FicWad

The briefing room fills quickly...

I walk in with Rouge by my side. I can scarcely believe that that the President would have hired a college student as his top spy, but her theft of the blue chaos emerald from the college keeps me from questioning his decision.

Megan Paige, Rouge's roommate and Robotnik's employee, follows us. She's Chad's best friend... funny, since they met with her attempting to bully him. I still don't understand my son's love for her...but there is a certain appeal to her presence that I can't deny.

Then, Robotnik enters, sad. His round face droops, as does his large moustache. His white labcoat is stained with blood-the blood of humans and of aliens-and the outfit he wears beneath it isn't in much better shape. I wonder just how much of his salvation is attributable to my sons and their friends... and whether my little boy was injured in vain.

"Dr. Robotnik... My name is General Ryan Gordon, and I am the commander of the Guardian Unit of Nations, or G.U.N." I inform.

"I'm aware of that, sir," Dr. Robotnik replies, sitting. "Frankly, right now I wouldn't care if you were Michael Jackson. How can I be of service to you?"

I sit. The two girls follow my suit, and the obnoxious assistant kicks her feet up on the table.

Clearing my throat, I glare at the Amazon. She quickly pulls her feet to the floor, and I respond to the doctor's question. "The matter at hand is highly classified. Only those you wish to work on the project under you may be permitted to learn of it. Rouge already knows; my sons do not."

"What are you saying?"

"You may choose to include or exclude your assistant."

"Then I'll include her. I couldn't have someone more trustworthy at my disposal!"

"Oh, Doctor," she says, looking down, "I'm flattered."

Rouge starts to clear her throat, but I interrupt. "Lieutenant Vector, hit the projector and leave."

My secretary, a crocodile, presses play on the device and walks out, hitting the lightswitch as he goes. After a few moments of requisite silence, the recording begins in earnest, and I sit back in my chair. I've seen this a million times, and yet still it shocks me as if it were the first time.

A man in his fourties appears on the screen, clad in a red jacket and some sort of black outfit beneath. A pair of blue, mirrored spectacles adorn his face. Aside from that, however, he is identical to the man next to me in all but his attitude. The modest, kind man at my left is replaced by a sneering, egocentric bastard whose face I have grown to hate.

"My name is Dr. Ivo Robotnik, but I am commonly known in my timestream as Dr. Eggman."

The real doctor gasps, and I close my eyes for a moment.

"If you are seeing this, then I likely don't exist in the form I have here. I may or may not exist at all, but if I do, I'm likely a much different person, probably without my nickname. I likely go by Ivo in such a world."

"My God," the doctor murmurs.

"I am from an alternate timeline... a world where events happened very differently. For the sake of my alterations to your continuity, I dare not state exactly what happened, but basically, there was a great, great tragedy that shaped my own life. The source of this tragedy was a simple communication between my grandfather, Gerald Robotnik, and an alien race known as the Black Arms, who occupy the Black Comet."

A whimper to my left.

"However, this tragedy gave humanity something very great-several weapons it could use to defend itself. It did so at the cost of my happiness and that of many of those I care about. I have, since fending off the black arms in my own universe, fought to find a way to reverse that tragedy without crippling humanity. And I believe that by providing the plans for one of those weapons, I can do so freely."

Ivo gasps. "Is he insane? You can't fuck with the timeline!"

"At the end of this I provide plans for a cannon powerful enough to destroy the Black Comet-it may seem genocidal, but it is preferable to being farmed as a food source by these aliens. The other two weapons-hedgehogs named Sonic and Shadow-need not exist and suffer so long as the chaos emeralds do not fall into alien hands."

"Sonic and Shadow!" the assistant squeals.

The man on screen clears his throat and nears the camera. "However, there is another dilemma. In order to maintain the changes to your universe, you must send someone back in time to do what I did-to stop Gerald from contacting the comet. If you don't do this, thousands of innocent people will die in the conflicts that result from the ensuing tragedy, in addition to those that will be slaughtered and eaten by the Black Arms. In addition to plans for the cannon, I have also included plans for the time machine. I hope that my alternate self in your world will be able to recreate them. ...If I have failed... Then I am sorry."

The screen goes blank, and the scientist in white flees the room.

*

It's been an hour since he left... but now he's back, calm and clean. Now is the time.

"Doctor Robotnik... we were able to complete the cannon without your help... However, the time machine is proving problematic. Your assistant has already agreed to work on it. But what I want to know is, will you?"

He ponders. "It could destroy our universe."

"Or it could save thousands of lives."

"He could be lying."

"He's you. You're an honest man."

"What if we fail?"

"Then we fail!" quoted the assistant.

"Very well. Lead me to it."