#::return

Itara’s cheeks puffed but she let it out with a huff of air, “Fine, fine, just… let me finish what I was doing.”  She waved him aside, though he didn’t move so she walked around him, instead.  She grabbed her notebook and pencil and flipped to a blank page at the back to sketch something out.  The other two robots crossed the room to find out what was going on as RK moved behind her to see what she was doing.

“Kipper?” he questioned, confused.

Itara nodded curtly and continued her drawing.  Once she was finished, she pulled the gem back out of her pocket to show him, “I found it while I was in Station Square. I was thinking of asking Kelly to remake his body.  At a later point.”

“Tch, like that troublemaker deserves a body again,” Metal scoffed.

“He won’t be able to move it for some time, I guarantee it,” Itara explained as she pulled the paper out, folded it, and tucked the gem back into her pocket.  “Okay, now what?”  She looked up at the clearly impatient Zero but was far too used to it to let it bother her.

“If the energy source you’ve found is somehow what you think it is, what are your plans to make use of it?” Zero demanded.

“Well, it depends on exactly what it is and what’s causing it but,” Itara explained, reaching up to scratch behind her ear, “If it’s the same thing that brought you here in the first place, I’d like to try and open it again and reverse the direction.  My theory is that it’s another portal and there’s something behind it that’s the actual source of power.”

“Wait, you want to go through it?” RK frowned.

Itara looked up at him and nodded, “That’s the working idea, anyway.  But it’s going to be entirely reliant on what it is in the first place.  If it’s a portal, I intend to follow it.  If it’s an object, I’m going to try to bring it into this timeline.  If it’s a person, well…,” she looked off and gave her ear a light tug, “I’m going to hope they’re strong enough to fight Gods, I suppose.  And that I can convince them to help, rather than hinder.”

 “That is my concern,” Zero stated flatly, “depending on what it is, exactly, there’s cause for concern that it may only worsen the situation.  You have no clear idea what is actually going on or what’s truly the cause of the reading.  You’re simply going through with all this on the mere hope that it’s going to help rather than destroy us all.”  His eyes narrowed sharply as he leaned forward to tower over her further.  Itara glanced up at him, her ears flattening against her head as her gaze turned to the floor.  Her spines bristled under the sharp glare.

“Well… I…,” she stammered, her voice wavering.

Metal moved to put himself between them and glared back at the other robot with an equally threatening stare.  “If you have a better answer, I’d love to hear it,” he bit back with a cautionary coolness.  When Zero gave no immediate response, he stood back up straight, shrugged, and looked away, “like the kid said, this has been our best bet since this all started and she’s the one with the most information here.  We’ll look into the location, get what we can from it, and move from there.  It’ll depend on what it is, after all.  We’re not going to go jumping in all willy-nilly.”  He turned a glowing red eye back to the other robot, daring him to argue, “You’d think you’d be more ecstatic to get home.”

Zero scoffed and crossed his arms, meeting Metal’s warning with confidence, “I want nothing more than to be rid of this world, but I’m not going to get myself destroyed by the blind optimism of a child, either.”

“I’m not a child,” Itara muttered, though kept her eyesight down and away from them.

“Then take more responsibility for the power you hold over this world,” Zero snapped.  Itara winced at the tone and he continued, “you’ve gained the trust of everyone around you and they’re all counting on you to know what you’re doing and what you’re getting them into.  You’ve asked them to trust you and they have and now you’re responsible for what happens. Relying entirely on mere hope will only get everyone around you killed!”

Itara curled further into herself at the accusation, but where she had no response, Metal and RK both turned on the third bot with a fury.  The argument turned to threats, edging dangerously close to a battle that caused Itara to want to curl up more.  However, when she realized a fight was on the verge of breaking out, she quickly uncurled and moved between them all.

