himself; however an explosion at his "Doomsday Project" had resulted in the deaths of not only Robotnik but also Sonic and Princess Sally (as well as several other resistance leaders), thus leaving the world ripe for picking. The other was a world where his counterpart was an ineffectual buffoon whose pathetic attempts at world conquest were constantly thwarted by Sonic and Tails (without even any other Freedom Fighters to assist them); this world was effectively at peace and had been for so long that the only significant resistance Robotnik expected was from Sonic and Tails.

The invasion of the Doomsday world was quite simple, as the previous Robotnik's robots couldn't tell the difference between the two of them and immediately treated him as their master. Thanks to the Doomsday Project, the planet was even on the verge of ecological collapse; all he would have to do to complete the process was finish industrializing the planet.

However, shortly after he had taken control of the planet, an unexpected complication arose. A zonal breach allowed that world's version of the sorcerer Naugus to return, and he set out to take control of the plane using his magic. Robotnik found to his dismay that none of his machines could combat the sorcerer.

Meanwhile, in the peaceful Mobius, Sonic and Tails proved to be far more of a challenge for his forces than expected. He responded to this by bringing in more troops and more powerful weapons, but Sonic gathered that world's seven Chaos Emeralds and used it to transform into Super Sonic; in that form he was able to destroy a large part of Robotnik's invasion force.

Realizing the only way to fight magic was with magic, Robotnik began researching the magic of his adopted world, scouring libraries and ancient ruins for clues, and sending his robots to track down the Chaos Emerald and Power Rings. Unlike his own world, his adopted world proved to only have seven Chaos Emeralds, plus a large Master Emerald.

Thanks to his research Robotnik knew that the power of the emeralds responded best to sentient beings, so rather than use the Emeralds to fuel some weapon as he might have in the past, he designed a Chaos Siphon, and used it to drain the power of the eight Emeralds into his own body. His body was transformed into a new, glowing green mechanical form: "Emerald Robotnik".

After taking some time to master the power of chaos within him, Robotnik headed to the Doomsday world and confronted Naugus. The ensuing battle was cataclysmic, leaving much of the countryside in ruin and saturated with dark magic. Robotnik emerged triumphant, slaying the sorcerer.

Concerned that Super Sonic might be more powerful than Naugus and perhaps even himself, Emerald Robotnik sought out the magical objects of the Doomsday world now as well. That world did not have any Chaos Emeralds, but it did have Power Crystals with similar properties; Robotnik had his robots mine the crystal, and absorbed much of its power into himself.

Robotnik also discovered legends in the Doomsday World of the Time Stones, mystical objects with the power to not only transport the user through time, but to change history as well. They were said to exist on this world's Floating Island, but that island was either mythical or well hidden, for Robotnik could not locate it.

Deciding he ought to be powerful enough to take on Super Sonic as he was, he had his robots continue the search for the Floating Island, while he headed to the peaceful Mobius to lead the invasion himself. Soon Sonic returned to his Super form to stop him – but it wasn't enough. Emerald Robotnik defeated Super Sonic and drained him of his Chaos energy, forcing him back into his original hedgehog form. Emerald Robotnik beat Sonic to within an inch of his life, then brought him back to one of his mobile bases for roboticization.

After ensuring that the new Mecha Sonic could not regain his free will, Robotnik equipped him with weapons and armor, and appointed him the new head of the invasion force. Mecha Sonic captured Tails and brought him in roboticization, then the two of them dealt with the Robotnik native to their world.

After this, taking control of that world proved quite easy, though it did still take some time.

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Exploring Space and Time

After months of searching, Robotnik's robots found the Doomsday Mobius' Floating Island – it was hidden within a perpetual cloud bank. Robotnik sent his robots in to retrieve the Time Stones. They found a large temple-like structure, and within it a maze that defied conventional physics. At the heart of that maze existed a giant animated stone owl head – the Guardian of the Time Stones. The Guardian refused to give the Time Stones to automatons, so Robotnik made his way through the maze himself and confronted the Guardian.

The Guardian cared only about the intelligence of those seeking the Time Stones, not their morality, and once Robotnik solved a riddle for it, the Guardian gave the Time Stones to him.

