Shadow watched Mephiles carefully. Since their reunion after being separated for what Shadow confirmed as months, Mephiles was still recovering emotionally, even though he spoke hardly anything of it, and put up a tough front.
What gave it away was when he was resting.
Shadow would watch him shift, twitch, grunt, groan, mumble and moan in his sleep, hesitant about rousing him in case Mephiles woke in a half delirious state, trying to fight off anything and everything.
Shadow would instead just reach a hand to rest on his head for a moment to calm him, or place the tattered stuffed bear that had been a gift ages ago from Rouge in his arms, and hope the bad dreams would pass.
He wouldn't always know what they would be about. Sometimes, Mephiles confessed they were of his suppressed memories of when he was insane, vengeful and power hungry. Other times, they would be of his accident, when he had nearly been crushed to death because of an error in judgement. They would even be something new based on his primal fears. He would explain in great detail about them, growing silent as he neared the end, folding his ears back and looking down, disquieted.
For the day, he would seem unaffected, easily acting like his normal curious self that Shadow and Rouge had grown familiar with during his recovery from his accident years ago. If Shadow hadn't witnessed the nights, he would have never guessed that Mephiles was being troubled in his sleep.
And more often than not... The nightmares would be about his time as a prisoner/lab rat to Eggman Nega. These were what he was most silent about. It had been two months since he escaped, and Shadow still had yet to hear the full of what had been done to him.
When it was this type of nightmare, Mephiles would be in a trance after breaking free from it, staring at his hands or the wall, unresponsive to anything Shadow tried to snap him out of it. He would just ease back into a calm state, and try to go back to sleep, as these ones would often occur in the mid point of the night.
There was a few times when he slept soundly without a problem, but they would be rare. The likelihood of the bad dreams increased when he had an episode of his now uncontrollable transformations, likely bringing back the full force of what was done to him.
He'd never scream, and he'd never cry in his sleep, perhaps too far in his mind to do so. He would just twist and moan quietly like a child sick with a fever, desperate for them to stop.
Tonight was no different than the rest. Shadow watched him carefully, already seeing the telltale signs of a twitch settling in his features.
Stalker, the purple Biter that had followed them since their reunion, guarded the entrance to their shelter loyally like a watchdog, making sure none of the other creatures would find their way in. Mephiles had explained that Stalker was more or less infused with his own Chao Energy, and was probably so docile to Mephiles because he saw Mephiles as his master the same way all of the other creatures seemed to lay loyalties to Iblis.
Stalker lifted his head and looked in the direction of the two lookalikes, body language voicing his concern over Mephiles' state.
"Don't worry, it's just like the other nights..." Shadow shook his head, wondering if Stalker could even understand a word he was saying.
Stalker looked back outside the entrance and began pacing like a dog, attention fixed on whatever was out there. Not many of the other creatures dared to come near him, for his laser beam he could fire from his jaws was much more powerful that the jet of flames his weaker counterparts could muster.
They circled the area warily, keeping the same proximity as always, growling and hissing in contempt. The Takers had long since abandoned trying to attack them, and the Gollums would stay behind the Biters as the Worms burrowed in and out of the ground restlessly.
None of them would dare pass that invisible boarder of territory so long as Stalker was guarding these two hedgehogs. And if Stalker could, he would grin and smirk at his counterparts' plight. He got up again and turned around, then put himself in a resting position like a companion animal with his back turned, twitching his tail slightly, just to show them how much he was unfazed by their sheer numbers.
He looked up to see that Mephiles was half awake, glassy eyes staring at the wall. Shadow touched his hand to Mephiles' arm carefully, causing him to jerk back in response, clutching his arm defensively, ears held back, fur and quills bristling, growling lowly, his eyes still unfocused. This wasn't anything new to Shadow.
"Meph, it's just me..."
"... Not letting you do it again..." Mephiles growled, not hearing a word Shadow said. "... Not a lab rat..."
"Mephiles... You're dreaming again..." Shadow caught him by the shoulders with both hands. "It's not happening anymore... Wake up..."
Mephiles tried to shove him back, trying to fight back against something that wasn't happening. Shadow simply kept his grip on him so he wouldn't hurt himself. In about three minutes, he would start to wake up completely anyway.
Mephiles' thrashing subsided gradually, and he eased into a more lucid state, lifting his eyes and staring Shadow almost in shame of himself.
"... Sorry... Should be passed this..." He muttered, lowering his head, pale face blushing awkwardly. "... Way before we got separated... I thought I didn't have nightmares anymore..."
"After what you went through, I think I'd be more worried if you didn't have them..." Shadow said. "It would mean that you were trying too much to suppress them, and that would just take another form entirely... Also not good..."
"... Every night so far..." Mephiles shook his head slowly.
"Well, a few nights went by pretty well..." Shadow assured him. "Don't be too hard on yourself..."
Mephiles grunted, not wanting to use words at the moment as he folded his arms and sulked.
The next few nights were more or less the same rinse and repeat, differing just slightly.
The fifth night afterwards was what was somewhat alarmingly different.
After he had been awakened fully, his body started to force his transformation again. Mephiles, who was already distressed to begin with, was now more horrified than when this normally happened.