“Stop!  Stop…,” she pleaded.  All three robots were in defensive positions.  RK’s claws were up, Metal Sonic’s arm was lit up and sparking violently, and Zero’s hand hovered near the hilt of his saber.  They gave no indication that they’d heard her so she yelled a more commanding, “ENOUGH!”  Once she was sure they had heard her, she turned to Metal and RK, waving them down, “stop… this isn’t the time for that.”  Metal didn’t appear all too eager to back down but they both reluctantly lowered their stances, though kept a sharp eye on the third bot. Satisfied with their response, she turned back to Zero and glared up at him, “You too.  I get it, okay?  You think I don’t know what’s at stake?  What can happen if I mess up again?  Like I haven’t seen it once before already?  Like I haven’t seen it several times by now?”  She shook her head and her demeanor dropped along with her scowl, “I know everyone’s counting on me.  I know it’s on me to get it right, to consider everything, to make sure what I do is the right thing.  I know more than anyone, about the timelines, the Gods, the threats.  But that’s why I know this is the right path.  I know this is the answer.  I can’t explain it, not properly, probably never in a way you’ll accept but… you just have to trust me, too.  I’m not relying entirely on instinct or simple hope, but… a little hope goes a long way, too.”

Zero scowled down at her, studied the pleading look on her face, and slowly dropped his hand from his hilt, though the glare never left his face.  “Fine. But I’ll be watching.  Closely.  Just as you’ll do anything to save your world, I’ll do anything to return to mine. If you put that at risk…”

Itara shook her head and sighed with relief, “Don’t worry. I won’t.”

He made her swear it and turned away, storming off out of the basement, leaving Itara to deflate and drop to the floor, her ears dropping along with her.  She gave a heavy sigh, of both relief and exhaustion, but looked up again when she felt someone pick her up.  She frowned up at RK as he fixated her in his arms and looked between him and Metal, “You guys… think I’m doing this right… don’t you?”  After a moment of consideration, RK nodded while Metal shrugged.

“You’ve always figured things out, despite all odds, I believe you’ll figure this out as well,” RK explained as he walked over to grab the folded-up sketch from the table to hand it to her.

“You’ve always been annoyingly right,” Metal scoffed, “why would that suddenly stop now?”

Itara glared over at him, but when he smirked, she did as well.  “Well, I’m glad you’ve finally realized that I’m always right, at least,” she grinned, getting an eye roll from the blue robot, “but Zero is right to a degree.  I need more than luck or optimism or hope. I need to be right about this.” She looked over the notebook on the table.  The last time the pages went black, the timelines reset.  Did that mean the same thing was going to happen this time?  Was it caused by the power source?  Or was it Solaris for some reason?  But why were there several days between the last page and whatever was coming?

As she silently considered everything and the bots went back to their various tasks, another set of steps plodded down the stairs from the house, though only Itara turned to look.  It took a minute for her to be able to see from her position, but the much taller human boy came into view about halfway down the stairs.  He looked equally unsure and fired up and Itara wasn’t sure what they were in store for this time.  Simon had been a pillar of exhaustion and amusement over the years, though he calmed down a great deal from when they first met.  He was still a bit excitable, as he had been so long ago, but age and the end of the world matured him more than even Itara expected. Even Lynda, the human woman who spent a good portion of a year trying to sleep with what she hadn’t known was a robot, had calmed down and become surprisingly helpful.

It was a good thing, too, because she and Kelly didn’t get along great at first.  Kelly’s rough-around-the-edges, eccentric personality clashed disastrously with Lynda’s social elitist, suburban mom habits.  They were polar opposites in every detail and Kelly wasn’t one to hold back punches, both figuratively and literally.  Mira, who was far more of a social elite than his wife, managed to dissuade most fights, but Lynda came dangerously close to getting her face punched in several times in the first year or two.  But, as it turned out, being forced to live in close proximity to someone for eight years while the world burned around you made even the worst fitting personalities grow complacent with one another.  It probably helped that there were three short-tempered robots always present to step in before anything got out of hand, as well.

Simon, similarly, learned to calm down and deal with the situation much quicker than his mother and the hedgehog woman.  He still bothered Itara about her powers often enough, especially when she had to use her fire powers for any reason, but she’d gotten used to the curiosity and would just show him what he wanted and he’d let her return to whatever she was doing.  Eight years was a lot of time to kill, after all, and it’s not like she had much better to do most of that time.  Entertaining Simon kept her mind off the destroyed world and the constant threat of her father dragging her back into the battle.

By the time he reached them, his uncertainty had left his face and he looked almost too fired-up for any of their liking.  They never knew what to expect with Simon and the inner workings of his head.  The head that Itara could no longer reach and she deeply resented that fact.  She knew Simon would get taller than her, he was human, after all, but she hadn’t expected it to be so much so quickly.  While she remained stuck at just under three feet, Simon had gotten to be just over five and was still growing.

