Sonic and The Harmony of Chaos
Chapter 8 (unedited)
By Cutegirlmayra (I know it's been too long, I'm so sorry. I'm trying to edit, work on original stories, and do pet projects of mine... plus, living life, working, so much happens after school! But it's very liberating too, hehe. It does get better, folks! Now, on to the new chapter updates! Long overdue, sorry about that! lol I'll try and make it worth it, promise..! Also… I'm gonna quit editing for a while to update more chapters XD)
With everyone now gathered beneath the powerful wingbeat of Harmony's airy throne, a hurricane beneath her like a seat upon the now dispersed sky… the storm that Chaos had created was spread out to create a spiraling hole of wind, much like the now gaping hole of the sun where dimensions, worlds, and all manner of forgotten magical gems like Chaos Emeralds, Sol Emeralds, and Phantom Rubies were now drained of all their power to assist in Harmony's Perfect form… and the resurrection of her might was still incomplete.
As was mentioned previously, due to her missing army, even Perfect Harmony was only half-baked. The power swirled in colors around her, slowly turning into a vibrant pink like a ball of light around her person.
"Even with only the powers she's able to retain-!" Tails stated, trying to speak out over the winds that had now died down due to her transforming as much as she could wield now. "She's still so massively powerful!"
Storm moved off of Wave, her breathing irregular and looking as though her panic attack had finally waned on her spirit. She was starting to blink her eyes a bit more, the wind ceasing it's howling, forceful fury made her calm down somewhat.
Maybe… men could pick up on emotions far more than she had supposed.
"...Ee-urk…" She slowly got up as Storm moved back, and Jet put his hand to her back instead to keep her up.
"You okay?" He asked, his eyes showing a serious look. He wanted her to be honest, but knew she wouldn't be.
"G-..." Ungritting her beak, she did her best to fake an excuse, putting a hand to her stomach, one eye still squinted shut, "Got the wind knocked out of me, that's all." she lied, and he just accepted that, squinting his eyes and looking down as though not wanting to argue it.
"... Alright, then." He looked out towards Sonic as his body began to shake, his quills rippling as though… watery… waves…
"Sonic?" He called out, as Sonic hugged himself, and looked back up at Harmony.
"I need…" He was struggling, feeling Chaos wanting to emerge again. "I need the Chaos Emeralds…" He was worried, for the first time since Dark Gaia, that he wouldn't have the power to control himself again.
With the werehog, it was different, he hadn't 'lost himself completely'... But Chaos wanted control, and he was struggling to give him his will…
In its entirety.
Still uncertain if Chaos would fight Harmony instead of saving her, he turned to his friends, "Everyone…" He then looked to see Team Chaotix rushing to join them, and the two downed companions being carried in as well.
Blaze, Silver, Cream, and Vanilla… Cheese flew by their sides, worriedly cooing as Rouge, Knuckles, and Shadow graced the scene.
"Looking for these?" Shadow held up more than just one Chaos Emerald!
Everyone gasped, "Where'd you get those!?" Tails shouted out, as he pulled out his own, and so did Knuckles.
"Heh," Knuckles winked to him, cockily, "When Harmony took out that outer layer of that facility, these whoppers flew out!" He threw them to Sonic, as Shadow did the same, along with Tails.
"Make sure you use those wisely…" Shadow muttered, as though still not fully trusting that giving 'Chaos' the Chaos Emeralds was the best approach, but like Amy had said, he was willing to try and trust Sonic's win streak again… "We're counting on you."
Sonic winked to him, still struggling to hold Chaos back, "Heh!" He smirked, "As you all should."
That typical confidence was somewhat playing down the fact that Sonic was trying to keep Chaos under the surface… but a wild seafront was beneath his skin… his stomach felt ill… his head growing dizzy.
"Harmony… how did she-?" Sonic looked up to ask as Knuckles stepped forward.