Shadow could only watch as Mephiles tried to force it back, groaning in pain as his body changed it's composition and textures, clawed fingers scraping against the concrete floor, the poor hedgehog huddled on the ground, shaking terribly.
For what felt like twenty minutes, Shadow watched somewhat helplessly as Mephiles fought back against the unfortunate side effect of Eggman Nega's testings, no doubt in some form of pain or another. His resemblance between his two shapes fluctuated greatly, until finally, with a weak grunt, the crystals subsided...
Shadow watched intently, folding his ears back as he realized something.
"Uh... Meph..?"
"... Wh... What..?"
"I don't think that should happen..." Shadow carefully reached for his left arm and pulled it towards him to examine it.
Mephiles' eyes went wide.
The fur looked as if it had been dyed the same shade of blue as his crystal form, with the light blue crystal coloring coating his fingers lightly at the tips, as if it was stuck in mid transformation.
What Mephiles couldn't see from his perspective but Shadiw could was that the blue fur extended as far up as his shoulder, with spatters of it leaking into the black. Even worse, Mephiles' pale muzzle color had white spread across his left cheek, the same color as his other form. His sclera, normally clear and white like Shadow's, had red streaked into the edges of the left spreading halfway to his iris, as if he had some sort of infection in his eye. A small spatter of blue was on the very edge of where his muzzle color changes to his face color.
"Oh... Chaos..." Was all Shadow could manage.
"Why isn't it changing back!" Mephiles howled, pupils contracted in horror as he grabbed the strange arm with the other hand and shook it roughly as if that would help. "What's wrong with it!"
"I... I think it's stuck like that..." Shadow couldn't take his eyes off the left side of his face. "Not just your arm, either... That side of your face is stuck, too... Oh, no..."
"I don't want to be stuck in any way of this form!" Mephiles snapped, unable to stop staring at his arm, which he now held limply, as if afraid to make it work. "I did bad things in my crystal self... I was a monster! What do I do now!"
Shadow knew that Mephiles had grown to hate that shape. Over his time of knowing him, Mephiles rarely shifted to that form because he felt that it had such a bad meaning to it. He had tried to destroy friendships in that shape, he had tried to destroy people, he had a shift in personality in that form... He felt as if it was another person completely, controlling his thoughts...
And so, rarely did he let it slip out. Rarely.
"I don't want to be a monster!" Mephiles was seriously freaking out, his usually calm disposition roughly thrown out the window. Who could blame him? First a nightmare, then this? "Shadow! Do something! Anything!"
Shadow cringed at his pleas. There was nothing he could do for him physically.
"I'm sorry... But I don't..." Shadow trailed off when Mephiles gave him the most agonized look he had done in the longest of time. He took a breath and tried to calm him down. "Look... I know this has to be horrifying for you-"
"That doesn't even begin to describe it..." Mephiles was shaking. "I'll bet I look like a demon now..."
"It doesn't matter what you look like..." Shadow grabbed the afflicted appendage, and examined it more closely. "It's only the outside that changed... Right..?" He looked up at him. "Remember what Rouge always told you when you were worried that getting your memories back would make you forget you were our friend? 'The heart never forgets what's important'... How do you feel, now?"
"... I still feel the same inside..."
"That's what makes the difference. You're not a monster..." Shadow squeezed at his fingers, seeing that it only had the crystal coloring, and none of the stiffness. He continued to talk to him to calm him down. "Not as long as you're still you. Can you still use it?" Shadow had taken notice at the lack of muscle tone in the arm, and was worried that it might have lost connection with Mephiles' brain pathways.
The doppelgänger responded by awkwardly flexing his fingers, looking at the ground in shame.
"... And it was my dominant hand, too..." Mephiles muttered.
"Stop acting like it's been cut off, or something." Shadow exhaled, quickly readopting his gruff personality to force normalcy in the atmosphere. "We'll find a way to fix this, alright?"
"I don't see how... I don't even know what was done to and put in me..." Mephiles' ears went completely limp, drooping to the side. "I can't even be sure if he didn't do anything else to my brain... Kept me sedated most of the time... Lost track of everything..."
Shadow growled under his breath at this. He had heard of more or less what had happened before, but none of it seemed any better as time went on.
He let go of Mephiles' arm, which the shadow let it drop to his side more or less, stopped by the ground partway because he was sitting, and he still didn't want to use it.
"We'll just have to put the crisis on hold for the night..." Shadow said, knowing it was ludicrous to suggest it right now. "And tomorrow, we'll see about working our way back to-"
"No!" Mephiles snapped before he could finish, knowing what he was going to suggest. "I won't-I'm not going back there! I escaped, so he'll still want to experiment on me! And it'll be us two against all his creations and him!"
"Three, actually... You forgot Stalker..." Shadow casually nodded towards the purple Biter, who lifted his head in acknowledgement of being referenced.
"The odds aren't any better."
"Ultimate Life Form..?" Shadow rolled his eyes, and suggested it in a Why-do-you-keep-forgetting-that? manner.
"I don't care if you were a knight in a previous life..." Mephiles' features suggested he was grimacing. "No. No. No. I'm not going to step foot near that place."
