You'll recognize the italicized section from my "Primal Ozzie" artwork on Deviantart and the "Shiny Happy People" chapter of "Nightswimming." All characters belong to SEGA, but I own the elements I thought up for Dark Gaia by myself.

It was over, the battle was finally over.

That became clear once the Gaia Colossus, piloted by none other than Light Gaia (a.k.a. Chip) delivered the mother of all haymakers into Perfect Dark Gaia's face...or at least the closest thing that monstrosity had to one.

Now Super Sonic could deal the finishing blow! So without a moment's hesitation, the golden hedgehog rocketed like a meteor straight for Dark Gaia's huge central eye, easily evading the desperate monster's outstretched hands.

There'd be no escaping defeat now.

And yet...

Chip undeniably winced at the squelching sound made when his friend pierced through their opponent's pupil. He knew this creature only intended fear and darkness for the world and therefore had to be stopped, but the god of light still couldn't help but pity his dark counterpart. In truth, Dark Gaia had only been accomplishing his purpose: spreading shadow and destruction. As horrible as those two elements were, they were just as much of a part of the world as light and creation were. They needed to exist, therefore so did Dark Gaia.

It was just that his existence required someone to balance him out so the planet wouldn't literally fall apart, hence why Chip existed as well.

And so as he and Super Sonic watched the writhing and wailing deity sink back into the magma where he belonged, his battered body coated in disgusting green blood, Chip sighed in acceptance. 'This was meant to be, Dark Gaia. You left us no other choice.'

Besides, Chip perked with a smile, why be downcast at a time like this? He and Sonic just saved the world. Such a deed called for celebration!

Except when Chip looked up just in time to witness Sonic weakly flashing him a thumbs-up, his joy sank into horror when the golden sheen returned to its original cobalt and Sonic began to plummet like a rock! He quickly willed the Gaia Colossus to shoot its right hand out, barely managing to catch his unconscious friend.

'Phew,' Chip thought in relief, 'that was close.'

The world certainly didn't need its hero getting barbequed as his reward.

Just then, rumbling cut through Chip's euphoria, reality crashing back on top of him. He tilted the Colossus's head up and discovered the rocky ceiling slowly yet surely sealing itself shut. Resignation gripped him like a ball-and-chain. He knew all along this would happen, ever since he regained his memories back at the Adabat temple. For him, fate could not be avoided so what point lay in resisting the inevitable?

'But Sonic still has a chance,' the Colossus looked back down to the prone hedgehog it held, 'even though this is the last we'll ever see each other again.'

Keeping that single regret locked deep within his heart, Chip readied the Colossus to send the hedgehog back to the surface...until the roar of the rocks ceased all of a sudden. The Colossus shot its head up in alarm, its driver at first worried that the ceiling had already closed in. Once he realized such was not the case, though, Chip puzzled over it but then thought better of it and returned to his original plan.

Only for something to interrupt him again...something coming from below this time...

Before Chip could blink, the shrunk exit up above suddenly sealed off with eerily familiar purple energy. Even worse, an array of even more familiar violet tentacles burst from the lava just a few feet in front of the Colossus. 'Oh no...,' he quickly willed the golem to cup its other hand protectively around Sonic and then to drift back out of safety, 'that shouldn't be happening! This can't be happening!'

It was.

Dark Gaia had reverted to his immature state (thankfully) yet healed from all the damage from battle, his back facing his eternal rival. The dark god stretched his sinewy arms as if awakening from a pleasant nap. His body suddenly stiffened, arms to his sides, as if he'd just sensed someone behind him.

And so he turned.

And so Chip tensed.

A pair of glowing green eyes met his.

'Wait a sec, green...?' Weren't those eyes white earlier? Not only that but...something else about Dark Gaia seemed different. None of the malice or savagery from before remained in his posture or eyes. In fact, if anything, the dark deity seemed...uncertain and confused. What on earth was going on here?

