Chapter 19

Past Revisited Act 2

The heroes were dodging blast after blast from Perfect Chaos as the beast ravaged station square. Tails and Rouge were making circles around the beasts head attempting to draw its focus away from the others and give Sonic and Knuckles and opening to attack its brain. Amy was jumping over twisted girders and half destroyed floor remains while simultaneously hurling hammers towards Chaos' brain, all of which unfortunately missed. Cosmo on the other hand was aiding in a different way than attempting to distract of attack, instead, she drew upon the plant matter beneath the city as well as the various decorative trees that lined the streets and plazas and using their roots she attempted to reduce Chaos' size and mass by having them absorb it. Using her agility and petal skirt, she effortlessly dodged as Chaos attempted to attack her with watery tendrils before responding by drawing vines up to absorb them. If Tails and the others weren't preoccupied with fighting the beast, they'd almost assume she was a pro (and Tails would likely be entranced by his girlfriends display of skill). each member was doing something to contribute…save for Eggman who was too focused on finding one of his old machines he could pilot, having sworn there should be one or more lying around after Chaos blew his Egg Carrier 2 out of the sky.

"And now I build an even better model: the Egg Carrier 3 and I barely get to use it before I'm forced to travel through time pockets and look my greatest failures and humiliations in the eyes. Again! That horrible robot! I wish I'd never built him! Never used him on the little planet thus giving knowledge of the time stones! Never programmed him with a desire to surpass Sonic! Oh how I wish I could just undo all of it! I-" he ranted before coming to a complete stop, a wicked grin creeping across his features.

"Undo the past….that's it! You may have served me well one last time after all Metal!" the mad doctor chuckled to himself, his twisted mind already plotting anew.

"We're making progress but not nearly enough! At this rate Meta Sonic will be finished with what he's doing by the time we reach him!" Knuckles yelled out as he and Sonic dodged beams fired from the beast's mouth.

"If we could hit the brain, we'd be able to severely damage Chaos! But we can't seem to hit it! It's like no matter how on target we are we narrowly miss!" Tails called back as he made a move towards the brain only to me driven back my a wall of water, using his namesakes like a fan to break it up before it hit him.

"Sonic! When you fought perfect Chaos didn't you dash into it and move up in its body until you hit it?" Rouge asked as she performed a screw kick through more tendrils.

"Yeah but I was Super Sonic then! I had enough momentum to keep from being stuck in it" he replied

"Well where are the emeralds?" Amy asked as she landed on a platform to catch her breath.

"Gone. It's likely that due to Meta Sonic's manipulation they were removed from their respective time-space. So as to keep us from being able to use them" Eggman said as he floated up in a damaged but still operational egg mobile.

"Well that's just damn peachy! Because it took the emeralds power to beat Perfect Chaos! How are we supposed to beat it now!?' Knuckles roared as he and the others converged on the same platform as Amy and Eggman, Perfect Chaos thrown off their trail by a whirlwind created by Sonic and Tails.

Hiding on this platform which was just barely obscured by the remains of a wall, the heroes attempted to formulate a plan.

"Powerful though he is, Chaos' brain is still his weak point. Hit that and he'll lose control of his body mass. Not only that but if we hit it with enough force then it'll only take one shot to beat it. After that I assume the portal to the next time pocket will open" Tails explained.

"That's just fine fox boy, but the problem is we can't hit it" Rouge scoffed.

Everyone stood silent a moment before Eggman seemed to silently groan, beginning to reach into his coat.

"I wanted to wait on this, but I guess we have no choice but to use-"

"I can help"

Everyone turned to Cosmo, who stood with a look of confidence only Tails and Amy had ever seen on her.

"What do you mean Cosmo? You have an idea?" Tails asked

Nodding, Cosmo replied "My vines can absorb Chaos' water mass and can reach as far as we need. Plus with enough effort I can make them shoot out quite fast. I can use one to hold Sonic and launch it through Chaos' head and allowing Sonic a more precise shot without him getting trapped"

"Cosmo that's brilliant!" Tails praised with an ecstatic grin

"Yeah good thinking Cos!" Sonic chimed.