"Look, you and I both know that your control over your change ability has been deteriorating because of him..." Shadow explained carefully. "And now, not only has it become frequent and painful for you, but now you have some kind of visual side effect. And that's just what we can see now." Mephiles' expression softened to a shamed one now as he continued. "Plus, we can't be sure if that was the only side effect. What about your other powers? You haven't tried using them since we met up again, so what if there's a building side effect with them, too?"
"I don't time travel anymore because it can screw up too much..." Mephiles explained about that one at least. "Not after you had me read that one book with the butterfly and the dinosaur that was going to get killed by a tree anyway..."
"What? A Sound of Thunder?"
"Did the guy get shot in the end after stepping on the butterfly in the past?"
"I think so..."
"Yes, that. I didn't want to end up like him..."
"That was a book..."
"But it brought up a good point." Mephiles looked at the ground. "Change one small thing, no matter how insignificant it is at the time, and boom! Everything is backwards in the future!"
Slightly amused at how Mephiles was so interested in this subject now, almost as if he was distracted from his arm, Shadow snorted.
"Alright, I guess I should know as well as you about circumstances in time..." Shadow shook his head, looking upward. "I suppose that's why you never bothered to go back to see Rouge?"
"... Yes..." Mephiles sunk a bit, his voice getting a bit softer. "... That... And I don't want to find out if something I did caused it..."
"Meph... It wouldn't be because of you..." Shadow said as Mephiles lifted his eyes. "She wasn't ageless like us, so she would have been gone anyway... I don't mean to sound horrible about it, but at least she's not having to struggle to survive here..."
"You were in love with her..." Mephiles added. "I didn't go back without you because of that, and I didn't go with you because of that. It would have caused too much problems..."
Shadow blinked.
"I see..." He said slowly. "Huh... Well, at least... You're still here..."
Mephiles suddenly appeared seriously troubled.
"For now... But I'm not ageless..." He fidgeted nervously. "I just age very slowly. Very, very slowly. Haven't you noticed that my eyes are duller than they used to be, and that my fur and quills are a bit grayer?"
"You're saying..?"
"Shadow... It's not going to happen anytime soon, but..." Mephiles said carefully. "Someday... It's going to be just you..."
"You can't be sure of that..."
"You never get old, and the world ages around you. I'm the only one left from the past for you, but I'm sure I won't be here by the next millennia..." Mephiles explained heavily, before shaking his head. "Of course, that's a long, long time from now, and we've only seen two centuries... With this one being the worst of the two... For obvious reasons..." He finally looked back at his arm and grunted in disgust.
It took a lot of persuading and urging to get Mephiles to leave the shelter the following day (it was difficult to tell time in this dark cloud covered world, but both of them had a good sense of time internally, by the way). He didn't want to risk running into the few remaining inhabitants of the area looking like he did, knowing that he would easily be pegged as a monster.
All it took was Stalker snatching up Emerald in his jaws (which were not molten lava compared to the other Biters), and leaping out into the open, prompting Mephiles to shriek in fright for the bear and hurry out to retrieve it obsessively.
"Hey! Rouge gave me that! Let go!" Mephiles grabbed it and pulled not too hard, afraid it was going to rip from the teeth. "Shadow! He won't give back Emerald!"
Shadow had to use all his will power to keep from laughing. Mephiles, once previously known as an all powerful creature of darkness, was acting almost childlike right now, only concerned about the well being of an inanimate object that he had named and given a personality.
"At least it got you to come out..."
Mephiles growled and smacked his left hand against Stalker's snout, causing the creature to yelp and release the bear, Mephiles quickly pulling Emerald into a tight squeezey hug, dropping down on the ground to sit, and muttering furiously under his breath.
Stalker recovered and growled dangerously, bringing his head inches from Mephiles' to stare him down. Mephiles giggled nervously.
"Uh... S-sorry..?"
Stalker huffed and turned around, trotting to Shadow, head held up, then sitting down with his back to Mephiles.
"I think you made him mad, Meph..." Shadow scratched his head. "Geeze... Good thing he likes us, or we might have been fried by now..."
Mephiles glanced off the the side and saw the numerous other Biters circling the area, keeping their distance to stay out of the way of their purple superior, but driven to continue circling out of interest in the two hedgehogs.
"Yeah... Those things are vicious..." Mephiles nodded slowly, turning his head away from them. "And they burn... And they have sharp claws... That burn..."
"I can't imagine how much that must have hurt..." Shadow added, also slowly. "Left some marks on you..."
"I was pinned down by one after it slashed me, so I was burned on my arms, stomach and my feet when I tried to kick it off..." Mephiles stood up from the ground and moved closer to Shadow and Stalker, trying to not appear to be straying. "Could hardly move for weeks. I guess I fared better than what could have happened..."
"I wish I could have helped..."
"You would have been burned too." Mephiles shook his head. "Probably worse, because you're not related in any form to Iblis."
"If that robot hadn't caught us off guard-" Shadow started.
"Shadow, I've already told you that I don't blame you." Mephiles cut him off. "I was being hunted, it would have happened eventually... Ow... Oww..."
