Chapter 27: Perfect Chaos

Before all of the Chaos, Tails had been working on a machine that embodied teamwork. There were slots for each of the chaos emeralds according to their element. Even the Master Emerald had a place. Then there were the six control panels, one for each of the team members. The buttons were easy to understand, even for Amy.

He revved the engine, checked the controls, and spoke into the communicators, "Ready, team?" he asked everyone. The others smiled as they heard the confidence in his voice. "Let's go!"

They shot off at a speed that made Sonic proud. They were able to find Chaos quickly and efficiently. As soon as they did, Tails spoke the order to split up. Each control panel was the hub of a smaller ship. They circled the monster, who was now much bigger than even Knuckles had last seen it.

He took his cue first. "Master Emerald, hear my call!" he shouted to the emerald in its place behind him. The gem began to shine, its energy coursing through wires to an antenna at the front of his ship. Soon, a beam blasted from the charge to Chaos, striking it so hard, it fell to the ground with a roar.

Tails activated his electrical emerald. At the pull of a lever, a net of electricity descended on the monster. It was Sonic's turn after that. Activating first the earth emerald, he caused rocks to form and fall. Some of them were even wreathed in fire from the other emerald he had at his disposal now.

Chaos screeched and began to rise from the ground.

Rouge wouldn't let it do much more, activating her purple emerald to unleash a wave of pressure from straight above it. It fell to its knees again. Amy activated the blue and grey emeralds to cause a swirling whirlpool of wind and rain to pummel into it.

Chaos fought against all of the forces falling upon it and stood.

Cream shuddered. She had been keeping her distance from it. It's too strong… she thought to herself. She looked down at the control panel. Tails knew that she knew how to use his machines. She may not have been able to follow all of the technical aspects of his vehicles, but she knew them well. So she had been given the same controls as the others. There was no hint of less expectations because she was smaller and younger. Tails trusted her to command this part of his machine. And besides… she told herself, I need to save Cheese! So she activated the emerald she was entrusted with, the green one. A thorny vine came shooting from her ship and wrapped around Chaos, pinning it to the ground like a hunter's trap.

"Way to go, Cream!" Tails cheered into the communicators.

Cream smiled wide, but her grin didn't last when they all noticed Chaos looking straight at her. It seemed it had had enough. From its eyes came a beam of red. Cream screamed and tried to pull up, but before she could, Knuckles was in front of her, taking the shot critically. "Mr. Knuckles!" Cream cried out.

His machine spiraled down to the ground, smoking and sparking from that single blast and with an unconscious driver.

Sonic pushed his part of the ship toward him, not really sure what he would do if and when he reached his falling friend. Amy activated the wind emerald again to slow Knuckles's fall. It still made a pretty loud scraping sound as it hit the ground. Sonic landed beside him, got out of his machine, and made his way through the smoke and wreckage to pull Knuckles out. "Knuckles, you alright?" he asked.

Knuckles struggled to open his eyes. "What are you doing here?" he groaned. "Get back out there!"

"Not gonna happen, buddy." He went back through the smoke and wreckage and grabbed the Master Emerald. "I can help from here, anyway." He crossed back to his machine and grabbed his two chaos emeralds. "Don't worry, Cream!" he spoke into the communicator. "He's alright!"

Cream wiped her eyes and set her jaw.

Meanwhile, Tails had been circling the monster, who had been trying to hit him with that red beam. Rouge was trying to put the pressure on Chaos again, but it barely hindered its attacks. "We're fighting a losing battle," she snarled.

"I don't think so!" Amy pressed a button on her machine that brought out a hammer arm. She sped toward Chaos and slammed the hammer into it while it was distracted with Tails. Tails took that opportunity to blast it with an electrical orb of energy from the emerald in tow.

Chaos growled, "You are fools! Your attacks are futile!"

"Futile?" Amy asked. "They look pretty successful to me!"

"You are not as powerful as you feel…" Chaos shimmered. "And now… you will feel my power!" It shimmered again. Then, the glob began to transform out of the more human-like form and into a greater, larger form. It was like the huge head and neck of a dragon, with sharp teeth between which strung blue strands of goo. Its eyes were still a glowing green, but now there were black pupils within them. Around this neck and head were four tentacles that each grabbed one of the ships floating around it. "Witness my perfect power! Perfect Chaos!"

"Guys!" Sonic yelped from the ground.

"Master Emerald!" Knuckles called from his hands and knees. "Release its hold!"

The emerald shined and pulsed, then Perfect Chaos's tentacles released the team, causing them to fall to the ground. Meanwhile, Perfect Chaos continued to rise up… up… out of the ocean that separated Chao Island from the rest of Mobius. The others hurried out of their fallen ships, clutching their emeralds, and joined Sonic and Knuckles, who was struggling to his feet.

