Evil Overlords Have Feelings Too
by Jenifer Irwin

Part 5

"Get off of me," Arashi snarled, grabbing the arm that was just placed around her shoulders and shoving it away forcibly enough to nearly hyperextend its elbow. She folded her arms over her chest and glared at the cold metal floor in front of her, where her royal crown was lying.

The man sitting next to her feigned being emotionally hurt. "Arashi, I've given you everything a woman could possibly want and you still don't want to be my queen," he said, his distinct British accent really getting on her nerves. "What more could you want?"

"What I want is for you to put me back on Earth and leave me and Ivo alone," she growled in his face. "We were perfectly happy before you came along, lime-boy."

"I see you've picked up some of his mannerisms," the green-skinned alien mused as he remembered how his adversary used to call him that. "But, all that aside, I thought you liked them as evil as they come? I'm more evil than that pile of lard."

"You also have no feelings other than nastiness. At first, when I realized Ivo had other feelings, I thought it was blasphemy, but then I realized it added a certain charm to him. I don't like him simply because he's nasty, I like him because he's just... he's just interesting! You're not! You're just a cliché alien usurper! And your 'feelings' toward me are so fake!"

"I suppose I could engineer other feelings into my genetic code if you REALLY wanted me to, but they'd be fairly repressed. I don't want to seem almost good like he does anymore."

"I wouldn't agree to become your queen even if you did that. I want to be with HIM, not YOU," Arashi growled, then got up and left the room.

Takar sighed and leaned back on the small loveseat, thinking. She sure was determined to get back to Ivo, somehow. I hate how love messes up EVERYTHING, the Ykrian King thought to himself, muttering slightly. I'd love to torment Ivo by stealing her away from him in mind and heart as well as physical presence, but it seems I can't do that. Oh well, it's only been a few days, she'll eventually crack. And I'm pretty sure Ivo has given up anyway, else he'd have been here by now. Pathetic weakling. Now I have to build a new adversary, blast it.

Takar left the room and went to his private study, starting to draw up the plans for a new and improved source of entertainment.

**

Arashi sat in her room on the giant alien ship, face in her hands. Ivo, what's taking you so long? I thought you would have been here within an hour or so of my being abducted... It's been days, and it seems like years to me... Takar is such a fake moron, I hate him... I can't find any way out of this place, I'm depending on you to come and get me, Ivo. I beg of you, don't give up... I love you...

Wiping tears from her eyes, Arashi walked over to the reinforced window and stared out into space at the Earth below.

**

Dr. Ivo Robotnik was thirsty, hungry and in pain, both physical and mental. He had been hanging from a tractor beam in midair for days, and it was impossible to find a comfortable position. He was so stiff, and it was like hanging by his chest from a meat hook, without the hook. He could only sleep when completely exhausted, because there was no level of comfort to do so any other time.

If he didn't get at least some water within a few days, he would lose all of his strength and slowly die. It was so taunting, having the clear river right under him, but he was suspended in the air where no tree branches or anything were anywhere within reach. He doubted he could pull himself off the tractor beam anyway. The beam's projector sat on a rock about 30 feet away, no way he could get to it or affect it. He had struggled quite a bit, but nothing could be done to budge the beam.

This... sucks, Ivo thought to himself as he stretched, but it hurt. He rolled his head back and forth, trying to get the stiffness out of his neck. He could only sleep with his head hanging forward, and that played havoc with the muscles in his neck and shoulders. After a while of staring at the beam projector as if trying to will it to stop working, nothing happened, and he slumped forward again with a sigh.

He was so hungry and thirsty... if only it rained, but it was dead summer and the region wasn't getting much rain. His leather suit made him sweat a lot, making him lose water even quicker than normal. Suspended in midair, Ivo waited for his inevitable, slow, miserable death.

**

Two days later, Arashi sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes. She opened them, hoping to find that maybe it was all a bad dream, but much to her discontent, Takar was sitting on the side of the bed, having come into her bedroom a few minutes before to wait for her to wake up.