Mephiles' grip on his bear loosened and Emerald fell to the ground as Mephiles' hands worked up to his head, clutching behind his ears tightly.
He felt as if his head was being repeatedly beat with a hammer as he started to tremble, stumbling back in a stupor, knowing what was going to happen next.
Shadow caught him before he collapsed, and eased him to the ground carefully, only really able to watch as Mephiles curled up, tensing and crying out weakly in pain as he clawed at his head in a strange attempt to get it all to stop.
Shadow could see the blue coloring spread slightly, the white streaking on Mephiles' muzzle getting larger, and a very thin layer of crystal starting to form on his left fingers.
Everything was spreading slowly again.
When it was obviously no longer extending, Mephiles half opened his eyes painfully and Shadow could see that the redness was spread a little further.
"... That hurt more than last time..." Mephiles mumbled, rubbing his head with both hands, eyes tearing up in pain. "... I almost thought my head was gonna explode... Ow..."
"Are you alright, now?" Shadow said, not sure if he should address the expansion of the "infection". "Can you stand?"
"... I th-think so..." Mephiles stuttered, inhaling sharply from the rather severe headache. He pushed himself up off the ground and made it to his feet slowly, only for his body to start shaking as he reeled backwards, Shadow quick to catch him under the arms before he hit the ground. "... I guess not..." He mumbled sheepishly, looking down in frustration. "... Feel kinda weak right now..."
"Probably that last one there exhausted you?" Shadow offered, not sure if it was the reason. "No doubt it's a traumatic experience, physically and emotionally. You're probably worn out..."
Mephiles grunted, not bothering to look at him.
"I can carry you if you want... Just until you feel you can walk..."
"... I'm the same height as you..."
"You weigh less, too."
Mephiles dipped his head and bobbed it slowly, obviously annoyed that he wasn't able to stand on his own two feet at the moment.
Carrying him was easy enough. Lightweight body combined with small framed Mobian proportions made it simple for Shadow to pick him up and support him.
Mephiles folded his arms and narrowed his eyes, giving a scowling expression to show his displeasure at having to be tended to like this. He always found it embarrassing.
Several days went by as they continued their trek to nowhere in particular (though Shadow really wanted to work back to the base of Eggman Nega in hopes to finding answers for a "cure" for Mephiles). Each night was spent taking refuge in an abandoned chunk of collapsed building or once on an uncovered platform, well out of the reach of creatures, dimly lit by the constant red glow of the tornado of fire off in the distance.
That particular night, Mephiles didn't sleep. He sat on the ledge of the platform, bare feet dangling over edge as he stared towards the swirling vortex of heat, observing the remains of the buildings, and thinking to himself about the geographical set up or the area.
He suddenly broke his trance and looked over his shoulder to glare at Shadow, who had been watching him in some concern, as Mephiles had yet to speak since they settled there.
"I thought I said that I didn't want to go anywhere near there..." He growled lowly. "I'm not stupid... I recognize some of the landmarks... Even the ones burned to ash..."
Shadow cringed.
"I know. But it's the only way I can think of even hoping to find a way to fix what's wrong..." He sat down next to him on the left. "It's spread a bit more, and my guess is that if we don't reverse it soon, you'll end up stuck in that form forever once you've gone all the way..."
"Wait... It spread? When?" Mephiles had yet to know, having no access to reflective surfaces to examine where his eyes, even peripheral vision could not see.
"A few days ago after you collapsed." Shadow explained, Mephiles giving him a betrayed look for not learning sooner. "I didn't say anything because you were already upset and in pain, and that wouldn't have helped at the moment..."
The betrayed look softened a bit, and Mephiles nodded slowly in agreement. Shadow was just looking out for him.
"... I don't want to go back there..." He added in a slightly desperate voice, as if urging Shadow to think of an alternative.
"I know... But I don't know what else to do..."
At that moment, the sound of a laser being fired off behind them broke the otherwise silent atmosphere, and the screech of something birdlike pierced through that sound as well.
Mephiles and Shadow spun around to see what was happening, and saw that Stalker just shot a bold, rogue Taker out of the sky, the orange creature flopping to the ground and exploding in a burst of flames. Stalker looked at the two hedgehogs satisfyingly, smoke leaking out from between his jaws, tail sweeping from side to side slowly. He was quite pleased with himself.
Mephiles and Shadow just stared with wide eyes.
A week passed on their journey, and the spreading affliction had extended even more, with a thin layer of crystal coloring feathering off Mephiles' left eyebrow ridge, the dark blue coloring of his crystal form spreading down his back, a tiny edge of light blue tainting his left shoulder quill clump's tip.
Some the blue was starting to leak onto his belly, even, and the left edges of his soft grayish fur patch was starting to get stiff, as if the hairs were becoming a new substance.
The redness in his eyes spread across nearly the entire area of the left eye, save for a small spot, with his left iris becoming a toxic green, mismatched to his other darker green eye.
The whiteness in his muzzle had stretched to near his nose, fading into a gradient with his normally pale cream colored muzzle.
One quill clump was already all blue, with the pale blue gray marking replaced by a light blue tipped area with white bleeding the edge. That was his lower left clump.