Robotnik tested out the Time Stones, and to his delight discovered that they could indeed allow their user to change the past. However, he was not content to merely use the stones – he wanted to understand them. And so he began examining them in his temporal research laboratory, trying to determine their secrets.

Meanwhile, the first of Robotnik's star ships traveled to nearby stars at the point in time when the light now reaching Mobius had first left those stars, then returned to report. While most of these stars had planets, none of them were inhabited; Robotnik took note of them for future colonization. Eventually he decided the constant trips back were a waste of time and energy; instead the ships would send back message pods with their findings, then move on to new stars. However, with each new star a ship traveled to, its journey took it further back in time.

As his ships reported back the space-time signatures of various points in the past of the galaxy, Robotnik began to develop a map of space-time. Of course as the ships were only traveling backwards in time, his map was limited to the past. Realizing that the more complete his map, the better he'd be able to calibrate his time machines, he had several ships travel into the distant future then work their way back to the present, mapping space-time as they went.

Eventually, his exploratory ships stumbled upon several planets inhabited by intelligent life. Most of them were inhabited by pre-industrial societies, and fell to his forces easily. However, three (Alkatar, Garthak, and Qualltian) had more advanced technology than Robotnik, and military forces strong enough to potentially defeat him. Fortunately, all three planets had recently been plunged into chaos and anarchy thanks to a series of assassinations of political leaders and devastating terrorist attacks utilizing weapons of mass destruction.

Robotnik took advantage of the chaos to steal a number of their ships, as well as a great deal of information on their technology. He then began upgrading his own forces, and building up his armies even more, in preparation for an invasion of those worlds.

In 3248, the space-time maps Robotnik's star-ships were producing provided the breakthrough which allowed Robotnik to design time machines which could target specific points in time. He now began working on designing smaller and more efficient devices, as well as on applying what he'd learned from the Time Stones to allow him to construct devices which could break the chains of causality.

The following year, Robotnik sent the bulk of his army through time and space to shortly after he'd plundered the planets Alkatar, Garthak, and Qualltian, and launched a full-scale invasion.

With his technology now on par with that of Qualltian (the most technologically advanced of the three planets) and his military more powerful than that of Garthak (the most militarily powerful of the planets prior to the current period of anarchy), he easily established footholds on all three planets and conquered vast swaths of territory. However, on Garthak several warlords held out against him for some time, while resistance groups soon arose on Alkatar and Qualltian.

Conveniently, the most powerful Gathakian warlords soon fell to assassination as well, while the resistance groups that seemed the most dangerous at first suffered a similar loss of leadership. An anonymous source using Robotnik's own codes also passed vital intel to Robotnik on the forces arrayed against him; he was suspicious of this source, but their information proved to be true, and made completing his conquest of the three worlds almost too easy.

Robotnik had all three planets, as well as the previous inhabited worlds he'd conquered converted into mining and industrial complexes to further expand his armies.

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The Final Doomsday

By 3250, Mobius had began to noticeably warm, and snows stopped falling out of season. As the planet started to thaw, it began to reek of decay, as those animals and plants which had died and been frozen during the Nuclear Winter began to rot. At first Robotnik paid it little mind, but as green scum began to form on some bodies of water, scattered sprouts began to poke out of the ash, and rodents and cockroaches began to scurry out from their burrows, Robotnik realized that while he had dealt the ecosystem a terrible blow, he had failed in his attempt to kill off all life.

And so he began work on his own Doomsday Project (modeled on the Doomsday Project which had devastated the first world he invaded). The heart of this project would be a factory designed to build Doomsday Pods – aerial drones equipped with powerful sensors and deadly poisons, and tasked with seeking out and eliminating every last remaining life form on the planet.

Deciding to kill two birds with one stone, he made no effort to keep the project a secret; sure enough, the last remaining rebels attempted to sabotage the work on the project. Unfortunately for them, he was ready for them; in addition to a standard defensive force of mass-production Com-bots guarding the factory site and the research labs related to the project, he also had squads of Elite Com-bots lying in wait to ambush any rebel who attempted to attack one of the sites. The rebel forces were all killed or captured pending roboticization.

