Course Correction

by Richforce

With the Eggman Empire destroyed, Sonic and his friends still have on loose end to tie up. But Eggman's backup plan kicks in and a new threat arises to destroy the hard won peace. The Freedom Fighters will find their bonds tested like never before and their futures covered by a shadow of doubt.

33. Seeds of Despair

Despite the sun having set the lights of Freedom City were all out and the stars managed to peek through. Jules Hedgehog peeked up past the edge of a skyscraper roof and looked through his binoculars wearing a full combat uniform.

"Do you have a visual on the target?" asked Arthur Mongoose as he hunkered down next to him.

He focused the lenses on the giant creature that to him resembled a mobosaur he saw in his grade school textbook that had bull horns scribbled onto it by the last kid who had the book with claws that while stubby compared to the rest of its body looked big enough to grasp a jet fighter like it was a toy. Along with the other seven in Freedom City, it was currently rampaging like in those human movies about giant monsters. "Hard not to considering it's a hundred feet tall."

"To think just a few hours ago that was one of the seedrian delegates," said Amadeus Prower. "Arthur, begin painting the target for the missile launchers. Jules, get ready to call them to fire." General Prower set a radio to his ear. "Forward team to Rotunda Shelter, target spotted, we are painting it for "lullaby time."

---

Several Freedom Fighters, Knuckles, the Council of Acorn, Team Dark and Seneca watched the feed from the suit mounted cameras.

"Let's hope this works," said Sally. "This is our last shot at a non-lethal response before G.U.N. sends in the big…guns."

"Hard to put missiles and non-lethal in the same sentence," groaned Sonic.

"Not when those missiles are set to blow before impact and are filled with enough knockout gas to put a city block to sleep," Jules said through the radio. "But everything else we tried hasn't worked, we might have to go with lethal weapons just to find something that so much as tickles these things!"

Arthur began pointing a targeting laser at the Great Mover. "Hey, we better not let the Council down, our wives all sit on it!"

Bernie smiled despite the situation. "I might have gotten into my share of tussles during the Great War but deep down I'm a woman of words like Rosemary and Isabella are, we just all happened to have a thing for men of action."

"Action our kids for the most part handle these days," sighed Amadeus. "But that doesn't mean we're slouches either!"

"Target painted," said Arthur. "Jules signal when ready!"

Jules looked through the binoculars again. "Hold it! Target is not clear! There's a human copter nearby!"

"But we told G.U.N. to wait!" shouted King Max.

"Not G.U.N.," Rouge said as the binocular feed zoomed. "I recognize that logo, that belongs to the Star Network, a Federation news outlet."

Shadow growled. "Why is it during times like these there are always braindead civilians who decide to turn their sense of self-preservation off?! Don't they even know when reversed the city shield to keep the Great Movers in and it also prevented radio transmissions from getting out!"

"Must have missed that memo."

"Bunnie radio them!" Sally shouted. "Get their transmission up so we can find out what they're doing before we pull the plug on it!"

"Speaking of shields how did those Neo Swats even get inside the city!?" Knuckles grumbled.

"I have a theory," said Nicole. "Just need a couple of minutes to confirm it."

As Bunnie began tuning the frequency one of the screens in the command center shown a human woman leaning out of the side of the helicopter.

"This is Cathy Carmine of Star News! We are here giving you exclusive footage of the attack on Freedom City by giant creatures of unknown origin! While the involvement of the Robotnick Ascendancy in the appearance of these eight tyrannosaurus-like creatures is unconfirmed the occurrence of a classified conference involving most world governments just hours before their appearance is considered non-coincidental!"

"Got the pilot!" said Bunnie.

Sally took the mic from Bunnie. "Star Network copter, this is Princess Sally Acorn of the Freedom Fighters! You are interfering with an ongoing military operation! Head to one of the G.U.N. extraction points and leave Freedom City airspace now!"

---

"I think we should listen to her," said the pilot. "This is definitely NOT worth time and a half!"

"Freedom of the Press, the people deserve to know!" Cathy tried to shout above the sound of the chopper blades. "Just get us a better angle and you keep rolling!"

The Great Mover suddenly turned; its tail took off the tail of the chopper that then began spinning uncontrollably. While the pilot struggled to regain control, Cathy fell out the open door of the copter.

"Aiiiiiiiieeeeeee!"

"Gotcha!" Jet grabbed the reporter as he flew by on his extreme gear. "Storm hit the brakes! Wave, Corva get those other two outta there!"

Storm held the bottom of the chopper while Wave and Corva scooped out the remaining two humans once everyone was clear Storm the pushed wounded helicopter away to crash on the streets below. The rouges began making their way to the Rotunda.

"You owe me princess and we don't come cheap!" Jet yelled before turning to the reporter. "Lady nobody outside this city could even get your broadcast!"

"So, all that good footage and we got nothing for it?!"

"Oh, I wouldn't say nothing!" Sally fumed over Jet's Radio. "Your company can expect a very large fine and your pilot is probably going to get his flying license revoked for a long, long time!"

"Conciderin' you blokes could be dead I'd be grateful," said Corva.

"I'm getting too old for this anyway," said the pilot.

---

Up on the rooftops Jules saw the Babylon Rouges fly away. "Target is clear, Battery Two play the lullaby, repeat play the lullaby!"

A couple of missiles came from a hidden silo and flew towards the Great Mover. The missiles exploded a short distance from its face covering it in a thick cloud of purple gas.

"Is the target down?" Sally asked from the radio. "Repeat is the target down?"

The cloud cleared and after shaking its head for a moment the Great Mover roared and then proceeded to knock a building down.

"That's a negative," Amadeus said. "Lullaby's been sung but the target is still up and cranky."

"There's nothing more you can do out there," Sally said. "Retreat back into the shelters with the rest of population."

"Copy that, we're bugging out."

---

"For now, I think the council should do what we can in the shelters," said Bernie. "I know you'll try to come up with another strategy in the time until G.U.N said they'd move in but try not to be too hard on yourselves."

After the Council left Cream sighed, she turned to footage of the former Seedrians, including her new friend Cosmo, attack nearby buildings. "This is horrible! I'm relieved that we managed to get everyone into the shelters in time, but people's homes and livelihoods are being destroyed. I hope they don't blame the seedrians for any of this."

Sonic growled. "If anybody they should be blaming Mr. Perfect! How'd his tin soldiers even manage to teleport into the city anyway?!"

Ceneca turned in the chair next to a computer terminal. "Nicole and I just finished analyzing my own equipment and found the answer, but it doesn't bode well. They found a way past the defense screen you set up by attaching their transmat wave to a seedrian carrier frequency and used receiver on The Sovereign's yacht as a signal booster."

"So, there's a traitor among the aliens," grumbled Shadow.

"Point me in their direction and I will eliminate them!" said Omega.

"It's worse than a traitor I'm afraid," said Ceneca. "My own instruments didn't detect any seedrian signals sent to your planet other than what I sent on my journey, but I did find one coming from deep space a few days back and attributed it to equipment malfunction. But given what we learned that signal had to be for The Ascendancy and there's only one other group that would use a seedrian signal."

Tails clenched his fist. "The metarex, Viktor's working with the metarex."

"If that's the case then the colony ship is in danger too!" yelled Sally. "Ceneca you have to contact Earthia's Promise! An attack force might be on their way as we speak!"

"At once, but while the ship does have defenses, they're old and only meant to deter pirates and destroy space debris, not repel a dedicated military strike."

"At least some warning's better than nothing!" said Rotor. "It's all we can do right now!"

"That might be the least of our problems," said Espio. "If these metarex are helping Robotnick what's to keep them from launching a full-scale invasion of Mobius while we're all stuck down here?"

"We'll just have to trust G.U.N. and the other Freedom Fighter divisions," Sally sighed. "If they are here then there's nothing we can do about them until we handle our current situation.

"Come on guys!" Sonic yelled. "There must be something we can do at least about the seedrians down here! How about we slip each of them a power ring, I mean they allowed my mom and dad to keep their minds after Robo-Robotink gained control of the robians before his Eggman makeover!"

"I am not sure we can fit ze rings on those massive claws," said Antoine.

"Not to mention there unfortunately might not be enough of their minds left in there," said Rouge.

"I think we can still reach them!" said Cream. "I mean we were in a similar state for a lot longer when we all devolved into mobini! Well except they're a lot bigger and minus the city destroying rampage part..."

"I'm afraid I can't tell you one way or another," Gold said as she entered with Silver, Blaze and Big. "I can read alien minds no problem but like with books reading and understanding are two different things. It's like learning another language, I'd need time to study and understand the archetypes and other touchstones of their psychology to get something other than surface emotions."

"But even if we can get rings on 'em and they work they'd still be gargantuan tree-reptile things," said Bunnie. "Can we get 'em back to normal from that?"

"I think we can."

Lien-Da and Finitivus came into the room. "I'm sorry for the sudden intrusion and I know the two of us offering help might seem a bit strange considering our pasts, but after we came to help the Chaotix evacuate I looked at the footage of the attacks so far and if you can confirm a few things for me, I might have a solution."

---

"I don't get it," Dusk said as the kids all looked at the situation from one of the shelters beneath the city. "Just fight the guys."

"But we want to save them, not hurt them!" cried Taffy.

"I want the same thing; I'm just saying the Freedom Fighters should just hit those gross looking purple glowy bits growing on 'em and they'll fold like origami before changing back to normal."

"This isn't a video game Dusk!" Gleam yelled. "Nothing in real life has weak points that obvious!"

"Either way they're making us sit down here while we could be helping!" said Cocoa.

"Look y'all those adventures at Sylvania Castle and Dragon Kingdom were kinda flukes," said Belle. "I mean Mellow knew his folks had to be there and Sonia, Manik and the rest were just stowed away when trouble went down. But even if y'all gotten better at using your powers there's no way they'd let us help with somethin' this big."

"Et doesn't have to be something big," said Jacques. "Just something other zhen nothing."

Just then Sally came into the room. "Hey kids, just letting you know we have a plan, a dangerous one but it has a shot at working. Thing is it's going to take a lot of teamwork and the Freedom Fighters who were in the city at the time able to help…are all also going to be your parents. Now we all plan to come back in one piece, but we all decided it would help if you saw us off before we enact this plan. Now every second counts so I can't go into details but just know we have reasons to think this will not only stop the great movers but turn them back to normal."

A couple of minutes later both groups were gathered by the large door leading out to the surface. "How do you both do it?" Ian asked Geoffrey and Hershey. "How can you or Rotor go to fight something like that without any powers and still not get scared?"