"Good morning, my queen," the alien said, smiling charmingly.
"I'm not your queen; and get out of my room," Arashi muttered.
"I still can't understand why you don't want to be the Ykrian Queen! Normal women would leap at the chance, but no, you'd rather stay with that unattractive slob on earth..."
"I'm not a normal woman, and yes, I would rather stay with Ivo. I don't care what he looks like, he's a lot nicer to me than you are, and he actually understands me!" Arashi growled and stood up, tugging her shirt and jeans to straighten them out. Being a computer nerd, she was no stranger to sleeping in her street clothes, and usually didn't even have to slip her shoes on in the morning because they were already on.

"I'd understand you too if you would actually talk to me," Takar said, pretending to be hurt.
"You will never understand me, and nobody will but him," Arashi muttered. The alien stood up and walked around the bed to her, putting an arm around her shoulders. "Ah, come on, give me a chance, will you?" he asked, trying to be a little more casual than normal, and slipped his other arm around her stomach. That was a mistake.

Takar went to the floor, gasping for breath, after Arashi viciously elbowed him in the gut, screaming at him. He recovered quickly and looked up at her, growling.

"Fine. I only wanted to torment Ivo, and I was more than willing to make your life like a paradise. But you blew your chance." He stood up and grabbed Arashi, quickly getting her into a hold that she couldn't break out of, and dragged her kicking and screaming from the room. With a little assistance from some guards, he carried her to the recesses of the ship, where he threw her into a narrow, reinforced room with absolutely nothing in it and no windows. The door was in the ceiling of the room, which was 10 feet off the floor--much higher than she would be able to reach. The room was about 6 feet long by 6 feet wide.

Looking down into the hatch, Takar said, "Like I said, I was willing to make your life great. But now you're going to die. Slowly..." He paused briefly.

"Alone."

The door slammed shut, leaving Arashi in utter silence and darkness.

**

The squirrel scampered down its tree, retrieving a nut from the ground. It munched on the nut contentedly, peering at its surroundings with wide, shining eyes, and hopped away, dropping the nut, its attention span quite short. The furry creature scurried up onto a big boulder, tail twitching slightly as it found something curious there.

What was this odd thing? It had a funny light coming out of one side, and strange, circular protrusions on the top. It was about the size of the squirrel's torso, and didn't look like anything he'd ever seen before. Curiously, he nibbled at it, finding it quite hard to chew. Pushing the odd thing to see if it did anything interesting, the squirrel jumped back as it slid off the boulder and shattered on another rock below.

A surprised scream nearby mixed with a huge, simultaneous THUD and SPLASH frightened the squirrel, who turned and bolted away, up into his tree.

**

Ivo tried to get his bearings in a bit of a panic, raising his head and shaking it vigorously to get the water out of his mustache.

...water...

Looking down, the doctor realized he was lying on the bank of the river, half in the water. He was free! Nothing was holding onto him! Something happened while he was sleeping! His entire body ached badly from stiffness, but he didn't care. Greedily, he dunked his head in the water and took huge gulps of it, glad for once that the river wasn't instead filled with oil. Stimulated by the sudden intake of something, his stomach rumbled hungrily, and he got up stiffly but quickly, grabbing a rock and looking around almost frantically.

Noticing movement of something that looked alive up in a tree, Ivo turned and hurled the rock with all his strength. Even when ridden with the shakes from hunger, his aim was true, and a squirrel fell out of the tree, dead.

Raw meat and the occasional tuft of fur wasn't exactly a gourmet meal, but it sufficed, and helped to get rid of some of the growling of Ivo's stomach. He searched around the area for a moment and found the broken tractor-beam-projector, having shattered on a rock somehow. Thanking his lucky stars, he found his trusty broken screwdriver nearby and managed to repair his Shapechanger within a few minutes.

