AN: After Primus's discussion of the force last chapter I will only capitalize it if the character in focus has not adopted Primus's views.

Cody, Mirta, Yeyinde, Blade, Nightscream, and Skybyte had all set out for the Burnt Lake. It was a great chasm where a lakebed had once been. The most striking feature was a crack in the ground that glowed silver, or rather that would have been the most striking feature: Shredder, Alðerata, Atrilo, and several dozen Xenomorphs were there.

Shredder felt a very familiar presence and looked up to see his nemesis.

"Greetings, Jones!" He called from the chasm. "Everyone you brought has good reason to be here today." He closed his eyes and reached out to the different minds, something to which even the technorganic Cybertronians were helpless. Mirta… "The self-righteous Mandalorian who never trusted any of our judgments is about to face a universe where mine is the only one that matters…" Samedi and the youngblood…"Two Blooded Yautja Hunters against a swarm of Force-sensitive Xenomorphs…" Nightscream and…a Predicon?... "An Autobot and Decepticon at the true location where their species was born—an Autobot who had been trapped here a long time without knowing this world's true significance…" Shredder inhaled. "Finally," he said, opening his eyes directly at Cody, "My archnemesis is here to witness the ultimate triumph of the Foot."

"You're insane, Shredder," Cody said to the Triceraton.

"Petty insults cannot stop me, but why don't y'all come down for a ring side seat?"

The Dark Lord of the Sith waved his hands and the Xenomorphs spread apart to make a path for the heroes to walk down.

Cody reached Shredder only for the Triceraton to say, with his eyes focused elsewhere, "He should've brought Durga, shouldn't he, Galvan?"

Far away at another lake, the apprentice answered, "Yes, he should have."

Shredder looked out with the Force and used his vast power to implant what he saw in his audience's minds.

Durga, Muni, Tesar, Rattrap were all bowing with their hands behind their heads. The full force of Shredder's Sharkticons and Xenomorphs had been poured out against the Rakatan village…too many for even a force-sensitive community to overcome.

The third-ranking Sith of the new order, Darth Cyclone smiled at the sight of their complete victory, but curled her lips in distaste when she noticed the Quintesson scientists and their instruments.

"Do they really need to be here?"

"We need them to monitor our Force-sensitives," Galvan said. "Besides," he looked at Durga, "They deserve a history where the Quintessons and not the Hutts have the easiest life-cycle on Nal species had it easier in the previous history, so this is justice."

Durga felt horrible hearing those words. The natural lifespan of both a Hutt and a Quintesson was around a thousand years, but whereas as Hutts rarely reproduced and a single individual could fertilize itself, Quintessons reproduced in mass numbers and the process always killed both parents. Those who were left behind to transmit culture had to lose loved ones over and over again.

"The Sith don't want justice, only what feeds their passion," Muni said.

Darth Galvan formed a vice with his fist ready to choke the boy, when Cyclone, who had formerly been Meewal Clan Khim'bar, Muni's caretaker for a few weeks, rose a hand to stop Galvan.

"He is right. We want vengeance!"

"Vengeance is what I'm achieving today," the voice of Darth Shredder said to both of them.

"Let Durga go, Shredder!" Cody said to Shredder.

The Dark Lord scoffed, "And loose my advantage? No, I could have killed all of you at once, but this way," he froze each of them in place, ended their sight of what was going on at the other lake, and turned their heads one by one to look at him, "You get to witness the final revenge of an underestimated child of Triceraton immigrants to Earth over the entire universe!" He looked at Cody, "That is the difference between us Jones. You inherited everything. I worked for it!"

Cody now knew not why he was the Shredder's archnemesis, but Zed Ram's personal archnemesis. For all that this was an ancient conflict between Primus and Unicron, Sith and Jedi, Autobot and Decepticon, Quintesson and everyone in their path, it was an intensely personal conflict between two beings who had grown up on Earth under very different circumstances.