Less than a year after the start of the project, the Doomsday Factory came online. While in theory the factory could produce hundreds of Doomsday Pods a day, in practice production was limited by some of the rare materials needed to build the pods; despite this the factory was able to build over a hundred pods in the first twelve hours of operation, and another two hundred by the end of the month.

As soon as they were completed, Robotnik launched the Pods, and they began their search for the remaining life. As this life was scattered in small patches across the world, this search took some time. Furthermore, while killing individual plants and animals was easy once you found them, killing an algal bloom or billions of microbes living in soil required a lot more time and poison.

After six months most of the obvious traces of life had been eliminated, and Robotnik shut down the Doomsday factory. He kept the Pods already produced running for several years, tracking down the last few remaining organic life forms. He then put them into storage, in case he discovered any life they might have missed, or he needed to sterilize another world.

By 3255 the planet had reached its' pre-Firestorm temperatures again; thanks to the greenhouse gasses in the air (not only those produced by Robotnik's factories, but also those produced by the burning of the world's plant-life and by the rotting of the life forms killed after the firestorms) temperatures continued to rise. Global weather patterns shifted and the ice caps began to melt, but with the planet dead the only one inconvenienced by these effects was Robotnik himself.

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Mastering Time and Space

In 3256 Robotnik first successfully replicated the Time Stones' causality-breaking effect with a Time Machine of his own creation. However, he quickly realized that if he sent his robots into the past to change history without accompanying them, the version of him that sent them back in time would be overwritten when the timeline changed. He wasn't very fond of the idea of having his current self erased from history even if another version of him took his place, and he also worried what might happen should his enemies learn how to change history, or if one of his time machines should fall into their hands. And so he began a new research project: to find a way to protect himself from alterations to history.

As Robotnik's research and experimentation continued, the size of the his machines continued to shrink, until in 3260 he developed a model of time machine which was small enough to install within a robot. For operations on a single planet, particularly ones that did not require a large number of troops, this would be far more convenient than the ship-board or stand-alone time machines. However, there was an increased risk that an enemy might get their hands on one of the devices, so he rigged them to self-destruct if tampered with.

Constructing these time machines required precision construction techniques (which in turn required a great deal of computer power) as well a number of exotic materials including a magical metal which could only be acquired by melting down Power Rings. As such he could not construct very many of them very rapidly (and even if he could, he wouldn't want too many of them around - this too would increase the chances of his enemies getting their hands on them). The first batch of seven (which also served as test units for his new anti-temporal-overwriting shielding) he placed within a squad of his most advanced Elite Com-bots, which he painted blue and designated as "Chrono-bots".

Robotnik ran the Chrono-bots through a number of tests, having them travel through time and alter history together and separately. He also had some of them stay in other time periods for years before returning, to make sure the Time-Machine wouldn't break down over time. The results were beyond his expectations; not only could the robots freely change history when in the past, but when a unit in the past changed history, those in a later year witnessed the world around them change without themselves being affected. Furthermore, the Time Machines continued to run at peak efficiency after decades of use with no maintenance (unlike the Chrono-bots themselves, which needed some repairs after so long in the field).

Now fully confident in these time machines, Robotnik had one installed in himself, and for good measure siphoned off the energy of the Time Stones into himself (as he had no further use for them). The temporal energies had an immediate reaction with the Chaos Energy already in his system, transforming his body into a powerful temporal engine which produced such an excess of temporal energy it caused his body to glow blue.

Meanwhile, as this energy interacted with his temporal shielding, memories flowed into his head of previous temporal incarnations of his self, in previous versions of this world's history. He remembered multiple versions of the attacks on Alkatar, Garthak, and Qualltian, in which fewer of the Warlords and resistance leaders had died, and the war had dragged on; in one timeline there had been no assassinations after he attacked, and the wars had still been going on in 3260. He remembered a version of the discovery of those planets in which the planets had been thriving civilizations at peace yet ready for war, and he had tried to establish peaceful relations with them until he could build up his power; unfortunately the government of Garthak had seen through his deception and launched their own war on him, which he had been badly loosing until he had completed his history-altering time machines and sent android assassins back in time to kill the Garthak leadership before they even started the war.