"If the Chaos Emeralds harness Chaos's power… who's to say the other Emeralds, lost to time and space, also contained some of her power, too?" He hypothesized. "In a matter of seconds… she has already regained power from every Planet Egg but this one… that's why the sun's like that, right, Blaze?" He looked down to see her struggle to get out of their arms, falling to her knees.
"The… The Sol Emeralds… they've… disappeared." She was looking in rough shape, "I feel… I feel almost… a disconnect… like my whole realm… it's… gone." She put a hand to her forehead, "Everything… I am… just… gone."
Silver, seeing her pain, also moved out from the other's help and crawled with one hand to his chest, moving towards Blaze and putting a hand on her shoulder, "My powers… blipped out of existence… The future… I'm not sure if there is one anymore…" He worriedly stated his fears, his powers pretty much non-existent now.
Was that… the ending of all things? Of worlds and science of life?
The literal apocalypse leading to armageddon… was the being who created it in the first place?
"The Planet Egg…" Tails's eyes shook, "It's the last to go." He looked to Sonic, "Are we… too late, Sonic?"
Sonic didn't answer him… He rose his head forward as though trying to think of a way to keep everyone calm, say something to inspire them…
He flapped open his mouth but nothing came out, his jaw tried to force itself to move but again, no words formed…
Then Amy stepped forward.
"We're not dead yet!" her voice triumphant when Sonic's couldn't. He smiled and lowered his head, he needed her more than ever. For that brief moment, he looked back as though giving her permission to be the voice inside himself that he couldn't articulate.
She spread her arms out, as Cream and Vanilla raised their heads to look back to her. "This is our world! It may be broken up," The earth was quaking at Chaos trying to have Sonic take in the Chaos Emeralds floating around him, wanting him to relinquish his spirit back behind the curtain of his body and let him take over to confront Harmony… but Sonic wouldn't yield it. Not yet… "Shattered," City windows shook violently in the winds, until finally, one broke and then–as though a domino effect–many windows and planes of glass began to break at stores and with street lamps.
"Tossed left and right," The sea broke itself asunder and then came crashing back together, a threatening sight. "But it is still our world!" Amy's voice rang out over the landscape of trees being pulled out from their roots, ripping off terra with itself and plants turning to ash as their colors were stripped from their sides… and just a bare, brown dirt remained in its place…
Flickys fought the storm and fell in flocks, tiny herds, and some just clung to each other in comfort…
None had the strength to even try and outrun the end…
"We have the power to save it!" She held her fist tightly to herself, "While we yet live, we will fight!"
Harmony, still in pain, looked down to see the bunker Eggman was safely away in, shoot out a beam that split like two electric arms.
"Though I don't have the Chaos Emeralds…" His voice was directed to Cubot and Orbot, as the hands kept shooting through the air and then gripping Harmony's body, making her screech out a metallic ring like glass hitting itself.
She struggled in the air, her wind starting to make her toddle in its open space…
"I still have the technology to replicate their power!" He swung his arm out, as three more replica Chaos Emeralds, fake and with a dim comparison to the originals, now sent a shockwave of power up before turning to dust…
Harmony then had metallic coating latch onto her, clipping to her one wing and spreading out to mechanize and create a robotic layer over her organic, fluid wing.
She shook her head, enraged. The fake power that withheld her was only meant to hold her as Eggman had fired out mysterious rockets, which exploded and started crafting steel technology over her Perfect form.
"Now… Let's play a new game… Sonic, I cannot lose now! This time-!" he started pressing many buttons, and her wings glowed a hot magenta, forcing her to reel herself back as her fluid tentacles flew out and dug deep into the earth.
"Now, Harmony!" He cried out, "Create for me… my perfect world order!"
Eggman threw out his hands as the lights on her wing-joints glowed metallically, turning red as plants rose up from the falling world and shapeshifted into monuments of Eggman, which the Elemental Soldiers than took to like ants, constructing what looked to be 'robotized' versions of that structure.
"Now all the powers of life will be at my disposal!"