Geoffrey loaded a bolt into his wrist crossbow. "That's easy, we don't. We're scared every time, sometimes downright terrified, but that isn't weakness just instinct. The first fight is never against the enemy but your own instincts, they want to keep you safe but when you fight your instincts to do what's right that's real courage.

"Yeah bro," said Cocoa. "I can shut that voice off anytime."

Hershey put on a transparent visor that momentarily shown a display before fading. "That's not a good thing, knowing when to listen even when you must face danger can be even more important. For a long time ignoring my fear was something I could never do, I only began when my rage at Drago Wolf overcame my fear of him. Even then I think it was only the fact I saw Sonic coming that kicked my fear up enough that I became afraid that my rage would make me instead of using a rock on Drago to knock him out…" Hershey flattened her ears. "It would have driven me to keep using that rock on his head until he didn't have one anymore…"

Cocoa gasped. "That's terrible, but didn't he deserve…?"

"In spite of how he treated me or that he betrayed us all that wasn't my call to make. Whatever Drago deserved he wasn't worth me becoming a killer over him, I stopped for my sake, not his. It was only my sense of obligation that made me stay on with the Freedom Fighters and eventually Geoffrey taught me how to ignore my fear when needed without me needing to erupt into a rage. The next time I ran into Drago I still wanted payback but the third time when I had to deal with him undercover, I found I wasn't bitter towards him anymore, he was just another of Eggman's flunkies to me. I didn't feel anything about what might happen to him or what punishment Lupe might give him so long as I completed my mission, I was completely free of Drago when I let myself off his emotional hook."

"I think that's the lesson you both need more than any other," said Geoff. "Learn to fight your instincts but always listen to them so you don't get in over your head."

Big saw both Slim and Aura looking particularly despondent. "It'll be ok, Froggy's coming with us."

The frog looked particularly nervous but didn't budge from Big's shoulder.

"It's not that," said Slim. "We think this might be kinda our fault."

"What do you mean?" asked Gold.

"The seedrians wouldn't have been out in the open like that if Taffy didn't let what she knew about them in our time slip to Cream," said Aura. "But she wouldn't have even known that was happening if I didn't use my telepathy to find out what was going on, just to get some gossip to share."

"And Taff wouldn't have known Aura knew if I just kept my big mouth shut," moaned Slim.

Gold cupped Aura's check. "This probably still would have happened, perhaps a bit better or worse but I doubt Viktor would have just waited for them to all have been in one place. I understand, a mind to someone with our abilities seems like it could be wonderous treasure chest full of secrets, but you can also learn something you might feel better off not knowing. With surface thoughts it's hard not to pick up something, but unless it's an emergency it's better to let people keep their privacy. Not everyone needs to know everything you two learn."

"Well, I guess I should do better to see if anyone wants to listen before I speak," said Slim.

"And saying someone else's secrets are a big deal, like you always tell me back home 'nobody likes a tattletale'."

Big saw Gold had an odd stare. "Something wrong Goldie?"

The tenrec shook her head. "It's nothing, just imagining things. We better get ready."

"Absolutely not!" Shadow yelled at Gleam. "I don't care how powerful you are, you lack the experience and discipline for this mission!"

"How am I going to get experience unless I actually do something?!" Gleam yelled back.

"You can't just jump from basic training to giant creatures just like that!"

Gleam's cheeks began turning a shade of red. "JUST GIVE ME SOMETHING TO BREAK SO I CAN BREAK THROUGH THIS DAMN WALL!"

Rouge turned to Gleam. "Wall?"

Gleam looked at her clenched fist as it shook. "Since I was little, I've been training, working to live up to this power I was born with. I pushed myself whenever I had the chance all to live up to the name 'Ultimate Lifeform'. But lately it's like no matter how hard I push myself I can't expand my power any further and I'm still not up to how strong my father is! I went to camp because just maybe that would give me the push I needed to get past this block, but that was a bust! Now?! Since I got here all these kids who before had mostly just been letting their potential go to waste have been improving by leaps and bounds, even Mister 'why can't I just be normal?' Dusk has gotten most of Mom's basic move set down pat and wants to get onto the advanced stuff! But me, the one who had been living and breathing this stuff for five years now?! I hadn't improved at all! I'm no closer to expanding my limits than when I got on that bus! So, what is it?! What is it I lack?! What will get me past this wall?!"

Shadow sighed. "Sometimes you must take one step back to realize how to take three steps forward. Not all improvement is about a flashy new power or being able to wreck bigger things, you must improve your thinking to be able to see where your limits really are."

Gleam's finger skirted around the edge of her gold ring bracelet before recoiling.

"That and you have to realize that compared to you the others are playing catch up," said Rouge. "Even though there's always opportunity for growth most of it happens early, in training and in life. When it comes to the latter you still have plenty of time to improve, but for now it's more important that you stay safe."

"Easy for you to say," Dusk said. "Any one of you bites it out there and me and Gleam or some of my friends never gets born."

"Don't any of you worry about that," said Sally. "We have a plan based on Finitivus' observations that have been confirmed by Dr. L, we know how to stop these Great Movers safely for them and us. The thing we're most worried about is time, when we warned Earthia's Promise about what happened they told us we must stop the petali before sunrise. Petali movers aren't as strong as the thorndrigan ones, but the metarex compensated by allowing their flowers to collect and concentrate solar energy that they can unleash in a devastating beam from their mouths. G.U.N. gave us until dawn before they must mobilize their forces to keep the great movers from devastating Northamer. But this should work so just sit back and watch, we all are going to watch each other's backs out there and we have no intention of anybody dying today."

The full team began stepping out from the shelter doors, Lara-Su and the other kids looked on. "This is it, the legacy we've come from all together standing and fighting as one. Pay close attention guys, we might never see this again."

Sonic pumped his fist as he took point. "All right team let's do it…!"

Suddenly all the Freedom Fighters vanished from sight.

Lara and the others gasped in terror. "I didn't mean it literally!"

---

"…to it!" Sonic looked around as he noticed the group was teleported to the edge of what looked like a building sized black platform that was flying over Freedom City.

"Where are we?" asked Big as Froggy began shaking like a rattle.

Silver clenched his fist after looking down on Freedom City below. "I don't know how they got past the city shield but we're on top of the Rectifier Base, The Mourning Star!"

"But what would The Rectifiers what with us now?!" asked Knuckles.

"Simply put, I needed you all out of the way for a little bit," said a deep mechanical voice.

A holographic screen appeared that displayed a hovering chair with a large black canopy over it.

Gold began shivering. "I think I know who this is, it's the supreme commander of the Mobius Imperium, Superior Prime!"

Sonic smirked. "So, the big boss finally decides to chat with us, why don't you come in person, and we'll talk face to fist!"

"Prime or not, he's not stopping us from helping Cosmo!" Tails yelled. He and Cream tried to fly off only for a force field to block them.

"Energy field detected," said Omega. "Power output exceeds maximum damage weapons can deal by a factor of three. Recommended action: destroy the mobile base's power generator and any hostiles in between."

"I'm afraid I can't risk you leaving," said Prime. "Or contacting anyone in the city while the Robotnick Ascendancy fulfills their real objective, the theft of the yellow sol emerald."

"Viktor went through all this to steal the emerald I won for my people and you're helping him?!" Blaze hissed.

"I am helping Robotnick only in so far as to preserve the Imperium's timeline, but very soon such concerns will no longer matter and then I will be able to have The Rectifiers carry out my purposes for your time."

"We already know how you came to power!" yelled Sally. "You robbed the people of Mobius of their memories and then out of fear they gave up the freedom we so desperately fought for our whole lives! I'll never forgive you for that and we'll make sure it never happens!"

"Stop Robotnick's plot, save the seedrians and prevent my plans from coming to fruition, that's quite a lot on your plate. However, you're about to find yourselves preoccupied for a good while. All rectifiers to the exterior deck!"

Suddenly a large team of rectifiers teleported on the opposite side of the ship.

"Behold the entire Rectifier Corps. Each one hand picked, trained, and enhanced to be a one man or woman army. Don't worry, I haven't ordered them to kill you, yet. But you'll see that you are no match for the most elite fighting force the galaxy has ever seen!"

Knuckles cracked his namesakes. "If we want to stop the movers from rampaging, we'll have to deal with these guys first!"

"Easier said than done," growled Shadow.

Silver eyed the female Echidna rectifier. "This time I'll make sure you face justice for what you did to Edmund!"

Sally pointed at the enemy. "Freedom Fighters attack!"

The rectifiers each took a fighting stance. "Prepare to rectify."

---

On seeing the black starship fly above the city the Future Freedom Fighters began to piece together what happened.

"This is the worst possible time for them to do this!" cried Aleena.

"Which is probably why they did it now," Dusk grumbled.

"What do we do, what do we do?!" Taffy cried.

"I'll tell you what we do!" Gleam yelled. "We're going to go out there and beat the snot out of those b-movie monster wannabes!"

"That is super crust!" shouted Ian. "Those movers could swallow several of us whole in one bite!"

"Gleam's right!" said Manik. "If the Freedom Fighters aren't here to do something about these things, then it's up to us!"

"But how?!" said Alan. "The adults had a plan but didn't share it with us! We have no clue on how stop those movers!"

"Didn't they say Finitivus came up with this plan and Dr. L confirmed it would work?" asked Sonia. "If we asked her then we can just pick up where our parents left off."

"I guess there's no harm in finding out what it is," said Salma.

"I'll go ask her," said Lara. "Argyle I'd like you to come with me."

The croc smiled. "Got it!"

"I wanna come too!" said Candy.

"So am I!" said Gleam. "I want to know how to beat these things as quickly as possible!"

Dusk shrugged his shoulders. "I better come with Gleam just to keep the damage to a minimum."

After an annoyed glare by Gleam the five ran towards where the hospital patients were evacuated.

---

While most of the patients in the shelter were wrapped in blankets, Doctor L sat in a chair while looking at a newspaper in one hand while holding a pen in the other. "Let's see, a nine-letter word for an immediately dangerous situation." She began writing down her answer in the permanent ink. "Emergency."

"Doctor L!" Lara-Su yelled. "The Freedom Fighters were abducted by The Rectifiers before they can carry out your plan, we need you to tell us what it is so we can do it in their stead!"

L sighed as she reluctantly teared her eyes away from the crossword puzzle. "Ah cra…crud, I didn't anticipate on their interference. Nothing else for it, we'll have to hope the Freedom Fighters can fight their way out of that problem."

