Chapter 34: Revelations
Location: Dalton Estate
Five minutes later…
"I have a question," Sally announced, sipping green tea from a Gaiwan.
"And what would that be?" Tarro inquired, eating a skewer of Dango glazed with sweetened soy sauce.
"How did you manage to rescue Decoe, Bocoe, and Bokkun? The ruins of the Metropolis Zone are radioactive and protected by an energy shield."
"I'm capable of teleportation."
He immediately received a dubious look from everyone present, prompting him to set down his Gaiwan. Standing, he withdrew a throwing knife from his pocket and unceremoniously tossed it to the floor. Everyone's attention was drawn to the weapon, but when they looked up, they found he had disappeared.
"Ah! Where'd he go!?" Sticks demanded, leaping to her feet.
Less then a minute passed before he returned, this time carrying a blue bundle that he tossed to the Princess. Sally quickly recognized the object as a flag, more specifically that of her Kingdom.
"Where the hell did you get this?" Sally demanded.
"Castle Acorn," he replied, "Don't worry. I'll make sure to put it back."
Taking a seat on the floor, he held up the throwing knife and showed off the strange symbol that had been etched onto the blade.
"Anywhere where I've placed that mark, I can teleport to."
"Anywhere?" Chris questioned.
"Anywhere. I could teleport myself to the Blue Ridge Mountains and go snowboarding, then get ramen in Kamurocho."
Sally recognized the United Federation city-state, which was located on the Yurashia continent. Not wanting to keep secrets from allies, the President had revealed to them the existence of the United Federation.
"Okay, so you've proven your point, but you still haven't explained what you were doing in the Metropolis Zone," Tails stated.
"I was deploying a swarm of nanomachines with the intention of scrubbing the ruins of radioactive fallout."
The Metropolis Zone continued to remain a concern, as it posed an irresistible target for Robotnik. As such, Fort Acorn had been established as a line of defense, meant to defend against potential attacks. It was only a band-aid solution, requiring something that would protect the environment. What the science team had conceived was a Power Siphon, which they intended to extract the radioactive waste and convert it into energy to fuel Mobotropolis' growing power needs.
"How long would something like that take?" Sally asked.
"That depends on how many times I need to replace the nanomachines."
"Meaning?" Tails questioned.
"Meaning that the high levels of radiation within the city is resulting in a 70% failure rate of the nanomachines. Eventually they'll get the job done, but it's going to be a slow process."
"Is that when you found Decoe, Bocoe, and Bokkun?" Bunnie asked.
"Yes. Although I stumbled across them completely by accident. I decided to rescue them, scrubbed them clean of radioactivity, and brought them into my service."
"Bokkun did say that Robotnik had no intention of wasting resources trying to rescue them," Sally stated.
"Probably because New Megaopolis had just been trashed by Enerjak," Tails commented.
"This was before the Xorda showed up looking to finish what they started," Tarro corrected, "Robotnik was just choosing to be an ass."
It certainly was something that Robotnik would've done, especially since he'd wasted no time in replacing them with Orbot and Cubot. Even Snively continued to remain absent, with Eggman having claimed his nephew had perished when the Xorda attacked New Megaopolis.
"Speaking of the Xorda, where were you when they showed up?"
"What makes you think I wasn't there?"
The Fox opened his mouth to respond, only to immediately closed it in realization that there was no way to know.
"You do bring up a good point however."
"What exactly do you mean?" Sally questioned.
"Do you remember what happened when you and Sonic breached the Quantum Dial's defensive perimeter?"
"It's possessed a backup defense system that would've vaporized anything within a hundred-mile radius," NICOLE stated, manifesting.
"Uh...how are you doing that without a Power Ring?" Tails questioned.
"I've got plenty of holographic matrices scattered throughout my estate," Tarro answered, "Sorry, I should've mentioned that."
"Is there a rest stop between now and the point?" Sticks yawned.
Everyone's attention immediately shifted to the Badger, who was lying on her side growing increasingly bored.
"The point is: the self-destruction of the Quantum Dial wasn't a fluke, but rather the result of trans-dimensional energy breaching into our reality."
"What exactly do you mean?" Chris asked.
"I've pinpointed two incursion points, the second was the destruction of the Quantum Dial."
"What was the first?" Sally questioned.
"The destabilization of the Pocket Zones which kept Echidnaopolis and the Dingo City separated."
Knuckles had relayed the events to her of what had transpired on the Floating Island, and how the Dingo's city had been destroyed. Left displaced, the Dingoes had been forced to take up residence in the slums of Echidnaopolis. Eventually, they would turn against their Echidna neighbours, enticed by Eggman's offer of technological support. This had resulted in the near genocide of the Echidna race, with those not siding with Robotnik being teleported to Albion.
"What was the cause of this?" Tails asked.
"It was due in part to the machinations of an alternate version of Robotnik, whose attempts at altering reality resulted in the collapse of the multiverse."
"He's not lying," NICOLE said, "I've been conducting a series of analysis to collaborate his statement. I've detected a large amount of residual Chaos Energy, far larger then what would occur naturally. It appears that when reality collapsed in on itself, it was recreated on a molecular scale."
"For Eggman to achieve something like that would require huge amounts of energy," Tails stated as realization hit, "Like the Chaos Emeralds."
"He constructed a device known as the Cosmic Reset Button, and with a single Chaos Emerald, was able to alter reality."
"Ah'm not liking where this is going," Bunnie complained, echoing Sally's unstated thoughts.
"The good news is that there are limits to what he was capable of doing, such as his inability to outright erase people from existence."
"That's a relief," Sally said.
"To accomplish that, he would require all the Chaos Emeralds," Tarro stated.
"Spoke too soon, Princess," Sticks commented.
"The changes would also only be temporary unless he Roboticized the entire planet to cement the altered reality or had all the Chaos Emeralds."
Catching movement out of the corner of his eye, Tarro found that Shard was leaning against the doorway.
"It seems the X-Tornado has been recovered," he announced, "Perhaps it would be best if we continue this conversation later."