Not as spent from fighting as Sonic was, Chip had more than enough energy left to manifest his astral form above the Colossus's hands. Dark Gaia's eyes instantly zeroed in on him with fierce intensity; Chip refused to back down. He needed answers and he needed them now.

Why were the eyes of Dark Gaia a different color? Why was he taking this opportunity to just stare instead of attack? And why did there appear to be something calmer, more intelligent even, in Dark Gaia's eyes that contrasted his beastly behavior from minutes ago?

To all these questions, Dark Gaia gave an answer that stunned Chip so badly the Colossus, misreading its pilot's will, almost dropped Sonic.

He wept.

No, this was no illusion. The legendary and feared Dark Gaia was indeed crying—huge, crystal-clear tears that fell from all five of his eyes and into the molten rock below where they sizzled out. Body shaking violently from the sadness, he curled his arms and even a few of his tentacles around himself, his eyes no longer focused on his enemies anymore but instead closed and wet.

Seeing this sort of scene should have disturbed Chip at the very least. After all, here was an enemy—his rival, for Earth's sake—sobbing right in front of him. It contrasted so grossly and bizarrely from how he acted earlier and how the prophecy described him, it warranted a feeling of surreality.

Only sympathy touched Chip's heart, however, only sympathy. He couldn't quite explain why. Seeing others cry always stabbed his heart; for that reason, watching his rival sob moved him into sending his astral form closer, out of the protection of the Colossus.

'I know what I'm about to do is crazy, but not even someone as powerful as him can fake emotions as strong as the ones I feel coming from him.'

Once he stopped just a few inches before the face of Dark Gaia, who remained too trapped in his own sorrow to notice, Chip twiddled his thumbs and spoke out in a meek tone of voice, "Um, Dark Gaia...if this is about losing the fight to me and Sonic, then I just wanna say you don't have to cry. You knew this had to happen just as well as I did. If anything, that means you can smile since we won't have to fight for another couple of millennia, right?"

He even punctuated this assurance with a smile, hoping it would help the dark god cheer up. To his concern, no immediate response came. On the bright side, Dark Gaia's crying waned; the not-so-bright side, once he removed his hands from his eyes (now larger and slit rather than pinpricks this time), Chip gasped at how truly broken and in pain his counterpart appeared to be.

Then he realized.

"You're not crying because you lost, are you? It's because you have no other choice left but to go back to sleep."

Silence never sounded so loud.

"Trust me, I know how that feels," a deep solemnness possessed Chip as he allowed his physical form to finally manifest in place of his transparent one. He showed no fear when Dark Gaia stretched a gaunt hand out for him to land on.

Chip accepted the gesture and allowed DG to bring him closer so they could be more face-to-face. He even risked another smile. "Listen, it doesn't matter whether we'll always be enemies. At least when we go back to sleep, we won't be alone. That's gotta be something to be happy about."

Dark Gaia blinked once—very, very slowly. Then he opened his maw: "You were always so naïve, little brother."

"WHOA!" Eyes wide with shock, Chip jumped back with a yelp. "You-you can talk?! Since when—"

The larger god smirked. "I always could. My mind simply wasn't there until you and your friend defeated me."

His mind wasn't there? That sounded like... Chip furrowed his eyebrows in wonder. "Are you saying you had no idea what you were doing all this time?"

Dark Gaia shook his head, figurative darkness tainting his eyes. "Oh, I was most aware...yet I could do nothing. I was a prisoner in my own body, forced to sit back and watch myself endanger the world you and I sought to protect—only to return to sleep for Earth knows how long until the time came for me to relive that same nightmare."

'A prisoner in his own body...' Chip thought with a cringe. That had to have been a nightmare—hang on a sec, something wasn't adding up. "But wait...wasn't I the one meant to protect the world?"

Something in the manner in which Dark Gaia tilted his head suggested shock and pity. His eyes blinked down at Chip. "You don't remember, do you?"

