Everyone start fighting against the dark monsters.

"Beat 'em up and beat 'em back to the entrance pool!" Sonic said, kicking one away.

Razor quickly saved Sonic as he sliced two of those monsters, causing them to disappear and leaving nothing but purple smoke.

"Wha—?! Is that normal—?"

"No idea! It's like they're made of the gunk that's been seeping out of the planet!"

Amy squashed the monster to the ground with her hammer, making it puff out of the smoke.

"But then—Sonic! Y/N! You two breathed that stuff when—!"

"Not now!"

"But what if—?!"

"Not a priority right now, Amy!"

Rotor punched the monster behind him.

"There! That's the last of them!"

"No... There will be more. Many more. They come from the Anostos Rift by the hundreds every night..." Coral said, walking out of the temple with Pearly by her side. "And the shield that protected us all is gone. Because of me."

Y/N placed a hand on her shoulder.

"No, Coral. None of this is your fault! Don't beat yourself up! The jerks in Meropis have been stressing you out! It's their fault they broke your focus! They shouldn't have been harsh on you if they know the situation they're in."

"She's right! You can still perform the sacred rites. You can still bring the shield up. I know you can." Razor added.

"...You've never lost faith in me."

"We may have just met, but I'd never doubted you."

"You've never lost faith in me." Razor repeated what she just said.

"Then it's not a matter of 'I can.' It's that 'I must.'"

"Hold on a minute—if those things are attacking here, that means the city's gotta be overrun! We've gotta help!" Sonic said.

"I'm not leaving Coral." Razor protested.

"He's right—There will be more monsters. I'll stay here and back up Razor. You and Rotor go do your hero thing. It's what you're good at." Y/N said, bringing out her whip and katana.

"Always do, sis. Stay safe."

"You, too, bro."

"I'll stay here too. You might need some backup, Y/N." Amy said.

"Sure."

Sonic and Rotor then went off with their air charms before diving into the ocean towards Meropis. Just then, more dark monsters appeared. Kirby and Crusher took down the small ones as they puff into smoke while working together. Amy smashed one with her hammer. As for Razor and Y/N, they took care of the big one as he jump onto its body and started stabbing it with his sword with Y/N slicing and whipping the monster into pieces rapidly before it disappeared.

"Coral?! Sweetie?! Any time now!" Amy shouted.

Y/N spin dashed herself while holding onto her katana and sliced through those dark monsters easily like what Antoine had done earlier when he saved Muttski and Uncle Chuck from falling into the pit back in Wood Zone. Razor was surprised at her moves as Y/N stopped spinning and felt a little dizzy from that. Just then, one of the dark monsters goes to attack her from behind when he quickly comes to her rescue and sliced its stomach, causing it to puff into smoke.

"Thanks, Razor!"

"Anytime!"

Over at the Chao Garden, Pearly was trying to talk to the Chao but she was too nervous.

"O-Okay... You Chao n-need to get to safety. Go on now! Sh-Shoo!"

But the Chao are too scared to move as one began to cry and ran towards Pearly for a hug.

"EEK! Stay away! Shoo somewhere else! Don't come near—!"

She noticed the dark monster came behind her and screamed. Y/N gasped to see Pearly and the Chao in trouble and quickly brought out her two kunais and threw it towards the monster, stabbing it in the head, causing it to roar in pain and disappear into smoke. Amy quickly comes to Pearly's aid.

"Pearly, what are you doing out here? You should be hiding somewhere safe!"

"I-I was going to! C-Coral taught me it's our job to take care of the Chao!"

"So what's the holdup?"

"I-I can't! The Chao are just so... so..."

Pearly noticed one was giving her the cute goo goo eyes, making her scream.

"...creepy!"

"Don't ever tell Cream that..." Amy mumbled to herself. "Listen—I've been in some bad situations—even deadly—but I've fought through them to protect the ones I love. We're all counting on you to be brave and get the Chao to safety so we can focus on our jobs."

"O-Okay... I'll try."

Pearly did the soldier like walk as the Chao happily follow her move as they kept walking.

"F-Follow me, little Chao! One-two! One-two! N-Not too close!"

Razor noticed something ahead and shouted while slicing the monsters off with his sword.

"Y/N! One got past! It's heading for Coral!"

Y/N looked over to see that one of the monsters is indeed heading to where Coral is and immediately chased after it.

"Oh, no you don't—!"

Y/N jumped over it and raised her sword up and goes down and stabbed it deeply, causing it to stop moving and puffed into smoke.

"That was too close..." she sighed in relief.