Mephiles could see some of the changed areas, and it didn't make it any better for him.
He was now wondering if, like his normal crystal form, would he lose his feet (replaced by swirling masses of dark mist) and nose visibly over the course of this, or would they be the last to go?
He clutched Emerald in his right hand tightly, worried that his other hand would tear at the already tattered bear. If an arm fell off the stuffed animal right now, Mephiles would probably have a screaming fit. Emerald was the last thing connected to Rouge that survived this long in time, and even at that, the toy was falling apart and already lost an ear, to name a few things going wrong.
As it's been said before, he missed Rouge just as much as Shadow did. All he could remember about her was good things.
He actually had no recollection of her before his accident in Dusty Desert, possibly because he no reason to interact with her, and she had never spoken to him before he had been buried under the rubble...
No, wait... He remembered her shouting at him to move out of the way. That was the first time he realized someone other than Shadow and Omega was there.
While he could at times remember vividly how he had tried to manipulate Shadow and Omega, mocking them and attacking them when he was still consumed with anger and darkness... He could not find any memory of similarity with her. Because it never happened.
And he felt good about that. At least one of his friends that he never tortured at one point previously. One person he had never been angry with, jealous of, or obsessed with picking them apart.
Maybe that was why they had become such good friends so quickly in her (compared to Mephiles, and Shadow) short time.
That was why Mephiles was so protective of the stuffed bear. It was the first gift he ever had, his first possession, and something given to him by her with every good intention behind it. He knew it was a simple toy bear, but it was his. A get well gift. From his friend.
He blinked and looked up from his trance to find Shadow staring at him with concern.
"You alright?"
Mephiles nodded slowly.
"Just... Thinking back..."
Shadow gave a quick nod, catching what he meant.
"... I think we're getting close..." Shadow said. "... Don't know what the plan is, so I guess we can improvise..."
"You always improvise..."
"Well, yeah." Shadow gave the suggesting air of the Ultimate Life Form bit, grinning confidently.
Mephiles rolled his eyes in exasperation, shaking his head slowly.
It took two days to find the base from there.
And sadly... It was now abandoned. Unbelievable, as Mephiles had escaped from there three months prior, but that was well enough to pack up and move everything to another location, now that a prisoner had escaped, and knew where it was at.
Shadow shoved a door open and started pulling open cabinets and drawers in hopes of finding so much as a scrap of paper with information written down, though it was very unlikely.
Stalker guarded the entrance to ward of sneaky creatures silently tracking them.
Mephiles, however, was shaking. He could only venture in so far before his body forced him to stop walking all together, and he just stared at the large empty room that he knew was once the "examination room". As in, where he had been restrained on a table after his melting powers were blocked, and was prodded, poked, had samples of fur and blood picked off him (to learn his DNA and find his genetic make up), and... Now that it was returning very slowly, he could recall at one point after one "examination", waking up to find that his brain had been explored without his consent. The stitching and bandages were what hinted it to him to begin with.
Mephiles trembled even more as he gripped his upper arms and slid to the ground, eyes wide as he started to hear snippets of some of his reactions to the testings, some of them protesting in a fierce voice, some of them trying to persuade otherwise, some of them pleading to be left alone, some of them responding in nothing more than an unintelligible moan of fear, some even crying out for help, possibly because a robot had been sent to his cell to retrieve him.
His hands reached up to his head, seizing his ears roughly and yanking down, as if trying to tear them off. He didn't want to hear any more of it...
Shadow looked away from his search as he heard a weak whimper from Mephiles, realizing that the shadow was hunched over on the floor, rocking back and forth in distress.
"... Make it stop... Make it stop..."
Shadow abandoned his task and rushed to Mephiles, crouching down to be level with him. He lifted his head with a hand to examine him and was met with a glassy stare, tearstained cheeks, and a pale face.
Mephiles was out of his mind with fear. He didn't even shift his eyes to look back at Shadow. He probably couldn't see him right now...
"C'mon... Let's just get out of here..." Shadow told him, carefully catching him under the arm to help him to his feet.
Then, something in Mephiles just snapped in half.
He shrieked in a mix of pain, anger, fear, and who knows what else and shoved Shadow back before striking him with the claws of his left hand several times.
Then he scrambled to his feet, still screeching as he ran for the exit, clawing at his ears all the while. Shadow ignored his scratches and quickly got to his feet and went after him, worried that he was going to hurt himself in his present state.
Mephiles had finally cracked under the pressure of everything that had been troubling him, and being back at the place he had been held against his will for whoever long, listening his own screams, remembering what he had forgotten, and the crushing realizing that he may stuck like this forever was just part of what toppled the haphazard pyramid of factors over.
Stalker watched mutely in confusion as a shrieking Mephiles shoved passed him, followed by Shadow not long after. He looked back to where the two had been, and seen that Emerald had been left discarded on the floor in the commotion.
Mephiles stopped running after some point, reality slowly leaking back into his thoughts. He looked around in confusion, bringing his hands down from his sore ears as he wondered what was going on. Wasn't he just at the abandoned base with Shadow..?
He looked around franticly, startled that he did not recall why he was now where he was, and the he realized that Emerald wasn't in his hands at all.