"I thought I did," Chip frowned, crestfallen and eyes downcast, his hand to his heart, "all my memories should be back where they belong."

"Not the most important of them all..."

Chip shot his head back up just in time to see Dark Gaia's eyes flash with blinding green light...

Legends speak of a time when Dark Gaia was once benign, when he watched the world alongside his brother in peace. Together, he and Light Gaia oversaw the planet's passage through day and night and life and death. They protected the people and their lands. They insured the balance of both nature and the world.

But the balance shattered when a terrible spell of malicious origin came across Light Gaia, sending the god into eternal sleep and thereby casting the world into shadow. The mortals the two gods watched over had grown jealous of Light Gaia's unparalleled kindness and power over time and so one of them cast the spell in an ill-fated bid to obtain the god's power and then overthrow his dark counterpart, who they secretly reviled and feared.

Dark Gaia, caring nothing for what the mortals thought of him, raged and lamented at the undeserved cruelty brought upon his sibling. He wished to punish the inhabitants of the world for their misdeed, make them feel what he felt. Yet when he looked down at the planet, he saw punishment from his end was unnecessary. Without light, the world had quickly become cold, night had become pitch-black, the stars blocked out, and all plant-life was beginning to fade away.

Dark Gaia was quick to turn away from the pleas of the mortals, who had realized the foolishness of their selfishness too late. He didn't even dare to bat an eye at their suffering.

Until a faint glimmer of light caught the god's eye.

The light revealed itself as a mysterious golden warrior, one who had left his home world to confront the deity of darkness.

"It is too late, golden one," Dark Gaia said, already knowing why the stranger had come. "My brother's light is gone, silenced by your kind, and even I do not have the power to reawaken him."

His words did not deter the warrior. "Is there any way to free him from his sleep?"

"The spell cast upon him can only be broken by stars born from hearts. And thanks to humanity, there lays not a single glimmer left on this world. Humanity...has rendered itself heartless."

"That's not true!" the warrior exclaimed as he pointed to the world below. "Look!"

Dark Gaia did as the warrior wished...and he could not believe his eyes!

Before the two of them, the world shined with millions upon millions of lights that shone like stars against the darkness. The children of the world had felt in their hearts the distress and sadness of both Light Gaia and Dark Gaia and so cast their sympathy and concern as light in an effort to save the two gods from loneliness.

All of this the warrior explained to the deity of darkness, who remained in both awe and shock at the compassion of so many who shone in spite of the absence of his brother's light and warmth. He had misjudged humanity.

Yet the god knew wherever there was light, darkness would always follow. He could not risk himself and his brother falling victim to any future attempts on their lives.

For that reason, he asked the warrior to use the light to instead seal him inside the earth, where his brother slumbered, so that the two brothers would never part again but also never need to fear their powers being abused. Dark Gaia promised that not only would his joining his sibling in slumber internalize their powers within the planet, thus returning light to the people, but also that he would only remain asleep until his brother's spell wore off, a time that would not come for millennia.

The warrior, though sad at the thought of the god resigning his self to such a fate, agreed to this condition and so used the light to seal Dark Gaia away into the planet's core.

But not before the dark deity left the world with a "parting gift."

"I cannot trust the whole of humanity to handle the world unsupervised, warrior. From the depths of my heart, I have born a new race of beings that will help you and anyone else righteous of heart watch over the planet and protect it from the wicked until my and my brother's return."

This race, born of both darkness and earth, emerged from the soil and rock, sentient but well aware of the task placed upon them by their creator. Dark Gaia's essence beat deep inside their hearts, the force linking them to the deepest recesses of their father's mind and soul. Alongside the golden warrior, this race silently vowed to protect and treasure the planet and pass their compassion for nature to the rest of the world for generations to come.

Reality and truth crashed down like a torrent.

Chip gasped as he gripped his chest, feeling it flood with overwhelming emotion. His eyes met Dark Gaia's, the feelings intensifying the longer they continued to keep their gaze. The little god needed so much willpower to speak that he could only utter one single word: "B...b...brother?"