“What is it, Simon?” RK questioned first and glanced back at the teen.

“I want to help.”

All three of them stopped to turn back to him again, causing him to square up, though whether it was from determination or fear, none of them could tell.  Metal eyed the boy suspiciously while RK and Itara mentally sighed.  “Simon… we’ve talked about this,” RK stressed, “there isn’t-.”

“No, I know,” he interrupted, shaking his head, “I know I can’t leave the base or help fight monsters or anything like that.”  RK raised an eyebrow, which nudged him to continue, “But things have changed now, right?  We’ve put the shield down and everyone’s getting active again.  We found Sonic and Shadow and you guys are all working on some plan to save the world.  I want to help.  However I can.  Even if it’s just helping repair something, I want to help.  Please, I want to save the world, too.”

RK and Itara exchanged glances, RK mostly looking to Itara for an answer.  Itara’s brows furrowed as she considered it and shuffled off RK’s lap to grab her notebook. She knew it was useless again but maybe there would be something.  She was wholly unsurprised to find nothing of use, of course.

“Come on, Itara, there’s gotta be something.  Maybe I can help fix the shield?”

“You think your tiny human body can fix that giant hunk of iron?” Metal sneered.

“I’m taller than you now,” Simon glared, getting a look of utter rage from the bot, but turned a pleading look back to Itara and RK.

“Metal’s right in that vein, the shield is best left to the robots-.”

“But Kelly’s helping!”

“Kelly is also a brute who doesn’t take ‘no’ for an answer and is weirdly strong even for a mobian,” Itara huffed, shaking her head. Her adopted mother was strange for a number of reasons.  “But… I may have an idea.”

Simon’s face lit up and Itara turned to RK, “What are the chances of getting at least Lynda and Simon to the other base without incident?”

Confusion spread across both Simon and RK’s face, but RK’s eye lit up as he ran the numbers and responded, “Decent, depending on how we do it. Why?”

“Well,” she looked away from the others, letting the silence linger a moment before turning back to explain, “I think Simon and Lynda would be more help to Sonic and his team than us.  Most of our work from here on out will either be with the computers or out in the field but Sonic has a base with other surviving mortals.  I think they could help them out quite a bit.”

“Wait, you want us to leave?” Simon faltered, his pleading look turning to downright horror as Itara turned back to him.

“You want to help, don’t you?  Sonic needs more help than we do, plus… you’ve been wanting to see the others again, haven’t you?”

The color drained from Simon’s face but his eyes lit up again at the mention of others, “You mean… our friends…?”

Simon had asked, many times, about their classmates, their friends, the rest of the neighborhood.  She’d dodged it every time, for a multitude of reasons.  In regards to their friends, though, she’d forgiven Simon for the incident at the festival long ago, knowing he and Sceira, at least, hadn’t actually turned on her.  They were scared, it was expected.  But Camilla.  Camilla had always been aggressive towards her.  The festival was only the tip of the iceberg.  Susan, too.  There were timelines where Susan found out about Metal and RK being robots before the festival.  Despite all of it being meaningless in the end one way or another, it caused problems.  For that reason, Sceira was the only one she’d ever looked in on outside their group.  Simon and Sceira were the only people close enough to her for her to care enough and Simon was with her.  But she didn’t want to explain that to him and, instead, dodged his questions about their friends.

“Some of them, yes,” Itara confirmed, “things are about to get even more hectic around here and not even I know what may happen for sure. Not even to this house.  But you know a lot more than most since you’ve been around us for so long, I think you’d be helpful for the others to have around. Besides, I’ve heard Sonic mention that Knuckles has been training whoever he can get to take interest to fight off the monsters.  We’re not really the training sort but, who knows, maybe Knuckles will show you a thing or two.”

The color returned right back to Simon’s face as he nearly bounced with the sudden excitement.  RK, however, only silently scoffed and turned back to the computer.  Itara glanced towards the robots before motioning towards the stairs again, “Let’s go talk the details out with your mom and see what she thinks.”  Simon nodded ecstatically and bolted back up the stairs.  Itara took her time and RK grabbed her attention before she could leave because of it.

“Are you sure?”

She nodded, “My time travel abilities may be on the fritz again, but I get the feeling that base is safer than ours.  With the shield down, it’s better to move everyone over there instead of keeping them here.  I doubt I can convince Mira and Kelly to leave without me, but if I can convince Lynda, Simon, and Ned to relocate, I want to.”

