Disclaimer: See next chapter.

Rainbow

The wisps quickly realized that something was wrong as the Time Eater let out a howling roar, and Whisper grit her teeth to avoid showing weakness to the thing.

As soon as Yellow was out, Whisper snapped at the 'emergency close' button that was on the outside of the tent. In an instant it had folded up, laying against the white ground as if nothing was happening.

"What's the plan?" Pink asked. "It was so sudden, one moment it was here the next it was just...here!"

Here and then here. Wonderful description there, Pink. "Hit it with everything we got. It took the entire team last time, but we don't have them," Whisper answered.

A rocket powered cubic spike ball answered her, each of the energy waves passing through the Time Eater as if it didn't need to hit. She had nothing that could hit it out of incorporeality.

Which meant she needed to time things. "But hey, at least we don't need to worry about extra damage now!" Cyan cheered as she imbued the wispon.

That was true, Whisper knew. She darted off to the side as the Time Eater tried to slam down where she'd been. Another cube, another spike, and Whisper's own cyan laser were fired instantly at the Time Eater, only for it to laugh as it went incorporeal again.

"This won't work. We surprised it the last few times. But now it knows what we can do," Whisper explained.

They needed a way to force it out of being incorporeal. But she didn't have a wisp that could do that, and unless the wispon had a mode that she didn't know about, she doubted she could come up with one.

Pink's spikes kept forming on Blue's cubes, each one being tossed at the Time Eater either through Green or Orange's power. Each time it ignored them, heading straight for Whisper directly.

She ran through the white space. More than once she almost tripped as the White Space had curves on it that she didn't see, or couldn't realize existed.

The wisps wouldn't be able to help. Which meant that she had to come up with a plan by herself. "Cyan, I have an idea."

"Is this a Pink plan, a me plan, or an Orange?" Cyan asked as soon as she disimbued the wispon. "And do you think it would work?"

"Probably not, but we have to try something," Whisper said, jumping to the side as the Time Eater slammed down again. Yellow came in from the side, trying to drill into it, only to get knocked off softly by the giant thing.

"There is one idea, but I don't know if we can do it."

Whisper nodded. She'd have to keep that in her back pocket. "Blue, Green, Orange..." she muttered as soon as she tried to jump onto the Time Eater's hands. It had no connecting bones, but was still seemingly surprised at seeing its prey jump closer to it.

Her feet were still sticking to it. And she focused the wispon downwards, and Cyan's laser tore through its hand without as much as a scratch on her. She went flying skyward, and she heard the howl of the Time Eater below her.

Instantly Green caught her, imbuing the wispon to make the umbrella that she'd known it was. She fired a few more Cyan shots towards it, but each one went straight through it again, its furious face howling with rage as its prey dared to fight back.

"Just you and me now! Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide!" Whisper howled out as she landed on the ground. The wisps couldn't affect the ground. But that was fine. Because all they needed to do was affect the Time Eater.

"Blue, Green! Set up a makeshift castle, Green make sure the cubes don't touch the ground!" Whisper planned out loud as she started to run back. There was no distance, nothing that could tell her where she was except in relation to the thing chasing her.

Then there was. At first it was just a few cubes, blank and empty as they always were when Blue needed doing something. And they weren't going away, a small green hover at the bottom of each of them. A hovering castle.

She hopped on them instantly, not caring when the Time Eater slammed its way towards them. "Keep creating it, Pink, Orange, work together!" Whisper roared as she jumped off one of the higher floors to the one below. Blue was putting his all into it.

Dozens of floors, hundreds of cubes, almost thousands were being put into existence all at once. And Green seemingly had no problem keeping it all floating, making sure that it didn't touch the ground.

The Time Eater dared to slam its hands down once more, testing Green's hover capability along with Blue's cube density. Its hands went straight through the floor to the ground below.

"Cyan, bounce off Blue!" Whisper asked as she turned around, aiming for the Time Eater. She would miss, naturally, because it could turn incorporeal. What it could not do was avoid a shot it didn't realize existed.