"You are just proving you're the nobody everyone thought you were," Cody said. "You have to rewrite the past to feel good about yourself!"

Shredder pulled Cody closer to him.

"And you only need billions of credits!"

"Actually I can admit now that I have been isolated from the real universe most of my life. I thought I understood hardship because of my ancestors and my progressive politics, but there are a lot of things about me I'd change."

Shredder snickered.

"Then you should love my new role for you."

Shredder squeezed his eyes closed and stretched his hand forward. The silver crack in the ground began to grow larger.

Shredder reached further and further into the past, beyond his life, beyond the founding of the Foot, the Triceraton Republic, the formation of the Sith, the Liberation of Cybertron from the Quintessons…and with each year the ground shook and storms thundered. Each century brought a solar flare, and by the time he moved back several tens of millennia stars in nearby systems had exploded. Shredder felt all of these things, but the risk was worth it. He arrived at his goal just a little beyond twelve million years ago—by now much of both galaxies had been destroyed but he was there he had Rakata Unicron in his grip, struggling to break free.

"Darth Shredder and only Darth Shredder is the Chaos Bringer!" He said as he snapped Unicron's neck and suddenly—it was all gone. He was jolted back into the present with the sickening awareness that he'd extinguished the same spark that amplified his Force-abilities and that it had taken his Force-abilities with it.

He looked around to see a volcano erupting where none had existed before, felt soaked by a torrent of rain, and could barely keep his footing between the earthquakes and the gale force winds. The Xenomorphs were scurrying in all directions like mindless beasts.

"Shredder, you idiot! You have failed!" an entirely organic cephalopod whose skin blazed red shouted to him. It was obviously Alðerata, but the voice reminded him of Krang.

He had come so far, only to fall at the final moment. He was filled with rage.

"Oh shut up!" He sliced through Alðerata with his lightsaber, which thank the gods he still had. He turned to Cody.

"I will kill you today Jones if it is the last thing I do!"

He walked toward Cody, as the human pleaded, "Zed, it doesn't have to end this way!"

It can only end this way now.

Shredder's plan had failed, but he could still prove he wasn't stupid or weak.

He deactivated his lightsaber and approached Cody slowly and put his hands on the human's shoulders.

"You have been my greatest nemesis, Cody. Please tell me how else it can end?"

As Cody began to open his mouth, Shredder ignited his lightsaber and stabbed Cody through the back and himself through the stomach. He deactivated the blade and both fell in opposite directions.

Shredder would soon be dead, his relevance spent. Cody was still relevant to those remaining.

"Cody!" Mirta shouted as she ran toward him. She lifted his head in her hands and kissed his lips, their feelings no longer denied.

"I'm sorry we can't live happily ever after," Cody said.

"Don't say that! We can…" Mirta stopped. If they used the power of the nexus to turn back time, they would be no different than Shredder. She had to put her emotions aside. She put her hand on his cheek and let a tear stream down her own.

He weakly reached up to dry the tear with his thumb.

"Maybe we will all meet again in that place Primus talked about." And with those words Cody Jones died.

The Xenomorphs had all scattered. A teal colored cephalopod mourned over Alðerata's pale body.

"What do we do about her?" Skybyte asked.

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The lake overran the shore. The Xenomorphs were too frightened to swim and the Sharkticons received no commands from the Quintesson base. Galvan and Cyclone had climbed on to the ledges of a nearby hill. They had felt the loss of their master's Force abilities, but strangely seemed to have retained their own.

Come, the Yuuzhan Vong said telepathically to the Noghri, The Sith must survive.

Below, the amphibious Rakatans and Quintessons should have been safe if not for the sweeping waves.

Tesar had created a force-bubble around himself, Muni, Durga, and Rattrap. All of the Barabel's concentration went into maintaining the bubble while Muni spoke through the force to Durga.

Durga-ji, this is your time. Draw on all the powers you have and that Primus gave you. Correct what Shredder did. Link your mind to Rattrap's.