Blushing profusely due to her humble nature, Cosmo was quick to change the focus from praising her.

"So we just need Chaos distracted"

"Amy, Knuckles, Rouge and I will take care of that" Tails said.

"Alright! Lets do it!" Sonic cheered.

Sonic and Cosmo made their way to an upper level of the ruined building they were in while the others rushed out into the open to draw Chaos' attention.

"Okay Cos, the others have Chaos distracted. You ready?"

"Ready" Cosmo replied, raising her arms and commanding two large vines to come out of the ground just in front of them.

"Hop on, Sonic. And don't worry, it won't squeeze too hard" Cosmo said

"On it. And hey, you're getting better with the playful banter. Guess Tails' been rubbing off on ya"

Smiling lightly, Cosmo replied "Yes, he has"

Sonic was then wrapped in the two large vines which seemed to loop over each other creating a cage of sorts around the hedgehog.

"Here it comes everyone!" Cosmo yelled out before throwing her hands outwards, sending the mass of vines, and Sonic along with it, shooting towards Chaos' brain.

The mass grew closer and closer until it hit Chaos right between the eyes. As it penetrated his head, the end of the mass opened up allowing Sonic, who had begun spin dashing, to zoom out of it towards Chaos' brain.

Unfortunately, as Sonic seemingly collided with the brain, it seemed to take on a blurred appearance before Sonic went right through it with no resistance whatsoever. Not having time to uncurl from his spin dash nor the control to do so in Chaos' body, Sonic exited out of the back of the creatures head.

"Sonic!" Tails cried out as he swooped in to catch the falling hedgehog, who uncurled from his spin dash to grab Tails' hand.

"What happened!? why didn't I hit it!?" Sonic yelled as he was lowered to the nearest platform.

"That would be my doing"

From beneath them a large puddle of eerily familiar silver liquid crawled onto the platform before morphing and solidifying into the second Meta King, this one yellow.

"Please allow me to introduce myself, I am Topaz Sonic. One of the four Meta Kings and second to be made, which I suppose you could say makes me the second eldest."

The rest of the group gathered around and prepared to face off against the yellow machine. In their panic at the arrival of the new enemy however, they had forgotten about the watery beast they'd been fighting which promptly lunged forward with a shrieking roar and jaws wide, intending to devour its foes.

Topaz Sonic merely held out his clawed left hand and called out "Heel!"

Perfect Chaos halted on the spot, and looked to the machine as a frightened pet would its angry master.

Looking back at his enemies, who bore expressions of shock and disdain, Topaz spoke.

"Yes, my foes, I command this wonderfully hate filled beast. The power of the master emeralds original guardian, the ancient beast of power and destruction Chaos is mine to command."

Knuckles snarled as he stepped forward slightly "You sick pile of junk! Chaos has been through enough! He only did what he did out of anger and sadness! Don't you dare put him through more!"

"Oh but I'm not. You see, you've arrived at a point before Sonic jumped in with the positive energy of the emeralds to stop him. Naturally that little act of insufferable heroism has been thwarted. And as I'm sure you already deduced. The chaos emeralds of this time have been removed from this space, not to another, but from this pocket of time completely. Erased, deleted."

"Okay, but then how is Chaos drawing off of the negative energy of the emeralds? Without the energy there would be none to empower him" Tails asked, subtly probing for a strategy.

"That should be obvious to you, Tails. I gave it to him. Before the emeralds were removed. And now I control him by allowing him to further feed off of negative emotions from those he attacks, those who have been made to suffer from the destruction left in his wake"

As Topaz said this, the sounds of cries and screams suddenly erupted throughout the city, though no civilians could be seen. Then, a large indigo colored swirl of energy accumulated as streams of identically colored energy rose up to merge with it.

"Chaos. Feed." Topaz said as he snapped his clawed metal fingers.

Perfect Chaos' eyes went black and he immediately lunged forward, snapping his jaws around the indigo ball with such force that it created a small shock wave. The force with which he lunged at it caused him to fall forward into the water surrounding him, with the creature resurfacing and looking like a starved beast desperately attempting to sate its hunger with a small morsel of food.

