Good morning, all! Anyone else playing Sonic Frontiers like it's their job? Not to mention the HYPE I feel for Sonic Prime! With so much Sonic content right now, it's a wonder I'm able to find the time to produce more fanfiction. However, with only 2 CHAPTERS LEFT in this story, I think we've got some loose ends to consider...

Chapter Forty-Two: Variables

January 24th, 2010

Dear journal,

I don't like this. Something feels wrong about all this. I can't stop thinking about what Rusted Maple said, about how all of this was just some experiment. We beat the Metarex, we won, supposedly. But when they only had one Chaos Emerald they laid a trap specifically for Sonic.

Their last desperate play was just a game?

The leader of the Metarex being filled with the fake Energy doesn't seem like the best plan either. If you're experimenting, you don't do it like that. You don't risk your most valuable asset. It said, "You will never win" right before it exploded. It could have been desperate last words, but I'm not so sure. I think it might been a threat.

And I hate to think this way, but I don't think this war's over.

..Miles "Tails" Prower

Tails placed his notebook on the end table beside him, his hands shaking as he did so. His skin still tingled with the runoff of Chaos Energy. He hid his hands in his lap. It wasn't like he wasn't the only one with the side effect. Sonic ran circles around Mobius to run off the excess Energy, but it came with no success.

Amy pushed through the door between the kitchen and living room in Cream's house. She dropped on the couch across from Tails with a huff. "I can't even cook, my hands are shaking too much," she complained. "Does this usually happen?"

"I don't have much more experience than you," Tails said. "But from my one other experience, I'd say no."

Amy groaned and slid further down in her seat. "Remind me never to use Chaos Emeralds again."

"I don't think it was the Chaos Emeralds," Tails explained. "I think it was all the fake Energy."

"Well, either way," Amy muttered, crossing her arms.

Tails looked down at his lap, at his shaking hands resting on his crossed legs.

The front door opened, and Nova and Shadow walked in. As he walked, Shadow readjusted the rings around his wrists every few seconds. Apparently, his inhibitors were doing nothing to still the shaking. Nova collapsed on the couch next to Amy. Sparks danced around her shaking fingertips, taking her restlessness to a whole new level. "This Energy better burn itself off soon," she said. "I need to be able to aim when I use magic."

"Something's wrong."

All heads turned to see Sonic standing in the open doorway. Even from there, Tails saw Sonic's shaking hands, despite having run most of the morning. "What do you mean?" Tails asked, straightening in his seat.

"Remember that fight we had with the Metarex right before we left Mobius?" Sonic said. "The one that burned all the trees? Well, all the damage is gone, and the trees are growing same as ever."

"Like on Emberlain?" Amy breathed.

Tails jumped to his feet, the restlessness in his hands feeling like it spread to the rest of his body. He paced the floor as each pump of his heart sent a shudder through his limbs. "Let's think about this for a second. What have the Metarex done this time? They set fires that weren't fires to attract our attention. They kidnapped Angel and Cream and Shadow but didn't actually do anything we know of with them. They gave us nightmares and wanted to see if we could overcome them. They knew who Angel was. And despite the time travel, all our journals from the Changed War still exist."

"Your what?" Nova asked.

Tails snatched his notebook off the table and handed it to Nova. "I've been writing these journals since the Changed War. I mostly wrote them as a way to deal with the stress, but over five years, I wrote thirty-eight of them. Sonic and Amy each wrote one too. And when Sonic went searching, he found all of them existed with our writing in them."

"But you never wrote them," Nova said slowly.

"No, we didn't," Tails agreed. He crossed his arms to still the shaking as much as he could, but he couldn't keep himself from pacing. "So all of these impossible things happen that make absolutely no sense, and they call it an experiment. But what are they experimenting for? What's their variable?"

"How is this an experiment, though?' Amy asked. "Doesn't an experiment involve test tubes and beakers and stuff?"

"Not necessarily," Nova said.

Tails continued, "There are psychological experiments where you change the conditions under which you see a word. Conditioning experiments where rats are trained to press a button."

Shadow frowned. "Experiments where you are put under pressure to see how you respond," he muttered.

Tails nodded in his direction. "Experiments are just tests. You manipulate one variable to see how all the others respond." Tails shook his head, eyes fixed on the ground. "But it seems to me that the Metarex were manipulating a bunch of variables. Unless one thing caused all the others to change."

Sonic jumped up to sit on the back of the couch between Nova and Amy. "What about time? That's definitely messed up."

Nova shook her head. "That doesn't explain any of the rest of this though."

Tails stopped suddenly and looked up at them. "Only because we don't know why time changed," he realized. "What if the Metarex did something to change time? It would explain how they came back even after the Changed War. And what if whatever they did to change time caused everything else?"

"The fake Chaos Emeralds!" Amy exclaimed, jumping to her feet. "They could have that sort of power, right?"

Tails straightened as the pieces fell into place in his head. "They…they could. I mean, the real Chaos Emeralds allowed us to jump dimensions, so the fake ones could definitely cause time travel. And the fire…Sonic, you said the fire on Emberlain was caused by the fake Emeralds."

"Yeah," Sonic agreed, nodding slowly.

"And they probably kidnapped Shadow to find out how Chaos Energy worked in his body," Tails said, starting to pace again. "They lured us places and manipulated Sonic to find out how he'd respond to the fake Chaos Energy. It explains everything!"

"Nearly," Shadow said.

Tails turned around and saw the crease in Shadow's forehead. "What do you mean?" he asked. His legs felt leaden.

Nova replied for him. "If this is an experiment," she said slowly, "then it wasn't a war. So where are the Metarex now?"

Tails had no answer for her. He stood there in silence, his mind reeling. Nova was right. The Metarex wouldn't run an experiment just to disappear. They led their enemy in, manipulated them, and allowed them victory, but for what?

Out of the corner of his eye, Tails saw the world outside the living room glowing in brightness. He lifted his head to look out the window. White light glowed on the horizon and spread out from there. Tails recognized that light. A stone dropped into his stomach. "No," he breathed.

The others in the room turned to follow Tails's gaze. "That's the…that's the same light," Amy gasped. "The same light we saw before time changed."

"They're using the fake Emeralds to cause Chaos Control," Sonic said.

"Which means?" Nova pressed.

The white light bled through the world like water spilled across a tablecloth. It raced toward them and obscured their view of anything beyond their lawn. Tails shook his head. His shaking hands shivered with new fear. "It means…" Tails breathed, "…it means we gave the Metarex exactly what they wanted. We gave them a way to win the war."

The white light bled over all of them until it was all Tails could see.