Pearly ran towards Y/N.

"Y/N! Y/N!"

"Huh? Pearly? What's wrong? Aren't you supposed to be inside—"

"Don't worry! I got the Chao inside, where we keep the air charms! Two are missing!"

"Well yeah, Sonic and Rotor took them."

"I know! They took the wrong ones! The two missing charms weren't fully charged!"

"WHAT?! I've gotta go after them!"

"You can't! It's too dangerous out there!" Razor said.

"But it's my brother and my friend! They need me!"

"More are coming through the ceiling!" Amy shouted.

Y/N looked up to see more monsters coming out of the ceiling.

"Guard Pearly and the Chao! We'll cover the temple! We have to hold out until Coral finishes the rites! We'll save your brother! I need you to be safe!" Razor said.

Y/N felt conflicted for a moment before sighing.

"Alright. Let's just hope he can hold his breathe."

He nodded and they began to keep fighting off the dark monster, but the more they come, the more harder it is to take them down as they're completely surrounded.

"There's too many of them!" Y/N shouted.

"No, Crusher! Run!"

Crusher just growl in response, not backing down without a fight.

"Kirby! You should run too!"

"Pooteetah!" Kirby shook his head, not wanting to leave her.

"Listen to us for once, darn it!"

Just as they thought they're done for, the light was fired and it destroyed the monsters. They were surprised and looked to see Echo and her Meropis City guards helping them.

"Secure the temple! Protect the priestess! You heard the captain—show the monsters no mercy!"

"Wow! They're helping us!" Y/N gasped, punching the monster away.

"Lieutenant... Echo, right? You came to back us up!" Amy said, whacking the monster away with her hammer.

"Captain Striker sent us. It... would have bee wrong for us to leave the shrine to fend for itself."

"For once, Captain Striker made a good choice." Y/N said.

"Yeah." Razor agreed.

Suddenly, Coral comes out of the temple.

"Razor! I need Pearly for the rites!"

"Uh... Sure, if you say so. One twerp delivery coming up! Y/N, back me up!"

Y/N nodded as her and Razor ran off while fighting off the monsters that are in their way and he grabbed Pearly before they ran back to the temple.

"EEK?!"

"C'mon, squirt! Keep your head down!"

He then placed Pearly down as she quickly ran into the temple before he and Y/N face off more monsters. One of the big one pinned Y/N to the ground. She struggled to get out of its grip as it goes to bite her when Razor tackled it, getting it off of her before stabbing it as it disappeared. He quickly helped her up.

"You alright, Y/N?"

"Yeah. Thanks again. Man, I really need to stop being a damsel in distress every time."

"I think it suits you." he smirked teasingly.

"Hey!"

Y/N stabbed the monster that came behind her without looking as its body froze before it broke into pieces, disappearing with purple smoke coming out.

"Nice one!"

The battle went on and on as Y/N activate her crystal ice katana as she had unlocked the move, swinging it towards the crowd of monsters.

"Tornado Drop!"

All the monsters were pulled into the icy tornado as it spins for a while before it disappeared and dropped the frozen monsters as it smashed onto the sand, breaking into pieces and the purple smoke are that's left as they faded away. Everyone, except for Amy were surprised by such power Y/N was capable of. A few more monsters came as they got ready to attack again when the sudden bright light blinded everyone, coming from the temple.

"What the—?!"

The bright light destroyed all the dark monsters in one big blast until there's nothing left. It was over. Y/N ran over to the temple and her eyes brightened to see the person she'd thought she get to see. The spirit of Tikal the Echidna, who smiled at her. If she's here, then that means Chaos is here too.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And so...

"...So then I ran the city's environmental records against our own and compared water samples. Your spike in pollution is coming from the two crashed Egg Carriers—not because of Coral. The ocean currents sent it all straight to the city." Rotor explained.

"And since I more-or-less crashed the first one..." Sonic sweat dropped nervously.

"The Freedom Fighters promise to help you with the clean-up." Amy said.

Sitting on the throne, Queen Angelica smiled gently at them while King Puff was amazed.

"It is a noble offer, but we respectfully decline. You've already done so much for us! You helped drive back the monster horde and showed us the error in our judgement. We were gravely mistaken in placing so much blame upon Coral. Priestess, we humbly ask you to resume your rightful position and beg the pardon of the mighty Chaos!"

Standing before the king and queen are Rotor, Amy, Y/N, Kirby, Captain Striker, Sonic, Coral, Razor, Crusher, Pearly, and Chaos who's standing behind them with a powerful aura.