Seconds later a purple pulse ran through Chaos' form and the beast let out a roar that almost sounded sorrowful.

"What do think of that little display? Beautiful is it not? I keep him in this form and use him as I see fit, he carries out my will and I reward him with more negative emotion energy accumulated from his victims…but only enough to act as a gesture of approval. After all, a beast will be so much more volatile and aggressive when it is hungry."

The others looked appalled, even Eggman, clear disdain and disgust evident on their faces as Cosmo spoke.

"Y-you're intentionally starving him? Keeping him addicted to this energy and just barely giving him energy with the false promise of more?"

"Correct. I AM the most brilliant of my brothers after all. And I'm sure you're all wondering how Sonic managed to pass through my pets brain without harming it yes?" Topaz chuckled maliciously "This is a time pocket. A representation of a point in time but nonetheless connected to the time stream. My master holds the power of the time stones, and as such our interference in these time pockets cause an imbalance and allow certain elements to phase in and out of existence. You cannot touch his brain because it was crucial to his defeat, so I have phased it out of time and space so-"

"Uhhh english please?" Knuckles growled.

Topaz rolled his head backwards and sighed heavily.

"Uneducated peons, no appreciation for brilliance. I'm saying you can't hit his brain because my presence keeps it from existing properly. Me here so brain not. Understand?"

"Yeah. I do, you jerk. So we just need to smash you up and everything here is fixed" Knuckles growled at Topaz as he brought his fists together.

"Wait" Sonic stepped in "Emerald said that you you Meta Kings had personalities based on data from us. He had mine, Tails, Knuckles and Amy's love for challenges. What do you have?"

Placing his hand on his chest and raising his head in a dramatic fashion, Topaz replied.

"My brother was an impulsive fool. He suffered from reckless abandon, I don't mourn him. But he was right, we do have such traits and I hold Tails and Dr. Eggman's more…analytical and logical traits. As well as their genius"

"Sounds like you didn't inherit Tails' humility though, more like Eggman's ego" Rouge mocked

"Bah!" Eggman and Topaz responded simultaneously, proving her point.

"You heroes, always so confident and self righteous. But tell me: can you be so confident in front of those you failed?"

With a wave of his hand and a brief flash of his eyes, Topaz wordlessly gave a command to unseen figures who began to rise up, walk into view or simply appear somehow in the buildings surrounding them. All of them bore metallic bodies, their forms being a single color including their metallic clothes. Their eyes, though digital and with red irises, showed immense sorrow and misery. But the worst was the most obvious fact.

The were the inhabitants of station square, made into robots.

As they silently stood there and stared at the heroes from all around them, the heroes could see their digital eyes flash rapidly from sorrow, to hate, to desperation over and over again. Among them Sonic and Tails even thought they saw a boy who looked eerily familiar, though before they could look closer or say anything Topaz spoke.

"Our master's victory draws ever closer. As soon as you followed us into the time rift the world you left behind began to change as our master alters history. Time is changing to suite us and because Earth is tied in its existence to Mobius it is being affected too. The planets may have separate timelines but they were once one, thus certain changes alter it as well. The human race is now enslaved to our bidding as machines. An improvement I'd say."

Sonic raced forward, having had enough of this cold monsters talk, and attempted to ram into him only for Chaos to swat him back with a water tendril.

"Please, haven't you been listening? I control Chaos, and he won't allow his master to be harmed"

The others, save for Tails, Cosmo and Eggman rushed after him as well only for them to be grabbed by Chaos in his water tendrils, followed by Sonic, and raised high over Chaos' head as the creature opened his jaws and held them over it.

"No! Everyone!" Cosmo cried out, she prepared to summon vines to try and save them before she heard Topaz laugh.

"I wouldn't recommend doing that. You may end up being snatched up as well. You're friends were so angry with me that poor Chaos simply couldn't help himself. He just had to grab such tempting treats."

Tails drew Topaz's attention when he began to slow clap.