Heading back towards his base, Ivo started to plan his course of action. First, of course, he would have to fill his stomach, which would take about 30 seconds thanks to his pill machine, then he could think well enough to figure out how to get to Takar and rescue Arashi.

**
Okay, I can find out all I need right here, Ivo thought to himself as he sipped a Dr Pepper, studying the computer attached to the Life Box that he stole from Takar's underground lab a while back. He hadn't thought to check this computer for the file before, and wouldn't have found it before anyway. He ran a powerful search for the text 'G* Robotnik' on every file in the system and found the file, archived, renamed to a completely different filetype to prevent easy discovery, and flagged hidden. Nothing could hide from a computer expert...

When Ivo pulled up the file, he found a wealth of information. Everything from Takar's thought process to his personality to his physical strengths were detailed in his genetic code, and along with the '.box' file he found in the archive was an electronic journal, which was simple to open. Takar wasn't much for passwords, being arrogant enough to think that his little file-hiding trick would be good enough.

The most notable entries in the journal were chilling.

Ykriat 2382775

Somehow I knew something was going to go wrong on this vacation...

Oh well, I'll just have to make do. This looks like an interesting plane of existence. I've never seen one so big, it's a good thing I have instant-warp capabilities. I should find an interesting planet to torment.

Ykriat 2603828

The nearest planet I found is filled with small life-forms, no intelligent life yet. However, these are some of the most interesting things I've ever seen, so I think I'll wait for a while to see what it develops into.

Ykriat 3280725

These things that call themselves 'humans' develop too fast. I've slowly engineered them to have very random intellects and become collectively stupider the larger the population gets. Then I'll have lots of people to torment and they'll never be able to get rid of me! On a side note, I stashed my Continuation 3000 in the central point of the universe. It's fortunate that this plane of existence is structured similar to what I am used to. I like to call the star Ivo. Nobody will ever find it, because humans will never be able to warp, and nobody would ever live long enough to survive that trip at the speeds I predict they'll be able to travel.

On a side note, I'm starting to like the calendar that the humans came up with, so I think I'll be converting to that soon.

April 12, 3053

Bother. That was one of the best incarnations of myself that I ever created. Why'd they have to go and kill me? Oh well, I've got Project Shadow under way... now, to make something that will help to execute it the rest of the way...

August 6, 3057...

Ivo's jaw dropped. August 6, 3057 was his birthday. After a stunned moment, he kept reading.

Well, I decided to go through with it. I made a human being that might be capable, someday, of the same abilities I possess. If he's determined enough. These humans just aren't giving me the challenge I want. Sure, I've been defeated, but I was also limiting myself to abilities that only mildly superhuman people could accomplish. Hopefully I can have some real adventure with this one. I call him Julian Ivo. I engineered him to be an extremely evil megalomaniac, an absolute master of everything mechanical, and quite excellent with programming and the like as well.

I made a little something to go along with him, something he can practice on and develop his abilities. As I sit here looking at these three, Julian suspended in one chamber, the hedgehog in another and the fox in another, I have a feeling they're going to become quite famous. I'll awaken Julian first, when the time is right, then the hedgehog about 2 years later, then the fox a little bit after that. Still not sure what to name the animals.

I'm going to start recreating my own race in case I need help with these three... still, no one must know my true plans and inner secrets, so I need to make up a good cover...

Ivo sat, absolutely shocked, staring at the screen.

Sonic and Tails were his brothers.

**

Strained, exhausted panting could be heard from the floor of the lab, and a white-gloved, trembling hand slammed itself up onto the computer desk, clawing at it, trying to pull its owner up. Ivo slowly made it to a half-standing, half-kneeling position, breathing raggedly, trying to recover from the massive combination stroke-heart-attack he just endured. His hand slipped and he fell back to the floor, wheezing.

I won't believe it, I refuse to... but... but it's true, isn't it...

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" The strained, cracking scream echoed through the base, Ivo unable to stomach the fact that his two archenemies were his own flesh and blood... unable to accept that he was just a pawn in Takar's game... unable to accept reality.

Clutching his head, Ivo could physically feel himself going insane. It was as if something was welling up in the back of his mind, threatening to explode, threatening to paint his vision the angry color of blood. He knew he would be completely unable to control himself very soon, and dragged himself up into the computer chair, rolling over to a wall-mounted computer terminal and typing something in as fast as he possibly could.

SUFFERING. MEDICAL ATTENTION. MUST RETURN TO STABLE THOUGHT.

Just as he hit enter, his will to retain control cracked, and he started to violently destroy everything he could find with madly swinging fists. Soon, his gloves started to tear, revealing bleeding knuckles underneath, until finally several robots closed in on him and managed to stop him, injecting him with a powerful tranquilizer that left him slumping weakly to the floor on the spot.

With stiff, calculated movements, the five robots tended to the unstable doctor, placing him on an examination table. They diagnosed his problems within seconds of analyzing his pulse, a blood sample and other telltale signs, then went about slowing his rapid pulse and administering some drugs that would speed his recovery extremely quickly. They also injected him with extra-strength Prozac and gave him a few other things that would enhance his thought process.

Ten minutes later, Ivo sat up, calmed down to an almost impossible state. He pulled on a new pair of gloves, then dismissed the robots, glad for the advanced AI he had coded into them. He got up and approached the Life Box, stepping inside and closing the doors.

The doctor briefly examined a small keypad that was clearly visible by aid of a fluorescent light installed just above it. He pressed the 'Scan' button and stood still, watching a white beam that cut across the Box horizontally move from the ceiling downward, scanning over him, easily giving him a thorough physical examination while it recorded his present DNA structure.

The beam seemed to disappear into the floor of the Box and a small green light flashed on the keypad, the digital display reading, "YOU MAY EXIT. THANK YOU FOR USING THE LIFE BOXÔ." When Ivo stepped out, he sat down at the computer, finding his file loaded and changed to fit his present state.

The computer had compared this file to all of the other files on the hard drive and successfully isolated Takar, Sonic and Tails' DNA, displaying condensed versions of their files in smaller windows. Ivo directed his file to keep all of the physical enhancements that came from the three, but deleted anything related to the mind that weren't his own qualities in the first place. He did admire the way Takar made this so user-friendly--his own qualities were highlighted in red, Sonic's in blue, Takar's in green and Tails' in yellow. He could easily find and delete things he didn't want.

When he was finished, Ivo saved the file, then stepped back into the Life Box and pressed the 'Mutate' button. Several *thunk* sounds were heard as the Box sealed itself to an airtight state, and then a hissing sound echoed off the steel walls. Robotic clamps extended from the walls, holding Ivo in place as the gas started to take effect, and he soon went limp, put into a very deep, coma-like sleep just as normal procedure was supposed to go.

The Life Box quickly restructured Ivo's DNA, something that would be very painful if he were awake. Most of the restructuring went on in his neural cells, but there were basic bits of information in every other cell that needed to be changed as well. Within 2 minutes the entire process was finished and Ivo was a new mutation, though nothing about him changed appearance-wise. One of the clamps that kept him standing produced a small needle, injecting him with enough caffeine to make a dead sloth do a quarter-mile in 6 seconds.

The caffeine instantly brought the doctor out of his slumber, and the clamps let go of him. He had to take a minute to reorient himself, then remembered what happened and stepped out of the box, sitting back down at the computer.

Ivo drummed his fingers on the desk, restored to his normal state of mind, and said to himself, "I really don't want to do this, but I'm going to have to." He placed the cursor over the 'Create!' button on Sonic's file and clicked.

The Box churned and groaned, eventually spitting the blue hedgehog out, and Sonic jumped up, finding himself standing 10 feet from Ivo. "Not AGAIN!" the hero whined, sighing as he looked up at the mad scientist, then tilting his head in puzzlement when Ivo shook his head slightly.

"You've got nothing to worry about, Sonic," Ivo said as he pulled out his laser gun. The hedgehog cringed, closing his eyes tightly and waiting for a meaningless death, but then he heard something hit the floor with a loud *THOK* and looked down to see the battery cartridge of the gun on the floor. Dr. Robotnik calmly set the disabled gun down on the desk.

"Well, I take that back. Presently you have nothing to worry about from me, but... well, have a seat and see for yourself." The doctor pulled up another office chair and opened Takar's journal on the computer, rolling his own chair aside a bit. He leaned his elbows against the desk and locked his hands together in front of his face, sighing and leaning his forehead against them in deep concern.

Sonic very dubiously pulled himself up into the chair, moving over to read the journal entries, several of which had been highlighted red. By the time he was finished, his expression was one of unimaginable shock.

"I can't believe it either, but you know, it does make sense. You're the only one who's been able to defeat me all these years... who else but a... brother... who holds just as much power as I do?" Ivo asked, stumbling awkwardly on the word 'brother.' He couldn't believe he was using it to refer to his bitter enemy of many years.

"Oh, geez... my last name... it isn't 'hedgehog...' My name is Sonic Robotnik!?" Sonic asked, his voice cracking in disbelief, and he leaned his face heavily on one hand, starting to hyperventilate from shock.

The doctor twitched slightly. "Please... please, don't put those two names together. Even if it is true... just don't say it. Here, don't have a stroke or something, those are nasty." Ivo reached over to a nearby compartment in the wall and pulled out a Pepsi and a Dr Pepper, handing the Pepsi to Sonic.

Soon, the two sat facing each other only 5 feet apart, elbows resting on their knees, digesting all of this information. Ivo was the first to speak after a while.

"I brought you back because, for one thing, Takar is incredibly powerful and I want to do this right... If I were to die without bringing you back, you would have never had a chance to come back and destroy him. For another thing, an Evil Overlord can only help save the world so much. I almost went insane after the space-colony incident when I ended up helping out. I need someone to blame saving the world on, and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't mind saying you saved it and I was the big bad villain who caused all the trouble in the first place." He paused. "I know, despite all the problems between us, that deep down you enjoy the adventure just as much as I do... and I don't think either of us are going to want to let Takar ruin that."

Sonic looked up at him, considering the situation for a few long moments. Finally, he extended a hand. "Truce till Takar's destruction?"

Ivo nodded slightly, taking the hand and shaking it firmly. "Truce till Takar's destruction."

The two finished their drinks and started to plan.

**

"Okay, we need to collect about 1000 rings each, just to be safe," Ivo said absently as he studied the floor plan for Takar's mother-ship.

"1000!? Are you nuts? I might have skills, but not enough to collect THAT many rings!"

"Remember, there aren't badniks around every corner, nor am I there every second stage to attack you."

"Oh, yeah... Well, I suppose I'll go start collecting," Sonic said, then started running through the base, grabbing rings.

I can't believe I'm teaming up with him again, Sonic thought to himself as he ran. Perhaps there's some good in him after all. I thought he would be the type to take the entire world with him in the event that it was going to be destroyed. Course, then there'd be nothing to take over, but I didn't think he'd be about to help anyone do anything. Oh well, no time to dwell on that, I've got to get rings, and we've got to destroy Takar!

Ivo memorized the mother-ship layout fairly quickly, then found the exact location of the machine that Takar used to keep himself alive. Indeed, it was the center of the universe, but oddly, no details were given for the star Ivo. The doctor was amazed to find that the Milky Way galaxy was apparently several hundred trillion light years away from the center of the universe. In the center, billions of stars were extremely close together, making him wonder how in the world a ship, much less a living being, could survive the conditions. Furthermore, he wondered how it was possible that there were some stars only a few thousand miles apart. It seemed impossible, but this was all he had to go off of, and he was going to destroy Takar no matter how much it took.

While the Shapechanger ran around in the likeness of Ultra Robotnik and collected rings, Ivo continued to research and plan. This is a difficult decision. Heading for the Continuation 3000 would give Takar less warning, but going to rescue Arashi first would ensure that she's safe. Am I willing to risk her death for this? I could just bring her back to life afterward... But there's no need to risk her death for no reason. I'm going to...

As the Shapechanger passed by, Ivo got an idea.

**

Arashi lay on the floor of the small chamber, trying to fight off the insanity that threatened to grip her. She really was alone. It was absolutely silent in the chamber, and pitch black. All she could hear was the beating of her own heart.

That is, until something in her backpack moved.

Arashi gasped in surprise as a huge robotic arm burst out of the backpack, clamping onto the wall nearby and pulling the rest of itself out. The room was now quite cramped, and Arashi shoved herself into a corner, unable to see what was going on, but she could clearly hear the humming of some kind of vehicle. Suddenly, a light flicked on in the vehicle, and there were Ivo and Sonic... sitting in the Shapechanger.

Arashi couldn't decide whether to be more freaked out about the fact that a 3-ton vehicle just pulled itself out of her backpack or the fact that Ivo and Sonic appeared to be cooperating. She stared at them in disbelief, and Ivo flipped the lid of the pod up, grinning. "Well, don't just stand there staring, we have an alien to destroy," he said in an amused tone. Arashi pointed at Sonic, raising an eyebrow, and Ivo added, "We're in a truce till Takar's dead."

Knowing Sonic was a trustable type who wouldn't pull any nasty tricks, Arashi climbed up into the Shapechanger and was surprised to see the hedgehog move out of the seat and crouch slightly behind both of the seats, allowing her to take her place. The pod lid flipped down and the vehicle started to change.

**

Takar was staring out one of the main chamber windows at the stars, thoughtfully, when he felt a large amount of energy building up. He tried to figure out what it was, but within a moment, a huge explosion rocked the ship. He whirled around quickly, ordering several guards to check out what was going on, and pulled out his own advanced laser gun, remaining where he was, waiting. The ship kept rumbling and Takar became nervous as he heard a bloodcurdling mechanical roar echo through the entire place.

Several guards, many of them charred badly, ran screaming into the room as a column of flame burst down the hallway past the large door. Takar's eyes widened as the entire wall shattered and a huge, metallic dragon appeared, snarling.

The dragon's mouth opened and Super Sonic spun gracefully out to the floor, followed immediately by Ultra Robotnik, who hit the floor with a sound *CLANG,* dropping to an intimidating kneeling pose, one hand on the floor.

"WHAT!?!?" Takar screamed. "Ivo, you are COOPERATING with SONIC!? AGAIN!?"

"Even the most bitter of enemies will join forces against a greater evil," Super Sonic said, glaring at Takar. "And it seems you're a greater evil that just won't go away."

"I didn't create you two to be this smart!" Takar wailed, then started to shoot, but knew he was defenseless against the two. They had all of the chaos emeralds and he had none. He should have seen this coming.

The dragon threw back its head and let out a long, primal roar, causing the base to shake again. Instead of attacking Takar, Ultra Robotnik and Super Sonic began to attack the walls, ceiling and floor, shattering them, and the dragon rampaged about breathing fire and clawing through reinforced steel. Takar looked about in confusion, but couldn't figure out what they were doing, and decided to run and hide. Instead of getting away, however, he found himself swept off his feet. The dragon held him tightly with its tail as it went about its destruction, and the base started to crumble in a short time.

The dragon let go of Takar and swallowed up Sonic and Robotnik, then was enveloped in Chaos Control and disappeared as the entire mother ship, exploding in dozens of places and belching out huge clouds of smoke, descended towards earth. Takar, choking on the smoke and getting knocked unconscious by falling debris, went down with the ship towards the ground.

"That ought to distract him long enough for us to make it to his Continuation machine," Ultra Robotnik said as the Chaos Control did its work. The three were inside the Metal Dragon's super-armored torso, and could see what was going on outside by looking at the monitor of the onboard computer. The computer displayed what the dragon's eyes could see, and presently they were traveling through a brilliant tunnel of light. Chaos Control was usually instant, but that was for relatively short distances--to travel as far as they were having to go, it was going to take about five minutes.

Arashi watched as the two deactivated their super forms to save on rings, morphing back into their normal selves. The Shapechanger now had a backseat for Sonic to sit in thanks to a few quick modifications, and they sat quietly during the ride, Ivo pulling out three drinks and handing two to the others.

Sonic shook his head slightly just after taking a drink and commented, "I'm a little dizzy... I feel odd energy..." Arashi and Ivo replied that they felt something similar, and waited curiously, a bit dubiously, to arrive to their destination. Ivo and Sonic had agreed to send the ship to the outer reaches of the general central point of the universe, where the stars were starting to cluster pretty closely. It would probably be about 25 light years away from the very center.

A blast of energy ripped time and space open, and three jaws dropped as their owners dizzily stared at what lay before them.

Billions of huge chaos emeralds, most of them the size of planets, floated about here. They shimmered beautifully in the light, and the entire surrounding area glowed brightly, as if the ship was floating in another plane of existence and not the blackness of space. Unimaginable amounts of energy thrummed in the very fabric of existence itself here, pulsing like a giant heartbeat. Just one of these huge chaos emeralds would be enough to provide infinite power for an entire galaxy's population, but they were nothing compared to what lay at the very center of the universe.

There, in the direct center, was a red chaos emerald too large for even Ivo to comprehend. He directed the onboard computer to analyze it, and the Shapechanger returned that the 'star' Ivo was five light years across at its widest point and five light years tall from the very top to the very point. From twenty-five light years away, much too far for standard stars to be seen as anything more than pinpoints, the 'star' Ivo appeared against the bright, shimmering 'sky' of this area to be as large as a basketball to the naked eye. The largest star known to man up to this point, Betelgeuse, had a radius that reached from the Sun to Jupiter. The giant red chaos emerald, Ivo, was bigger than the distance between the Sun and its next nearest star four light years away, Alpha Centauri.

The three occupants of the Shapechanger had only been here for a few seconds and they were starting to feel extremely weird. It wasn't a bad feeling, but they weren't sure if it was a good feeling, either. It was too powerful to comprehend. Something 'clicked,' and instantly, the three seemed to vaporize, turning into nothing but brilliant, shimmering forms of pure chaos energy--Ivo a brilliant blood-red, Sonic a deep blue and Arashi a rich cyan. The euphoria experienced by the three after that was too great to imagine, and they all three gained powers that could only be described as godlike.

It was time to break something.

**

No longer in need of the Shapechanger, the three warped themselves into the giant chaos emerald, finding themselves within a base quite unlike anything they'd ever seen. As soon as they appeared, they sensed an alarm system go off. The inside of the Emerald was hollow toward the upper half, the open space continuing for about a light year in all directions before there were solid walls. Red ether roiled about in the hollow space, and there appeared to be absolutely nothing in there, until Chaos Ivo spotted something a few million miles away. Within seconds, the three were next to it, and it was at the very central point of the inside of the emerald.

A laptop, with a gamepad attached, hovered in midair. On the screen, the word, "CONTINUE?" flashed, and the 'infinity' symbol was right under it. Chaos Arashi willed the computer to examine the .exe file of the game that was running and found that Takar had hacked the ROM to provide him with infinite continues.

"Well, we can't have a cheater running the universe," Chaos Arashi said, and hacked the file, resetting the number of continues to zero. When she was done with that, she saved the file and recompiled it, then destroyed the computer.

A brilliant green flash blasted through the area and Takar appeared in front of them, growling. He instantly turned into his own form of pure chaos, nothing but a neon green glow.

"Alright... you want to destroy my Continuation 3000? I think I'll just destroy your entire UNIVERSE!" The green light expanded rapidly, and the other Chaos forms teleported out, starting to absorb energy from the planet-sized chaos emeralds. Chaos Takar began to build up immense amounts of energy within himself and the Ivo emerald, causing the very fabric of existence to shake.

"We have to contain the energy so he just blows himself out of existence," Chaos Ivo said to the other two, and the three zipped around much faster than the speed of light, absorbing as much energy as they could. It was a race to see who could absorb more power, Chaos Takar or them. Three beats one when all four have the same speed, however, and instead of restraining himself, Chaos Takar decided he was going to die anyway and completely abandoned all reserve, building up power much faster than normal. He was killing himself even as he did it, because the energy was too much for a living being to handle, but he was going to do it anyway.

"NOBODY'S GOING TO WIN HERE, IVO! IT ALL ENDS IN TOTAL DESTRUCTION!" the Ykrian screamed madly, letting his energy build up faster and faster. The other three Chaos forms raced to keep up.

Chaos Ivo could sense that the enemy was nearing the end of his capacity and he would detonate soon, and signaled the other two to stop absorbing and start containing him. The three surrounded the huge red central emerald and created a ball of energy to enclose it, putting everything they had into reinforcing its strength. The entire universe was shaking tremendously, breaking apart most things closer to the center. A huge crack ripped its way down the giant emerald, ether hissing out of it as it threatened to explode...

Just as the three Chaos forms had poured all but a tiny amount of energy into the shield, the huge emerald blew apart in a magnificent explosion that brought a tear to Chaos Ivo's eye. It was the most beautiful expression of destruction that he had ever witnessed, but he only had time to watch it for a few seconds before it slammed into the shield, sending all three flying back extremely fast. The explosion reached outward past the shield, breaking it, but Ivo, Arashi and Sonic knew they'd stunted it enough to keep it from spreading much further than a few hundred light-years, and Earth was safe. Summoning the last of their strength, they teleported themselves, and the Shapechanger, back to the field on Earth where the hole to Ivo's underground base was. They immediately reverted to their normal form and collapsed.

**

Several days later, Ivo woke up, finding all the chaos emeralds lying next to him along with Arashi and Sonic. Everyone was intact, but they'd also overloaded themselves on energy and were pretty weak, but could function. Ivo slowly got to his feet and woke the other two up.

As Sonic dragged himself to a standing position, Ivo dropped a hand heavily on the hedgehog's shoulder. "Thanks," the doctor said weakly, reaching down with a hand to help Arashi stand up.

Sonic wavered and mumbled, "Yeah... no prob..." and started to stumble away, still quite disoriented.

Ivo and Arashi stood, leaning against each other, watching the hedgehog stagger off. When he got about 200 yards away, Ivo pulled a small device out of his pocket and smiled, pressing the button.

Sonic heard a mechanical whirring on his shoulder, but not for long. Ripped apart by a violent explosion, the hedgehog became nothing more than a crater in the earth.

Arashi looked up at Ivo, blinking, confused.

"Hey, he only said the truce was going to last until Takar was dead," Ivo stated, grinning.

**

Ivo and Arashi stood on the balcony of their underground base, leaning against the railing as they stared at the gem-encrusted walls, enjoying a couple of sodas.

"The best part is," Ivo said quietly, "Nobody will ever know that I helped save the world, and Sonic is dead. I killed two hedgehogs with one stone!" He laughed along with Arashi.

"So, what are you going to do now?" she asked.

"The question is not whether I am going to do anything. It's more like... what are we going to do now? All the technology in the universe... so many things in this world and beyond that we haven't explored yet... I bet there's lots of stuff out there even better than the Ivo emerald was. Of course..." He smiled down at her. "None of it is better than you."

Arashi looked up at him, smiling slightly. He slipped an arm around her.

The Dr Pepper and Mountain Dew sat on the railing, forgotten, as their owners shared a passionate moment and a long kiss. Well, how did you expect it to end?

Looks like Evil Overlords Have Feelings Too, after all.