Darker Days Ahead

The first story of Mobius: Second Tyranny

written by Tergonaut

This story series is based on the Sonic the Hedgehog DiC cartoon and on other stories that are and will be written here on this site. Sonic the Hedgehog and all related characters and themes are © of SEGA and DiC. All original characters and themes are © of Tergonaut. Please do not copy or redistribute this story on other sites without permission from Tergonaut.

* * *

Setting: It is the year 3336 on the planet Mobius. It has been one hundred years since the time that the Freedom Fighters defeated Robotnik once and for all.

In the twelfth and final year of what has become known as the Great Tyranny, the Freedom Fighters, led by Princess Sally Alicia Acorn, faced many perils. Even with the bravery shown by many new friends, including the Southern Continental Freedom Fighter known as Major Payback, that year was fraught with the threat of reactivated Doomsday Pods and other more terrible foes. The Freedom Fighters did not even have the Deep Power Stones to call upon at that time, for their energy had been used up to destroy the Doomsday Project by Sally Acorn and Sonic Hedgehog. They were entrusted to Oracle of the Last Legion until they could fully recharge.

During the course of the final year of the Great Tyranny, the discovery was finally made that the Chaos Emeralds, the most powerful sources of energy on Mobius, did truly exist and that they were indeed guarded by Knuckles the Echidna. This led to a desperate race to gather the Emeralds and finish the war once and for all.

That final year was also critical in the sense that it was the time where all of the Three Tyrants made themselves known to Mobius and her children. Ivo Robotnik, who was the original and final Tyrant who had used the invention of Sir Charles Hedgehog, the roboticizer, in an attempt to establish order under his rule. Snively the Great, Robotnik's nephew, who took up where his uncle left off after Doomsday. And then there was Vorallon, the most enigmatic of the Three Tyrants, and the most deadly. This robotic Tyrant, granted sentience by a twist of fate and a power ring, became the self-proclaimed Warlord of Mobius and his rule was the shortest and most terrible of the three.

Snively was killed during a battle involving the legendary Last Legion. Robotnik was defeated by Sonic in a climactic fight using the advanced energies of the Chaos Emeralds. But the fate of Vorallon was left unclear, as his body was never found. It was assumed that he had been destroyed by Robotnik when the First Tyrant had returned to take one last stand against the Freedom Fighters.

The fighting was finished at that time, but the Great Tyranny only ended upon the completion of the deroboticizer by Rotor and Sir Charles and the recovery of the good King Maximilian Acorn from the Void. Sally and Sonic were married and ruled over the kingdom for many years, and then they and their friends from the Great Tyranny died, earning their final rest at last. However, a few of the Freedom Fighters continued to live even past that time even until the present, the main example being Dulcy the Dragon, who grew to become a wise ambassador to the Southern Continent on behalf of the House of Acorn. During this time, robots were under stricter control than ever before to prevent their usage as war machines. It was illegal to arm a robot with weapons, although there certainly were leftover robots from the Great Tyranny that the reemerging criminal element used as enforcers and spies. Artificial Intelligences were outlawed as well, although it is not known what happened to NICOLE, the A.I. that had served Sally as a hand computer during the Great Tyranny.

Upon Sonic and Sally's death their son, Alic Acorn, accepted the monarchy and became the king. Unfortunately, without the wise guidance of his good parents, Alic allowed corruption to overtake the government. Hundreds of people slipped through the cracks of society during that time, and they and their children became streeters, hardened Mobians who survived in the tough parts of cities, especially Mobotropolis. Many of these children were orphans whose parents had abandoned them, and so their only memory was of the difficulty of living on the streets and watching the social elite chase fashion and frivolously spend their days in unearned comfort.

Alic married and had a son, Scot Acorn, whose sixteenth birthday is on the very same day that Sonic defeated Robotnik one hundred years ago. That birthday is coming up soon, and for the celebration Alic is sending him and his childhood friends (all grandchildren of Freedom Fighter friends to the crown) to Knothole, which had been turned into a luxury resort after the death of Sonic and Sally.