He looked at the ground and to his dismay, he didn't see the bear. Without any control over it, his eyes quickly started burning with tears when he realized that it was possible he wasn't going to find the bear again if he hadn't left it with Shadow.
Where was he now, anyway? Mephiles examined the area from where he stood, and could see a large swirling whirlpool of lava in an enormous makeshift pit before him. The usual about the buildings... Crumbled, broken, collapsed, blah, blah...
He stared at the lava pit with a strange sense of familiarity. It confused him, as he didn't know why.
The lava bubbled, and something happened that Mephiles was astounded that he didn't faint from shock.
Yes, you guessed it: a massive fiery beast rose up from it, roaring.
Iblis.
Cooled magma was hardened into some sort of armorlike covering in the darkened spots, three-fingered hands formed out of the molten rock, lava dribbled out of his massive jaws like drool as three enormous green eyes opened lazily as the beast surveyed his surroundings, perhaps just reawakening for the day.
Mephiles was easily just the size of one of the eyes, and that fact made him hope he was very much invisible to his monstrous counterpart.
Shadow caught up to him, and froze at what he saw.
"Meph... Don't. Move." He mouthed to Mephiles, who was completely stiff with fear.
He could crush me... Or burn me... Or even eat me... Mephiles was shaking now. He didn't want any of that to happen.
The sight of the small hedgehog shaped shadow creature did not go in noticed, and Iblis quickly turned his massive head in Mephiles' direction, the latter muttering how doomed he was repeatedly in rapid succession.
A loud rumble of a deep growl from the monster as he lowered his head to get a better look, Mephiles seeing his full reflection in one of the eyes, seeing not only how he now looked physically, but also how terrified he was.
Each exhale Iblis did through his nostrils could easily be heard and even caused a few heated gusts in the area. Mephiles could even see the lava flowing under the hardened shell.
It was a while before Mephiles realized that all that was happening was that Iblis was staring at him. Not just staring, but staring at him with some form of recognition.
"... You... You remember me..?" Mephiles asked, not expecting to get an actual answer.
Iblis blinked slowly, tilting his head slighting as if to confirm it.
"... So... You... You're not going to kill me..?"
Iblis' eyes shifted in the direction of Shadow, finally noticing him and immediately appearing furious, roaring and getting ready to send an attack at him for whatever reason he saw as a justification. Shadow simply braced himself.
"Whoa! Hey!" Mephiles shouted, running to get in front of Shadow. "No! He's my friend! If it wasn't for him, I probably wouldn't have lived this long!"
Iblis actually stopped, much to Mephiles' confusion.
"You can understand me, can't you?"
"Meph..." Shadow said slowly. "Did you forget that both of you cane from the same place..?"
"Oh... Right..." Mephiles said nervously, before speaking up louder. "Okay. Shadow is my friend. We don't hurt friends. Got that?"
A low growl, which Mephiles wasn't sure what it meant.
"I'll take that as a yes..." He shrugged. "Alright... Uh... Thank you for not smiting us... By the way..."
"Mephiles... You do realize you're talking to the big fire monster that destroyed most of the world, right..?"
"That big fire monster is also my second half." Mephiles looked at him. "I don't know why, but he's not destroying stuff right now..."
"Because you're distracting him..."
"Shadow, he actually understands what I'm saying..."
Shadow couldn't argue with that.
"Just be careful..."
Mephiles nodded carefully as he stared at Iblis.
"... You're not bad, are you?" He suddenly realized. "You didn't burn everything because you were evil... It was because you were angry, right?"
Iblis gave some kind of low growl as a response, and only Mephiles understood it.
"Y'know... I was bad when I was angry, too..." He explained. "I was mad at being trapped without an explanation, told that I was going to be a monster in the future, forgotten about, and that we might never meet again... That happened to you too, I'll bet. I know how that feels... Makes you want to destroy something, huh..?"
No response.
"It doesn't work, though. It just makes it worse..." Mephiles stepped forward, no longer afraid of him. "That anger is still there, and it builds up, until you forget what you were to begin with." Mephiles blinked. "You broke free and you destroyed everything because you wanted to vent. When I escaped my prison, I wanted revenge. I know how you feel..."
Iblis blinked.
"But I was so intent on doing that before finding you that I almost got killed by my mistake..." Mephiles continued. "I actually got buried under a pillar that collapse because of me. And here's the amazing part: the ones who dug me out... were the ones I had been trying so hard to destroy. Despite what I'd done, what I said, what I tried to do to them... I wasn't left to die. People aren't bad. They just misunderstand."
"I can't believe you're lecturing the fire demon..." Shadow hadn't looked away from Iblis yet.
"I don't know if I ever mentioned this to you yet..." Mephiles looked back at him. "But 'demon' is kind of an offensive term to me. I'm a shadow creature. Or element. Or just a shadow. And he's fire."
"Whatever... Point is, he's not killing us..."
"Of course... He'll listen to me. I'm his other part."
"Alright... Tell him to stop destroying everything, then..."
Before Mephiles could add anything else, his body grew tense, his eyes growing wide as a tremor settled through his small frame.