"So it seems you've outplayed us, then. If we get angry, scared or sad Chaos will grab us and eat us. I guess you've thought of everything"

Topaz chuckled before responding "Of course, I do have your brilliance along with Doctor Eggman's. I should think it would have been obvious that you could not best me"

"Personally I wouldn't have resorted to such an amateur plan though"

Topaz snapped his head forward to look at Tails with a shocked and appalled expression.

"What did you say?" he asked slowly

Tails smirked "I said your plan is amateurish, sure it has us, but only because our enemies usually plan something a little more complex and tactically advantageous. We're not used to someone relying on a subdued beast to fight their battles for them."

"Tails, what are you doi-" Cosmo began to ask in worry before Tails subtly grabbed her hand and gave a light squeeze, a gesture she interpreted as: "Trust me"

"H-how dare you! Who are you to criticize my plan? It beat you! You can't-"

Tails cut him off "Please, I'm sure there's a way to overcome you and Chaos. There's always a way out, a "genius" like you should know that"

As Topaz seethed, Tails looked to Eggman who was looking back at him questioningly and nodded, Eggman catching on to what the fox was doing and deducing he wanted him to play along.

"Yes, after all, Chaos isn't even remotely reliable. He betrayed me and I actually gave him what he wanted. You barely even give him anything and you're driving him mad with hunger, it's only a matter of time before he snaps and destroys you! Honestly, this plan is so ill-conceived and poorly structured and executed I'm unable to believe you were made from the template of MY Metal Sonic"

Topaz looked ready to burst into flames as those in Chaos' grip looked on, unsure what the fox and the scientist were doing.

"Are they serious? Oh sure that's a great idea, piss off the guy who has Chaos dangling over his mouth. Yeah that will save us" Knuckles groaned

Back on the platform, Tails and Eggman continued their assault.

"What's next? You going to try creating your own versions of Chaos? And let me guess, they'll be made out of mud or something?" Tails mocked.

Though Eggman became somewhat offended at Tails' subtle jab at his own attempt at making Artificial Chaos, Eggman rolled with it.

"Please, mud is too brilliant for someone as lacking in imagination as this one. It'll probably be something with rocks, dimwits love their rocks"

"You shut your damn mouth you arrogant filth!" Topaz growled, losing his refined mannerisms as rage consumed him.

"Oh I'm sorry, were we speaking too eloquently for you? I know you have trouble with that. Here, let my try again. Topaz make make bad plan. It not good at all. Very stupid" Tails continued as he went in for the kill.

"I WILL NOT BE LAUGHED AT BY FILTHY MEAT BAGS LIKE YOU! YOU WOULDN'T KNOW A WELL THOUGHT OUT PLAN IF IT ATE YOUR SMUG FACES OFF! IN FACT, CHAOS EAT!"

Chaos dropped the others into the water and let out a loud roar as his eyes again turned black and he lunged forward. Cosmo and the others began to panic while Tails and Eggman simply stood there with there arms crossed and apathetic looks.

"YES! ACCEPT YOU FATE! YOU GET WHAT YOU DESERVE YOU POMPOUS, ARROGANT-" Topaz screamed in triumphant rage before Chaos' massive jaws crushed down on him and he was instantly smashed into bits by the water beast's jaws. His parts whirred for a moment before they were dissolved by Chaos' bio mass.

As they others swam up the platform Tails, Cosmo and Eggman were on, Tails and Eggman were grinning triumphantly.

"That was brilliant Tails! I can't believe I didn't think of it myself! Good thinking boy!" Eggman praised.

Tails shrugged "He shouldn't have spelled it out for me"

As the others walked up, Cosmo asked the question they all wanted to.

"what just happened? Spelled what out"

Tails replied "Topaz said that he was keeping Chaos under control by keeping him addicted to negative emotion energy and feeding him small amounts at a time. Like Eggman said, it was only a matter of time before Chaos snapped and ate him, so he and I just made Topaz angry enough to where he would eat him when he commanded him to eat"

Knuckles spoke next "But how did you know it would work?"

Tails smiled "Simple. He spelled it out for me when he said that Chaos "couldn't help himself" when all of you got angry, which implied that Chaos was acting on his own."