So now you know what happened during the last year of the Great Tyranny, that war between Robotnik and the Freedom Fighters. But as you will read throughout this entire series, the past is not yet done speaking to the future. There is, in fact, a great and terrible war that is about to erupt upon the face of Mobius once again. And the madman who will resurrect the old evils is one of the very children of Mobius.

This is the chronicle of that war.

This is Mobius: Second Tyranny.

* * *

7:43 p.m.

Orchard Street, northern Mobotropolis slums

-------

"The coast is clear. Let's move!"

Out of the sunset-soaked alleyway into the deserted slum street stepped the forms of three Mobians. The first one was a ruddy-furred hyena, who blew out of the side of his mouth to push the bangs that hung over his red bandana away from his eyes. The next in line was a skunk, whose tail bounced slightly with every step she took in her heavy boots. The last one to get out of the shadows was a green-furred feline who adjusted his tool belt, which did indeed have some tools attached to it, save they were second-hand tools that had been salvaged from the dumpster.

The hyena looked up and down the street, his eyes suspicious. "Dang, I get edgy when there's gonna be a hit in our side of town!"

"Just like the rest of us, Rad," the skunk said as she adjusted her high-collared sleeveless jacket, "the only one who enjoyed this kind of stuff was Bandit."

The feline shook his head at the skunk, his eyes hidden behind the spotless wraparound shades that he wore. "Claire, maybe we shouldn't talk about-"

The skunk whirled around on him, her tail puffing up slightly as she stared him down. "And why not, Gyro?! He was one of us Rowdies, he still is!"

Gyro held up his hands in front of him defensively. "Whoa, I didn't mean anything like that! Can't you chill out?"

"Uh, guys?"

Claire's eyes flashed angrily. "I'll chill out when I want to, toolbox! If you guys had believed him in the first place, then maybe he'd be here right now!"

"Guys?"

"If he hadn't been so sneaky about it, like he always is, then maybe we would've been more willing to believe him," Gyro stated coolly.

"That's not the-"

"SHUT UP!"

Claire and Gyro closed their mouths and turned their faces toward Rad, who was now adjusting his fingerless leather gloves in an attempt to regain his composure. "Look, I'm sure that Bandit's all right. I've never known anyone else that lucky. But right now, us Rowdies need to stay tight and keep it together, 'cause we know what's gonna happen when the cops come down here from their downtown donut shops."

Claire and Gyro looked apologetically at each other, but Rad interrupted them again before they could say anything. "Awright, no need to say all that, let's just get back home."

The three Mobians ran across the street and dodged into another alleyway. There wasn't much time left.

* * *

7:50 p.m.

Royal Laboratory, Central Mobotropolis, near the Royal Palace

-------

"Professor Kreaton?"

The Mobian marten looked up from his papers that he had arrayed on one of the consoles in the Royal Laboratory's Electronics Development Department. "Hmm, what is it, Derek?"

Marty Kreaton's assistant, a Mobian groundchuck, was at the door and was putting his coat on. "I just wanted to let you know I'm leaving now, Professor. I need to get home so I'll be ready for the Victory Day festivities tomorrow morning."

Kreaton nodded, a half-smile on his face. "Of course, of course! Give your wife and children hugs for me, will you? I bet Ophelia and Daniel are really excited about tomorrow."

"They sure are," Derek said, chuckling as he stuffed his hands into his pockets. "Well, good night."

"Good night, Derek."

The groundchuck went through the door, shutting it tightly, and Professor Marty Kreaton was left alone in the laboratory. The marten immediately turned and cleared the papers from the console into a nearby folder and stalked away from it, his hands behind his back as he entered the next room. The sign over the door indicated that this was the Electronic Production Control Room, and he slid easily into the chair in the middle of the room. He reached for the controls of the chair and placed a visor over his eyes, now bathed in the full controls of the production center of the laboratory.