Apparently, he'd been his own secret ally in his wars against the alien planets.

He also remembered multiple versions of his life on his home Mobius. Most of these variations were minor, but in one of them when his rouge experimental robot EVE had blasted him twenty years into the future he had found himself on a Mobius at peace, ruled by King Sonic and Queen Sally, and had been sent back to 3234 by a digital copy of his mind which was trapped in the computer of an orbiting space station. Later in that timeline, when he had captured Sally and used her to trap Sonic, he had succeeded in killing Sonic, but the other Freedom Fighters had stubbornly continued to fight against him until he completed his Ultimate Annihilator and attempted to fire it, only to be sent into this world.

The version of him who had witnessed King Sonic and Queen Sally and had later killed Sonic appeared to be the same one who had discovered the alien worlds at peace; Robotnik suspected this was the "first" version of himself.

As Robotnik contemplated the physical and mental transformation he'd been through, he realized the time had come to change his name once more. From now on, he would be known as Chrono-nik.

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There's No Place Like Home

As Chrono-nik continued his never-ending war of conquest, he began sending scout robots to learn everything they could about alien planets and alternate Zone before he invaded them, even going so far as to learn as much of their history as possible. He would select the best point in history to invade, or send in the Chrono-bots to rewrite that world's history to his liking.

Decades passed in Chrono-nik's personal timeline and on his Mobius. Com-bots were rendered obsolete and replaced with Eon Bots. Many Eon Bots were equipped with time machines, and the Com-bot-based Chrono-bots were shut down and put in storage. Chrono-nik's forces continued to expand through the Galaxy and the Cosmic Interstate, and his magical, technological, and military power continued to grow.

And yet Chrono-nik could not forget his birth world, where a pesky blue hedgehog had denied him total victory time and again, and betrayal had driven him from his first empire against his will.

And so, in the year 3350, Chrono-nik began experimenting with new types of Zone Portal devices, with the hope of being able to open a portal directly into another Zone without passing through the Cosmic Interstate. This would allow for surprise attacks on those worlds aware of the Cosmic Interstate, but more importantly it would allow him to reach distant Zones quickly, hopefully speeding up the search for his birth world.

In 3355 one of Chrono-nik's zone experiments produced a result which initially surprised him but upon further reflection he should have expected (at least given his memories of the most recent version of his home-world's timeline): from the year 3235 of a distant Mobius, Sonic, Sally, Robotnik, and some Swat-bots were summoned to his capitol city.

A squad of Eon Bots apprehended the trio and destroyed the Swat-bots. The prisoners were taken to a long unused (and no-longer maintained) detainment center, but soon managed to escape from it. Deciding to let history repeat itself, Chrono-nik cleared out all the guards and most of the Research-bots and Science-bots from the Zone Portal Research facility, and allowed Sonic, Sally, and Robotnik to enter with only a tiny bit of token resistance.

As soon as they had returned home through the portal, the Science-bots tried to undo the sabotage Robotnik had done to the Portal device, but it was too late. From his command center Chrono-nik watched the facility explode with only a touch of annoyance. It would be easy enough to rebuild the Inter-dimensional Zone Portal Generator, and he had copied the coordinates of the world the group had been summoned from long before they reached the facility.

As soon as the new Generator was complete, he sent a team of infiltration units back to his home world to investigate it, with particular focus on the year 3235.

They returned shortly with a great deal of data on his struggles against Sonic, and confirmation of his suspicions that Snivley had been responsible for the sabotage of the Ultimate Annihilator. However, they also revealed that he had more enemies than he had suspected, such as the secret Echidna cabal known as the Brotherhood of Guardians, the immortal mastermind Mammoth Mogul, and the god-like Ancient Walkers.

This last threat concerned him the most, enough so that he put his plans of returning home on hold while he sought to increase his mystical powers enough that even the Ancient Walkers would not be able to thwart his plans.