"Oh, no... Meph..?" Shadow didn't need to ask him what was wrong. He stepped towards him and hesitantly reached a hand to him.
Iblis had started growling when Mephiles started to look distressed, and roared viscously when Shadow moved closer, causing the hedgehog to flinch.
"I'm not causing this! You stupid monster!" Shadow barked back at him in frustration, not expecting to be understood. "This has been happening for months! We were only here because we were trying to cure him! We-!"
"... Sh... Shadow..?" Mephiles' voice interrupted weakly. "... St... Stop yelling... Please..."
Shadow looked down, as Mephiles had sunk to the ground, arms wrapped around himself, curled in on himself, quivering.
Shadow gasped involuntarily.
Mephiles' fur was now completely blue, his muzzle completely white, his sclera completely blood red, his irises toxic green, and crystals lightly coating his quills, ear tips, fingers, eyebrow ridges and tail. He still had his feet and nose, and the shards the usually sprouted from his wrists and ankles had yet to appear, so his transformation wasn't complete, yet.
He held his hands out slowly to look at them, trembling even more. Thin trails of tears dripped down his muzzle, ears folding back as he shook his head.
"... I don't understand..." He said slowly, looking up at Shadow, a broken kind of air laced in his voice. "... I stopped being bad... I changed my ways... I became a good person... Why did this have to happen..? Why was this done to me..?"
Shadow didn't know what to say to that. No matter what he could tell him, it wouldn't change that Mephiles would no longer be able to appear as a hedgehog, but now forever trapped for the rest of his existence as a twisted image of that.
Dangerous sharp claws like scalpels that would not be able touch anything without, at the very least, scraping it. Glinting crystals that split apart at the edges that gave him the appearance of some sort of beastly horror, with the eyes to complete the ensemble. Rough but gleaming texture to his once soft fur that brought to mind the kinds of rocks and minerals you'd find near a volcano...
He had already been discriminated for the brief glimpse of his crystal form when Silver saw it after the passing mention of Mephiles' connection to Iblis, and almost instantly, the very hedgehog who had saved him from being burned alive and tended to his blistered wounds had turned against him.
"Demon", he had called him. He was now "some sort of demon", as Silver quickly called him. Not "Mephiles", but a monster, just because he looked like it.
"..." Shadow didn't speak right away, and simply knelt down to be level with him. "... It had nothing to do with that. It wan't your fault, it was Nega's for experimenting on you..." He tried his best to explain what he could. "... And... I guess it was partly mine for not being able to stop him from taking you..."
"... You couldn't help it... You got knocked out..." Mephiles slowly added, always persistent in assuring Shadow he had no part in this great misfortune. "... I know you told me to run, but... I wasn't leaving you behind..."
Shadow hadn't heard that part before. He didn't know that Mephiles hadn't listened and didn't get away when he could have...
A simple growl rumbled through the air as Iblis, tired of watching everything the tiny hedgehogs were doing from so high up, lowered his head again, an uncharacteristically curious look worked into his features. Was he aware that Mephiles was troubled, or was his interest simply held by the two small creatures before him?
He and Mephiles stared at each other for an incredibly long time, seemingly frozen in thought.
Then, after what felt like fifteen minutes, Iblis' form sank into the lava, disappearing from sight.
"... What...?" Mephiles tilted his head in confusion. "... Maybe he lost interest..."
"Probably going to destroy something..." Shadow added in a low voice before something else happened.
The central pit of lava exploded upward in a geyser of magma, astonishingly splashing back in perfectly, leaving everything untouched, or rather, in the same condition as it was before that happened.
Both Mephiles and Shadow shouted in shock, cringing and scooting backwards simultaneously.
Once there was a clear view, they both realized that there was a ball of fire hovering above the pit. It was roughly the sane size as either of them, and streaks of flame orbited around it, telling them that this was no natural phenomenon.
"... Iblis..?" Mephiles was the first to speak, lowering his arm he had brought up to shield his face. He blinked, and looked at Shadow, who seemed to be at a complete loss for words.
For a reason that he could not voice, Mephiles rose to his feet, and approached the ball of fire cautiously, a sense of peace that was not previously present flooding through him.
He stared at it before looking back over his shoulder at Shadow.
"... He... He reverted to his purest form..." Mephiles explained in astonishment, eyes wide with a strange sense of amusement. "... He's... I don't think..." Mephiles was speechless and looked back at Iblis, perking his ears forward and seeming to listen to something Shadow could never hear. "... What..? I don't know... Won't that... Well, get rid of 'us'?"
"What are you talking about?" Shadow was finally off the ground and stepped beside Mephiles. "Wait... How are you talking with him..?"
"I don't know... I can just hear it..." Mephiles shrugged nervously. "But... He thinks it might help me if we... Join together again..." The last part was spoken in a soft voice as Mephiles looked down, knowing what might happen if that did go on.
Shadow didn't speak, but rather, stared at him with his intense, almost glaring, look... The one he tried to cover over how he really felt.
"... I see..." He said slowly, closing his eyes and letting his arms drop limply. He opened his eyes again. "... But won't that mean you'll no longer exist as you?"
"I honestly don't know..."