"Thank you, your grace. I cherish my duties and will happily return to them. And... erm... Chaos says all is forgiven. (I think.)"

"I'm pretty sure he did say it." Y/N said with a giggle.

"How'd you know?" Razor asked.

"Because I'm connected to him and Tikal."

Later still...

"...And I'm sorry I couldn't explain everything earlier. I can only manifest near points of magical power, and even then, with the world in turmoil, it's a struggle. Please, while I have time, listen... A dark energy is poisoning the world. It's what's blocking me, producing the monsters, and turning everyone's hearts cruel. This is the essence of Dark Gaia. You will need the help of the Light Gaia to drive it back. Knuckles is out looking for him right now." Tikal explained.

"Wow... You managed to get Knux to come down off his hunk of rock willingly? Seriously, tho'—any idea where we can find the temples?" Sonic asked.

Tikal's body begin to glow as she started to disappear.

"Sadly, no. But if you reach out to me with the mystic melody, you may—"

She was then gone in the blink of an eye with a pink flash.

"Just like that—she's gone again. I never got to thank her..." Coral said.

"I'm sure she knows. When she gets her strength back, you'll see her again." Amy assured.

"You'll probably see her before me. I've never seen anyone learn the mystic melody so fast!"

"Aw, what can I say? I'm gifted! It's not just me who can see Tikal."

"Yeah, I have a power that allow me to see Tikal when necessary." Y/N said, showing her the ruby that glowed.

"Amazing!"

Sonic and Y/N then walked out of the temple to see Rotor and Razor in the pond with Pearly dipping her feet in the water and the glass of warp rings next to her.

"Yo, Rote! You ready to roll?"

"Just about!"

Rotor pulled out another warp ring.

"Man—I can't believe the pond the Chao splash around in here is a Lake of Rings!"

Razor floated on his back.

"Well, sure. We use them all the time. They're just rings. Useful, sure. But not that uncommon."

"You come on a zone run sometime, hotshot. See how you like it."

"Maybe I will, tough guy."

"If you see what these warp rings are capable of, you'll see why this is important." Y/N said with a smile.

"We'll see."

Suddenly, Crusher went inside the glass full of warp rings.

"N-No, Crusher! No! Th-Those are f-for our friends!" Pearly scolded.

"Bah!" Crusher growled.

Y/N sighed and easily took Crusher out of the glass and handed it to Razor who was silent for a second with a look of how he's going to deal with his Chao. Rotor placed the last warp ring in the glass as it's now full.

"There! We won't have to restock the Sky Patrol's engines for a long while now!"

"Sure you can spare these?" Sonic asked.

"We're sure. Least we could do. Sorry our temple here isn't connected to the whole save-the-planet thing." Razor said.

"Are you kiddin'? Thanks to Tikal, we've got a better idea of what's going on. Coral taught Amy that mystic melody thing. Plus, my sis can sense anything that's magical. That's gonna be a huge help, narrowing our search down to a few miles instead of, y'know. A few continents. Annnnnd I guess at the end of the day, we helped out a bit, too."

Sonic and Razor shook hands.

"Haha—You certainly made a difference here. Coral's almost her old self again thanks to you and Y/N. So don't be a stranger. You're welcome here anytime."

"Thanks. And you guys can visit the Sky Patrol whenever you want, too!"

"Uh-huh. We'll just swim up whatever part of the sky you're in, huh?"

"That's not... We'd pick you up!"

Rotor quickly pushed Sonic away.

"C'mon, now! We've got temples to find and a world to save!"

"Good-bye, everyone! We'll visit as soon as we can!" Amy waved. "And we'll fill you in on all our adventures!"

"Sis! You comin'?"

"In a sec!"

Y/N turned to Razor and they both shook hands.

"It was nice knowing you and your ocean folks. Like Sonic said, you're always welcome to come visit Sky Patrol."

"My pleasure. Though, I think your Kirby is going to miss Crusher too."

They looked to see Kirby and Crusher standing, staring at each other before they both shook hands with a respectful nod.

"Well, aren't they cute?"

"Heh. Never knew Crusher would respect someone like that. Hope I see you again."

"Same. You seem like a nice company for me to hang out with. Looking forward for the tour in the ocean! I love swimming! See you all later!"

With that, Y/N and Kirby left as they jumped into the ocean. Razor smiled fondly to where Y/N had gone. Pearly and Coral noticed his expression and leaned over to him with a teased smirk.

"You like Y/N, don't ya?"

Razor's face turned pink and immediately walked away.

"What are you talking about? We just met!"

"Sure~"