It had begun. Their training was nearly complete, and they were almost ready to go forth to do their duty. It would be bloody, yes, but in order to please the Leader, they would do it. They would do ANYTHING to please Him. He had Changed them. He had trained them. And now, it was almost time for them to repay His kind Leadership. They would Destroy Sonic the hedgehog. And then, their Debt would be paid, and they could move on. They would claim the world as their own.

For Omega, the Cyborg cat, it had begun like almost every other day for the past 3 months. He awoke at noon, checked his email for responses from Agent Bane, and then went to eat lunch. As he walked down the hall, something was subtly wrong. There was no smell of lunch being cooked. The kitchen, at the end of the hall, it was dark, with shadows so deep that not even Omega's cat eyes could penetrate. He tensed himself for battle, and crept into the kitchen.

It was dark… his eyes were just about adjusted to the shadows. Then, the lights all came on at once. "SURPRISE!" many voices shouted at once, as Omega was temporarily blinded. "Happy birthday!"

As his vision cleared, he saw that there was a cake on the table, and a single candle in the cake. Everyone he lived with was there, too… "What's going on?" he asked, confused.

Then, there was a familiar voice behind him. "It wasn't easy, but I managed to pinpoint the date of your birth. Today, you are one year old."

Omega looked behind him, and there, cloaked in shadows, as he had been the first time he had met him, was Agent Bane. "Bane? Why did you… how?" he asked, overwhelmed.

"Your arm's uplink. You, like every other organic on the planet, have a specific chronatic signature… in short, your body knows how old it should be."

"And did you have a reason for doing something like this?"

Agent Bane shrugged. "Frankly, kid, I like you. I don't need another reason. So, who's up for cake?"

Then, there was a chittering noise from somewhere nearby, softly, so that none of the humans present even registered it. But Omega, Sonic, Amy, Tails, and Cream looked around in puzzlement. "What was that?" Sonic asked.

Omega sniffed, and replied, "I dunno. But something doesn't smell right, and I don't mean how Tails spilled motor oil on his arm…"

Tails looked surprised at this. "How'd you know about that? That was last night, while you were fast asleep!"

Omega glanced at Tails, and smiled a bit. "I'm a cat. Trust me on this. Now hush…"

Then the sound came again, and the humans who had been looking at the anthromorphs as if they had gone insane looked sharply at the floor, which was now obviously the source of the chittering sound. Suddenly, something burst through the floor, hideous and bristly. It looked like an insectoid limb, but much, much larger than nature had intended. It ended in a projection like a scorpion's claw, but not at the scale that a scorpion's claw would be, holding some sort of knife. It was soon followed by more of the same limbs, bursting out of the floor all around, all with the same knives. Sonic and Omega looked at each other. "Run!" they said simultaneously.