Cyan bounced between hundreds of Blue's cubes as the Time Eater kept chasing her, and each time it tried to attack her, Cyan attacked from behind. More than once it slammed its hands down, as the one she'd shot came back fully healed or something, onto Pink's spikes, promptly launched by Orange into the thing's eye.

"Individually we can't do anything! We're not doing enough!" Orange decreed as she launched another spike laden cube. She imbued the wispon, and Whisper took the moment to launch herself skyward. Hundreds of thousands of cubes now. Blue was really working himself for this, wasn't he?

It also really said about how much they, or any one of them could really do. Whisper landed on another floating cube, seeing the Time Eater far below her. "It's working, but it's working too slow. Can Blue keep this up?" Whisper asked.

She hated doubting their capabilities, especially after what she'd already seen. "Honestly, no. I mean, I'm keeping myself in reserve a bit, but Blue's going all out with this madness. Green's having a bit of a hard time too, because all of this weighs literally hundreds of tons."

She had been told that Green and Blue were the ones truly responsible for most of the damage to Green Hill hadn't she...?

"Cyan said something about another idea."

"We have one, but it's not one you'd like. You'd have to keep on running again."

"I can do that," Whisper said as she fired Orange towards the Time Eater, hoping that she'd get the message to tell the others. She bounced off of each cube, using them as makeshift stairs as the Time Eater sauntered through the rest of them, erasing as many as it could from existence just to have them pop back a moment later.

"Alright, plan time!" Cyan cheered as she joined Whisper on the ground. A few more laser shots, and the Time Eater was effectively chasing them again, not looking any worse for wear despite the fact that Whisper knew they'd been doing something to it.

"Okay, I'm tired," Blue said as he hovered closer. "I can't do that again."

"Neither can I, but I still have enough to save you," Green said as he hovered on her other side. Yellow and Lavender stood behind her, the young wisp trying to not be scared as Lavender soothed her worries.

Pink and Orange. Where were those two? Whisper glanced around, barely getting more than two moments of peace as she had to duck to the left. She jumped back again, asking for Blue to imbue as she slammed the hammer down onto one of its hands.

"The hands don't do much! Cyan, this is your idea!" Orange cried out from the right. Pink hovered next to him, the one eye on his body seemingly worried and afraid.

"It is! This is definitely, one hundred percent a Cyan plan!" Cyan announced as she imbued the wispon. "Whisper, run as fast as you can while we do this!"

She'd have to trust. That wasn't hard, they'd been working together for ages. She nodded, immediately turning back and running as fast as she could go.

This wasn't running. This was flat out sprinting. "Right, I'm first!" Cyan announced. "After that comes Yellow! Pink and then Orange!"

Four of them!? And Yellow had never even imbued the wispon before. But Whisper hoped that they knew what they were doing. She didn't have four wisps in the wispon before, and she barely anticipated it. Yellow drill, with Cyan's laser...what kind of weapon were they making!?

She ducked to the left, and weaved around the hands that slammed down. Now the Time Eater was far behind her, firing some kind of yellow beam out of its mouth. "It's firing homing shots! Whisper, dodge to the right!" Orange called out. "Cyan, other pieces!"

OTHER!?

How much stress were they going to be putting on the variable wispon!? With four wisps alone that would put it at more than maximum capacity. "Right, hold on, trying to remember, we've only done this the once!"

They've done it before?

"Blue, then Green! Come on, it's almost overloaded, Lavender, you're last!" Cyan called out. The variable wispon was growing hot at this point, unable to contain the energies from even just the four wisps imbuing it.

It had no functional capability for four wisps. And then Blue and Green, in that order, imbued into the wispon, and Whisper could start it getting more than scalding. It was burning into her back, burning her hands as she took it in front of her. "Lavender, come on!" Cyan's voice called out.