More, festival and theme park-like structures emerged and were then covered in Elemental Giants and robotic earth, terraforming the landscape into a steel wonderland of a carnival empire…
"Eggman..!" Knuckles roared over the cliff, seeing that he was only attacking the area closest to him… for now…
"You guys… You… take out those weird fusions of metal and earth." Sonic, rising from the storm inside him, gripped his head a moment as his eyes glowed the green of the Master Emerald… of Chaos's eyes…
"No matter what Chaos does, now…" He gritted his teeth, "I have to do something..!" He powered up into Super Sonic, "I'm tired of talking…" He narrowed his eyes, but then the whole of the cliff started to shake as a few fluid tentacles had made their way through the earth towards them.
"Look out!" Tails cried out, before the wiggling appendages of Harmony's arms began to pull the life out of the girls by them.
Vanilla felt weak, but pushed Cream towards them, "F-fight, my child." She then fell to the ground on her stomach, struggling… This triggered Shadow… not only did it look just like Maria… it also reminded him of the vision Tikal had showed them.
"She's… She's taking them all!" He cried out, as Storm and Jet turned to see Wave's colors fading, her smiling to them a moment.
Before they could cry out her name, she fell back and was as white as snow…
Rouge rose up and flew, though her colors were being sapped like her life force, she drill-spun into one of the tentacles, fighting her own weariness, and shredded one into splashing out in gooey slim that sprayed everywhere.
Cream, looking to her mother, then angled her eyes and grabbed Cheese, "You're hurting me and mama! My friends! Everyone!" With Cheese, being a boy, still at full health and vigor, he flew up to the other pink, liquid tendril as it wiggled to absorb the lights within itself and spun to throw Cream's large feet into it.
It severed right through it, and the light show ceased with it as well.
Blaze, taking the last of her power, threw a flaming blast towards the other, having it shrivel and, instead of breaking off, melt back into the ground.
"WAVVVEEE!" The two remaining Babylon Rogues' shrieked cut through the deafening silence now…
"Mama!" Cream flew back and fell to her mother's side… only a faint amount of color remained on her, as she was still leaking what looked like rays of different colors… flying up to Harmony.
"My child…" She soothingly stroked Cream's head, "It's alright, Cream dear." She hugged her close to herself as Team Chaotix began to tear up and cry.
"This… can't be happening… what on earth is going on?" Vector rubbed his eyes, still not certain what was happening, "You can't just die, it was just a little smudge of some colorful lights, why is this happening?"
Jet kept shaking Wave's body, "WAVE. WAVE. WAVVEE!" his voice was growing hoarse and dry, as Storm's bottom beak trembled and his arms came up and back, unable to fathom the reality of what just happened.
Blaze… then also fell as Silver, Shadow, and Knuckles moved to try and catch her, but were too late, just crowding around her. "Blaze?!" Silver called out, as Blaze smiled warmly while her chin tilted somewhat on the dusty ground.
"I couldn't save my world… my dimension… the people that revered me as their princess…" She closed her eyes lightly, the colors continuing to fade… her lights flying off towards Harmony as well. "Silver…" She looked to him fondly, and for a moment, a spike in Silver's memory made him tear up and start crying…
"Why…" He began, putting a finger up to his cheek to touch the warm tears present there, "Does this… scene… feel… so familiar?"
"I believe in the future you're trying to save."
Silver's eyes glossed over as though his own spirit had been shattered by her encouraging…
Last… words…
Knuckles, seeing Blaze go stark white… slowly lowered his hands before rising up and rushing to Rouge… who was gliding wobbly to the ground. "RRROUUUGGGEEE!"
"The infertility of man…" Shadow's eyes were shrunken and shaking, seeing the men crying over their female companions and friends… "The world will be stilled…" He gripped some grass near his hand, seeing he couldn't lock the color in as–no matter how hard he squeezed his fists tight–the lights still slipped through the concrete-seal of his hands…
"Men… will be powerless to bring life back." His body trembled in anger… in sorrow… "Maria…" He lowered his body and face to the ground, crying… "I have failed you… I couldn't save… the world you loved so much…"
Tails ran to Cream, holding her as she cried but her mother's life was still being drained.
He tried to move her away from the horrific sight, almost like a delicate pull of her beauty, but Cream fought him.
Cheese also tried to help fight Tails back, crying out his pebbles of tears like any child would.
"It's not forsaken, Shadow." Vanilla grabbed his attention, looking over to him in her weary state, "Women help set things right. We are the natural affection of this world… But without men, we would certainly already be lost." She smiled to him fondly, "Men are the defenders… the providers of more than just physical strength… you are our hope. Women make the world a bright and happy place to dwell upon… because we become the mothers that must make sure everything is successful for our children to thrive… but Fathers…" She then looked up to the skies, "Fathers are what give purpose to meaningful life… the grace of courage, the knowledge of noble ambition, the foundations of a sure and true set of principles that one may live by… It is not enough to simply create the makings of life… but men are what changes that life. Evolves it to become stronger… by breaking it down with adversary and continual strife, can a life be refined into an endlessly glorious new creature. Far greater than its original design from birth…" Her voice grew shaky, with the last breaths of life she could sustain, she wouldn't allow herself to fall without speaking these words of truth.
"Chaos is not only destruction, nor simply the foundation that creates the space for new life… It is… the changes that define a life, the odd circumstances and events that pave the way for that life to create an indomitable soul."
She took in her last breath of life, pulling in as much as she could muster to say her final lesson to the children of the world…
"Chaos… is what gives life its reason to be. To… purposefully… Exist."
The men all held their breaths as Vanilla, Blaze, and Wave's forms were turned to white ash… the last of their colors flying off to be absorbed by the originator of all life… in the skies.
Amy and Rouge held themselves but slowly got up, Amy being fine as she wasn't exposed nearly as close as the others were, and Rouge's colors–although having become somewhat fainter–were beginning to be restored by the Planet Egg.
Rouge took Knuckles's arm, trying to wait for herself to remain stabilized, before sighing in relief that they had survived.
Cream wept and wept, Tails holding her firmly to his chest, not wanting her to see her mother's last ashes… nor as the wind softly picked up… and carried them away.
"THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!" Jet spun around to Sonic, but as he grabbed him to turn him around, gripping his shoulders, his eyes running with tears… He noticed the green glow of Sonic's… and realized that Sonic–after such a speech from a beloved Mother–was surrendering his body and will to Chaos's control.
Twitching… Jet let him go and backed up, punching the ground, "WAAVVVEEEEE!" he cried out, and fell to his knees, in anguish.
'You want to save them?' Sonic asked Chaos, but before Chaos could answer, Harmony had felt her liquid pink, see-through tendrils get attacked, and crying out in pain, she brought one last one that was hiding out to grab at the emotional female energy she was sensing.
As it went for Cream in Tails's arms, Amy rushed forward and threw a hammer out to it. It broke off the tip of it's arm, and as it reared to turn its attention, it seized Amy.
"AMYYYY!"
The voice of Tails and Cream cried out as Sonic turned, his body already moving like Chaos's water, almost formed with him, when he saw Amy trapped in her substance.
Harmony saw an opportunity, lowering her snake-like neck to have her dragon-like head look towards where the lifeforms were.
She sent her heart shooting down her appendage, swimming down at rapid speeds through her fluid form, straight down into the tunneled earth to follow the stream of her being till it attached itself to Amy.
Everyone's eyes could only watch as this happened in a matter of seconds, and because Sonic was trying to relinquish his will, Chaos didn't act fast enough to use Sonic's speed to save her.
The Heart fused and pulsed, moving with ripples into Amy's chest… down… covering her own heart with its own beating one.
Just like with Sonic… it made Amy's it's host, as her eyes shot open with a red glowing ring around the pupils.
The pink liquid shoved itself into her body, before cutting off as Amy stumbled and threw her head back, crying out in unison to Perfect Harmony's metallic ring of pain.
"WHY ARE YOU HURTING ME!?"