Hey guys! Life's been busy lately, so I apologize for making you guys wait for this update! Hopefully I should be back on regular updates soon!

(FFN Reviews)

Remnants of Fantasy: I wanted to try something new! Having him as a mechanic was the obvious choice so I naturally picked something else! XD

Stardust Pie (Guest): Thanks for the call out! Don't know how that got past editing. It has been fixed now!

(Ao3 Comments)

ATaTForTatzelwurm: I figured it was essential to the progress of the story and to really get an idea on how his thought process sees things! It's rather fun to write the somewhat macabre details on things!

Alright, let's get going!

No Zone Archives: Drift

Out of Alignment

"And that your honor, is why this man is without a shadow of a doubt, guilty of not only conspiracy, but perjury."

Zally let out a sigh of relief, she had practiced her closing several times over now, she felt confident in her ability to win this case, especially with the new information and evidence that had arisen. She smiled to herself.

"I can't wait to see the look on his face!"

As the primary prosecuting attorney on the case, she was against not only the accused defense, but also Zhadow, the defense attorney for the case. He had the uncanny ability to turn cases around, she was going to need everything she could find.

The information that Ziles located was just what she had needed to finally settle this case for good. She looked back down at her notes, practicing again couldn't hurt. While she knew that chances were it wouldn't go exactly to her plan, memorizing the evidence and how to use it, however, was essential.

She began again, somewhat eager for the trial to finally continue. Several hours later, as she approached the courtroom, she was met with a voice.

"I see you've brought something new." The voice spoke, she mentally sighted and turned around to face him. The black hedgehog was already prepared, seeming rather confident in his ensuing victory.

"Don't be too confident Zhadow, you're going down."

"We'll see about that..."

The ebony hedgehog walked back off to prepare his arguments, Zally did the same until they were both called back and sworn in to continue the trial.

The defendant entered, a shorter white dog, shackles sat around his ankles and wrists.

"Before we begin, I feel it is necessary to go over the information already presented."

Both attorneys nodded at the statement, it couldn't hurt.

-X-

After completion of his assignment, Zonic was forced to return to his small corner in the surveillance room. He was a bit disappointed that he didn't get to perform an arrest, or even see any live criminals. As he said back in his chair for yet another boring day, one of his monitors alerted of a dimensional instability, just as he prepared to send a report to the scientific teams, another one activated, and another. The alerts piled up and for once, Zonic was completely overwhelmed, it had to be a problem with the system, right?

He burst out of the office and dashed down to the chief's office, he threw the door open, instantly surprising her.

"We've got a problem," He began. "There's instabilities in every dimension!"

Zamy eyed him for a second, "That's not possible…"

Zonic, rather than trying to explain himself, simply beckoned her to follow him, which she did, having to speed up to keep pace with the hedgehog. Several other officers saluted her as she walked past, until eventually, they arrived at the surveillance room. Sure enough, every reading and monitor they had was freaking out, it almost looked like the entire multiverse had collapsed into anarchy at once, however, none of the dimension's denizens were even aware of their current plight, meaning it wasn't too severe, yet…

"That's not good…" She muttered under her breath, she still silently hoped it was still a bug in their system, though that was seeming less and less likely with each passing moment.

"What's the protocol for this chief?" Zonic asked.

"We don't have any, nothing like this has ever happened before… I'll send up mechanical to look at the scanner itself, but we're just going to have to play this one by ear…"

Zonic was, slightly stunned at this statement. Zamy always had three plans for everything, knowing now that even she was completely stumped. It didn't broad well for their chances at solving this quickly.

"For now," Zamy continued. "I want you to keep a close watch on everything, there's a chance this will just take care of its self…"

While Zonic didn't agree with the statement, it couldn't hurt to try.

He remained in the surveillance room, checking back with the monitors every so often. Zotor had come in and investigated the scanners and they appeared to be functioning correctly, this confirmed Zonic worst fears. They had an interdimensional crisis on their hands. Several hours later, Zamy put out an announcement for all available personnel to report to the briefing room. Zonic stood from his chair, and started toward it, he wondered how everybody else would handle the news.

He arrived some time later, several other agents were present. As he stepped through the crowd, he managed to find several faces he recognized along with overhearing multiple debates on why exactly they had been summoned. As he pushed through, he found Ziles and Zally somewhere near the center, Ziles being given plenty of space from the other nearby agents. As he got closer, Zally noticed his presence out of the corner of her vision.

"There you are! We've been looking for you."

"How'd the trial go?"

"Good, you should have seen the look on Zhadow face, I wish I could have gotten it on camera!"