Whisper side stepped as another of the yellow spikes from the Time Eater slammed into the ground. She could barely breathe, and it wasn't from her running for so long. She could do this, she had to do this, this was the wisps' plan and she had put everything on them before and she'd do it again!

"I can't, I don't know how!" Lavender called out. Whisper felt the handle of the wispon starting to melt. It was growing too hot, it had too much energy. But she couldn't drop it, because that would make White Space absorb it all.

"It's just like imbuing Whisper! It's the same thing, but onto the wispon! If you have to, lean into the negativity!" Orange's voice rang out.

The Time Eater was right behind her now, and Whisper felt her legs starting to give out. She wouldn't last much longer than a few more seconds. Lavender kept flying next to her. "I...I don't know-"

"If you don't, we're all going to die," Blue's voice said gently. "That's the only outcome from this. Whisper's starting to break down, the wispon's breaking down already, but we only have the one shot, but that's all we need!"

Lavender's eye closed for a moment, before she narrowed her eyes, her resolve set. Whisper was glad, because that meant she was riding on a do or die.

The wispon cooled down as soon as Lavender imbued it, and it reformed into another configuration. But it was one that Whisper knew well, because it was the base form. "Alright, now turn, and fire! It doesn't matter if it's incorporeal! I hope," Cyan called out.

"It's that I hope that gives me pause!" Whisper howled as her feet finally gave out, and she hugged the wispon close as she tripped onto the ground. She had to make sure it wouldn't touch the ground. That would make everything they just went through a waste.

The Time Eater hovered in front of her, both of its hands fully corporeal as it howled at her. Whisper rolled onto her back, and raised the wispon.

Laser.

Drill.

Spikes.

Rocket.

Cube.

Hover.

Frenzy!

Each one rang out in her mind as each wisp shot out of it, warping into the Time Eater as if to hold it shut. Each one empowered by the one before, each one empowered by the one after. A perfect chain.

"Whisper! One final shot! You know what it is, call it out!" Orange called out, her tone gleeful as the wisps held the Time Eater in normal time and space.

She'd heard of it. Only once, when Sonic had explained what the wisps could actually do when they worked together. All of them, individually, were powerful. But together, unstoppable.

"Final. Color. Blaster," Whisper whispered into the air as she pulled the trigger one last time.

It wasn't a rainbow, as fitting as that would have been. It wasn't even a combination of all the wisps colors, so how it got the name of Final Color Blaster Whisper didn't know.

Instead it was colorless, impossible to see but impossible to not know that it was there. It roared across the small field that the wisps had set up, each of them knocking the Time Eater back.

It was still corporeal when it hit. And the Time Eater's purple form blew apart, half of it missing from the top and each of its hands torn apart by the energy blast.

Whisper's eyes couldn't believe themselves. The Time Eater that had been chasing her for so long...how did he of all hedgehogs end up in there?

Surrounding by the Time Eater's energy, with half of it missing up top from the Final Color Blaster, was the head fringe and coloring of Silver, his eyes shut. His hands were impossible to see, but Whisper thought that if anything they were relaxed.

The Time Eater crashed into the ground of White Space, and while it probably tried to greedily grab at Silver's...or rather the Time Eater's energy, Silver himself was still out of it.

"That was awesome, but I don't think we can do it again," Cyan summarized. Each of the wisps looked tired beyond belief.

"That's what happens when you use an assault like that with one of the oldest beings in the universe!" Green cheered.

"I thought we weren't mentioning that!" Orange shouted instantly. Whisper's ears perked up, but she pretended to not notice what they were saying. Her attention was mostly set on Silver.

The gray haired teen, because make no mistake he was still a teenager, was lying gently on the White Space ground. The Time Eater energy flooded away from him, eking out into the White Space area.

"Silver?" Whisper asked, gently shaking him. "Silver."

"Whisper?" Silver's voice called out as he opened his eyes. "What...where...?" he asked, "Don't tell me I failed for the fifth time," he said as he looked around.

"I mean we aren't but at this point it's pretty obvious," Blue argued. "There's only so much leading on that we can do before we just flat out say 'yeah, we lived through the Big Bang, so what of it?'.

