Chapter 8: The Beginning Of the End

Sonic and his friends, new and old, looked up. He'd faced the Time Eater here at this very gate long ago. Behind it was a masterpiece of a battle, the final battle. Now, it held two foes, with powers combined that, ordinarily, would outnumber the speed and power of the hedgehog.

But he wasn't in the slightest alone. He had a genius, the ultimate life form, a mouse with a brush, and a lucky rabbit. This may not have seemed like a dream team, but with friends, anything was possible. Though Shadow may not have necessarily agreed.

The Chaos Emeralds were shimmering fully now, their colours shining as brightly as the sun in their hands. Sonic shouted, over the clicking of gears, "Alright, guys! No going back from here. Ready to go in there?"

Nobody said otherwise. Jumping in through the gate, this unlikely team expected to land in the same place where their battle had begun, the Internet. But life has ways of not making sense. Or at least, to the team. Because, now, they were in a place where time and space finally had meaning, due solely to the Time Blotter. Gears lay on the floor as a path, interlocked with the next, slowly clicking and moving, but the sides were enshrouded in that same purple mist.

TICK, TOCK. TICK, TOCK.

Impossibly, it felt like the echo of the gears had echoes, and those echoes seemed to bear echoes. Oswald and Tails shuddered at the noise. Quickly, they all ran across the path, trying their hardest not to get stuck in any of the gaps between the cogs or to fall off into a purple abyss.

After what could finally be called three minutes (much to everyone's relief seeing that time could run somewhat normally), they finally reached the largest cog that could possibly have existed. Mickey, for the first time, felt lots of ink dripping off of him suddenly, floating into the air.

And then, at long last, the Time Blotter appeared. It was the same monstrous sight that had beheld them from the start, with a glint of menace in his eyes, and a snarl of vengeance. It certainly wasn't going down easily, but this team, well, they'd had enough of playing easy.

"Hey, Tails, remember this?" Sonic grinned, before turning to the monster. "Okay, gruesome! You're cornered! If you want to avoid an embarrassing beat-down, you'd better give up now, and restore the timeline like you found it!"

The monster roared, flecks of black ink splashing on the ground.

"This ends here and now. Don't spare me any favours by playing easy, though. The battle is what will make your defeat even sweeter to me." said Shadow.

The Time Blotter growled loudly, shaking the whole place. It created a portal, and disappeared through it. "Guys! It's over here!" cried Mickey, as he pointed to a floating gear almost directly above them, hanging in the mist. Sonic grabbed onto Tails' hands, and Mickey grabbed onto Oswald's feet. Shadow used Chaos Control, jumping on their heads to reach the top platform.

Gus teleported in, holding the statue of Ortensia. As the lucky rabbit jumped down onto the platform, he told Gus to look after her. The gremlin nodded, teleporting away, as everyone else arrived onto the platform and something massive happened.

On each of the edges of the gears, a pair of fireworks, glowing incandescently. At the center of the gear was a massive red button that could probably launch all of these at once, if that was its purpose. Tails joyfully said, "Guys! The fireworks!"

"Perfect!" said Oswald. "Should we launch 'em now?" Oswald made his way closer to the button, when the Time Blotter finally appeared in sight, and spat out something inky. It landed on the gear with a splat, and got up. It looked like a Spatter, but with gears for eyes.

All of a sudden, the monster began heaving out even more of these monsters, as they started surrounding the gang.

"Oh boy! What are these?" asked Mickey.

Tails replied, "My guess would be that these are creatures with time and space energy in them. They're kinda like… miniscule, living time anomalies. We have to be careful with them."

Oswald looked at Tails, and said, "Well, some of us have to stay here and deal with these monsters, while the others take down the bigger threat." The Spatters got closer, forcing the five into a protective circle.

"Ok, me and Shadow are gonna go Super, whilst you three get the fireworks ready and deal with these… things. We'll take it down in no time!" cried Sonic. "Hopefully, the extra White Emerald from reality will work with the Internet Emeralds." Tails and Oswald nodded at this statement, reassuring the hedgehogs that it would be compatible.

"No, I'm coming with ya." shouted Mickey. "The Blot was my mess, and I'm going to fix it!"

"We don't even know if you can go Super like us!" retorted the blue hedgehog, keen not to let anybody get hurt.

"Oh, don't worry about that." Mickey took out a bottle from his shorts, and uncorked it. Oswald gasped, as stardust shot out of it, swirling around him. It got to a point where he couldn't be seen, and at that moment…

BOOM!

The stardust shot out across the air, destroying all the inky monsters the Time Blotter had generated. Mickey hadn't changed too much, except for the fact that his hands were slightly glowing. Shadow asked, "What just happened?"

Mickey said, "I made a wish that I'd fix my mistake, and it looks like it came true. C'mon, guys! We don't have a lotta time!"

Sonic nodded and grinned eagerly, taking out the Chaos Emeralds. Like magic, along with Sonic and Shadow, Mickey floated into the sky with the Emeralds swirling around them. They disappeared, but power filled every inch of their body. To Mickey, this was too much power at once, but thanks to his good nature, he had some control.

"It's time to end this mayhem, and stop you, like we've done time and again!" shouted Sonic. His quills had turned upright, into a bright yellow, and his irises were as red as Shadow's. In fact, Shadow too was gleaming a bright yellow, except for the red parts of his quills, and his gloves and shoes. He growled, but said nothing.

And Mickey… All of his fur had turned yellow too, except for his gloves and shorts. The shoes were impossible to tell apart from his skin, though. His eyes had turned, not red like the others, but half blue, and half green. Why this was so could not be easily said, but know that this was the current state of the mouse.

And so, the final stand-off began.