(I do not own Sonic...etc.)

Flip Card 2

Name: Rouge

Sex: female

Age: 17

Species: Bat

Job description: Government agent, also a jewel fanatic.

"Embrace me Shadow." The presence demanded this time, looming over him, like it was extending a pair of hands around him, preparing to snatch him up in it's grasp. "I am your destiny." Shadow felt sick to his stomach, the words spoken were empty and hollow, doing little to disguise their speakers true nature. Shadow could, see, right through them to this monstrosity. It was what he saw that made him so sick. A mind so full of darkness and emptiness that for a moment he began to doubt his own perceptions of the world. It was trying to force it's way from the outside and directly in to him, and it's presence around him was literally pushing him out. It was trying to replaced his mind with it's.

An image of his old friend, the girl with sea blue eyes and blonde hair flashed before the black hedgehog's eyes and whatever striking hold this thing had over him evaporated.

"I don't care who you are, or what you claim, or what you've done or are going to do." He crossed his arms in front of his chest. The insides beginning to burn with chaos energy. "I am not your property. I make my own destiny!" He closed his eyes and turned inward, tapping into his own power, the residual energy of the chaos emeralds their power had left in him. "CHAOS CONTROL!" He screamed, throwing his arms out and instantly his body was engulfed by a white ball of the purest light, forcing the threatening presence away from him.

"NO!!!!" The voice shrieked, trying desperately to snatch as him, but found itself being pushed further and further away.

Mishaol had an personal escape tunnel he'd had put into the Cathedral years ago for precautionary measures, it seemed now however his precaution was a sensible one. As he neared the entrance to his salvation, there was a loud rumbling and the ground beneath his feet shock violently as something on the floors above him exploded. The force knocked him off his feet and also blew a hole out through the wall. Chaos, who was busy ripping another part of town up, noticed the explosion and his attention wad diverted straight towards the Echidna's Cathedral.

Tikal had been injured, knocked unconscious, one or the other, or both. She couldn't tell. Her attention was on something else other than her physical condition however. Holding her numb arm, which had several trails of blood on it, she staggered her way up the stairs towards the top of the shrine. The bodies of Chao lay all around her, the discharged spears, shields and robes ere everything as well. All collapsed in piles around her, as if Chaos had simply destroyed their bodies, all that they were carrying falling right to the ground. Her father's ceremonial staff lying right beside the Master Emerald, one of his gloves still holding onto its length. She should have known things would end this. She paused long enough to gaze down at her father's staff. Why hadn't her father listened to her instead of those priests? She knew what she had to do, and she was terrified of doing it, but she knew she had little choice. She had to end this madness. As she stood before the giant jewel, she began to utter the words her grandmother had taught her.

"The servers are the Seven Chaos…." She began.

"Ah crap!" Chuck cursed as Perfect Chaos began tearing through the city toward them. The Cathedral was the last building left standing in the city and the largest target left for the watery demon. As they began to back away from the window, there was a sudden flash of light from behind them and before any of them knew what was happen, they felt Shadow's hand upon their shoulder, before the light engulfed them all and they vanished instantly in a small Chaos Control warp.

Knuckles and Rouge watched from a distance as Chaos began to slowly edged his away toward the Cathedral. Where Chris and the others still in there, if not, they had better hurry up and get out before Chaos finished what he started. All of the city around them had gone now, replaced by a raging sea and towering piles of rubble, harsh winds licking at them from the air. As Shadow came out of a Chaos control war just in front of them with Chris, Chuck and Metal Sonic in tow, Rouge had just enough time to curse before he laid a hand on both their shoulders and disappeared again, dragging them back into the warp with him.

Chaos control, while often random and unpredictable, could be controlled however it took a serious amount of concentration to do so and when travelling from place to another and carrying objects in varying mass alone with you, it also manages to drain the users' life energy. Leaving Shadow nearly depleted when he arrived back the time ring. Chaos was nearly upon them now. He had to act fast now if they were going to make it out of here alive.