"We didn't live through it, we were born long afterwards. Granted it's only by a few centuries but..." Green muttered.

"In space time, that's like nothing."

"Planet Wisp wasn't even made back then. And we were all born on there," Pink chimed in.

"I don't think so," Whisper answered, trying to ignore the wisp revelations behind her. The Final Color Blaster had definitely taken its toll not just on the Time Eater, but on the variable wispon too. Parts were still hot, others were starting to melt, others were ice cold and freezing over. It had definitely seen better days, and she was glad that she'd probably have time to repair it here. As long as she had her toolkit. Which was...

Probably still with Violet. Well. That was going to be a pain to get back. She wasn't in any hurry to get it back though.

"But...what are you doing here? Why are we in White Space again?" Silver asked, a familiar green glow forming around his body as he forced himself up psychokinetically.

It was the same power as Green had, incidentally, now that she had the power to be able to tell that and was close enough to both to be able to. Whisper idly wondered then if Silver had some kind of wisp energy in his gloves like a wispon.

"Don't know. Got chased by a Time Eater. Sent to the future. Ran around, ended up here."

Silver blinked. "That sounds like a much longer story than four sentences," he said quietly. "I don't suppose you can run as fast as Sonic does."

"No."

"Didn't think so. It needed him to be able to break out last time, working with his past self. And I think Shadow was doing something too," Silver said, holding his head gently. "My head hurts, what happened to me...?"

"I don't know. When we hit the Time Eater, you were in the center of it," Whisper said. "I've been meaning to ask what you were doing in there, but based on your actions I don't think you'd remember."

"No, probably not," Silver agreed. "And..." he looked up towards...the sky, which was as white as everything else. "You'd be right. I don't. I remember jumping back to...something. A point. But then as soon as I got there, the time stone slipped out of my hand and I woke up here."

"You use a Time Stone?"

"To time travel? Sometimes, yeah. Either that or chaos control, and I rarely have two emeralds. It requires two users for the time travel version anyways," Silver explained.

Ah. There went that other plan which was 'get Silver to get them out of here' but it sounded like even Silver couldn't do that. Which meant that she was once again without much in the way of plans in this place. And this time she didn't have the Variable Wispon.

"Where's the Time Stone now?"

"Uh...I don't know. It slipped out of my hand, but I grabbed it psychokinetically. Should be..." Silver said, before he reached into his spines. "Yep, there it is," he said, pulling out a glowing green smooth stone.

She'd seen a chaos emerald before, a three dimensional jewel that looked like a standard diamond. Although according to Sonic they actually changed based on who was looking at them. When Sonic alone looked at them they were more flat gems with six edges.

The Time Stone...didn't look like that. It looked like a green gem, like someone had taken a rock meant for skipping on water, slapped some green stuff on it, flattened out the edges, and made it bigger. "That's a Time Stone?" Whisper asked.

"Yep. Borrowed it from Little Planet with their permission. It's what allows time travel without the gathering of energy or evil spirits," Silver explained without blinking.

"Oh, that's the part we forgot," Orange muttered as she heard it. "Unsafe time travel creates Time Eaters. Apparently."

"How did we not know this random occult knowledge!? No, I'm being serious, how did we never come across this?" Cyan asked.

"Because the Crimson time travel is inherently safe," Blue explained, "As is apparently time travel via Clockwatcher and by Time Stone. Or by Chaos Control."

"Oh hey the wisps! Hi everyone!" Silver waved to them. "They always seem so cheerful every time I see them," he said with a smile.

Whisper nodded. "They can understand you."

"Oh, I know. I think you told me that once. Or twice. Maybe in the future. Maybe right now and I'm just now recalling it," Silver shrugged. "But now, the real question is, how do we get out of here?"

"If a powerful force the size of the Final Color Blaster didn't work, especially with all of us at full power, I don't see how anything else is going to work," Cyan muttered under her breath. "That was going to be my answer for everything."