He pushed back one of the long sleeves of his white labcoat and pressed one of the buttons on the device strapped to his wrist. As he turned to face the adjoining room behind a glass barrier where mechanical arms waited in a vacuum-tight environment to begin construction, a metal orb dropped from a hidden panel in the ceiling and hovered over to Kreaton's side. Inside the visor, a small colored window opened up and showed the face of a female ermine with rich red fur and twinkling sapphire eyes. "Greetings, Professor Kreaton," the computer-generated ermine asked in a realistic silky voice that yet remained monotonous, "have you been well?"

Kreaton nodded, a full smile on his face now. "Thank you, WINONA, I have been quite well. And you, my dear?"

"I am operating within full parameters. Should I load up the ENFORCER construction folders?"

"Please do," Kreaton replied as the chair moved in full view of the mechanical arms. "I only need to make a few minor adjustments, and then I'll be off to the Royal Palace to pick up the data I need to begin Project: Overthrow."

"Acknowledged, Professor."

Kreaton pulled a keyboard on an adjustable metal arm up in front of him and began typing the instant the yellow outlines of the folder marked ENFORCER opened up to reveal the electronic blueprints held inside. "Time is critical, WINONA. I pretend that I'm not nervous, but this is the most important project I've ever needed to finish, and there isn't much time before midnight comes. Finally, everything I have been hoping for seems to be rising up within my view. Do you realize, WINONA, that if anyone walked in here tonight, they would call the police to have you dismantled and me arrested? I might even be executed for doing this, I realize that, just as I realize that this is actually only the beginning."

The orb opened up at four points around its metal-covered body, pushing out small multi-directional lenses that powered up and shot rays of light into every direction. When the light subsided, there stood the shape of the ermine, her shapely red-furred body shimmering and flickering as she wrapped her holographic arms around Kreaton's neck. He did not feel her touch, although he could see her.

"Do not worry, Professor," she soothed in that same voice over his shoulder, "everything will be made right again."

She bent over and kissed him on the cheek, and tears brewed in his eyes as he remembered the time when that same kiss would have been the most joyous thing he could feel against his flesh. "Thank you, WINONA," he said through a throat that had tightened from that memory, "I know that we can do this. We've worked hard to make this possible, there isn't any way that we can stop now."

He saved the finished file and pushed away the keyboard, removing the visor as he got out of the chair. The floating orb disengaged the holographic projection and became a ball of silvery steel once more.

"WINONA, please boot up all of the files related to Project: Overthrow for me, and begin production immediately," commanded Kreaton, his calm clear voice regained from his moment of emotional weakness.

"Acknowledged, Professor. Good luck."

The marten walked quickly from the room and grabbed his overcoat from the rack as he opened the door. As he stepped out into the corridor, he pulled a small playing card-sized object from his labcoat's inner pocket. The transparent plastic was interrupted by a white tab attached to the upper left hand corner of the object, and he pressed the tab into the plastic. The electronic tab squirted compressed data into the card, and a picture of a Mobian marten and ermine formed with perfect clarity. They were standing in front of a cathedral, the male marten in an immaculate white tuxedo with his trademark white labcoat over it, the female ermine in a stunning white wedding dress.

A tear dropped unbidden from Kreaton's eye onto the plastic, and he turned off the holopic and replaced it in its place inside his labcoat. His footsteps became faster and more intense as he resolved himself to his goal. Yes, his goal was all too clear to him now. He could not fail.

Back in the laboratory construction room, the legs, torso and arms of a humanoid machine had been welded into place, and as a dome-shaped head was moved into place on the shoulders, the computer screen on the visor read "SWATbot ENFORCER UNIT ONE, PHYSICAL SHELL COMPLETE. BEGINNING PROGRAMMING SEQUENCE..."

Time was running short.

* * *

8:00 p.m.

Royal Residence, Knothole Village

-------

The Mobian jackal sighed as she watched the spiky-furred squirrel from her chair in the corner of the common room. Scot Acorn, next in line to the crown and her childhood friend since she could ever remember, was pacing impatiently as he always did when he was brooding.

"I'm just so bored here, Jacqueline!" the Crown Prince said, exasperated. "I'm glad I was able to come here to Knothole, but I can't stand waiting, especially when it's something that I hate!"

Jacqueline D'Coolette pushed herself up from the chair, her dark red fur contrasting with the white fur that ran down her front and splashed her muzzle. In the light from the fireplace, she could see his disapproving frown and his shifting eyes. "Please, Scot, what do you expect me to do?" she asked in the slightest of French accents, something she had inherited from her grandfather Antoine D'Coolette. "You know your father the king is expecting you to lead the parade tomorrow."

"And give a speech on how wonderful it is that my grandfather Sonic saved the world, and how I can enjoy my freedom that was won for me during that war. Like I have any freedom? I can only do what Father wants me to do, not what I want to do! Does he think that I enjoy standing up in front of huge crowds of people and recite empty words that I don't even feel are right?!" His pacing stopped, and he shrugged to the air in front of the fireplace as he looked up through the skylight. "I want to help the people in ways that they can really appreciate, not pacify them with speeches and fanfare," he said in a small voice as he looked up at the stars that were slowly becoming more apparent as the sunset's dying rays faded. "Is that so much to ask for?"

Jacqueline walked over to him, stopping just behind his right shoulder. "Scot, I know this is hard for you, but I know you can find the words that you know will be sincere coming from you. Sometimes it is words that can help people by inspiring them to be better than they already are."

Scot's eyes remained focused on the twinkling stars. "Thank you, Jacqueline, for your kind words. You are dismissed."

Jacqueline felt the same sting of frustration that she always felt when she was so casually dismissed by her best friend. As she walked out into the corridor that led to the private rooms of the Royal Family and their friends of the court, she wondered again like she had countless times before why Scot wanted to be so helpful and friendly with the people, and yet could send her away like a common servant? She hated that part of their relationship, and deep in her heart she felt that Scot was being a hypocrite. Not that she hated Scot himself. She considered him to be more like a brother and loved him as such. It was just that...

As she closed the door to her room, she went over to the bed and rolled right onto it, her gaze reaching up to the wooden ceiling above her. Her deep emerald eyes were slightly blurry from her tears as she realized just how far away she was from having a true friendship with anyone. From birth, she had been raised alongside the Prince, and yet even after all of those years she had never had a friend she could talk to about anything in the world. She had secrets locked inside of her that she wanted to share with someone else, but they would seem silly to Scot, and she felt uncomfortable around anyone else.

A girl raised in the comforts of royalty, and yet her heart was set on something that was dearer to her than jewels: a true friend.

The clock was ticking on the wall across from her bed.

* * *

8:30 p.m.

Rain Street, a warehouse on the northern border of Mobotropolis

-------

Rad shouldered a tattered backpack and tightened the straps, as did Claire and Gyro. "'Kay, Rowdies, we all know the drill: we get outta town and stick it out in the Great Forest 'til the fighting's over."

Gyro clipped a mini-comp to his belt, and Claire slid her knife into its sheath and tightened the buckles that held it into place. The three of them faced each other, and they reached out toward the spot in the center of their triangle, putting their hands on top of each other. Rad looked from Gyro to Claire and back again, and then they all threw their hands into the air and shouted, "BOO-YA! Rowdies own da town!"

They came over to the one corner of the warehouse that they called home, and Rad bent down to press his fingers into the cleverly-concealed handle of a manhole cover. Grunting as he pulled up, the manhole came free and Gyro hopped into the hole at once, followed by Claire three seconds later, and Rad joined them even as he held the manhole cover above his head by the bottom handle. The manhole cover fitted back into place with the force of Rad's weight on the handle, and he dropped down the last two feet to the sewer walkway where Gyro and Claire were waiting, flashlights held up against the pitch black darkness of the tunnel.

Rad grabbed his own flashlight and flicked the switch to turn it on. "Let's go."

They walked down the tunnel, the only sounds coming from the dripping sewage and their own footsteps, which occasionally sloshed as they stepped into murky puddles. The occasional rodent or insect would get caught in one of their flashlight beams and would scurry away at speeds that sent chills running up their spines.

They couldn't wait to get out of this cramped tunnel. Time couldn't go any slower for their young minds, and yet it was running out ever too quickly.

* * *

9:00 p.m.

Royal Palace, Central Mobotropolis

-------

Kreaton walked down the hallway at a swift even pace, annoyed that he had been delayed by traffic. Fortunately, the guard had been completely unsuspicious of his motives for wanting access to the Royal Central Computer. Who would question the Minister of Science, and one of the most brilliant minds on Mobius who had risen from his lowly childhood in an orphanage to one of the highest positions of power within the court of the House of Acorn?

The pearly floors and gold-trimmed walls of the Royal Palace reminded him intensely of part of the reason for his current mission, and his lip curled as he let the thoughts roll around in his mind. That fool, Alic Acorn! He stupidly attaches the word 'royal' to anything he can, and hides his corruption behind a veil of glitter. Well, it is a good thing that I have been hiding my own secrets...

Stopping in front of a door that was liberally marked as the Royal Central Computer Room, he smirked as he saw the irony of the gilt-lettered sign on the door that proved his point. Even when he felt the greatest anger, he couldn't stay that way for long because he saw irony in almost everything, and he dearly enjoyed that form of humor to the highest degree.

Placing his hand onto the black glass plate attached to the doorknob, he looked directly into the adjustable retinal scanner that matched his height automatically and stated, "Professor Marty Kreaton, Minister of Science, authorization code four-four-fifty-oh-niner."

"IDENTIFICATION: CONFIRMED," droned the computerized masculine voice that came from the speaker above the door, "PROCEED, SCIENCE MINISTER KREATON."

"Thank you," Kreaton replied politely as he walked through the door after it had slid into the wall, allowing him free passage in the room. As it slid shut behind him, he stopped and looked at the massive computer that dominated the circular room.

It was a bulky piece of hardware, with thick reinforced cables attached to the sides and top of it and running up into the walls and ceiling. It hummed with constant activity as it maintained the entire collection of the palace's electronic systems. There, dwarfed by the monolithic machine, was an access terminal that was the interface between Mobians and the library of information stockpiled into this computer system over the years.

Kreaton immediately stepped over to the unit and sat down in the chair, typing in his commands with one hand even as he drew a disk chip and inserted it into the information exchange slot. He then applied both hands to feverish typing, and the computer screen informed him of every step of progress that he made.

"ACCESSING GREAT TYRANNY ARCHIVES...SEARCH FOR "roboticizer blueprints" REQUIRES PASSWORD...PASSWORD: ROYAL FLUSH...PASSWORD CONFIRMED...LOADING "roboticizer blueprints" NOW..."

Suddenly, a video screen lowered down from the ceiling on a mechanical arm, and the face of a brown-furred Mobian squirrel appeared on it. In a low husky voice, she asked, "Why are you accessing those files, Kreaton? You know why they're restricted."

Kreaton didn't even bother looking up from the screen, his fingers tapping fast on the keyboard. "Do not interfere, Nicole," he said without much emphasis, distracted as he was by his current task.

"And let you get away with this? Hardly. All it will take is some file deletion..."

Kreaton entered in one frantic command and pressed the enter button, smiling in triumph as the squirrel on the screen screamed out in pain as electricity backwashed into the video screen. "Being a fully sentient computer doesn't render you immune to viruses, Nicole," Kreaton said factually as he continued to download the roboticizer files onto the data chip.

Nicole's scream stopped, and she glared down at Kreaton with determination in her eyes. "Not too shabby, Kreaton. You've managed to lock me out of the archives, and I'm slowly being eaten away by your virus. That was a mistake you're going to regret, even if you manage to pull this off."

"And how so, Nicole?"

"I'll show you," Nicole said in a voice that began fading out into the distance as the computer-generated squirrel ran off farther into the screen and came up to a door. Following close behind her was a swarm of pixels that consumed anything that came in their way, but she slammed the door behind her, and the swarm scattered as it slammed against the door.

Kreaton stood up and looked back to the computer screen. It showed a diagram of the system, and a connection point that he had never seen before was now being used to link to some other system very far away. "Blast you, Nicole, you won't get away that easily!" he shouted as his fingers flew across the keyboard in a desperate attempt to trace the connection.

Just as his tracer was about to hook up with the link, the link began disintegrating at an incredible rate, cutting Kreaton off completely from wherever it was that Nicole had run off to. "She's gone," he said, calm and serene on his face even though he seethed on the inside, "I shouldn't have underestimated her. Now she's gone to some other system, and I can't trace it even if I wanted to now. The physical line must have been designed to self-destruct, protecting her hiding place. Oh well, at least I have this."

His ears picked up the sound of the door opening behind him, and he whirled around in his chair with the data chip in his hand even as the same security guard he had seen earlier came through the door, gun in hand. "Okay, Kreaton, hands up!"

"Whatever for?" Kreaton asked innocently as he got to his feet and placed the chip into his pocket. "I am doing this for the good of the entire planet."

The guard held up his other arm, showing Kreaton the arm-mounted security computer there. "Nicole dropped a little message into my mailbox just now, and it doesn't look good for you. This is treason, Kreaton!"

"Is it treason to overthrow a ruler who has been dealing with criminals as if they were business associates?!" Kreaton shot back. "If you really want to help the kingdom, you can let me get back to my laboratory without any further hindrance!"

"Yeah, right buddy. I'm going to call for backup," and then the guard began reaching for his computer...

Kreaton reached over to his wrist and tapped another button on the wrist computer, and the barrel of a plasma flamer popped out from underneath his labcoat. Before the guard could react, he was engulfed in a blue-hot fireball that reduced him to cinders in seconds.

Kreaton shook his head sadly at the remains of the guard. "Blind loyalty only gets people killed, thanks to that madman of a king," he commented as he stepped through the ashes and began walking rapidly out of the Royal Palace. Time was now of the essence.

* * *

9:16 p.m.

Air Duct #6, Royal Palace

-------

The Mobian raccoon had been watching through the grating when Professor Marty Kreaton, one of the most widely recognized scientific minds on Mobius, killed a member of the Royal Guard and escaped with the plans for the roboticizer.

He turned away from the grate and leaned back against the cold metal of the duct, the wind rustling through his fur even as he took deep desperate breaths. "I just saw someone get killed," the raccoon gasped, "no, I just saw someone get murdered!"

He closed his eyes, then opened them back up immediately when the image of the blue flame incinerating the guard stayed behind his eyelids. "Aw, frag," he breathed, and began crawling down the air duct at a rapid pace, trying to get away from the awful scene. He had seen death so many times before, but that was in hologames or street fights where it was something that he could understand. But a guy getting toasted that fast, in the blink of an eye...

His hand reached up and slapped his cheek, and he slumped until he was lying on his stomach, his leather jacket splayed out around him. "Get a grip, Bandit," he said in an angry tone to himself, "you just saw a murderer get away, and if what Nicole and the guard said was true, then he's going to try to put the king out of his place!"

He thought about that thought for a second. "Wait a minute...I hate the king. If it wasn't for the government that we have now, I might actually have a real family. Maybe I should..." He shook his head hard and slammed his fist onto the metal plating. "No! He just killed someone, and he's going to try to hurt lots of people! I've gotta stop him!"

Bandit rolled over and looked up at the ceiling, another thought occurring to him. "Wait another minute...I'm a streeter who doesn't even have a knife, and I'm supposed to go up against a guy who carries artillery in his labcoat? Not smart. And I can't even get out of the palace, thanks to all of the guards. I was lucky to get in here, but now the guards seem to be covering that vent that I came in, so I can't even get out of here. I can't talk to the king because he'd have me thrown into prison for breaking, entering, and stealing his food before I could even open my mouth," Bandit counted up these difficulties on his fingers, "and finally, it's probably safer in these ducts right now."

He got back to his hands and knees and continued to crawl down the ducts. "I've gotta do something, but what can I do? Seems like there isn't much time to decide..."

* * *

10:32 p.m.

A ridge just south of the Great Forest, north of Mobotropolis

-------

Rad sat down and leaned up against a tree, his attitude casual. "The fireworks should start anytime now," he said confidently as he raised on leg on top of the other and relaxed.

Claire checked her watch. "Yeah, the news report said the police were planning the raid just after curfew." She barked off a laugh. "Hah! Why do those cops let the news crews broadcast that stuff? It gives away the game and ruins the point."

Gyro was standing at the edge of the ridge that was high enough for them to see Mobotropolis in the distance, his shades reflecting the distant city lights. "I'm glad they do, in any case. It keeps us free and clear of the fighting, and then we can move back in with no problems. Wait a minute," Gyro's voice changed to a serious tone, "what is going on down there?!"

Claire walked over to the ridge. "It's just the streetfight. Cops and streeters trading some gunfire, nothing to-WHOA!"

Rad pushed himself up to his feet and came over to where Gyro and Claire were staring in shock at Mobotropolis. "What's the problem? Not like you haven't seen...WHAT THE FRAG IS THAT!?"

The three of them watched as the familiar energy beams from cop weapons were exchanged with some larger and brighter beams from something else. They couldn't see any of the combatants in the darkening night, but occasionally a body would be flung into the air, highlighted by an explosion.

The Rowdies were speechless, dumbstruck by this. They had seen streetfights before, had even participated in some, but some of the weapons that were being used were definitely not police weapons. This was a battle against someone who had access to military-grade weaponry, and that meant that something had gone horribly wrong.

And that was when the blow came.

They could see their warehouse standing there on the edge of Mobotropolis, but then it suddenly began crumbling as an explosion took out one corner of it. Their home was destroyed right before their eyes, so easily and quickly that they all had to blink several times to make sure they weren't seeing things that didn't happen.

Gyro's shades reflected the red explosions as he murmured, "Too many weapons, too powerful..."

Rad turned away from the scene and stomped over to the tree. "Great. Just fraggin' perfect!" he shouted as he threw his hands up into the air. He scowled in frustration as his hands clenched into fists. "If I ever get my hands on the punk who's responsible for that," he muttered under his breath, "I'm going to-"

"What now, Rad?"

He stopped mumbling and turned to see Claire and Gyro looking at him. His anger subsided as he saw their faces, which reflected the same frustration as his own, and yet showed their sadness as well. They had just lost their home, and now where would they go?

Rad undid the frown on his face, but kept his expression serious. "Looks like us Rowdies'll be doing some camping," he told them. "We can figure out what happened later, but right now this smells wrong and we need to get away from here."

Turning away from Mobotropolis, the three of them began walking into the Great Forest. What they would do, and where they would go, none of them had a clue. But they knew that they had to get out of there quickly, before it was too late.

* * *

11:45 p.m.

Royal Laboratory, Central Mobotropolis, near the Royal Palace

-------

Kreaton stood near the center of the laboratory room, with a large cloth-covered object right next to him. He watched with a certain amount of satisfaction as a tall darkly-painted humanoid robot dragged a ground squirrel in royal garb into the room.

The squirrel looked up at Kreaton, his eyes flashing dangerously. "Kreaton! So you're the one behind all of this!"

"Yes, my liege," Kreaton replied as he bowed, "I am the one who has finally put you out of your unrighteous dominion."

"You're mad, Kreaton!" King Alic Acorn shouted as he lunged forward against the robot's grip, "I'll have you executed for this!"

"Doubtful, Your Majesty. After all," and Kreaton then snapped his fingers, and continued as several more robots dragged in various members of the Royal Guard, "who here is in any position to follow your orders?"

As Kreaton turned to the cloth-covered thing next to him, Alic pleaded, "Why, Kreaton?! Why are you doing this?!"

"Why?" Kreaton echoed as he raised his hands and dug his fingers into the white cloth, pulling down sharply to reveal a raised platform with a large machine hooked up to the ceiling directly above it. Three glass tubes hung from the machine, clearly ready to be extended down to the ground and capable of holding even the widest and tallest Mobians, save for the dragons themselves.

"Why," Kreaton repeated, "is because of many things." He turned and faced Alic, bitterness in his eyes. "You have been poisoning the government by making deals with criminals, who have been gaining power and disrespecting Mobius. You accepted their money and looked the other way even as they dumped their waste into the oceans and forests, against the very laws you are supposed to support! You have been arrogant, snotty, and frivolous! You haven't remained faithful to your wife, who wasn't even a member of the royal court until she caught your roving eye on a visit to the Wolf Den on a diplomatic mission!"

Kreaton stopped, breathing hard even as the painful memories surged through his mind. "And as a final testament to your incompetent rule as king," he said in a low, dangerously-quiet voice, "it is your fault that Winona was brutally murdered by those pirates!"

"What are you talking about? I didn't kill your wife!"

"Don't you remember, Alic? My investigation into the matter revealed that you had been paying sea pirates to keep them away from the Northern Continent's coastline. They demanded a large payment, one that they wanted to be delivered to them by hand. You gave my wife the briefcase and told her that she was going to the western coast for a vacation cruise, but gave her specific instructions regarding the briefcase. She left in one of your private jets, and she came back in a coffin!"

"So you're taking over the city just to get revenge on me for what happened to your wife?!"

"No," Kreaton said quietly, "we had made plans, Winona and I, before her death. We were going to help everyone with our scientific research. We were literally going to save the world."

Kreaton's lips curled up into a sneer. "She's dead now, but I'm still going to save the world, Alic. I'm going to end death, strife, pain! I'm going to end meaningless death, and save the lives of all of those people who would have died because of your perverted monarchy."

Alic's eyes hardened as he glared at Kreaton. "So you're killing people to save lives?! You've completely lost your mind!"

"No," Kreaton said dismissively, the smile fading from his face, "I'm not mad. I've planned this very carefully, and quite frankly I have a lot to thank you for. If it hadn't been for the incompetent security you had placed around the central computer, I wouldn't be capable of fulfilling my plans at this moment. SWATbot, put him into the roboticizer."

The SWATbot dragged the king over to the raised platform and placed him underneath one of the glass tubes. It shut down around the squirrel, who beat against it with all of his strength in an attempt to get out.

Kreaton turned and gestured to the SWATbots and guards around him. "My friends, I present to you the greatest invention ever upon the face of Mobius: the roboticizer. It was designed by Sir Charles Hedgehog, but it was Robotnik, the First Tyrant, who realized its potential. It can convert a living, breathing creature into a robot simply by replacing the body with trillions of nanites designed to eat through the flesh and replace them with mechanical equivalents of each individual cell. Behold!"

He nodded to a SWATbot who stood at the controls of the roboticizer, and it used a heavy metal finger to activate the roboticizer. A purple lightning bolt coursed through Alic's body, and his scream of agony could be heard even through the sound-deadening glass.

When the smoke cleared and the glass tube rose out of the way, a metal ground squirrel stepped down from the platform and faced Kreaton with red eyes blazing in black glass sockets. "YOUR ORDERS?" droned the squirrel, and Kreaton threw his head back and laughed.

"I've done it, Winona! Mobotropolis is now under my control! It is now midnight, and the time is nigh for the birth of a new age, an age of order out of chaos, an age that shall end the suffering of Mobius!"

* * *

So now you have met some of the key players in the war ahead.

-------

A group of homeless teenagers toughened by their hard life on the streets.

-------

A lonely girl who wants a friend more than anything else, even though the riches of royalty surround her.

-------

And a man, driven to the brink of sanity by the death of his beloved wife, who seeks to redeem Mobius by conquering it.

--------

There is indeed a war beginning. It is an ironic recurrence of a war that was thought to be over upon Robotnik's death, one hundred years ago. It is a war that will determine once more the fate of Mobius and her children.

-------

This marks the beginning of Mobius: Second Tyranny.

--------

May hope's last light never die

for lack of some hero left to try.