“And what about us, then?” Metal questioned.

Itara smirked, “What?  You want to go hide out with Sonic, too?”  As expected, Metal’s face twisted into downright fury at the accusation and he turned away from her.  She laughed and turned back towards the computer, “I suspect, should anything happen here, you are fast enough to escape it.  The same goes for RK.  I’m less concerned about two extremely advanced robots and a time traveler than I am about the mortals.  Strong as the others are, they’re still only mortals.  I’ve kept them safe for as long as possible, but I’m going to have to be far more cautious moving forwards.  Everything is about to change and I don’t know how or why.”

Silence drifted through the room for several minutes, Itara staring intently up at the maps and running programs, running several scenarios and possibilities through her head… until RK interrupted her thoughts by reaching over and rubbing her head.

“You’ve really come a long way since you first reactivated me.”

Itara’s face flushed up as she stammered and glared over at him, “W-What do you mean?  I…!”

He sighed again, frustrated by the delay but finally knelt down and motioned for her to climb on his back.  “Do not get used to this.  You’re just slow.”  Itara immediately glared at the memory of Metal saying almost the exact same thing but quickly obliged and climbed on his back so they could take off.  He wasn’t nearly as comfy as RK – or even Metal – not with all the bulky armor, but it was better than walking around an unfamiliar world on an injured leg.  But it did bring up a great many questions.  Was this where the power source was coming from?  She couldn’t feel anything now that the portal was gone. Was that sideline caused by his appearance?  She was sure she was headed in a different direction when it changed so suddenly.

She took careful note of their surroundings during the run through the city, both for directional purposes and out of pure curiosity. The difference truly was extraordinary. In addition to the cooler air and lack of fire, there were so many robots, though most of them looked closer to Robotnik’s worker bots than Zero or even Metal Sonic.  She remembered Zero mentioning that to her once, that there were robots called ‘reploids’ in his world, but he also mentioned something about ‘Maverick Hunters’.  What was a Maverick?  What were the robots’ relationship with humans in this world?  Once her head stopped spinning, she fully intended to find out. Zero never answered her questions, now she intended to get them.

The run to the explosion took much less time than Itara was hoping for, wanting to get her bearings before they arrived, but the tall line of smoke appeared over the buildings quickly and before she knew it, Zero was putting her down again.  They seemed to be at some sort of construction site and there were much more aggressive-looking robots attacking everything within range while others attempted to flee with the screaming humans.  Zero commanded her to stay put, then ran right into the middle of the chaos, pulling out and activating the saber that had become a point of contention back home.  Zero and Metal weren’t allowed to fight anymore after a particularly bad mash-up between Metal’s sparking and Zero’s saber.  RK decked them both when they destroyed three of their four monitors.

Itara took the time Zero was fighting to step back and sit down on a nearby cement block to try and process everything around her. She pulled her journal back out to take notes, as well, knowing it always helped to straighten her thoughts out. The power source was a portal and she felt confident saying it broke down because of the Gods’ appearance, too much energy in one spot.  Inside the portal was a mess of confusion, but she now knew it was because she was being whipped through dimensions, rather than time.  Though, she wondered where she was heading before Zero entered the portal.  She also made a particular note of Zero being considerably less tussled by the travel than she had been.

She looked up from her journal when the sparking remains of a robot flew overhead.  Were these Mavericks?  What was the difference between them and the robots that were walking around without issue? Was it design, like RK and Metal? Or were they attacking on their own? The longer she watched the battle, though she could only see brief glimpses of Zero darting in and out of her vision, the more it looked as if Zero was struggling with the sheer number of enemies.  From what she could immediately see, there had to be upwards of fifty, though she couldn’t tell for sure.  More were pouring out from within the half-built building every minute, but plenty more were destroyed on-contact with Zero’s saber.

However, before they could overtake him another robot appeared, one more similar to Zero in size and shape – though he was still shorter – and joined the battle.  There was a brief conversation between the two that Itara couldn’t hear over the sparks and clanking and echo of drills before they focused on the enemies again. The other robot had a much softer face with entirely blue armor and seemed to favor the cannon on his arm rather than the saber Zero carried.  The two of them worked their way through the attackers with ease and had the situation under control before long.  Itara made note of this before nearly falling off the block she was sitting on when a massive, heavily armored vehicle rolled through, shaking everything around it. She could see a number of soldiers filing out of the back but the vehicle blocked her view from whatever was happening beyond that.  She decided it was time to put her journal away and get a closer look.  The battle appeared to be over so it should be safe for her to find Zero again.