"What about your memories?" Shadow pressed, folding his arms. "Would you still remember me? Rouge? Anything?"
"Shadow, I don't know..." Mephiles replied in a slightly distressed tone. "I don't know what will happen other than Iblis and I will finally be completed. He thinks that because we compliment each other, something in his abilities might fill in what I'm missing..." His ears drooped and he shifted his eyes up to look at Shadow. "Anything could happen after that... I might forget everything... Or I might not. Or maybe I'll only remember some of it like a dream... I... I don't know..." He finished with a sad tone, afraid that the worst of it might happen.
Shadow stared at him for a long time, running his eyes up and down along every changed feature Mephiles now had. The shadow was trembling faintly, perhaps in some form of discomfort physically.
Finally he spoke up again.
"... Do what you think you need to do. If it'll stop the pain, then I can't say no..." He closed his eyes again, bowing his head. "You're the only only left from my past, and I'm not happy about having to let you go, but if it's the only way, then I'd be selfish to keep you from it..." He turned away, already starting his grieving process. "... If it's what was meant to happen, then I can't stop it..."
His ear tugged in Mephiles' direction, where he heard a loud sniffle, and he was tackled from behind, Mephiles burying his face in his side, sobbing.
"... You're so mean sometimes!" He howled. "You make it seem like I'm going to die or something! That just makes it harder!"
"... We don't know if you'll keep your memories..." Shadow had been taken by surprise, and simply placed a hand on Mephiles' head. "... It'll be just as bad to me if that does happen..."
"... Now I'm scared..." Mephiles looked up a little, and Shadow could see that. "... It'll be like I never existed... I don't want to forget about you, or Rouge or anybody..."
"... Look... I know I won't forget you. I'll be able to tell people about you, so don't worry about not existing..." Shadow told him. "... Besides... Remember what Rouge would tell you..?"
Mephiles sniffed and nodded slowly, rubbing at one eye with his free hand.
"... Yeah..." He looked away, and added: "... I might not get to say this again... But you're my very best friend... You mean a lot to me... If I could have picked when we met, it wouldn't have been because of the Scepter... But I would have rather been born a brother to you..."
"... Meph..." Shadow said in a soft voice before speaking louder. "... You've already been that for the last two hundred years..."
"... But that's not long enough..."
It took every bit of willpower Shadow had in him to keep from breaking his tough front and crying before Mephiles. Mephiles could sense how he really felt, and that's all he needed.
"... You should just get it over with before you make this too hard for both of us..." Shadow looked away.
Mephiles nodded slowly and let go of him.
"... If I do forget you... I'm so very sorry it had to happen that way..." He added. "... If I do forget... Then, goodbye forever, Shadow the Hedgehog..."
Shadow was not facing him, but the last words were enough to spring tears to his eyes.
Mephiles paused before stepping back to Iblis, and nodding in agreement.
Shadow turned to look at him just as the fire surrounded a serene looking Mephiles in a spiraling orbit, moving faster and faster until a burst of light blinded him, causing him to shield his eyes with his arms.
When the light died down, Shadow opened his eyes and saw a somewhat familiar form laying on the ground where Mephiles had been standing.
It was nearly identical to Mephiles' normal hedgehog form, except the black fur was now a not quite white looking white, and his markings were a pale teal color. Something about those shades struck something in Shadow's mind, but he couldn't quite place it. Like Mephiles, the attire was absent due to Mephiles having long lost it all to shreds. And unlike Mephiles, there was a mouth present on this face.
The hedgehog had yet to stir, and Shadow quickly rushed to him, lifting his head from the ground and supporting it as he carefully cradled him. He could now see that this hedgehog appeared the same physical appearance in age as him.
"Hey... Wake up..."
His face scrunched for a moment and his eyelids lifted with a dazed look, and Shadow could see the irises were now a yellow so bright on the spectrum, they nearly glowed. He then realized that all these colors were the same as he had seen on the case file for Solaris back when he had worked for GUN many, many, years ago.
The light colored one blinked and looked up at Shadow, no sign of recognition registering in his face. In fact, he widened his eyes in shock and shoved away from Shadow, which left the darker furred one to stare in hurt.
"... Mephiles..?"
"I'm Solaris! Who are you!" He pointed at Shadow, who folded his ears back. "What's going on! Why am I here!"
"... You... You don't remember me... Do you..?" Shadow said in a low voice, looking down and shaking his head in denial.
"I've never seen you before." Solaris said without hesitation. "You've probably have me mistaken for someone else..."
"... Yeah... Y-you're right... Sorry for the trouble..." Shadow said dejectedly, getting to his feet. "... Have a good life..."
Solaris looked at him in confusion, wondering what he meant.
Shadow turned and left without another word, slowly realizing that the sky was now sprinkled with stars for the first time in decades, the red clouds no longer in sight. The air wan't burning with heat, and the distant screeches of creatures were no longer present...
The moon was full and bright, lighting up the abandoned walkways...
Meph loved when there was a full moon... He smiled sadly.
His foot hit against something soft and he looked down to see Emerald on the ground. Stalker must have been carrying it back to them before he probably disappeared like the rest of the creatures...
For some reason, the sight of the bear toy was too much. