22:30 HOURS LEFT / THE MOTHER

"Do you hear that? That, my boy, is the sound of productivity. And without your help I would be... nowhere! Why, however could I repay you, dear child?"

"You could start by quitting the 'child' talk. Second, you could stop thinking about robotisizing me," the time traveller said, looking out of the solitary window of Robotnik's central control room. "I'm not stupid, Robotnik, even if I'm not as old as you."

"I never meant to imply that! Do forgive me," Robotnik hissed sarcastically. The truth of the matter was that he hated the brat, but his contributions had indeed been invaluable. Fortunately, the child was too idiotically stubborn to either notice or care about the backhanded-ness of Robotnik's comments. "Your computing knowledge is almost on par with mine, and that is a feat achieved by very few. You should be proud of yourself."

"Thank you, Doctor."

"Yes, well, you've certainly done more for me than that pathetic dwarf ever has. Speaking of Snively, there hasn't been a word from him in hours! You supervised him to the construction of the new Robotisizer, yes?"

The time traveller looked over at Robotnik and nodded. Robotnik snarled and smashed his fist onto the arm of his steel throne. "Run a scan of the city and report all organic lifeforms!" A few beeps followed, then a snarl. "Boy! Is your technology malfunctioning? There's not a trace of flesh in the entire city perimeters!"

A hovership flew past the window and the time-traveller turned to watch it as it headed for the city perimeters. He himself had advised for extra guarding on the weakest parts of the city walls and already there had been one freedom fighter detained. Another beep drew back his attention. "I assure you, sir, there should be no faults."

Robotnik turned his chair to the multiscreen. "If that deformed imbecile has gotten himself captured, I might do to him what I could have done to you... he'd make an infinitely more useful robotic footrest than an assistant," he spat, his eyes scanning each screen briefly before moving onto the next. He squeezed the side of his seat with his robotic hand, then turned back to look at the boy, re-targeting his thoughts, and slowly began to smile. "You were right in not trusting me, but I think I've reconsidered. Why you betray your own kind... your own mother... intrigues me far too much!"

"I thought she was a no-go topic, Robotnik!"

"Oh, my most profound apologies, dear boy. I meant not to offend," Robotnik sneered. "You just remind me of a good friend of mine. Valuable, useful, but far too hard to get. You may be familiar with him – his name is Oil."

"I get your point," the time-traveller begrudgingly mumbled, standing himself up straight and starting to pace towards the multiscreen, followed carefully by Robotnik's dark eyes. "I've told you this already, you know. The world that Princess Sally makes after taking over is... flawed. It lacks laws. She gave away far too much power to the people instead of balancing freedom with leadership. It was supposedly a utopia for years... until the possibilities of a biased legal system became clear to those studying it, and soon anarchy reigned. The Princess, barely able to manage a coup, let alone an entire planet, was overwhelmed and imprisoned by one of her trusted advisors.

"I was born not long before Sally was overthrown. My father left my mother just before I turned 1, and my mother suspected he didn't make it in his ambitions to join a rebel fighter group and take back the throne in the name of freedom. Even if him and his group did, the society that Sally had created was corrupt now... every man for themselves. No single person could change that, my mother said, until she told me the legends of the Time Stones and how they had been used by the hero Sonic Hedgehog. When I was much older, just a few weeks ago for me, I heard of an expedition by multiple teams to find the Time Stones and use them to stop Sally's overthrowing. I knew it wouldn't work... so I stashed on board one of the teams' planes and stole the Stones myself."

"And how did you know that my victory would assure a better result?" Robotnik asked suspiciously.

"Because when people are given power, they either misuse it or become corrupted by it! If I came to a person already corrupted and evil from the power they have, it... Sally's victory will end with chaos no matter what, so I just need to assure yours."

Robotnik pretended to smile. The brat's logic was so evidently flawed that it was almost painful how stupid he looked.

"So, you are aware of the Princess's organizational skills?"

"A little... but mostly from analysis. She's clearly the same as in the future, because she hasn't the confidence to launch any sort of attack. The other freedom fighter groups probably look to her as a leader, but likely more because they're too scared of the Doomsday Project to think straight themselves than because she's wiser than them. Forcing their hand is an option... but from the data you gave me before, they seem to fight hardest when backed into a corner."

Robotnik turned away from the multiscreen to look at the time-traveller and smiled, a little more genuinely this time. "You're a fast reader, and while a tad basic your analysis was good. I could use your logical thinking more often, perhaps."

The time-traveller didn't appear to notice him, and looked back out the window to watch the machines.

19:15 HOURS LEFT / THE CHAIR

Sally yawned and rubbed her eyes, then tossed her blanket off and swung her feet onto the floor. It was early morning and she had only gotten a couple of hours' sleep. She looked into the mirror and sighed, then picked up a hairbrush and began to brush her frizzy hair. The stress had clearly gotten to her last night. With a last flick of her wrist, her hair was back to normal, but as she thought of the time-traveller's warning she ran her hands through it, messing it up again – a nervous habit. His words had shaken her up enormously. Preparing and launching an attack in just 24 hours had intimidated even the most calm and collected of the leaders, and she knew that she was far from the top in that regard.

Sally's train of thought wandered as her gaze moved towards the sun rising. If she did win and defeat Robotnik, what would she actually do? She would be Queen, or at least Regent until her father was completely rescued from the Void. What if he couldn't be rescued? She was stressed enough organising her own friends; taking control of an entire kingdom would be an entirely different matter. What would Sonic do? His patience would wear thin quickly with nothing exciting going on. And the time-traveller... his assistance could not go unrewarded, but if she rewarded everyone then she could be seen as weak, but if she didn't reward enough then she'd be seen as tyrannical! Sally heaved another deep sigh.

"Mah prinzess! Iz zere a problème?" Antoine was standing in the now-open door.

"Antoine!" Sally yelled, turning and facing him angrily. "Were you spying on me?"

"Who, moi? Oh, no no no no! I was juste, er, how you say it, um... en-quil-ring?"

"You mean enquiring, Antoine."

"Yes, oui, zat is what I am saying."

Sally sighed. "Antoine, I am not in the mood."

And the door was slammed in Antoine's face.

"Hmph! It seems zat someone has woken up on ze left side of ze bed today."

Antoine left Sally's hut, disgusted, and walked back towards his own. Despite having to host a large group of freedom fighters in there (an act which had driven him to a total of only 4 panic attacks, a new record for him), it had only taken him half an hour to clean up and make sure everything was perfect again. He opened the door, stepped out of his boots, walked inside, picked up his boots, then closed the door. Everything was perfectly normal.

He deposited his boots in his cupboard. Everything was ordered perfectly, as usual. Antoine closed the cupboard and turned to head towards his stove, thinking of cooking some breakfast, before something caught his eye – or rather, something didn't catch his eye. He scanned the room quickly. Something seemed very off. He muttered something to himself then set out to inspect the room in closer detail. Four tiny indents in his carpet reminded him that there was a missing chair, so he walked back over to his cupboard, opened it up, took out a new pair of boots, stepped into them, then walked out the door. He forgot to shut it, much to his later annoyance.

Sally opened her hut door and started shutting it upon seeing Antoine's face, but he held it open. "What do you want?" she groaned wearily.

Antoine straightened up. "One of my chairs is going missing and I am thinking you are knowing where it is."

"The meeting hall. Now leave me alone, I'm tired."

Antoine shut the door and quickly found his way to the meeting room. It was in a mess, as apparently nobody had bothered to pick up their chairs. Even then, the condition was appalling – Antoine wouldn't have thought the freedom fighters this riotous. He found his chair upside-down in the corner of the room, and with a clump of hair lying on it. He blew it off and picked it up, then looked around the room one more time before deciding to confront Sally about it.

"My prinzess, sorry to be bothering you but zere is something un-uzual."

Sally followed him to the meeting hall. "What's the problem?" she asked before she looked inside. Antoine pointed at the chairs. "Zey are all downside-up."

"I thought we cleaned this place up after last night..." Sally said quietly. Antoine nodded.

"Oui! And zere is more, zere is 24 chairs in here."

"What's wrong with that?"

"Zere was only 20 guests, non?" Antoine said, with a hint of pride for noticing this himself. Sally ran her hands through her hair again. She hadn't expected something like this.

"Someone's been looking for something. But why was there more chairs?" she told Antoine, who shrugged. She turned back to look at the mess and paused for thought. Even if she had no clue why the person was searching or what they were looking for, she had a vague idea of who.