Some giant humanoid robot with a captain’s hat shouted orders and the soldiers moved in but Zero and the blue robot moved out of the way to reconvene.  While Zero kept his usual no-nonsense resting glare through the conversation, the blue one seemed especially ecstatic to see him again.  Itara wondered if this might be the ‘X’ Zero often spoke of.

“Zero, where have you been?!  Things have been absolute chaos since you disappeared!” the blue bot exclaimed, sounding more frantic than angry.

Zero’s face scrunched up as he muttered, “I never want to hear that name again…”

“What?”

With a brief look of realization, Zero shook his head and corrected himself, “Never mind.  What’s happened?”

There was a brief silence before the blue bot shook his head, “We should probably talk about this back at headquarters but,” he motioned towards the goings-on behind them, “there’s been a serious increase in maverick uprisings, but that’s not that worst of it.”  He looked around before looking back and resting a hand on Zero’s shoulder, a motion Itara half expected to get the other poor bot thrown across the globe for and was utterly shocked when it didn’t happen, “We can talk about that more later.  I’m glad to see you again.  I had no idea what happened to you after the meltdown, where have you been?”

“We should… also talk about that back at headquarters,” Zero frowned.

“Right, right.”

By this point, Itara had crept her way to nearly directly behind them, listening in and studying the situation quietly and carefully. When the blue bot turned around, he nearly tripped over the tiny eavesdropper but managed to catch himself just in time.  It still managed to startled her, though, as she toppled backwards with a yelp. “Oh!  Uh… it’s a bit dangerous here, don’t you think?”

Zero looked to see what was going on before sighing in frustration and walked around beside him as Itara pulled herself back to her feet, muttering angrily under her breath.  “Right, there is… another thing I must speak to you about.  Back at headquarters.  It’s related.”

The blue bot looked between Zero and the hedgehog girl in confusion but realized quickly enough that questions were best left for later and continued to lead the way out of the area.  “Okay, let’s get back then.”  Zero nodded and once again pulled Itara onto his back, a motion that baffled the other robot, though they remained silent on the run back to wherever they were headed.  Itara, once again, spent the time studying their surroundings so she could possibly ask the correct questions later.  Maybe she could finally learn more about Zero.

The three continued outside the city limits towards a large, even more industrial-looking, well-defended brick of a building.  It had no neighboring buildings but a gate ran several yards in either direction and around the back with corner sentry points and two more sentry towers on either side of the thick, rolling gate.  The bots approached with no trouble, even getting waves from the previously hidden sentinels, and a round of whispers about Zero’s return.  The silence wasn’t broken until they were inside the building and another, similarly-built robot ran in to greet them, calling for X, but stopped short when he caught sight of Zero.

“You’re back.”

“Yes.”  Itara was almost comforted to know he was as short with everyone, apparently.

“Welcome back, Zero.  You’ve been missed.”  Zero gave a short nod, which the other robot seemed to already understand as the end of the conversation and turned back to the blue robot, that Itara could now confirm was the mysterious ‘X’ Zero liked so much.  “I was told to you inform you that the readings of that strange energy appeared in the city again,” he looked over at Zero, finally noticing Itara attached to his back, and muttered, “though perhaps you already know.”

X nodded and looked back with him, both seeming to eye her warily and causing her to avert her eyes and go red in the face.  “Yeah,” he turned back and stated, “We’ll be in the office, keep me updated if anything else comes up.”  The robot nodded, though didn’t take his eyes off the strange girl, even as they passed by and continued down a nearby hallway.  Zero glared back at her when he realized she was getting him strange looks and couldn’t get her off his back soon enough once they crossed into the spacey office.  X went to the desk and half sat on the front to look over the two while Zero practically collapsed into one of the chairs.  It was the most at-ease Itara had seen him in the past eight years and apparently it was a strange enough behavior to get a look of concern from X.

“So, catch me up, where have you been?” he questioned again, looking over Zero before studying the hedgehog girl that was moseying her way around the office, inspecting everything within her three feet of view.  “And who’s this?”

Itara turned away from the charging station she’d been inspecting to face him again, “My name is Itara.  I’m…,” she looked towards the window as her face twisted with confusion, struggling with an explanation.  Eventually she looked back, “I’m a time traveler and the daughter of a Sun God from another world.”

X jerked and looked to Zero for confirmation, which he did with no shortage of exhaustion, “After the meltdown at the plant, I found myself in her world somehow.  A scientist by the name of Robotnik repaired me and insisted he could get me home, so I worked with him for some time.  Unfortunately, I ended up there at a bad time because their Gods had just awoken and my return home was all but halted due to the destruction of their world.  We had only just been able to come out of hiding when we found the portal that led the two of us here.  For the short version.”

“We’d been tracking a power source I believed to be strong enough to face the Gods, but it turned out to be a portal,” Itara added, “but I don’t know if that power was actually coming from this world or if we simply sidelined here because Zero entered the portal.  I can’t sense anything anymore so I can’t say for sure.”

“Whether it’s coming from here or not, the sooner you go home, the better.  I don’t want your robot parents trying to follow you and wreaking havoc on my world,” Zero growled, eyeing her sharply.

Itara’s face flushed up and she looked away, muttering, “They’re not parents…”

“The constant threats regarding your well-being say otherwise.”

Itara looked up but then away again, her face burning as she mumbled and muttered for an excuse but couldn’t find any proper argument. X, however, watched the conversation in silent bewilderment.  Not only at Zero’s behavior, but the explanation they both gave for Zero’s absence.  Once the argument subsided, he took a moment to collect his thoughts on the matter and let out a slow breath once he did.

“Well, that’s… an explanation,” he breathed, reaching up to rub his head and gave a small, nervous laugh, “I’ll be honest, I don’t know how to take this.  But I’m glad you’re back now, Zero.  I’ve really missed you.”  He turned to Itara and offered a small smile, “And thank you for taking care of him while he was with you.  I know he can be hard to deal with sometimes.”  Zero glared at him but Itara laughed.

“It’s alright, it was no different than dealing with Metal or Shadow, really.”  X gave her a strange look but shook his head and leaned back, crossing his arms. Apparently, there would be a lot more to deal with than he had been expecting lately.  But at least Zero was finally back.  And perhaps the time traveler girl could offer some information about the strange energy they’d been dealing with lately.

Itara and Zero spent the next couple hours explaining everything about the other world to X, including Zero’s several months working under Robotnik where Itara learned exactly what the doctor told him about the mobians.  She’d suspected some sort of ploy to make Zero sympathetic to his plans, Robotnik was a schemer if nothing else, but she hadn’t fully expected the extent of the lie. Though, thinking back on the sparse conversations between them, now that she was no longer panicking, it made far more sense.  According to Zero, Robotnik had told him that the mobians and humans were in a constant state of strife and war between them was constant and ongoing.  He even went so far as to claim all the attacks, including the monsters summoned by the Gods, were the mobians’ doing and that he and his inventions were working as a source of protection to the humans.

Though Zero began to suspect the lie after several missions into the cities.  What Robotnik hadn’t realized was that Zero was actually from a war-torn world, between reploids and humans, so he was far more capable of recognizing the signs of ongoing battle than the doctor expected.  There were differences between the mobians and humans, but there was clearly no war.  The explanation made Itara feel a bit of a fool when she realized how badly she overreacted on the trip to Station Square.  If she had paid closer attention, she would have realized how little his questions made sense regarding her situation but because she jumped to conclusions, she overlooked a lot of details.

She sighed in disbelief and leaned back against the wall she’d taken up residence near.  Zero closed out his recollection of the events with a comment about the strange, protective natures of the robots of the other world, which only furthered Itara’s embarrassment.  But once he was finished, he quickly moved on to getting an update about his own world and the ‘strange energy’ mentioned earlier.  Itara’s ears perked again as she sat up to listen.  This was what she was here for, after all.  Presumably.