Zally was obviously riding the high off her victory, she was super energetic, completely contrasting the somewhat timid fox standing behind her.

"Do you have any idea why we're here?" Ziles asked, "Just standing around like this makes me nervous."

"I don't have any clue," Zonic lied. He didn't want to be the one to break it to them, Zamy would do a thousand times better than he ever could.

They talked for a bit longer before they were all called to attention, everybody sat with eager thoughts as their chief stepped up.

"Attention everybody, I have gathered you here for a quick announcement. The scanners appear to be detecting dimensional anomalies in nearly every dimension."

At this sentence, chaos burst out from inside the room, with everybody talking over one another to the point it was nearly impossible to undertake what they were saying. Still, as he listened closely, he could make out some parts of it.

"Are you serious!?"

"I hope this is some kind of joke!"

"Then what are we doing standing here!?"

"You've got to be kidding!"

The final voice he heard came from Ziles, whom was clearly not amused by the announcement. In fact, he looked completely stunned. Zally, on the other hand, was taking it rather calmly. He assumed she was waiting for the entire announcement to finish.

After most of the uproar had calmed down, Zamy continued. "We're going to do everything in our power to figure out the cause of this, until that is complete, all reconnaissance teams are going to have more assignments that usual."

Zonic grinned at the statement, it meant he would be seeing more action. Several other murmurs were heard but they quickly silenced themselves.

"We're not sure of the cause of the distortion either," She continued. "As such, our scientific and research teams are going to have extra assignments until we can find the cause of this event. Should it be caused by a living being, they will face swift justice at our hands! I'm going to need the best out of each one of you! For the multiverse!"

Rather than murmurs, there came a great cheer from the assembled officers. Everyone seemed somewhat inspired by the ending of her speech and were ready to do whatever it took to protect the multiverse.

He had been told to keep a very close eye on anything he saw during surveillance, anything could be a clue at this point as to what the cause of the major shift was. Several hours later, Zotor arrived again to preform another check on the systems, just in case. After the check, he showed the reports to Zonic.

"Well, I think that confirms it, it's not a fluke, in fact, they're getting worse."

Zonic snatched the paper from him, sure enough, though it was miniscule, it was worse. This was a problem, if it went unchecked, how far would it go? Would it reach them, maybe it already had...

"Zotor, can you check our dimension? Is the drift affecting us?"

The walrus nodded, "That's probably a good idea, so much so that Zinituvus already did it." He replied, "We seem to be immune to it, for the time being. If it continues at this rate, there's the chance that it could spread here."

"Did you ask him what that would do?"

The mechanic sighed, "As it gets worse and worse, there's the chance that dimensions can pull themselves apart. Everything could collapse, nothing would exist."

Zonic swallowed hard, that wasn't very reassuring.

"Do we have any equipment to try and stop this?"

"Not on this scale, if it were just one or two, we'd be fine, but it's thousands... There's not much we can do until we find It's source."

Zonic's communicator activated, looking down, he found he had been given an assignment and was to report to Zantoine as soon as possible.

He thanked Rotor before standing out of his seat and heading toward the teleporter.

-X-

Zamy was freaking out, she had kept her composure in front of the officers, but was deeply concerned, Zinituvus had just warned her of what could happen should this be allowed to progress. It needed to be dealt with here and now. She had dispatched several agents to different dimensions, in hope they could find something of use. A short knock on her office door startled her out of her thoughts, she checked that she was presentable before opening the door. Revealing Agent Zlaze, a longtime friend of hers, they had both been Zone Cops around the same time, before Zamy had been promoted to chief that was.

"Zamy, several Zone Cops have been deployed, we're investigating now, they have orders to return if they find anything interesting. Several scientific officers have been deployed as well, mostly to locations that they might be able to gleam something with their expertise."

Zamy nodded, "As soon as you know the cause, you need to alert me. If this goes on for too long, it could cause irreparable damage to the multiverse as we know it.

"Understood."

"I also want you to accompany Ziles, he's not too familiar with mission, plus, I think he might want to see you again."

The cat nodded before exiting, leaving the chief to herself, she sighed and looked out the window that spanned the wall behind her, she vowed not to fail, if they failed, the multiverse was doomed.

They could not fail, that much was certain. She secretly hoped this was still just a temporary fluke, or something natural. But deep down she knew, somebody was causing this, and when she got her hands on them. She would make them regret ever crossing the Zone Cops.

Alright guys, that's everything for now! We've gotten though introductions, now to get on with the real story! Let me know what you thought! Until next time!