Dark Gaia softened his visage and fixed upon the stunned fairy a look of brotherly affection no one could have ever expected a god of destruction being capable of. He brought Chip closer to his face as tears began to cascade down the little one's face.

And yet the longer Chip stared into those verdant eyes, the more he realized the truth, which only worsened his tears. His voice came out choked and thick.

"So I forgot about you all this time? I—"

Swirling darkness suddenly enveloped Chip's vision until he found himself back in the hand of the Gaia Colossus, which remained frozen in place since its pilot's departure from it. He could see Sonic still lying unconscious a foot away.

Two meaty hands suddenly gripped him from out of nowhere, incasing his whole body save for his head. At first he panicked, struggling to get away from whoever seized him...until said captor plunged him into its neck with a gentle squeeze. So warm and soft the embrace was, Chip almost melted into it. Luckily, he managed to resist and pulled back from the stranger's arms to see who he was dealing with.

For the second time in a row, the past hit him hard.

Dark Gaia had taken on the appearance of a short pudgy adolescent mole—a Talpidean to be more precise. Chip remembered seeing notes on that race in Professor Pickle's lab back in Shamar, except the professor stated how none of its members had reappeared for centuries. Chip could still remember the Talpideans clear as day, hence his brother's mortal disguise as well. He bowed his head in shame once he realized how his own actions must have hurt his long-lost sibling.

Shame melted away when Dark Gaia pulled him back into his arms again for another bear hug. This time, Chip let the warmth and softness overtake him, closing his eyes and snuggling into his older sibling's jet-black fur and peach underside. A muffled hum of content escaped him.

Neither of them knew (or cared, for that matter) how long they stayed like that, Dark Gaia on one knee with only Chip's head visible above his arms, before a faint moan caught their ears.

"Ch...Chip...?"

Said deity swiveled around before breaking away from his brother's grasp and shooting towards the voice's source: "Sonic!"

That's right! The Blue Blur had regained consciousness, though not completely on account of how disoriented his movements were as he sat up. Just as he started to look around, he quickly noticed his smiley friend zipping his way.

"Hey, Chip!" Sonic exclaimed as he shared a high-five with the enthusiastic fairy, his lighthearted demeanor back and as well as ever. "We did it!"

Chip nodded. "You'll never guess what else happened!"

"What do ya mean?"

"Well..."

Sonic jumped at the sudden sensation of something touching his back, hands held up. When he swirled around, he discovered the culprit to be a strange mole in red-and-yellow cleats.

"Whoa! Who the heck are you?" the azure hedgehog asked in total confusion. 'And more importantly, just where in the heck did this guy come from?'

The stranger merely tilted his head at the hedgehog, his brown gumdrop eyes blinking in what Sonic assumed to be curiosity. A few moments of silence passed. By then, Sonic figured he'd probably have to be doing most of the talking himself. He scratched the back of his head in uncharacteristic awkwardness. "Okay...uh..."

"Gaia...," the stranger suddenly stated in a dark, silky voice. At Sonic's perplexed expression, he elaborated. "Dark...Gaia..."

Both gods expected Sonic to tense up immediately, to snarl, to put up his dukes, and to brashly go to town. Instead, the Blue Blur let his eyes go wide, arms slack, and his mouth comically agape for a couple of seconds. He snapped out of his trance and then started waving his hands and chuckling. "No way; you're kidding. You gotta be kidding me, right?"

Seeing the serious expression on Dark Gaia's face and the empathetic one on Chip's helped Sonic clip the puzzle pieces together. They were not kidding at all. He set his hands akimbo and breathed a deep sigh before eyeing Dark Gaia's new form. "Hmph, so...what now...? I doubt you're here for a rematch cuz to be perfectly honest, dude, you'd just be repeating yourself."