“Well, to be honest,” X began slowly, clearly still trying to grasp the story the two had told him.  It was a lot to take in and process and he remained silent for several seconds to do so before continuing, “it started the day you disappeared, with the plant meltdown.”  He pushed himself off the desk he was still leaning against and walked around to turn on an overhead display with a carefully compiled list of notes about the apparent event.  “We finally determined the cause of the meltdown to be this strange energy that caused violent reactions from anything even remotely organic.  It latched on to the chemical tested in the lab and… well, boom.  That’s when, I suppose, you were dragged off to another world and ours was thrown into chaos again.  The energy appears and disappears at random, with no traceable pattern, and essentially warps reality, itself.  Like a glitch.  Anything that comes into contact with it breaks down.  Sometimes physically, sometimes mechanically, sometimes mentally. People have gone missing. Reploids have gone berserk. Entire buildings have collapsed in on themselves.  Of course, it’s creating panic.

“At first, we didn’t know the cause of it all. Everyone just assumed it was an increase in maverick activity and it toppled the already unstable situation. It took me three years to realize the truth and, though I’ve been working on making the situation clear about the cause, it’s… still a work in progress.”  The blue bot was visibly dismayed about this final addition, though Itara couldn’t fully comprehend why.  Zero, however, knew the reason right away and his stern expression softened considerably.  Though it was only for a brief moment.

“You said there was no pattern to the appearance rate?” he questioned, studying the hedgehog girl as she thought it over.

“None that we can tell, no.  It’s popped up outside and inside the city, sometimes it’ll show up somewhere it has before, sometimes it’ll be somewhere entirely new and then never appear there again.  Not even the timing is consistent, sometimes it’ll be hours apart, sometimes weeks, sometimes even a year.”  X reached over and pulled up a calendar showing every date, time, and location the energy appeared over the past three years.

Zero scanned the calendar then turned his gaze on the hedgehog again, “Is this possibly caused by your Gods being active?”

Itara’s brows furrowed and she shook her head, “I can’t say for sure but… I don’t think so.  I don’t see how even Solaris could affect an entirely different dimension like this.  Time and space within our own universe, sure, but this?”  She pushed herself back up to her feet to study the notes on the screen, “Can I take a look?”  X nodded and stepped aside to let her look through them, though barely managed to keep the laugh down when she was too short to reach the screen.  He grabbed the chair from behind the desk and wheeled it over for her, though the giggle managed to escape as he watched her huff and mumble angrily as she climbed up.

“Is everyone in your world this small?”

She shot him an icy glare before turning to the computer screen, refusing to answer.  Unfortunately, Zero decided to answer for her and explained, “The animal-like creatures like her are fairly small, but she’s small even for her kind.  The other-.”

“Shut up!  I’m not small!” Itara hissed, glaring daggers at the both of them before returning to the screen and pulled up a series of notes about the effects of the energy. Zero and X exchanged silent looks while she ran through them carefully.  His description of the effects piqued her interest and she wanted to verify before saying anything about it.  The other two sat in silence as she did so and after a moment she nodded and sat back, “Do you happen to have any photos or videos of these events?”

“It’s been difficult, but we’ve gotten a few distant snapshots of incidents,” X explained and leaned over to tap the screen, pulling the folder of photos up.  “Any closer and the photos warp beyond even our comprehension, but from this distance we can at least survey the surroundings.”  Sure enough, the photos were from a great distance away but the evidence was clear enough.  It almost looked like a bad photo edit.  Everything warped sideways and sheened with an unnatural coloration.  It looked uncomfortably similar to the forest just before the portal appeared.

But what caught Itara’s attention most was the odd shape she thought she could see in a couple of the photos.  It was easy to dismiss against everything else.  She imagined, if you didn’t know what you were looking at, you’d likely never see it.  But she’d seen it before.  She brought the first picture with the shape up and asked X how to zoom.  Once she did, though, she jerked back with realization.

The blocks.

The blocks from her dream.  They were blurry and nearly masked in the odd colors of the photo but she recognized it.  She pulled the other photos up in a hurry and studied them in the same way, confirming that they were, in fact, all the same.  So that dream wasn’t just stress-induced, after all.  But that still didn’t explain what they were. Or who that voice belonged to. She looked around the room at the curious robots watching her, waiting for an explanation, before shuffling back off the chair and over to the backpack she’d left beside the wall.  The voice didn’t belong to the robot, nor did it match the one from the entranceway.  Was it someone here?

“You’ve figured something out,” Zero stated, no question about it.

Itara glanced at him on her way over but said nothing and continued to her backpack.  She pulled her notebook out and flipped through the pages to find her notes from earlier.  But her description and sketch of the blocks were on the now black pages.  She went immediately back to scribbling them but her silence frustrated the red bot as he stood up and crossed over to tower over her.