STH * STH * STH

Tyrant of Worlds

In his adopted Zone, planet after planet fell to Chrono-nik's forces. Some alien species made valiant efforts to resist him, but the only attempts at resistance he allowed to get off the ground were ones that were doomed to fail – and when he crushed them he made sure there were survivors to spread the word of his invincible power. Any world that was a potential threat, he used time travel to conquer before they were powerful enough to threaten him.

At the same time, his forces also spread out across the Cosmic Interstate, conquering other Mobiuses (by whatever name; often that name was "Earth"), and from those planets spreading out to other planets in those Zones.

Chrono-nik enhanced his body with alien technology and the energies of mystical artifacts from hundreds of worlds. So great did his power grow that his opponents began to fear him as a malevolent god.

Over a thousand years had passed on his adopted Mobius by the time Chrono-nik took control of the last inhabited planet in its Galaxy, and only then did he feel ready to return to the Zone of his birth. And yet, over that time his hatred for Sonic had only grown. It would not be enough to simply kill or roboticize him; he must be made to truly suffer.

Chrono-nik retrieved the Chrono-bots from shortly after they had been deactivated. He repaired and upgraded them, then reactivated them and spelled out to them their part in his plan to get revenge on Sonic. He headed through the Zone Portal with them, for he also had parts to play in the coming drama, and before the plan could begin he must first take care of the only real threat to its' completion.

The group arrived in the badlands several weeks before the Ultimate Annihilator incident, well outside the range of Robotnik's surveillance equipment. The Chrono-bots headed out to perform their tasks, while Chrono-nik used his temporal abilities to teleport to the Impact Crater in Downuda, shortly after Tails and Knuckles visited it to seek guidance on how to save King Acorn. As he suspected traces of a connection between that world and the plane of existence within which the Ancient Walkers resided remained.

Chrono-nik tore open a door to the realm of the Walkers, and stepped through. The world he entered would have been incomprehensible at best to all but the most mystically advanced mortals, but Chrono-nik's mystical research had prepared him for what he found, and thanks to his custom neruo-processors and the Chaos Energy which flowed through his body, he felt as at home there as the Walkers themselves.

Chrono-nik found the Walkers waiting for him.

"Long have we foreseen thy coming, Enslaver of Time. Heed our warning well; should thou continue on thy quest for vengeance, thou shall sow the seeds of thine own destruction. However, it is not too late to save thyself; depart from this world with thy automatons and never disturb it again, and thy empire may yet be eternal."

"Bah! Do you really expect me to fall for your mind games – or your threats? You're just dinosaurs who know a little bit about manipulating Chaos Energy. What do you know about the future, or about true power? I am Chrono-nik, Master of Time and conqueror of over a thousand worlds across over a dozen dimensional zones. History is mine to shape as I so please - and I say the time has come for you to die."

"If that is thy will, then attack, and we shall see which of us is truly the master of this world's fate."

Chrono-nik gathered his mystical energies, and fired a blast of energy powerful enough to destroy a city at the Ancient Walkers. The Ancient Walkers responded with a mystical shield, and the entire mystical realm shuddered with the force of Chrono-nik's attack impacting it. The Walkers then responded with their own mystical attack, which Chrono-nik dodged.

The battle lasted an eternity, and yet it lasted no time at all. Not all attacks were blocked or dodged, and Chrono-nik's armor was cracked and shattered in the melee, as were the Ancient Walkers' masks. When Chrono-nik looked upon the flesh-and-blood Saurian forms of the Ancient Walkers, he knew that victory was his. Even as Chrono-nik and the Walkers' magic remained locked in a perpetual stalemate, Chrono-nik reconfigured his arm to reveal a laser canon, and fired three non-magical laser blasts in rapid succession, one at each of the Walkers.

Around the world mystically attuned beings felt the world shift under them, as one of the pillars of reality was shattered.

And in the Impact Crater, Chrono-nik appeared again, a fraction of a second after he had disappeared, his body badly damaged, but already repairing itself. He smiled malevolently, and gave a maniacal laugh. At last, this world truly belonged to him.

Now, it was time to have some fun.