"If you ask me," Sonic hinted, "I think it's time for Plan Double S."

Tails looked at him, "Are you ready, Sonic?"

"I've been ready, buddy!"

Tails grinned. "Then I guess I can't argue with Plan Double S!"

"Please be careful, Sonic!" Amy grasped his hand.

He turned to her, ready to feign annoyance, but saw the look on her face and frowned. "Of course, Ames. You don't need to worry about me!"

"Please, Mr. Sonic…" Cream added, looking up at him.

He smiled. "Don't even worry about it. You know my SuperSonic powers just about make me invincible!" He gave Amy a wink and then patted Cream on the head, adding, "And I'll make sure Cheese comes back to you, Cream… by destroying this Chaos monster once and for all!"

"Well, you've got me convinced," Rouge smirked, handing him her chaos emerald. "Use this precious jewel well, sugar."

Sonic nodded, taking it. He turned at last to Knuckles, who nodded silently. He nodded back. They all held up the chaos emeralds, which circled Sonic in their rainbow glow. He jumped up and curled in a ball, spinning as his spines turned gold. He unfurled, fists and teeth clenched. With the golden aura burning around him, he flew forward, spinning into a ball again at the last moment to shoot right through Chaos's nose.

The force made its head collapse into the rest of it, causing it to fall back into the water. "Sonic!" Tails cried. He knew his friend couldn't swim.

"He's fine, Tails," Knuckles assured him, putting a hand on his shoulder from behind. Tails looked back at him. He had his eyes on the water, watching, calculating. He smiled and turned back to watch the surface as well.

Sure enough, Sonic flew up out of the ocean. But soon, Perfect Chaos followed, opening its jaw as it rose out of the water itself. Sonic spun into a ball once again, then unfurled, snapping so quickly, a golden ring of radiation—and likely all the other elements of the emeralds—expanded outward from him, slicing right through Perfect Chaos's mouth. It fell again into the water.

Sonic dove down, fist first, into the creature. With a great splash, and a huge pop, the monster burst, and out popped every chao it had taken, a fog and glow of life energy from every living thing it had absorbed, and a splattering of blue goo.

The group could already see the life returning to the island in the distance and to Mobius as a whole. Sonic landed beside them, returning to his natural blue as the chaos emeralds scattered all across Mobius.

"You did it!" Amy cheered, running to hug him.

"Of course!" Sonic started a thumbs up but was quickly tackled with that hug. "Amy! Come on!"

Tails ran over to him and added his own hug.

"Cheese!" Cream smiled and reached her arms out to her chao friend. He dove into her, and she hugged him tight.

After he and Amy finally released Sonic, Tails looked around at his machine. "I guess I better get started on fixing our Team Machine…" he pulled out a wrench.

Sonic chuckled, then pushed down his friend's eager hand. "How about a break first, bud?" he insisted.

Tails smiled sheepishly.

Knuckles took up the Master Emerald and turned toward the other side of Mobius, where Angel Island waited.

"Don't be a stranger, echidna," Rouge stepped in front of him with a wink.

"Yeah!" Cream bounced to the other side of him. "If you ever need someone to talk to…"

"Or a fresh meal," Amy shrugged behind him.

He turned around. Sonic had his hand out toward him, "You can call on us whenever you need us… You'll remember that, right, buddy?"

Knuckles looked at his hand, then at all the others. "Same to you," he said sincerely, taking Sonic's hand.

They shook on it.

Cream turned to Rouge. "You can't be a stranger either, Ms. Rouge!" she pointed out.

Rouge smiled. "I won't be." She put her hands on her hips. "No fighting alone, right?"

"Right!" Tails acknowledged.

"We're a team," Sonic told them all. "Don't forget it!"

The End

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Author's Facts about this Story:

I reread the original version of this story for fun one day and was not happy with it. That's when I decided to rewrite it as my second rewrite.

I can remember typing out this story while waiting for classes to begin at college. I can't believe it's been that long!

The Mecha Sonic villain may have been inspired in part by the Metal Sonic in Mario Bros. Z, a series that I watched YEARS ago that I don't think was ever completed by its creator.

I was not happy with the Catnap story in the original version of this story. I wanted to fix it without totally overhauling its plot, but there were a few things that ended up getting shifted after all. I hope you all enjoyed it and don't fault me too much for the changes.

I've been wanting to write a sequel to this since I first published it. Now that I've done this rewrite update, maybe I can finally get on with it… of course, knowing me, it'll probably be a few years in the making…