“If you’ve got something, you’d better let us know,” he threatened with all the usual bitterness Itara hadn’t gotten used to.  Of course, she didn’t have RK or Metal to protect her from him now so she decided it was best to explain sooner rather than later.

She pointed to the pictures on the overhead and explained, “Do you see the blocks in those photos?”  The two looked back to the display, “Do you remember the nightmare I told RK about this morning?  The one with the blocks?”

X looked back at her, confused, but Zero picked up on her meaning easily enough, “They’re the same?”

“They’re the same.”

“So what does that mean, then?”

“I don’t know yet.  But I told you this would be the answer!  If I can find out what those blocks are, what they mean, and find the owner of that voice, I can finally solve this!”

“Mind filling me in here?” X inquired, clearly lost.

Itara returned to her scribbling so it was up to Zero to clarify, “It sounds ridiculous, and I didn’t put much stake in it at first, but the child often has what are essentially prophetic dreams.  Though, I’ve come to believe it’s less an actual dream and more that her connection to the Time God is stronger when she’s asleep and therefore gets glimpses of the future because of it.”

“Even when my powers weren’t working correctly, I would sometimes get prediction dreams, so I always take dreams that stick out seriously. But they usually make a distinct sort of sense to me with very specific images, but the one I had last night made no sense at all.  I wrote it down because it stuck out, but I haven’t been able to make heads or tails of it. But the blocks in those pictures, they were in my dream.  Also,” she stood up again to bring the journal over to show him, “with my powers intact, I can keep track of the differing timelines with this.  See this page from earlier today?  This page and the page after have been jet black like the front half of the journal since I got it.  I realize now that it was because I left my universe so my powers can’t connect to my past anymore.  The front half of this book is filled with notes from the past eight years, but it’s cut off to me here so…”  She flipped through several years-worth of black pages, “this.”

X’s eyes widened in shock at the journal, baffled by the kind of power such a small child apparently held.  It was completely unlike anything in his own world so he was having a hard time wrapping his head around any of it.  But he did at least understand that there was something significant about the shapes in the warped photos and that gave them more information than they had since the energy first appeared.  With a determined nod, he stated, “Then we just have to learn what these blocks are.  Can you still use these powers here?”

Itara blinked and looked down at the journal.  Other than leaving herself notes, she hadn’t tested her powers since she arrived.  She wasn’t sure.  “I suppose there’s only one way to find out.”  She set the journal down on the desk and took a deep breath.  She would start with the easiest of her powers to control and reached for her crystals to cover her hands, happily surprised to see it work. She dispersed the crystals again and this time reached for the flame, the most direct tie she had to Solaris. It was extremely faint though and, instead of the blazing fire she called to cover her hands, she got a tiny, flickering light.  She frowned and shook it out.  That wouldn’t be of much use here.  But then what about the timelines?

So many times in the past, she reached out for the timelines, reached for the threads and lines that tied the world together, and got absolutely nothing.  She was almost afraid to face that again.  She was still at odds with her powers, in general, but she had come to accept them as her own, as a way to bring the Gods down, rather than as part of them.  She didn’t know how she’d react to being cut off again.  With another deep breath, she reached out for the familiar strands in the void and…

Got nothing.

There was nothing but void again.  With a heavy sigh, she pulled back again and shook her head, “I have limited control again and time is cut off to me.  I assume because this is not my timeline.  I’m not meant to be here, therefore my connection to it is non-existent.”

“Well, I suppose it’s better than nothing,” Zero shrugged, crossing the room to the desk to look over the pictures and notes, himself. “It’s probably best you don’t go around messing with time around here.  There’s too much that’d be too easy to ruin.  The situation between reploids and humans here is extremely delicate and I’ve seen what your interference can do.  In fact, it’s probably best you stay here as much as possible.  Mobians don’t exist in this world and neither do powers like yours, it could be disastrous.”

Itara’s cheeks puffed at the insinuation, but she didn’t argue.  She couldn’t argue, really.  This wasn’t her world and she shouldn’t mess with it any more than necessary.  But she did have something to say about staying in the entire time.  “I can’t look into this energy source if I’m here,” she stated, “unless it appears here, at least.”

“If and when it appears again, one of us will take you to look into it.  Otherwise, you stay here.  And stay out of trouble,” Zero commanded, glaring back at her to make sure his point was made.