"It was a good try. And you did get rid of the Time Eater," Whisper agreed. Silver looked their way.

"Oh right you can understand them. What was that about getting rid of the Time Eater? How did you manage that?"

"Wisp combination," Whisper said after a short moment. She didn't just want to come out and say 'Final color blaster' because most people wouldn't know what that meant.

Silver nodded. "Oh, okay. Yeah those can be pretty strong from what Sonic said one time."

"What point in time were you trying for?" Whisper asked quietly. Silver tilted his head, his eyes looking up and away.

"You know, you'd think I'd remember that part. Time travel's always complicated...eight, two...ninety three? Yeah that sounds about right."

"In dates I can understand?" Whisper asked deadpan, as the wisps started to laugh. Silver laughed as well, sending his head back.

"Ah, hold on then. It was after the Eggperial city, after the whole racing thing. I think it was a few weeks after that. I think you were about to be sent out, or already being sent out to something?" Silver asked, wracking his brain.

"Me being sent out to one of Eggman's old bases that Sonic and Tails went through, with Lanolin and Tangle?" Whisper asked, a dread feeling coming up from the back of her spine.

"Yeah, that was it. Somewhen around there," Silver acknowledged. "Why?"

"Because that's when I got caught up in this mess," Whisper said, as she proceeded to let Silver in on everything that had happened. Her mind recalled the dozens of harrowing situations, the path to get her to the Restoration, meeting Shadow, going through Green Hill, flying to Spiral Hill, and everything afterwards.

Throughout the entire time, Silver's face remained the same, a kind of childish smile as he nodded and tried to understand what it was that she was saying.

"And that's when I came here. Any ideas?" Whisper asked.

"As the world's only expert on time travel, my opinion is I have no idea," Silver grinned. Whisper lowered her eyes at him as the wisps gave applause. Except for Lavender and Yellow, who merely looked on in confusion. Yellow seemed to be having fun though, drilling around the other wisps in the air.

"Well, that's a lie, I do have some. Chaos energy is just that, chaotic, and it interacts weirdly with time energy. Wisp energy is completely different, and that interacts weird with soul energy, and the Time Eater's kind of a mix of both."

"You know what a Time Eater is?"

"Yeah. I looked it up in the future after one of them went after all of us. And dragged me from two hundred years in the future!" Silver said excitedly. "They're half time, half soul. The more someone time travels without a safe method, such as a 'borrowed with knowledge' Time Stone like I have, or on one of the other methods, the more likely they are to store time energy in their body. The more you have, the more likely you are to do a Time Eater transformation. They're not normal beasts," Silver explained.

"Which timeline are you from?"

"That's a complicated question. But it seems that Clockwatcher you found exhibited a pulse of time energy out, and that's what I got caught up in, dropping the Time Stone. But because I was still in the middle of traveling, well, that's when I became that thing. That fits, at least."

"But then why did it only go forward twenty three years? I've been operating under the assumption that's when it ran out of power."

"That's a Zerotime thing," Silver said. "Even in my time, Timeroot is a thing. But they're a lot smaller than how they were when you described them, so it's probably from their past. I wouldn't know, but if I had to guess it's because that's what it was set to, was 'next time Zerotime is in Local Time'."

"They're going to keep trying to go after the world and Sonic, won't they?"

Silver shrugged. "They never went after him as far as I know. In fact the only other time I've been in Zerotime was after Crisis City was put back, and that was a while ago."

Wait...Timeroot never went after Sonic? But then all the plans that Knuckles had overheard...now her head was hurting.

"See, that's the thing about time travel. You think about it too much, you're bound to get a headache. That's how you know you're thinking about it right!" Silver grinned.

The wisps continued to laugh.

I wanted to call this chapter "Final Color Blaster" but that would stop the whole 'chapters being titled one word' thing I've had going on since like...chapter 4. Also that would be spoiler. Edit; Added in Rocket. Forgot that one.

Until Next Time!