Durga looked to the Maximal. He hadn't been privy to Muni's message, but Primus had given him the gist of the battle plan yesterday. Durga would link minds with him and use Rattrap's computer hacking abilities to bypass the immense changes Shredder had made to the timeline and correct them at the source.

Rattrap nodded, signaling that he understood.

Durga reached out and suddenly saw everything as if it were computer code. Suddenly he knew what the codes he was looking at meant: damage to the timeline and the universe. He also knew how to correct them. He reached out and a character in one code changed. A black hole changed back into a star and all its planets and their histories were as they were before Shredder changed them. Hours went by as Durga changed hundreds of codes. He did not know what to change any of them to until he saw them and the knowledge of each left him as soon as he moved on. By the time he was finished he had restored all of spacetime up to his present, but something remained not quite right.

The pattern for the Quintessons, something told him it was wrong and how to fix it. He did so and immediately he was back in the "real" world.

"What happened?"

He looked around. The skies were clear; the water calm; Tesar, Muni, and Rattrap all standing near him. He felt the life from the Rakata community in the lake below.

"Does everyone remember Shredder altering the timeline?"

Nods from everyone present. The damage had been repaired but everyone still remembered the old timeline.

"He didn't try to alter it—he succeeded!" A distraught voice called.

Inquiriata and Hexato stood with spread tentacles on the shore in their organic forms.

"We are now what we used to be!"

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Several hours passed when the party from the other lake returned. Cody was dead from a lightsaber wound through his abdomen. Apparently so was Shredder.

"I think one of them is in a better place now," Mirta said as Durga looked at his friend sadly.

The three Quintessons gathered around the third body. The Quintesson Empire now lacked an Arbiter, and they were now all organic just as the had been eons ago. This was the single greatest defeat in all their long history.

"We are doomed now," Atrilo moaned.

Durga reached out with the force. He did not know what to expect, but this was not it.

"Actually, you will reproduce less often now," Durga said, "And it won't kill you."

The Quintessons all gasped.

So did the Cybertronians.

Nightscream then realized what had gone on here. It was part of the same process started on Cybertron thirty years ago with the Great Reformatting.

"A long time ago, Unicron and Primus tried to change history to restore the village Primacron destroyed. When Primus realized the consequences, he tried to stop Unicron and the two became enemies. Both tried to enlist the Quintessons to fight for them, and then the Cybertronians. Both species were hurt in the process, but now both are being healed."

"But the Quintessons already had difficulties before Primus and Unicron were involved," Blade said.

"Consider for a moment though, had Primacron never created the nexus, the Quintessons would still have their old lifecycle, and if the Quintessons had never become involved with Primus and Unicron, the Cybertronians would never have existed, and had Cody not been Shredder's mortal nemesis, none of what happened here today would have occurred," Muni observed.

"And had it not been for Lwothin, Cody, would never have come back to Dathomir, and if had not been for Uxils, Lwothin would not have brought Cody," Yeyinde added. And if it had not been for Claudelle I would have been one of Shredder's Heralds.

"Rukh played a role too. He rescued me from…" Muni paused. Something was not right. He could feel it in the force.

"Galvan and Cyclone still have their force powers."

"There is probably a reason for that as well," Mirta said. Her saying that was the most surprising of anyone in the group. She was the most prone to give into emotionally fueled decisions, perhaps even more so than Shredder had been. But she had seen firsthand where her way of thinking got people…what the Quintessons and Shredder had done to Quoreal and Meewal. Muni continued feeling outward and keeping his eyes closed. "There are still many Xenomorphs on this planet. The Rakata are not safe."

Yeyinde smiled behind his mask. This was the true time a Hunter was necessary. He could fufill his goal of restoring honor to his name in the sight of the other Yautja and help sentients in the process. He turned to Blade, "Ready for a hunt, Youngblood?"

The End