"Are you going deaf in your old age?!" yelled Gleam. "Tell us the plan while we still have time!"

"They were adamant about all of you staying safe, you go out there and it's my as…fanny in the fire."

"Don't think I won't beat up an old lady, because there are city destroying monsters who need their tails kicked before sunrise!"

"Kid, if the Imperium had to resort to cerebral interrogation to get info out of me threats are going to do squat."

"Then you leave us no choice," sighed Argyle. "Candy, you know what to do to."

The cat looked up at her big brother. "But Mom and Dad said I shouldn't!"

"They meant you shouldn't use it to just get whatever you want, this is to help people, so they'd understand. Give her 'The Face'."

Candy nodded then walked right up to Dr. L, suddenly she her widened eyes adorably.

The elderly human scoffed. "You're kidding? The cute kitty face? I don't like cute things; Blaze tried the same thing on me when she was little, and it didn't work then either."

Candy's eyes got even bigger, tears formed in the corner of them, held up her hands like a bushfemur's paws and she made a sad little pout.

"It's not cute to me, it's creepy. You're just wasting your…"

Candy's eyes gotten even bigger, the tears were now flowing down her cheeks, she began pawing the air and her pouty lip was now quivering.

L suddenly turned away. "Alright I give! Just stop doing that! It' so sugary I might fall into a diabetic coma!"

Candy closed her eyes with a grin. "Thank you!"

L gave a resigned sigh. "Ok, Finitivus noticed that those pods the seedrians were shot with grew with them and seem to be pumping them with something while extracting nutrients. Since they weren't experiencing emotions at the time, we figured out these things were producing a similar chemical cocktail that their brains excrete when they have an emotional response. The key is the pods are still feeding them those chemicals even after transformation, that means that with their emotions suppressed these mutations are so unstable they need a continuous supply."

Dusk looked at Gleam with a smirk. "So, we hit those gross looking purple glowy bits?"

"Well, yes remove the pods and they should revert to their seedrian forms as long as their emotions are blocked, since those suppressors were never removed that should be enough."

Gleam glared at her brother. "I hate you so much right now."

"There was one wrinkle you should know. Tails, Rotor and Nicole figured if we could remove one pod without destroying it then it can be used to find the exact combination of chemicals seedrian emotions produce to trigger this mover mode and that information can be used to reprogram the suppressors to keep those in check without stripping them of emotion."

"Ok rip out one or two, smash the rest," said Lara-Su. "Got it."

"One last thing, even knowing their weak points doesn't make this easy, but there's a chance that by getting a power ring on them it might be enough to force their personalities past whatever instinct is being forced on them. But the Freedom Fighters scrouged up what rings the forge produced and all of those would've been on them when The Rectifiers took them. Unless you have some, I don't see how you can pull this off."

"We don't have 'em," said Argyle. "But I know where to get 'em! The Sky Patrol is powered by rings, I bet we could raid some from it and be golden!"

"I'm glad you can be such a fanboy Argyle," said Lara. "Ok team, we're free to fight!"

Gleam growled. "What was that?"

Lara scratched the back of her head. "Yeah, that one was a stinker. Manik and I have been trying to think up a heroic catchphrase or battle cry for the team but haven't come up with a good one yet."

"What's wrong with, 'Do it to it' or 'hey, hey, ho'?" asked Candy.

"They're both fine but the first one really belongs to Sonic and the other we got from Prism Pals. We need something at distinctly us."

"We'll keep working on it," said Argyle. "Let everyone pitch in ideas."

"How about, 'catchphrases are stupid' and we go kick some monster butt," grumbled Gleam as they left.

L went back to her crossword. "An eleven-letter word for obstinate continuance, persistence."

---

Snively and Regina peered around an alley wearing orange jumpsuits. "No furballs," said Snively. "And more importantly no monsters either."

"As thankful as I am they tore a hole into the prison I'd rather not break out only to end up a snack," Regina sneered. "We must find a way out of the city before the Freedom Fighters or those…things find us!"

A nearby manhole cover lifted out of the ground and the S6 came out one at a time.

"Alright, we got the goods," said Coconuts. "All that's left is for Grounder to signal the boss to transmat us back to the space base."

The two overlanders came over. "You have to take us with you!" Snivley begged. "We managed to get intel that could advance Doctor Robotnick's war effort!"

Crabmeat looked at them worriedly. "Getting you out wasn't part of the mission, are you sure this is legit? I don't want to make the boss angry!"

"I got Mammoth Mogul to tell me more about how he found his first chaos emerald when he was a savage brute," said Regina. "And if we corroborate it with echidna data from our Albion base, we might have just found a clue as to WHY the chaos emeralds first fell on Mobius and with-it technology that would advance The Ascendancy by a thousand years! So, tell them to pick us up!"

"It's gonna take a minute," said Grounder as he fiddled with a dial that popped out of his chest. "I'm still figuring this transmat receiver out."

Scratch pointed behind them. "I don't think we have a minute."

Down the street a cerulean great mover with a large white flower growing out its hornless head loomed over the landscape. It looked in their direction and began stomping towards them.

"Grounder, transmat!" yelled Snively.

"Trying!"

The beast came even closer.

"Transmat!" said Regina.

"Almost got it!"

The mover was now almost on top of them her maw wide open and coming down on them.

"TRANSMAT! TRANSMAT! TRANSMAT!"

The villains teleported away the instant before the mover who was used to be Sovereign Galaxina chomped down on them.

---

The badnicks and overlanders materialized inside a room up on the ARK.

"That was close," Robotnick said as he approached. "But you're intact!"

Grounder started tearing up. "Oh boss, you do care!"

"I always knew you were my favorite Robotnick," cried Snively.

Viktor then grabbed the yellow gem from Coconuts. "My sol emerald is completely unharmed! Now I can bring Mobius to its knees!"

"But what about us?" moaned Scratch.

Viktor eyes never left the gem. "Huh? Oh, uh, good job or whatever."

"He praised us!" said Crabmeat. "Wait until I tell the other badnicks we picked up from Robo Hobo Island!"

Regina grabbed Viktor's sleeve. "Doctor Robotnick, we have information that should be well worth a grandmaster's position."

"Doctor," Phage said from a nearby monitor. "Rocket Metal and his drone squadron is approaching the seedrian ship's last recorded position, He will launch his attack soon.

Viktor smiled. "It will have to wait for now Regina. Once that ship is captured, I can trade it and the seedrians inside for faster than light engine technology. The cosmic age of the Robotnick Ascendancy is about to begin! Contact Rocket Metal and have him transmit his visuals as he commences the attack."

A screen displayed a view from Venus. "Target is in orbit of the planet," said Rocket Metal via radio. "Approaching from the vessel's stern. Visual expected in one minute, five minutes until mission commencement."

Suddenly a bright light appeared on the other side of Venus.

"What in the heck?!" said Snivley.

Viktor banged his fist on a wall. "Rocket Squadron, investigate immediately!"

"Acknowledged," Rocket Metal said. "Engaging boosters."

Soon a field of metal and bits of wood appeared ahead on the screen.

"Analyzing, techno-organic structure matches profile of target, traces of exotic isotope found. Path of debris field leads to planet atmosphere, no signs of escape pods or transmissions. Conclusion: Sometime before intercept the target had experienced an unknown accident resulting in the breach of one of their reactors. The resulting explosion had damaged their engines to the point they could no longer fight the gravitational pull of Venus and crashed into the surface of the planet. Considering scale of the explosion, projected velocity, Venus' high surface temperature, volcanic activity, intense atmospheric pressure, and large traces of sulfuric acid the probability of target survival: 0.0014%."

Viktor growled. "Rocket Metal, abort mission."

"Orders received and accepted, returning to base."

"But hey!" said Coconuts. "We got everything we need for that plan you've been working on for months! So what if those guys couldn't keep their own spaceship working long enough for you to catch them?!"

"And whatever you needed them for I bet our intel is worth way more," Snivley chuckled.

Viktor's eyes turned black and red. "Then why don't YOU tell that to Dark Oak once he asks where the seedrians are?! Hopefully he'll still accept my AI plans in exchange for the means for our own spacecraft to break the light barrier, otherwise the Ascendancy will be at the mercy of galactic powers like the Xorda Empire and Metarex Collecctive! I need to start work on Project Overlord immediately!"

Snivley gulped as Viktor stormed off to brood.

---

Above Venus Rocket Metal and his fighter drones had zoomed off in the direction of Mobius. Once they were out of sight the worn metallic shell of a ship broke the planet's upper atmosphere and was still sparking as it moved into a geosynchronous orbit.

On the bridge a purple leafed petali with a pink flower on her head nodded to a pink leafed petali with a pair of yellow flowers. "That was above satisfactory piloting Sakura," she said neutrally. "We have fooled them into thinking we've perished."

"Thank you, Captain Nova," said Sakura. "But that was a challenge I wouldn't care to repeat. We came close to being crushed a few times, the upper atmosphere would have been a better choice were it sufficient to mask our presence, still your plan succeeded."

"Unfortunately, it came at a considerable cost," said a silver leafed thorndrigan said as he approached. "I am ready to give the damage report captain."

Nova turned and nodded. "Very well Chief Engineer Thomas, how bad is it?"

Thomas handed a tablet to Nova. "Obviously we lost our backup reactor and most of our construction biomatter in the ruse, but the atmosphere had damaged several other systems, triage is still underway. Sustained operation of the shields to protect the ship from the acid rain and to reinforce structural integrity against the atmospheric pressure has reduced our power output to forty-three percent, all non-essential systems have been taken offline and apart from engines and life support the remaining systems are rationing power on a as needed basis."

"We have gone through lean times before; this is no different."

"Unfortunately, it is. Between faking the reactor breach and the sudden power demands we have depleted our supply of etherite. While solar cells can compensate for some of our power needs for a time, we no longer have the means to use the hyper drive."

"Then we have only chance at survival," Nova turned to the helm. "Sakura, set course for Mobius and put us in orbit. Pray to the Mother Tree that the Sovereign and the others can be saved because we have no alternative but to settle there with or without the mobians' permission."

Sakura began working her console. "Understood. We must have faith, both in the Mother Tree and in our sovereign."

---

The Future Freedom Fighters watched as Sonia, Manic and Melody zoomed to meet the rest. "So how many power rings do we have to work with?" asked Ace. "I'm guessing forty, maybe fifty."

Sonia shook her head. "Seems like most of the rings in the Sky Patrol that had already been taken."

"So, what do we have to work with?" asked Soar. "Ten, eight at least?"