Eggman chimed in "So when Topaz ordered him to eat. Since he didn't specify and was seething with rage while none of us were, Chaos either couldn't differentiate who his target was or simply didn't care due to hunger and the absolute feast that Topaz had become"

Everyone gave impressed words of praise (yes even to Eggman) while Cosmo wrapped Tails in a hug and praised him.

"uh guys? We beat Topaz but what about Chaos?" Amy asked

Looking up, they saw that Chaos had gone motionless, seemingly directionless now that its cruel master had been slain. They considered what to do for a few moments before a large vine shot up and collided with Chaos' brain. The beast reeled back as it roared out in pain before bursting into smaller masses of water that scattered into the flooding water throughout the city.

Cosmo smiled as the others looked in her direction

"It's not the same as what we tried earlier but it will do right?"

Tails smiled before the platform they were standing on began to descend as the water receded. After a few moments, the water had dissipated and they were back on the ground.

"Finally, dry land! How I missed you!" Sonic cheered.

"So now where is the portal? We still have two more meta kings to deal with" Eggman said.

As if on cue, the portal opened up just a few feet away from them.

"There we go. I love it when things like that happen on time" Rouge said as she began walking towards it.

Before she and the others could get close however, the robot humans began to come out from around the buildings and destroyed cars, all clearly with hateful intent.

"That's…that's not good" Knuckles muttered

"There's too many! We can't take them all!" Amy cried

"We'll have to make a break for it! Come on!" Sonic said as they began to run for the portal, the robot humans immediately rushing forward to stop them.

Sonic, Amy, Knuckles, Tails and Cosmo all made it to the portal and jumped in, Eggman and Rouge however were not able to reach it before they were beset by the horde, one managing to grab Rouge's leg as she flew over and two others throwing a sharp object into the side of Eggman's already heavily damaged egg mobile. As the two landed on the ground, Tails poked his head back through the portal.

"Rouge! Eggman! Don't worry, we're coming!"

Before he could pull back to rally the others however, a large watery fist rammed into the two robots that had Eggman while a large hand slapped two more off of Rouge.

"Chaos!?" they and Tails cried in unison.

Chaos was now back to his base form and it was clear by his movements and mannerisms that he was back to normal and intending to help them.

As Tails prepared to walk back out of the portal however, it began to flicker.

"Tails! The portal is closing! You need to go back in and stay with the others! Don't concern yourself with us! We have Chaos to help us, and if you succeed we should be sent back to our own time anyway!"

"But-" Tails began to protest

"There's no time boy! Just take this and go!" Eggman yelled as he reached into his coat and pulled out a small square case and tossed it to the fox.

Catching it, Tails looked back at Eggman questioningly.

"It's a nanocase! Something I've been working on! It stores objects in a compact form for easier transport so the contents are much large than that case." Eggman explained as he began using the non lethally armed turrets from the downed egg mobile to fend off the robot humans.

"Hey Eggy! Less talk more help if you'd be so kind!" Rouge called as she and Chaos fought off more robots.

"Go Tails! And do what you and Sonic do best: Destroy my robot!" Eggman Called before the portal closed with Tails ducking back in just before it did.

After he and the remaining heroes arrived in their next destination, the others looked to him for answers.

"Eggman and Rouge couldn't make it, but Chaos is back to normal and is helping them fend off the robot humans. Eggman also said if we beat Meta Sonic they will be sent back to out time anyway. I assume he means the time pockets will collapse and we'll be taken back home"

Tails looked at the nanocase in his hands, wondering what Eggman had put in it, when Amy spoke.

"So that means the Chaotix will get back that way too? Good, I was worried about that" Amy said.

"Guys look!" Sonic called

As the others turned their heads, they took in the sight of numerous asteroids floating about, and in the center was a large round space station that slightly resembled a mustached face.

"The Ark" Tails said.

The heroes numbers are being narrowed down! And two Meta Kings remain before the final battle! What challenge with then next king give them aboard the Ark? Who will be left behind next? And what's in the case Eggman gave to Tails? Find out next chapter! (nope, not making a DBZ reference, though I was greatly tempted) See ya!