"Okay, we've got three possible locations," Sally addressed the table where the Freedom Fighters were sitting while I stood with arms crossed in the back of the room. "Nicole could you show the locations on a map?"
"Of course, Sally," The computer agreed, and a computer monitor started showing a map of Mobius with three blinking red dots. Two were located on isolated islands in the eastern ocean while the third was near a mountainous area along the coast.
"What're we looking at Sal?" Sonic asked, "'cause those look pretty far out."
"He's right," Rotor agreed, "We'd need transportation in order to get that far out and back."
"Bah," Bunnie grinned as she waved a hand dismissively, "Then we do what we always do, sugar. Take it from Robotnik."
"It doesn't matter how we get there," Sally dismissed, "but what's waiting for us there. From what Nicole and I can find out these are the possible location where the Time Stones are located."
"Time stones?" Sonic yawned, "Sound boring."
Rotor frowned, "I think I've actually heard about those before." He gave Sally a concerned look, "You want to time travel?"
Sally nodded, "Think of it, if we can stop Robotnik before he even had a chance to take over…"
"That's amazing, sugar!" Bunnie agreed, her eyes shining, "We could undo the damage from this whole war."
"Yes, it is, how you say, an excellent idea, princess," Antoine agreed.
"Sally?" Rotor questioned, with a funny look on his face, "I thought Rook," he nodded at me, "was the one who was researching this stuff. Why are you the one telling us?"
I stepped forward trying to keep my expression neutral, "I'm not the one telling you because I know that Sally's plan to use the Time Stones is doomed from the start. And even if you did find the Stones you're risking far more than you could gain." I shook my head, "I'm only going along with this because there are some things that might be genuinely useful in the locations listed."
Things like Gizoids or a Gaia Temple. Things which I could potentially make use of, or needed to verify were secure. The idea of Robotnik upgrading his SWATbots with what he could learn from a Gizoid was terrifying. There had been a picture of an ancient relief depicting a Gizoid in one of the books about archeological sites. And the mere idea of Dark Gaia being a thing was terrifying, something I needed to look into, and maybe contemplate the implications of.
"Take that back," Antoine snarled as he stood up, "The Princess' plan is genius."
"Why would you go along with a plan that you disagree with…" Rotor trailed off as his eyes widened, "The Time Stones aren't at these locations are they."
I nodded, "Correct, Nicole and Sally are guessing the location based on my notes. They've done a passible job decoding locations out of them," and wasn't that annoying that they had cracked my code and got two out of three right. The mountainous location and one of the island locations were totally on the mark, but I had no idea where they got that second island from. "but I never bothered to write down where the Stones actually are. She just doesn't believe me because while they figured out the locations they couldn't decode the bits about what I actually think are there."
Everyone looked as Sally. "Either he's lying and the Time Stones are at one of these three locations," She shrugged, "Or some other thing we can use against Robotnik is there. That is what Rook was noting down. Robotnik doesn't have any interest in these areas are far as we can tell, so we wouldn't actually be putting ourselves in much danger, so it's a possible gain without much of a downside."
"Yep," I agreed, "Each of these locations are possibilities that I noted down which could be helpful against Robotnik." I smirked, "I didn't bother writing down the Time Stones' location because it was super obvious to me, and not helpful against Robotnik." I shook my head with a disappointed sigh, "After all time travel is never the answer."
"What do you mean, 'hon?" Bunnie asked, "Isn't stopping Robotnik before he could start a good thang?"
I snorted. "Time travel is too unpredictable. While I've not studied the physics behind it myself, I do know the basics. There are four possible outcomes." I held up a paw, four claws up, "First, time travel is impossible," I lowered one claw, "while I know it was possible back home it's possible that local physics doesn't support it. Two, that time travel is possible, but only in the form of stable time loops, that you can only go back and alter things which you had already gone back and altered." Aka what happened in the show I watched. "Third, that time travel is impossible and while you can go back to the past you can't go back to your past, and that any changes you make don't affect the present because you've split off another dimension rather than alter your own past." Aka the implied result of Sonic Generations where Classic Sonic being his own thing to Modern Sonic started gaining steam. "Fourth, that time travel works just like you're hoping, where changing the past doesn't create a paradox and somehow everything works out. Which brings up the question, why hasn't someone else already time traveled and could we not be living in a timeline which has already been altered." Or that there was someone out there protecting the timeline, I didn't say.
"Quite frankly, I don't want to touch time travel with a ten foot pole," I looked around the table, "And neither should you."
Before anyone else could respond a portal opened up in the middle of the room and a silver figure flopped onto the table they were sitting around.
The others jumped up and took attack positions around the figure, but I just stared at the figure I immediately recognized.
"Oh," the white furred figure sat up, "What hit me?" He looked around, his eyes conveying confusion, before he met my gaze, "Pops? What're you doing here?" Silver the Hedgehog asked, "And why do you guys look so young?"
Instead of saying anything, or jumping to action like the others, I turned around and started to bang my head on the wall.