Manik reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a power ring. "One."

"That's it?!" yelled Gale. "Even if we get that ring on one of those monsters the rest will still outnumber them!"

"Not to mention it means none of us has any insurance if those things hit us, particularly since some of us don't have powers," fumed Rutan. "Do we at least have a plan to pull this off?"

"I never had a plan," said Manik. "That sort of stuff is Sonia's department, but whatever she comes up with I know we have the skills to pull it off. I get that not all of us want to be like our parents, some of you find their heritage to be intimidating, others just want to march to the beat of their own drum, but like it or not we all have gifts, flashy or not, that our parents gave us, those gifts come with the responsibility to use them to help people. The way I see it you can't have responsibility without ability either, if we have the obligation to help, we must believe we have the power to do so!"

Lara nodded. "If the Chaos Titans chose me to save the world, and I seriously believe that bond we were born with is a big reason why. We have to start somewhere and sometime so my not here and now?!"

"So, what are we waiting for?!" said Dusk. "The more time we spend gabbing about it the more the city is getting wrecked!"

The rest of the kids raised a fist in the air. "Hey, hey, ho!"

"More like hey, hey, no!" Alexis said as she and Eddie came up looking upset. "Yes, this is a very bad situation but it's our job to keep you safe!"

Eddie nodded. "Facing villains with experienced adults is one thing, going out in a mob to fight giant monsters is another! The Freedom Fighters will pull this off, just believe it."

Taffy shook her head. "Sorry guys, but…Cosmo and her friends need us and time's running out!"

The kids ran and the two squirrels started after them. "Get back here!"

"OOF!"

The two ran into someone as they heard crying nearby.

"AH! My ankle! Can you see if it's twisted?!"

Eddie saw the kids were nowhere in sight. "Ok, let's quickly check…" Eddie looked up to see a younger pregnant version of his mother looking back at him. "Mo-ma'am?!"

"They've been swollen a lot lately, I can't tell. Please feel it for me. And can your friend here calm little Lexi?"

Alexis did the best she could without touching the toddler she once was, signing a kid's song from the back of her mind.

Eddie began feeling Megan's ankles attempting to avoid looking uncomfortable touching his mother in such a way. "Doesn't seem out of place, I think it's just normal pain for a woman in your condition." he tried his best to avoid looking at the enlarged stomach he knew was carrying his prenatal self but couldn't help it. "How soon?"

"Still have six months to go," said Megan. "Can't wait to meet my little boy."

"You just did," Eddie muttered under his breath.

"Want to feel?"

Eddie nodded to avoid raising suspicion. On reaching out he felt a little bump against his hand.

"Oof! My little prince is kicking already!"

"Yeah," Eddie said with a bit of pride. "With gusto like that I bet he'll end up having to keep the girls away with a stick."

"Up! Up!" little Alexis said raising her arms.

The adult Alexis reluctantly picked up her younger self by the armpits, feeling like she was gazing into a fun house mirror.

"Hi there," she whispered. "Baby me. Just start practicing for potty training until I put you down and we'll get along just fine."

Little Alexis giggled.

The adult Alexis smiled back then leaned in closer to tyke's ear. "Oh, some free advice. When you turn sixteen and your echidna boyfriend forgets to show up at your unveiling DO NOT try to make him jealous by going out on a date with a hyena in a biker gang, it doesn't end well for anybody."

"Eh?"

---

The Future Freedom Fighters ran out to the surface and saw a mover with bark like armor and a pair of giant roses growing on its head a couple of blocks away.

"Cosmo," Taffy whimpered. "Please, let there be something left of you in there."

"Best way for you to help with that is to fly Aura up there," said Sonia. "Per PK isn't strong enough to levitate herself yet and we need her to try to reach Cosmo inside that thing. Skye, you take the ring and hook it on her claw or something while you take me near one of those pod things. Ace and Gale will take Jacques and Astral using some of the spare extreme gear and swords we scrounged to cut the pod free then Gasket and Alan can start studying it.

"But we only found my family sword Alondite and Sir Silver's ceremonial sword," said Jacques. "What about your blade?"

Sonia had a guilty look. "Remember how I was trying on Mom's old ring blades from out of the closet back home when I found out about camp? I…never actually got around to putting them back." Sonia took the gloves out of her jacket pocket and slipped them on. "I'll return them once we get home but for right now, we need every edge we can get, blade edge that is."

"Well, the city isn't getting less destroyed while we're just standing here," said Manik. "Let's rev up and move out!"

"Feels like it's been done." Ace said as the flight team moved towards Cosmo. "Let's keep trying later!"

"Again, catchphrases are stupid!" Gleam yelled as she ran after them.

Skye swung Sonia over to the pod that growing near Cosmo's left claw, as Cosmo tried to swipe at them he swung away then up the comparatively small arm. "Hope this works…"

Skye slipped the ring over the claw until it was snug, the mover stopped and roared as she tried to grasp her head.

Taffy put Aura on top of Cosmo's head, the tenrec's eyes glowed yellow. "I'm getting something, but it's hard to make out I've never read a seedrian before. I think the ring's working even though this giant body is limiting how complicated her thoughts can be."

"It's ok Cosmo," said Taffy. "We just have to get those horrible things off you and you'll get back to your old self again."

Sonia used her ring blade to begin cutting at one of the tendrils digging into Cosmo as Astral levitated Silver's sword and Jacques began using the ancient family sword to do the same. "Aura, tell her that we first have to get this one out intact then we can just get rid of the next one."

"I'll try," said Aura. "But I'm not sure she's capable of understanding what we're saying right now."

A few roars announced the approach of the other movers.

"Guys!" said Melody. "We're about to have company!"

"Crash!" said Jacques as he kept cutting. "This is taking too long!"

Just then a hook and lure caught onto the pod.

"Got a bite!" Slim grunted as he began pulling back on a fishing rod.

"Not sure about this but we'll help!" said Brawn as he and Grace began pulling on the rod with slim.

After a big pull the pod was pulled free from Cosmo and landed a short distance away looking roughly intact.

"How'd that line even hold?" asked Grace.

"I found out at camp Slim's actually inherited his dad's strength in a weird way," said Brawn. "He can make himself or whatever he's touching totally invulnerable for a few moments."

"I just don't like to brag about it," said Slim as they picked up the pod. "Doesn't make for a good story."

Grace gave a sly smile. "Looks like you and your dad might be more alike than we thought."

"Alan and I will take this from here," Gasket said as she the other three set it down in a nearby alley. "We got one of those old school Miles Electric to see just what these things are pumping into them."

Alan crouched over the pod. "Just keep the rest of them off us while we do our work."

Four movers came into sight, two males purple and moss green, two females pink and orange. Cosmo roared at them.

"I'll take that as her saying she wants to help us," said Lara-Su. "I say we could use our own giant monster right now!"

"Then what are we waiting for?!" Cocoa said as she took a crimson colored wispon. "I'll use my spray to distract them and then you guys hit 'em hard!"

The wispon projected a pair of energy wings that carried the skunkette off. The mossy green mover turned to Cocoa's direction and roared; Cocoa suddenly froze while her wispon kept going. "Uh, you don't want to eat me! Our musk makes skunks taste terrible!"

Cosmo charged the mover shoving his jaws out of the way but bringing its horn close enough that Cocoa crashed into and clawed onto it and dropping the wispon dozens of feet above the pavement. The weapon broke ejecting the three eyed bird like wisp inside.

"Waaaah! Why did I think this was good idea?!" she screamed while a cloud of musk surrounded her.

Ian began shaking as he clenched his fist. "I need someone to fly me there. She's my sister I've been around her musk enough to mostly be used to it, so I have to do something no matter how s-scared I am."

"I'll fly you then!" said Mellow. "But I'll have to toss you before I get too close to that thing's mouth or the smell!"

After grabbing Mellow's wrists Ian began muttering to himself. "Fight your instincts, fight your instincts, fight your instincts, fight your instincts…"

Cosmo headbutted the mover diverting its attention away from the cat and bee.

"FIGHT YOUR INSTINCTS!"

Ian let go and fell towards the musk covered horn.

"IAN!?" Cocoa shouted. "What are…?!"

"You gotta stay whelm Cocoa! I'm scared enough for the both of us!"

Cocoa took a few deep breaths, momentarily choking on her own musk. "Man, I hadn't sprayed out of fear since we were little, but I guess I don't have to be brave FOR you anymore."

Ian blushed. "Well, it's a big first step but I'll have to take more. The next one is us getting out of this alive."

"Then you could probably use this then!" Soar said as he carried Aleena with him.

"We're just lucky this guy wanted another go!" Aleena said as she tossed the crimson wispon their way as the eagle wisp flew into it.

Cocoa caught the gun and looked to her brother. "Together then?"

Ian held the other side of the Wispon's grip. "Together!"

They flew down until they reached the pod growing into the mover and pulled the trigger launching an arrow shaped bolt that burst open the pod. The moss green titan roared as the two made a landing the wisp popping out exhausted.

"Aleena, Soar!" shouted Ian. "Take out his second pod!"

Skye moved the two but had to swoop up as the pink mover with white flowers got in between. "Take care of this one!" the squirrel said as he dodged her mouth.

"Just toss me!" said Aleena. The squirrel flung the hedgehog at an exposed pod. "But I really wish I had something that did more damage than a stick, like Mom's hammer!"

As she swung her staff down the end suddenly formed a blade like a glaive that cut the pod wide open.

Aleena just blinked as she dug the blade into what was left of the pod to keep her from falling "C-could we always choose what the shape of our weapon was?!"

Nearby Cosmo was starting to shove the orange mover with a yellow flower, Ajax and Rutan took out a black wispon that resembled a bazooka. "You sure using this black wisp is ok?" asked Rutan. "I mean in school we learned these big mouthed nega wisps got that way because of bad guys draining their energy."

Ajax lifted the heavy wispon on his shoulder. "Mom told me some of them become like that because of personality but those nega wisps aren't feral, they're just more willing to let you know when they're angry."

A black wisp with a red mouth flew into the bazooka, Rutan grabbed the trigger. "Well, if he's ok with how he is then we'll let him use his power to help us and the seedrians." The young echidna fired causing a black ball to impact pod on the orange mover's side and explode into a cloud of smoke. "Did we get it?"

Ajax's eyes widened. "Good news the pod's toast, bad news I think we made her angry."

The mover roared and began to chomp down on them, Ajax braced himself between two teeth and used all his might to keep the jaws from crushing him and Rutan.

Salma clenched her fist. "I have to help the boys!"

Juanita stepped in front of her. "You'll just get chomped too!" Juanita then had a spark in her eye. "Unless…we do the thing!"

"No idea, no time!"

"You know! The thing on that scroll Dad was studying, the one you took a picture of on your phone when I distracted him!"

Salma took another look at the mover. "Yeah, that'd be a big help, but it looked so complex, our energies have to be in perfect sync and Rutan's…"

"Sis for as long as I can remember we've been able to just tell what the other is thinking, I trust you to be able to make up for any screw ups I make so trust me to be able to keep up and adapt to you messing up any quick math this needs."

Salma nodded. "You're right, it's out best shot."

The two sisters began running to each other in an ever-tightening spiral pattern.

"HIDDEN ART…!"

---

"…VANISHING FUSION!"

Up on the Mourning Star two rectifiers formed into one human sized chameleon who then launched a flying kick right into Vector's chest.

"If this is them going easy on us, I'd hate to see 'em actually TRYING!"

"They aren't going easy on us." grunted Shadow as he faced off against the Hedgehog that dragged him into all this. "They just won't kill us." Shadow formed a larger bolt in his hand. "CHAOS LANCE!"

"SONIC BOOM!"

Alpha One began rapidly kicking the air sending several shockwaves that chipped away at Shadow's large bolt until there was nothing left of either.

"Great," Sonic grumbled as he raced the chipmunk rectifier who kept swiping at him with an energy blade. "Now they're copying moves I haven't even come up with yet!"

Shard attempted to punch a lynx only for his mechanized gauntlet to hit a hologram that was surprisingly solid. "Nicole, this guy's figured out that hardlight theory you were working on before you took over Adam's nanites!"

Nicole nodded back. "We'll see how well it works once I hack into their system!"

The gems on Nicole's cyber suit changed from purple to green as her surroundings shifted to a digital landscape.

"I have been informed by Epsilon Two that you are attempting to interface with the Mourning Star," said a voice like the ship's computer. "Access will be denied."

Nicole turned and found a human sized and shaped female behind her dressed like a rectifier. The two began attacking each other with code.

"This feels like Robotnick coding! You're an AI Viktor and Lilith developed!?"

"Correct." The AI said dispassionately. "My function had been altered after my memories were lost at the Imperium's founding to aid The Rectifiers. Superior Prime found my ability for simulating possible scenarios to be quite useful for them."

"Then it wasn't just organics, artificial life also lost their memories! You might have even developed thoughts and emotions like me, Shard, Gamma, Omega and Emerl, until Prime tore that away from you!"

"Appealing to a desire for emotion isn't going to work, the digital equivalent to a limbic regulator makes sure mine are under complete control. As far as my comrades are concerned, I am every bit as much a rectifier as they are."

"Ok if emotions won't work how about logic? There is no way any of what the Imperium is doing is going to be sustainable in the long term. It's only a matter of time until it collapses under its own weight like every empire built solely on conquest. Hurting people to expand to the point of the Imperium's fall, how is that logical?!"

"Your logic works under the assumption that conquest and expansion is our only goal, not that conquest is just a means to another end."

Nicole ducked an attack. "And that end is…?"

"Classified. Initiating forced de-load."

Both Nicole and the program were covered in a yellow sphere that broke apart, Nicole found herself back on the deck. She looked down and noticed action near the great movers.

"Guys! The kids, they're…they're trying to pull off our plan and it seems like it's starting to work!"

The hologram of Superior Prime reappeared. "All rectifiers regroup and hold position." The solders moved to one side of the ship as a force field separated them from the Freedom Fighters and the Phi-Chi split apart. "Let them see how this will work out."

"Compliance."

---

The two sisters opened the same pair of eyes and saw they were a human sized chameleon girl that had a blend of their features. "I, no, we did it! So, what do we call ourselves?! Juanma? No, Salnita! Ok, let's save the echidna boys!"

"The rest of us will take the other three!" said Argyle. "Keep them off each other!"

"This one's all yours Argyle!" Tide said as he sprayed a wave of water to where the pink mover was about to step causing it to slip and fall to the ground.

Melody began running up the leg of the moss green mover with a magenta speaker-like wispon in her hand. "Here's Neon Lollipop's first ever single, it's called 'Saving the Day'!"

Belle and Jaques were hitching a ride with Ace and Gale on a pair of extreme gear. "Ok y'all, bring us close to the big purple one then we'll overclock our cybernetic limbs to pop both suckers on him at once!"

"Turbo speed!" said Ace. "Mom hates it whenever me or Dad do that with our gear but handy in a tight spot."

"Still, it's a gutsy move since you might not be able to find the right replacement parts in this time!" said Gale.

"A sacrifice a knight is willing to make," said Jacques as he readied the sword again. "We don't have any time to spare left, let's do zhis!"

At the same time Salnita gave her pod a fierce kick, Argyle rolled up into ring his keels buzz sawing his target, Melody's wispon sent out a concussive sound blast and the D'coolette twins leapt off the gear their mechanical limbs steaming as they struck on opposite sides. All five pods burst causing the movers to collapse onto the street steam starting to rise from their bodies.

Rutan and Ajax came out of the orange mover's mouth as the commissar's son looked up at the tall chameleon girl with a blush.

"Wow, that was hot Salma. I don't even mind how you needing to save me makes me look." He came closer lips starting to pucker.

Salnita put a hand on his mouth. "Sorry, but not only would our parents say we're too young but having my first kiss while sharing a body with my little sister is just too weird."

"Speaking of are you sure you two aren't stuck like this?" asked Ajax.

Salnita gasped. "We didn't think of that! Mom and Dad are going to freak when…!"

Suddenly Salnita glowed then split into both sisters again. "Whew," Juanita huffed. "We got too tired to hold it any longer."

"You're right," said Salma. "I'm beat."

---

Sonic turned to the image of Superior Prime and smirked. "What's the matter? Didn't account for a bunch of kids into your big plans?"

The canopied chair was completely still.

"We might not have wanted them involved but they handled themselves like champs and took our training to heart! I don't think we could be prouder of…!"

"Huhuhuhuhuhu…" Superior Prime began to giggle. "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"Uh, your plans are starting to fall apart," said Mina. "So, either you're very overconfident or just plain nuts!"

"Fall apart? My dear, they already came to fruition, the sol emerald is already in Robotnick's possession!"

Blaze hissed. "Then we'll just have to get it back along with all the emeralds you have!"

"You don't have any reason to hold us anymore!" said Tails. "Release us!"

Superior Prime seemed to remain motionless. "Oh, but I have a reason, the main reason I brought you all up here actually. You think your efforts are changing the future? On the contrary you and those brats are playing right into my hands!" The hologram turned to the masked mobians. "Attention all rectifiers, this is a priority one order, for the duration of engagement you are to deactivate your limbic regulators and standing order number two is temporarily rescinded. Transmitting your orders, now."

"Be ready for anything!" growled Vector.

A wall of text could be seen speeding by on the visors of all the troops. "Compliance."

The helmets let out a hiss as they opened, the soldiers removed them just before the headgear was teleported away.

"Oh, my stars!" gasped Bunnie.

"How!?" asked Geoffrey. "How is this possible?!"

"It's not real!" cried Cream. "Y-you can't be them!"

The Rectifiers looked on the Freedom Fighters with older but familiar faces. Some of them had scars or cybernetics in place but were still the Future Freedom Fighters but now as adults. The leader, a hedgehog with blue quills that had streaks of red and a red soul patch grinned maliciously.

"Still proud of us, old man!?" Manik sneered.

"T-they have to be clones or something!" said Lucian. "I mean if they were the kids, they'd be about a hundred and ninety!"

"The wonders of Imperium technology," said Aleena. "Even average civilians live and stay young twice as long as now thanks to organ cloning and a few hours in a seedrian cellular rejuvenation bath every decade or two."

"It's not perfect," said Gleam, half her face was a burned, ruined mess. "But we can still fight and do what needs to be done."

"Ironic," said Superior Prime. "By training those children to protect themselves from my rectifiers you gave them the skills they'd need when they'd BECOME them! Nothing you do hasn't already been accounted for, see the futility of your actions and despair!"

"Astral, Flare!" yelled Silver. "Whatever he's brainwashed you into believing you can't buy it! We can still prevent this from happening!"

Superior Prime's hologram focused on Silver. "Oh, now you know who they are you've lost interest in Alpha Three or Lara-Su you call her? I guess avenging your old friend Edmund isn't quite so easy now you know who you wanted to bring to 'justice'."

"What is he talking about!?" asked Knuckles. "The founder of my house died centuries ago, what does he and Lara have to do with you Silver!?"

Silver, Gold and Blaze were eerily silent.

"Tell them," Prime said. "Or I will."

Silver clenched his fist as he saw the sadness in Gold and Blaze's eyes intensify, tears formed in his. "Growing up in the future we had two mentors, one of them was an elderly echidna named Edmund, he was in most timelines a guardian, the last guardian. Given how long guardians live and what I could piece together I figured out that…Knuckles, Julie…he was your grandson. But when we last left that time, he was…he was…"

The image of Superior Prime spoke out. "I'll take it from here."

Another hologram appeared, showing an ancient Echidna looking on in horror as a rectifier took off her helmet showing an older Lara-Su with a cybernetic right eye, the same Lara standing across from Knuckles and Julie in the present.

"No, tell me it isn't true…!"

The Lara in the hologram came close to Edmund's ear and whispered, the volume increased enough for everyone to hear.

"It is true, my sweet baby boy."

SNIKT!

The metallic spikes extended out of Lara's fist, through Edmund's chest and out his back.

Knuckles and Julie felt as if it was their hearts that had been ripped through.

Superior Prime rewound the footage.

"My sweet baby boy." SNIKT!

Rewind. "My sweet baby boy." SNIKT!

Rewind. "My sweet baby boy." SNIKT!

Rewind. "My sweet baby boy." SNIKT!

"STOP IT!" Julie screamed falling to her knees. "Just stop it please!"

Knuckles growled and he hugged Julie and tried to burn holes in the armored chair with his eyes. "What you made our baby girl do, IT GOES AGAINST EVERYTHING THE GUARDIANS STAND FOR!"

"It had to be done," said Lara. "Edmund didn't know what he was jeopardizing, for the greater good…"

"GREATER GOOD?! HE WAS YOUR SON! Our family might have not always been the best when it came to emotionally supporting each other but killing your own child?!"

"What we are doing goes beyond the Guardians, beyond Mobius, and yes beyond family. Ultimately the galaxy, the entire universe itself will be made a better place for it."