"I hope this works." Shadow muttered to himself, a hand trailing towards the Time ring, before the fingers spread out wide and the black and red hedgehog delved deep into his own life force. Chaos Control blared into action for the last time and is sensing it's usage, the runes engraved into the rings' stone surface glowed bright white, beams of light lancing out from behind the lines, reaching upward.

Mishaol felt the cold air on his back, and slowly turned around, only to come face to face with a giant green eyes, its feline like silted pupil staring down at him, filled with nothing but anger and rage through the gap in the wall.

"No, NO! STAY BACK!" He screamed, nearly tripping over himself as he stammered backwards away from the gap in the wall. Of course now it was far too late, Chaos' tentacles were already wrapped completely around the Cathedral like some giant squid. The sea of its being had consumed the city entirely, and only this building was left standing, and now was the last thing in Chaos' way. Mishaol screamed out load as Chaos reared it's colossal head back and fired a beam of Chaos energy straight through the gap in the wall, sending a wall of white hot fire coursing down the floors, exploding out the bottom of the Cathedral with a massive explosion.

It's foundations destroyed, the last building left standing in the city crashed to the ground, as it fell into the flood waters, chaos let his head roll back and uttered one last victory scream, his vengeance upon the Echidna people complete. However, his anger was not satisfied. His rage did not ebb, the world around him was still standing. His frustrations turned to everything around him. Then, his final purpose became clear to him. He would coat the entire world in water, wipe clean the land and remove all traces of intelligent life, to return all living things from whence they came, to the sea. Before he could begin however, Chaos paused and looked back toward the way it had come, back toward the shrine and the ruins of the shrine. A bright green light had appeared on the horizon, slowly growing stronger and brighter as time passed. Perfect Chaos tried to ignore it, his heart still filled with nothing but anger, but something was preventing him to exacting his wrath on the rest of the world. Slowly but surely, the light began to draw him toward it, pulling backwards. One by one, the Chaos emeralds were wrenched from his being and as his power decreased, where flung to the four corners of the world, where he could not get them.

"Forgive me Chaos." A soft voice on the winds whispered in his ear, before the pull intensified a thousand fold and Chaos, the guardian of the Chao, was sucked through the air, over the canopy of the jungle and forced into the Master Emerald, and to seal his prison, Tikal offered up her freedom, following her old friend into his imprisonment. The Master Emerald's glow intensified as Chaos's power was added to its own, before it settled down again. The rain and thunder ceased almost immediately and the clear sky began to break through the clouds, shafts of light reaching down towards the ground.

Outside of time, there exists a sub reality that one has to travel through when travelling either forwards or backwards through time itself. Sort of like sitting outside in a waiting room while a request is processed. Since it is outside of time, none of them could be sure exactly how long they were there. Going back in time, they had travelled so fast that they hardly noticed anything at all, but going forward it seemed was particularly more complex, taking longer. Long enough for them to actually be aware of their surroundings and since time isn't relative in that strange place, their perception of it was different for each of them. Sonic's mind worked faster, or perhaps he just didn't slow down long enough for complex thought to catch up with him, so for him only a few seconds actually passed before he was flung forward through the time stream. Chuck, since he was far more calculating and stuffed full of complex thoughts and ideas and as such he believed himself in that void long enough to come up with several scientific theories about it. Either way, they were all sent to the exact same point in time so it didn't really matter.

For Tails and Amy, left behind in the present, only a full minute had passed. During that time exited the chamber in which they'd found the original time ring and found Sonic and the others there waiting for them, standing around, all looking very confused.

"What the hell was that?" Tails demanded, not realizing he and Amy were light years from everyone else's thoughts. Knuckles heaved himself to his feet, knowing instantly where he was. He had to go back and try again to save his people, but to his dismay he discovered that the time ring inside the chamber they'd opened had crumbled into pieces, now little more than useless stone rubble. There was a single moment in which Knuckles mind went numb, and then he realized completely that his one and only chance to save his people had slipped through his fingers. He sank to his knees.