"It's okay, Sonic. He's not here to fight us anymore," Chip shook his head then twiddled his fingers again in worry, his face a deep frown, "but I think he might need our help."

For a moment, Chip feared Sonic would say no (on account of how serious the hedgehog's face looked) until the true blue hero smirked and said, "Well, if that's how he treats anyone who can beat him, I guess giving him a hand wouldn't hurt."

At this point, Dark Gaia cleared his throat to get the pair's attention. He sat down as he gestured the others to do the same. Once Sonic and Chip were seated, he began his tale.

Dark Gaia (with the aid of both Chip and hand-signs forged form shadow) shared with Sonic the legend of him and Light Gaia—about why the cycle of destruction and rebirth started in the first place, how the Talpideans came to be—everything. He also told of certain parts that were apparently omitted from the original tale. While the legend got the story right for the most part, it failed to mention one particular detail about the spell cast on Light Gaia: it possessed a side-effect in which it would seal away his rationality and morality from his more primal side once he reawakened—probably an ill-conceived failsafe to keep Light Gaia under control should his slumber end prematurely.

Since even the light of the children couldn't remove that influence along with the rest of the spell, Dark Gaia strove to absorb it instead, figuring he could control the affect since he was after all destruction incarnate.

He grossly miscalculated.

His mind proved just as vulnerable to the side-effect, leaving him as a cruel and savage beast while Light Gaia, since the spell had had some time to settle, lost his memories of his brother. And only by repressing Dark Gaia did Light Gaia weaken the enchantment—but only for more thousands of years, thus bringing forth the prophesized cycle.

All of this, Sonic listened to in wonder, amazement, shock, horror, and ultimately sympathy. Like Chip, he'd assumed Dark Gaia had only been another hulking brute trying to cause trouble. He never thought the spirit to be literally in conflict with himself.

"Man. That's rough, buddy. Real rough...," he said in a low tone, eyelids lowered and right hand rubbing the back of his head.

"Buddy...?" Dark Gaia tilted his head in wonder. For some inexplicable reason, he liked how that word sounded. Buddy: it sent such a warm tingling down his spine somehow.

"Well I definitely ain't gonna call ya monster, if that's what ya mean," Sonic let a smile slide across his face, "unless, that is, you'd like another rematch. You were way more fun to fight than I thought."

"He does have a point, bro," Chip agreed. Dark Gaia found himself unwillingly blushing at the accolades. His brother couldn't blame him for that reaction; this was probably the first real compliment the elder god had ever received, let alone from a mortal. Dark Gaia wrung his huge glove-clad hands together out of sheer embarrassment, utterly unsure how to pay Sonic and Chip back for their kindness.

An idea suddenly hit him.

He quickly stood up, Sonic and Chip following suit, and then walked over to the Blue Blur, taking his hands into his own. This action surprised the Blue Blur and light god but not as much as the following words would:

"Let me...come...with you."

Sonic blinked. Chip blinked. They shared a look of shock...then disarmed DG with the grandest of all smiles!

"I don't see why not!" the hedgehog said.

"Yeah, we can show you all the good things the world has ta offer, brother! You'll love 'em!"

"Where, though...?" Dark Gaia asked as Chip fluttered around his head in excitement, "Huge world...very huge..."

Chip eventually landed on his sibling's bony shoulder, their eyes meeting. "Wherever the wind takes us...we're free to decide our own paths now. Besides, as long as we're together, it doesn't matter to me where we go."

'Oh brother,' DG huffed a grin at his sibling, 'You know we'll always be together...now and forever.'

"Took the words right outta my mouth, Chip," a beaming Sonic said as he clapped his hand over DG's other shoulder. "It's time to ace this place, guys!"

With a single nod and a raise of his hand, Dark Gaia commanded the Colossus to ascend and the approaching hole above to open.

He had no idea what awaited him on the surface, but Dark Gaia knew this:

He would gladly take whatever life would give.

Yeah, I have no idea where this idea came from, but enjoy anyway!