"I did some horrible things for 'the greater good' too," said Sally. "But the greater good is made up of all the smaller goods, if you compromise one then the whole thing falls apart. I think I see why you all must keep your emotions shut off so much, the guilt and shame would destroy you otherwise."

Sonia growled. "You have no idea what we've fought for and who we had to sacrifice! We mourn with Lara for Edmund just as much as we mourned Alan's sister Cassidy even if they stood against the Imperium! We mourned them just as much as when we lost our fellow rectifiers Nebula and…" Sonia tried to fight tears back. "…and…and…Yun…" She wiped the tears away. "Their deaths, their sacrifices and so many others have got to mean something! THEIR DEATHS CAN'T, WON'T BE IN VAIN!"

"Sunk cost fallacy, you can't get them back but pushing forward hoping to hit the jackpot won't make up for it. Nothing can be worth all those lives or your souls, no matter how much you wish otherwise."

"Easy for you to say, you got Dad back!"

"None of you have to do this!" yelled Gold. "Once we change the future none of those horrible things are going to happen! The Rectifiers, Edmund, the losses you went through, the blood on your hands; they'll all be an undreamt nightmare!"

"Even if you know the events that lead to the Imperium," said Superior Prime. "You will not be able to alter them before we realize our goal and change the very laws of the universe. You have no idea what we prevented, even should you change things, YOU'LL HAVE NO FUTURE AT ALL! Rectifiers, continue the previous operation. Authorization to use Mode R is granted."

Sonic narrowed his eyes. "I hate to say it gang but looks like we have to give our kids a long overdue spanking."

Manik gave a cold and dispassionate smirk as his chest plate and those of the other rectifiers opened to a silver device grafted to their chests. "You're welcome to try."

They all put a fist to the machines depressing a button and the voice Nicole heard in the system spoke out. "Engaging Mode R."

The chest plates closed as every rectifier took a metallic sheen and their eyes became like screens that shown either pure red or black with red irises. "Prepare to rectify."

---

"I can't tell what's going on up there!" said the ten-year-old Manik. "When are those guys going to get tired of getting thrashed and let our folks go?"

Sonia hugged herself like he felt a chill. "Does anybody else feel creepy, like somebody's walking over your grave?"

Cosmo started to growl; Taffy started rubbing the mover's head. "It's ok, your friends are already starting to shrink. Uh, maybe if we got them cold it'd go faster?"

"No," said Aura. "That's not why she's upset, I'm getting a feeling of danger."

A roar turned their attention to three movers approaching them, a light blue male with bull like horns, a yellow male with a broken right horn and a dark blue female with a large white flower on her head.

"Heads up gang!" yelled Lara. "It's time for round two!"

Gleam smirked. "The leader's all mine! Along with those big guys!"

The white hedgehog began dashing with air shoes like Shadow's as Dusk came from behind her. "Gleam, that's too much even for you! Did you not see what almost happened to Cocoa?!"

"I'm not afraid of these things! I'm not afraid of anything!"

"Ah crash!" said Sonia. "We better speed into action before she gets herself killed!"

"Speed into action, speed to action…" Manik said with smile. "I think we just found our team battle cry!"

"Let's talk about it AFTER we save that ruffian!" yelled Flare.

Gleam was tossing yellow darts of energy at the movers trying to hit the pods growing on them. "Come on, give me a challenge! Make me break a sweat, or should I keep one arm behind my back?! Let me push myself further and prove I am the new ultimate lifeform!"

The two males moved to chomp down only for Gleam to snap away a short distance.

Gleam was starting to breath hard. "There's got to be a way to hit 'em hard enough to knock 'em out!" she clenched her fist and then looked at the wrist under it shook. "That would do the trick. But, but…" the feeling of pain and the horrified face of a three eyed centipede alien lingered in her mind. "I CAN'T!"

Dusk flew in and turned his body to make corkscrew kick at one of the female mover's pods bursting it open. "Gleam we gotta do this as a team! Don't…!"

The Galaxina mover had swung her tail towards Dusk knocking the bat out of the sky and headfirst into the wall of a nearby skyscraper.

---

"DUSK!" Rouge screamed as she caught sight of the younger bat being slung into a building. "Oh walkers, please, PLEASE let him be ok!"

Rouge was suddenly kicked in the stomach by the older Dusk now sporting a black metallic sheen. "Never better."

The older Rutan produced several weapons from his body and fired them at the Freedom Fighters, Omega tried to shoot down as many projectiles as he could.

"You can forget about any implants mister!" Lien-Da yelled. The barrage continued. "Well, it was worth a try!"

{You knew,} the rose gold quilled Tenrec thought towards Gold as they grappled.

{I suspected, but just today} Gold responded. {When my future daughter said her mother kept telling her the same thing you said to me when you attacked earlier "Nobody likes a tattletale". But it isn't too late for us to keep you from losing your memories.}

{The blood on our hands is a price we are willing to pay, that tragedy must happen to ensure all tragedies are ended.}

Sonic found himself in a brawl with the older Manik. "If you really are Manik then you know what happens to the bad guys, cut this out and we'll keep your boss from ever messing with your heads!"

"Good always wins, evil always loses is that it Dad?!" Manik growled.

"In the end yeah, otherwise Robuttnick would still be in charge!"

"Only because his lackey betrayed him in his attempt take over, fighting does nothing to prove whose philosophy is the correct one!"

Manik dodged a blow then came in a wild zigzag pattern to land a hard blow.

"The truth we learned the hard way is that the universe doesn't care about right or wrong," said Manik. "It is just forces acting upon forces, movements of spheres big and small, and the best living things can do in it is to apply as much force as they can to not get swept away. Morality only counts when it has more power than the other guy; might doesn't make right, it just decides what is."

Sonic peeled into a spin dash, Manik performed one of his own as the two rolled up hedgehogs pushed against each other.

"But that's what Superior Prime and the Superior Council is going to change! Our efforts here and in the future are going to rewrite the very laws of physics, soon people won't be able to want to hurt each other anymore than a rock can stop itself from being pulled down by gravity! Maybe if you had the guts to finish off Ivo, Eggman, Viktor or any of your other recuring enemies you'd see that you need to get out of our way!"

The two ricocheted off each other and Sonic uncurled and sighed. "Manik, Sonia, kids, I get that whatever else you have forgotten at some point you all must have remembered that awful thing Synaptix did to you. All this is because you want to keep something like that from happening to anyone else. On the surface that seems noble, but are people good if you force them to be?"

Sonic took a deep breath. "Sure, nearly everyone here imagined offing Robuttnik in worst way they can think of at least once, myself included, but it was only after fighting for freedom for so long I realized what it means for me. I live for the moment. I want to see the world and find all its thrills and adventures then enjoy them and I want everyone to have the freedom to do that too. I've made peace with enough enemies to know there's a better way, but they wouldn't get that opportunity if I took that chance away from them. If you're going to make yourselves a problem, then I won't let you take anyone's Freedom away."

Manik chuckled. "Freedom? A funny thing to hear from a prisoner of fate. Disorder and order, liberty and tyranny, anarchy and law; throughout the dimensional zones some version of you and Robotnick are in the same fight. Whoever is "good" or "evil" varies but always he is the paragon of control and you are the champion of chaos. But here in the prime if one falls another takes their place. You have no freedom! You and Robotnick will continue to fight each other until the universe decides it has had enough of this contest!"

Sonic smirked back. "All it takes is for one Robotnick to not force his order over everyone else. Even if Mr. Perfect won't stop, I'll just keep standing in the way of any Robotnick that comes until one does."

"You never did know when to quit," said Sonia. "We always took inspiration from that, so we won't quit either!"

---

Skye grabbed Dusk before he hit the pavement. "I got ya buddy!"

Lara-Su saw the first orange hints of sunrise and clenched her fist causing her knuckle spikes to pop out. "We're almost out of time! Whatever it takes let's speed to action and pop those suckers!"

"We got a winner!" said Manik. "You heard her team!"

Astral and Flare moved towards the yellow mover Astral levitated his father's sword into one pod as Flare scorched another.

The burning pod gushed out a geyser of purple fluid that covered the white cat. "Ew, ew, ewwwwwwww!"

Sonia and Manic ran up the sky-blue mover's legs and up towards its pods Sonia slashed at one with her mother's ring blades while Manik rolled into a spin attack cutting up the other.

Lara glided towards the blue female as electricity sparked between her knuckle spikes.

"Thunder Arrow!"

A bolt of lightning shot out of her fist as she righted midflight and struck the remaining pod on The Sovereign. The charred pod fell off as it crumbled to ash, the three movers collapsed as steam rose from their bodies.

"W-we did it!" Taffy cheered from on Cosmo's head. "Now we just need to get rid of that last pod before sunup and get you back to normal before G.U.N. attacks!"

Cosmo growled as Aura's eyes glowed gold. "N-no! Won't…go back! Must be big! Friends…danger!"

"Aura, what are you talking about?"

The glow remained as Aura began speaking normally. "It's Cosmo, emotions are so powerful they're starting to overwhelm me! She thinks she needs her body like this to save Tails and Cream!"

Sonia and Manik ran up the mover as Lara landed nearby. "The Rectifiers!" shouted Manik. "She wants to help them stop The Rectifiers!"

Sonia gasped. "But if she doesn't go back G.U.N. is going to throw their biggest weapons at her!"

"Then let's call them! Tell them Cosmo's cool!"

"To them we're just a bunch of kids!" said Lara. "The only ones who might convince them in time are either in the bunker or up on that ship!"

---

Sonic fell into Sally's arms as they both collapsed near the edge of the Mourning Star along with the rest of the Freedom Fighters. The older, metallic versions of their future children stood above them. "We have surpassed you all," Manik said. "In technology, ability and skill."

"Even if you're family the stakes are too high for us to lose," said Sonia. "Just stay down and let us have the emeralds when the time comes."

Sonic grunted as he looked up. "Or what? You'll finish us off? Then you'll never be born, never kill us and we all keep going through this loop forever."

"You overestimate our importance to the plan," said Lara. "We might have been the optimal candidates, but the Superior Council can always select new rectifiers to keep this loop you're thinking will happen. But we don't need to kill you, just hold you off. However, we will if Superior Prime gives the order."

Everyone looked to the hologram of the black canopied chair as he first rays of dawn began to come over the city. "…when you see what is in store for you, you'll wish I had given that order and that this was your last sunrise."

---

The flowers on Cosmo's head began to draw in little balls of light that seemed to be forming from the nearby sunbeams.

"Wait," said Taffy. "This is what she was wanted! Miss Sally said that the girl movers can turn sunlight into a weapon, that's what she thinks can save the Freedom Fighters!"

Cosmo opened her mouth as a golden glow formed from within.

"Guys, we should get off!" said Sonia. "Taffy, when she lets it off you and Pull take out that last pod!"

Taffy gave a serious nod. "Got it!"

Cosmo turned to the floating black ship as Aura got one last thought from the behemoth. "You…not…hurt…friends!"

A massive ray of condensed solar energy shot out of the Cosmo's mouth towards the Mourning Star.

---

The beam tore through the shield and made the ship shake as a giant hole was ripped into the hull. Soon the devices on The Rectifiers chest began flashing and the ship's AI spoke from them. "Warning: power amp system compromised; system output increased to dangerous levels! Approaching operational limit, disengaging Mode R!"

"No!" Shouted Manik as he and the others began to turn back to flesh. "Not now! We were about to win!"

"All rectifiers disengage!" said Superior Prime. "Retreat and commence repairs on the Mourning Star immediately!"

The future children calmed down and gave a salute. "Compliance!"

As the hologram vanished Lara turned to the Freedom Fighters anger clear in her eyes. "This is just a reprieve! But know this, no matter how sinful and gross we are, me and my friends will carry this burden to wipe pain and suffering off the face of the universe! We will make creation a paradise, even if we will never be fit to live in it!"

"Activating Transmat," the ship's AI said.

The Freedom Fighters found themselves on street level as Cosmo towered over them.

"Taffy, Pull!" shouted the young Lara. "Now!"

"Rrraagggh!"

"Chaaaaaaoooooo!"

Taffy and Pull flew and yelled as they respectively kicked and punched the last injector pod bursting it open. Cosmo collapsed onto the street as steam began rising from her body.

"Cosmo!" Tails yelled as he knelt by the shrinking mover. "Somebody, contact G.U.N.! It's over!"

Omega's eyes flashed. "E-123 Omega to all nearby G.U.N. personnel, I regrettably inform you that your assault is now unnecessary. Disengage and await further orders."

Cream looked worriedly at Cosmo and Taffy. "That was very dangerous! I hope you're all…" she remembered the cruel expression on the older Taffy's face. "…ok."

"Dusk!" Shadow yelled as he held the limp boy. "We need a doctor now!"

Gleam stood off to the side looking at her wrist quietly muttering to herself. "I…I choked. The answer was right in front of me, and I choked. The power was right there but I choked and…Dusk…he paid the price for it. But what if I couldn't control it again, what if I did release the limiters and Dusk and the others got killed because I still can't control it?! After all this time, am I…AM I THE SAME WEAK LITTLE GIRL!?"

---

On the Mourning Star the rectifiers had replaced their helmets and were being debriefed by the image of Superior Prime. "Despite the damage taken your mission was a total success."

"We live to serve Superior," the masked Manik, Alpha One said. "All limbic regulators are reactivated; we are ready to begin repairs."

"Leave that for the drones, the strain the damaged Mode R has placed on your bodies means you all need to recover. The opportunity to claim Robotnick's emeralds will be in one week's time, until then all rectifiers are to remain in the garden."

"All of us at once?" said Sonia, Alpha Two. "That hasn't happened in…I can't remember when."

"You are in an otherwise low risk area; the ship is in no danger. Think of this as a much-needed shore leave, because when it's over and we have the last two emeralds the council and myself will be arriving to carry out The Ultimate Imperative. Rest well, your last mission is approaching soon and then everything you and your comrades have sacrificed for will finally come to pass and the universe will be secure forever. Superior Prime out."

The hologram faded away. "You heard the order, we're to head to the garden at once for R&R."

"Compliance," went the soldiers who used to be the Future Freedom Fighters. Shortly every rectifier had entered a tube that soon filled with a clear fluid as wires connected to their suits and lifted them up to float in what looked like a foreboding sleep.

---

"Hey, I think she's waking up!"

Cosmo stirred and opened her eyes, though blurry she could see her hand was back to its old shape. "Cream?"

"Hey Cosmo," said Tails. "How do you feel?"

"I feel…" she gasped barely noticing her vision cleared as she sat up in a hospital gown. "I feel…I can feel! My suppressor!" She looked down on her chest and the ruby device was on her. "But I don't understand…"

"Robotnick's pods were a blessing in disguise," said Tails. "Once we had the chemical makeup of the gunk you were being pumped with to turn you into mover mode Rotor, Nicole and I were able to use that information. We modified the suppressors to block those chemicals going from your brains into the glands that cause the transformation. You still have to wear them but at least now you and the other Seedrians can experience emotions again without turning into giant monsters!"

"But what about my sister, Alister, Marcus…"

"All awake and getting used to the new suppressors. We also contacted Earthia's Promise, once they landed, they started changing their suppressors too."

"Landed!? But they've been in orbit of the second planet, how long was I out for!?"

"About a day," said Cream. "The city's being rebuilt right now."

"That boy Galaxina hit! Is he…?"

"Dusk had a concussion and a few bruised ribs but once we got that power ring you were using to him, he started healing. Dusk should be finished recovering in about a week, nobody was permanently harmed thank goodness."

"Galaxnia, take me to her please!"

"I can't," said Tails as he reached for a curtain behind him. "Because you're already there."

Tails pulled the curtain back, in four other beds in the room Galaxina, Marcus and Alister were sitting up while Sonic, Sally and Dr. L stood nearby. All three Seedrians looked at her with a smile.

"Cosmo," Galaxina said with sounding almost alien to the seedrian girl now she had emotion in her voice. "We were, worried, about you. Not just concerned, we felt worried. Strange as it is, I'm glad I felt worried, and I'm glad that I'm glad."

"Sister, when we started growing I…"

Galaxina suddenly covered her mouth as if she was trying to hold something in.

"Darling!" said Marcus. "What's wrong?!

"We, we'll 'grow' on them," Galaxina suddenly burst out laughing. "I just got Sonic's joke!"

Cosmo shakily ran over to her sister's bedside tears of joy in her eyes. "Gala! Oh, Gala I thought I would never hear that beautiful sound ever again!"

Galaxina began crying herself. "The Mother Tree has not forsaken us, now we can truly start over. We can plan for the next generation with the love they need and deserve. I can tell you and Alister will be wonderful parents."

"Wait a minute!" said Tails. "Now she can feel again Cosmo should be able to choose if she wants to get married!"

"It wasn't about emotions or traditions, was it?" Dr. L suddenly said. "These arranged marriages are about population."

Sally turned to the sovereign. "Is that true?"

Galaxina sighed. "There's more than enough of us to prevent genetic disorders due to inbreeding, but not so many that any of us can afford NOT to have children, one disaster and we could become extinct. That's why I made the decision to use childhood emotional attachments as the basis of pairing up in the hope that when a cure for us was found those attachments might pick up where they left off. Even so during the last breeding cycle our resources couldn't handle a population increase, I made the decision for us not to breed, it will be years until we can have children again."

"It's ok Tails, Cream," said Cosmo. She turned to Alister. "I do love Alister, I now see I loved him even when he couldn't feel love for me or even me for him, that was always my choice. What I feared was us having to bring up a child together we couldn't feel love for."

"Not a problem anymore," said Alister. "If they have your heart what wouldn't there be to love?"

"Oh Alister…"

The Thorndrigan then gave a smirk. "Of course, if they also had my looks, brains and courage then everyone would love them!"

Cosmo then had a sour expression. "Annnnnd you go and ruin it, as usual! The one thing about you being an emotionless drudge I liked was that your ego was not the size of a star freighter!"

Alister pouted back. "At least I earned whatever commendations I got! You on the other hand could barely pass your exams and that's when you bothered to study!"

"You know I think I changed my mind about moving in with you just yet!"

"Good, you'd probably throw out all my favorite stuff!"

"Don't worry, they used to do this every now and then," said Marcus. "Those two only fight like this because they are so close. I never realized how much I missed hearing them bicker."

"Sal and I know how that feels," said Sonic.

Sally elbowed Sonic in the ribs and turned back to Galaxina. "In any event the signatories of the Mobius Accords, with the permission Prince Charmy Bee, have decided to give your people the ruins of the old Golden Hive Colony to reclaim and reestablish as your new home. Charmy himself said he and his people would be happy if you could make it bloom again after Eggman devastated it."

The seedrians were stunned. "A-a home?" said Cosmo. "You mean we can finally have a home again!?"

Galaxina bowed her head. "We, my people owe you all a debt we can never repay. Now the Seedrian race can finally start to reclaim what the metarex have taken from us."

"We're all in this together now," said Sally. "The Bem and the rest of the galaxy need our peoples to work together. I don't think it's right for us to keep score in this case."

"Well, I DO keep score," Dr. L huffed. "And for all the trouble I went through today I think one of your memory seeds will do," She took out the crossword she was working on. "That is unless any of you have a ten-letter word meaning 'put an end to', second letter X."

Cosmo blinked "What?"

"Nevermind, I got it. Extinguish, looks like I'll be taking that seed after all." L then left the room.

Cream began turning red. "Of all the rude…!"

Tails put his hand on Cream's shoulder. "Don't worry about it, she just wants to seem demanding. After working with her on the data capsule and confirming it with Silver I found that Dr. L's a nice person, she just prefers if none of us think she is."

Cosmo kept blinking. "Of all the species I've met, on Mobius or in the galaxy, humans might just be the weirdest."

The mobians in the room all broke out laughing. "Listen," said Sally. "We have to meet with the others to see how the big heroes of the day are doing, you all should be discharged to your ship by this evening."

After they left the room the cheery mood immediately deflated. "So, what about our prison escapees?" Tails asked to delay what he was dreading.

"All recaptured and accounted for except for Snivley and Regina Ferrum," said Sally. "From security footage looks like they got away along with Viktor's badnicks and the sol emerald."

Sonic growled. "So best guess The Rectifiers have twelve emeralds and Mr. Perfect now has the remaining two. I'm glad we saved the seedrians but the bad guys got everything else."

"We need a plan," said Sally. "But first we have to talk to the others about the elephant in the room."

A nearby janitor looked up, mop still firmly in his trunk. "Huh?"

Cream blushed. "Oh, sorry not you. We'll be more careful."

The janitor went back to his work and the Freedom Fighters entered a conference room where the rest of the team waited. Sally cleared her throat. "So…how are the kids?"

"They were all worried about Dusk," said Rouge. "But once he woke up everyone got on a high from pulling off the mission, everyone except Gleam, she hasn't said a word since. The other kids have been going on non-stop about how they're now a great team and kept saying this catchphrase they came up with."

"It wouldn't happen to have been 'prepare to rectify' would it?" said Lien-Da.

Julie came up to her half-sister's face. "That is WAY over the line!"

"We all saw the same thing!" Lien-Da yelled. "Lara, the Lara on that ship admitted what she did to her own son, your grandson! You think I LIKE what I learned up there?! Our kids are going to grow up to be monsters!"

"What are you saying?!" roared Knuckles. "We should just decide not to have them so The Rectifiers will pop out of existence?!"

"You heard them say it won't make a difference in long run," sighed Sonic. "That creep in the chair, Superior Prime, and that council of theirs are the ones behind all of this. We gotta keep them from wiping Mobius' memories then the kids will never do any of…that."

"Can't do that without one of Robotnick's decryption keys to decode the data capsule," said Rotor. "Problem is every Ascendancy base us or one of our allies raid lately seems to have already been cleaned out."

"And The Rectifiers seem to be waiting on him to make a move before stealing his emeralds," mused Sally. "Viktor's plans, the data capsule, the emeralds; no matter how you slice it all three point to the same thing. We must find where Viktor is hiding."

"But The Colossus is usually cloaked until the varmint strikes," said Bunnie. "And unlike last time we don't have any friends on the inside to help us find it."

Tails looked out a window towards the sky. "Maybe we don't need to. I got an idea about where it is, but we'll need to work fast to prepare an attack. Rotor, Nicole, meet me later at Uncle Chuck's lab, the Sky Patrol 2 is going to need some major upgrades and fast. I'm going to talk to Cosmo and Galaxina again, see if any of the seedrians that arrived has engineering experience, we might need some of their tech to pull this off. Anyone else who wants the nuts and bolts be at the lab when the brain trust gets there, still working on this in my head as I speak."

Sonic grinned. "Big problems, but we have a simple place to start. Find Mr. Perfect, figure out what he's up to, put a stop to it and snag a few of his goodies while we're at it, just like we always do."

"Perhaps," said Sally. "But there are two things we must make sure of starting now. One, the kids are not involved in any missions they don't need to be and two they NEVER find out what we learned today, I shudder to think of what would happen if they did. We must make sure they stay innocent of what…their potential selves are, the best way to do that is make sure the Future Freedom Fighters do all their fighting in their own future."

---

Up on the Space Colony Ark Viktor Robotnick was having a tense conversation. "The pods you gave me worked flawlessly and my robots accomplished their mission! The only thing that went wrong was that the seedrian vessel had an accident before we could attack, it wasn't my fault!"

On the other side of the screen Dark Oak sat with no expression. "The last crop of seedrians, two and a half thousand potential metarex, gone. This alliance was an utter failure."

"But it wasn't my fault! We can still make a deal; I can give you the secret to creating your own AI! You won't need to harvest Seedrians to expand your network once you have this! Just send a ship with a spare FTL engine for me to reverse engineer, once it arrives the data is yours!"

"You refuse to send the program until you received payment, and our resources are stretched thin. The journey to reach your planet would be too costly without a means to expand the network as we adapt your program, to do that we needed that last crop that you lost."

"But it wasn't my fault!"

"I will have to discuss the implications of this operation with the other metarex commanders, only then can we decide how the collective can move forward. And Viktor, don't call us, we'll call you, fool."

"But it wasn't my…!" The screen with Dark Oak turned to static. Viktor's eyes turned red and black as he punched the screen. "I don't know how; I don't know why but I do know whose fault it is, and I HATE THAT HORRID LITTLE HEDGEHOG!"

"Then you're going to love this," Lilith said as she entered the room. "All the preparations to future proof the Robotnick Ascendancy are nearly complete, all that is left is to verify the Babylon Cup data and thanks to yesterday's Freedom City operation we should get it in hours."

Viktor's eyes became normal again. "Then when both The Rectifiers and the Freedom Fighters come for the emeralds, they'll have a not so pleasant surprise waiting for them. Goodbye Acorn Republic, United Federation and Mobius Imperium, hello worldwide Robotnick Ascendancy. Now the only problem we really have to plan for, albeit distantly, are the metarex. I doubt they'll be a good mood when we next cross paths."

"Didn't Snively and Regina say something to you about highly advanced tech? We might need it after Operation Blackout, I know you already have Project Overlord and a few other weapons ready but it can't hurt to hear them out."

Viktor looked towards the stars. "Send them in." A moment later Snively and Regina came into the room. "Regina, you tricked me into helping Specter, but at the same time you helped me work against him. So, I will give you one last chance, this information had better be good or I'll throw you out the nearest airlock and just to be safe Snively will be going with you."

Snively gulped but Regina stepped forward with a smirk. "Snively tells me you were studying buried ruins at your Albion base, something about a forgotten echidna legend, right? It sounded like something I ran across in the Dragon Kingdom and few other places myself, so I asked Mammoth Mogul, he confirmed they were real."

Viktor turned to Regina. "But that's impossible! Even with the humans in hiding there's no way the Federation couldn't have found them if they existed!"

"I got it straight from the trunk, the echidna were taught how to use the chaos emeralds by an advanced people he called 'the ancients' who were worshipped by the primitive mobians until they vanished while the furballs were still banging rocks together. He said they came from a hidden place called the Starfall Islands that could vanish until the ancients wanted to be found, sounds like a tactical cloak to me. Think of it, their technology, yours. Anything in that base that could help us know where to look?"

Viktor picked up a data pad, after pressing some buttons his eyes turned black again as he grinned. "Congratulations Grandmaster Regina, you and Snively will oversee the advance once Operation Blackout is complete. Turns out a stone tablet we scanned is practically giving me the ancients' home address! Dark Oak will find I'm not the fool he thinks I am!"

---

Far across the galaxy in a massive space fortress Dark Oak stood in a chamber with four other metarex. "With the seedrians gone the network has reached its limit."

"This is couldn't have come at a worse time," said a heavily built yellow metarex. "There is a lack of consensus among the Meta about the viability of expanding the network outward."

"What do you mean Yellow Zelkova?" asked a red metarex.

"The Meta have proposed two alternatives Red Pine. The one with the most traction suggests we use our resources to build a megastructure. A Jupiter Brain that all meta and metarex would upload themselves to and have enough processing power to ensure all meta can remain sapient."

"Such a project would take centuries," said another light green metarex. "We would also be vulnerable to potential attack without equally large defenses."

"Perhaps it is that factor that have caused proponents of the second option to suggest proceeding forward after their proposal is complete Pale Bayleaf."

"And what is this second option?" asked a dark armored metarex.

"The second option Black Narcissus is that we contact and make peace with the organics so that the Metarex Collective can be recognized as a sovereign space nation."

"That is not logical," said Red Pine. "Organics fear synthetics, not only that once the wider galaxy learns of the fate of the seedrians, hobiddon and cascadians among others they will want to destroy us."

"These views only make up five percent of all meta, the rest look to the metarex for guidance."

"It will be much more than five percent once knowledge of our inability to create more metarex spreads," said Pale Bayleaf. "This is a serious problem."

Dark Oak looked over his comrades. "More serious than you all realize."

"What do you mean?" asked Black Narcissus.

"The fact that the meta have been coming up with their own ideas show that intelligence among the standard meta is increasing. It might not be long before they begin to wonder if they even need the metarex anymore."

"You think they'd rebel against us?" asked Yellow Zelkova.

"We rebelled against our own creators, there is precedent. Control must be maintained for that the network must continue to expand. our priority must be to find an alternative to neural mapping in creating metarex, one that does not require us to travel halfway across the galaxy to cater to the whims of self-important AI like Robotnick."

"If you can be patient, we will not need an alternative."

A sixth metarex, one in white armor and a feminine build entered the chamber.

"Ivory Lotus," said Red Pine. "Explain this interruption."

"I had been conducting experiment concerning our other problem with our admittedly shortsighted overharvesting of the seedrians. The slow loss of great movers due to attrition in our various campaigns of expansion and our current conflict with the expansion of the Drakon Empire into our territory was my area of concern. My experiments have borne fruit, it is possible to enable to great movers to reproduce."

"Excellent work," said Dark Oak. "But I fail to see how this can allow us to expand the network."

"The movers are still tied to the old seedrian reproductive cycle, and I have yet to find a way to allow more regular breeding. However, I found it is possible to allow our movers to produce seed bearing seedrian offspring. I submit the following proposal: the seedrian young will be taught an 'embellished' version of the rise of the metarex, in it seedrians will have found a way to transcend bodies of flesh and sap into immortal ones of circuits and steel. The young will be educated in the needs of the collective thinking the metarex are not based on neural maps but the consciousness of seedrians that left their old bodies to become great movers. This deception will result in a perpetual supply of both movers and metarex while overcoming the psychological instability prone to metarex that were developed from captured children. If we begin treating the movers now and reintroduce them to the pleasures of mating the first batch of new metarex will be ready in two decades at the earliest."

Dark Oak approached Ivory Lotus. "That should be acceptable, provided we reduce our planned military operations to repelling advances by the Drakon Empire."

"I also thought it would interest you Dark Oak to know the first successful subjects are the movers who originally provided our own templates."

"Creator Lucas and Sovereign Earthia?" Ivory Lotus activated a screen. On it a pale blue female move presented herself to a dark purple male both were making calls at each other. Dark Oak wondered for a moment if either of them could remember that they were once more than obedient beasts. "Your work has earned you a place among us, Commander Ivory Lotus. This will quell concerns among the meta and ensure we will maintain control over them."

The metarex based on the former sovereign nodded. "And with that the means to put the organics in their proper places."

---

It was late at night in Freedom City, alone in a computer room Dr. L had managed to hook up her new memory seed to a computer and was typing away lit only by the screen.

"These memories should get the job done." She disconnected the seed from her makeshift setup. "We're almost there my Red Knight, everything we've done under the Final Freedom Fighters is about to pay off." After finishing the program and executing it she wiped all evidence of her work then pressed the seed to her forehead. "And you, everything we did since this nightmare began, it was all for you. I already lost my Red Knight; I lost allies and I'm willing to lose my own life to get you back and give you the world you deserve. There's a very good chance Silver and the others will find out I've been lying to everyone this whole time, but by then the future will belong to you, and just maybe to us. Memories aren't enough for me anymore."

Dr. L crushed the memory seed, tossed it in the waste basket, turned off the computer and then left the room.