With little else to do, they all sat down and began talking, Trying to come up with meaningful explanations for their experiences, although that did little to help Knuckles, who simply sat there silently while Rouge told them about the small band of survivors they'd helped escape. Shadow had told them nothing of his supposed encounter with the Echidna's god, unsure himself if he'd been hallucinating. All entire issue was far too confusing. "You don't really expect me to believe you just spent a day in the past." Tails began, raising an eyebrow sceptically. "Are you perfect sure that flash of light didn't give you all concussions or something."

"Robot's don't get concussions." Metal Sonic put in. "And I have most of our time there recorded in by data banks." Tails hardly looked in his direction.

Sonic, who'd been talking with Amy about what it was like, suddenly noticed exactly how isolated Knuckles looked. Not that he hadn't seemed isolated before, but now he looked even more so.

"Hey Knuckles, are alright?" Sonic asked. The Echidna shot a glare back over his shoulder.

"No Sonic, I'm not." He stood up and turned to face him. "I just lost my one and only chance to save up people. I watched as Chaos drowned them all, all I could manage was to save a few people." He smacked a fist into the wall beside him, brick dust falling down towards the floor. "If only I'd had more time, I might have been able to save them!"

"I'm afraid you couldn't have done anything." Chuck added, almost whispering, his statement gaining everyone's attentions. "I believe I've figured out why the Echidna's who built the Time Ring in the first place never travelled back to alter their past." He stood up, his head still lowered, as if he was afraid to look Knuckles in the eyes for fear of what he was about to say. "Time, it seems, it set of a straight course, like a train on a track it's progress can not be impeded no matter how much we try." He finally looked up, genuine sadness in his eyes. "I'm sorry Knuckles, but Perfect Chaos was supposed to destroy the Echidna people. It was destined to happen, and we, even with our knowledge of future events, will always be powerless to change it."

"You mean…" Knuckles began, his eyes widening as horrific realisation finally hit him. "That anything I could have tried, everything I DID try, in the end was completely pointless?" He ended up shouting as he finished. Chuck was silent for a moment, considering the answer.

"The past is, and always will be, the past Knuckles. It's unchangeable, even with time travel. It's a lesson the remaining Echidna people learnt the hard way when they tried to alter the outcome of events in their favour."

"I'm not so certain that's true." Sonic added, gaining everyone's attention. "Knuckles, you remember those people you saved from drowning and managed to get them out of the city?" The Echidna nodded. "I think those were your ancestors, the ones who will eventually spawn you." Knuckles' eyes shot wide open. "Perhaps you were meant to travel back in the time to save them, just so their line could create you, or perhaps something else." Sonic scratched his head. "This time travel crap is weird."

"Well we'll never know now." Chuck stated, giving a small piece of the shattered ring a kick. He looked over toward the stone tablet he'd been looking out before the situation had spiralled out of control. "Do you mind if I take this for further study." He asked, picking it up.

"You can take it all if you want." Knuckles replied, walking over sadly toward the exit in the ceiling were a single shaft of sunlight lanced in. "I never want to see this place again." With that, he climbed his way out and disappeared. Rouge watched him go. She'd seen a side of Knuckles she never through existed. She'd thought all he cared about was that Master Emerald, yet now she'd been shown that there was far, far more to him than that. He needed some time alone, she could see that, so she wouldn't follow him back to the shrine; Besides, if she didn't report in soon, Topaz would probably have her head.

As they all left, they sealed the entire ruin back up by placed a large stone rock over the entrance. Had they taken more time to look around the ruins, they would have discovered the second stone tablet lying amongst the rubble, hidden underneath a sea of jungle vines. It was the same size of the first, but instead of writing on it, it had a small mural engraved in sandstone. Chuck might have had some interesting theories on why the mural showed two hedgehogs that bore an uncanny resemblance to Sonic and Shadow, where standing before another image resembling the Echidna's God in defiance. But of course, they hadn't seen it, so it lay undisturbed, hidden amongst the vines.

(In Chris' voice)

Dr. Eggman's back with a whole new plan for world domination. Can Sonic rise to the challenge, or is this Eggman's time to shine? Find out next time on Sonic X, Eggman's big comeback. Don't miss it!

(Quick end of saga note: Sorry the last few episodes have been short compared to others, they'll get longer from here on in.)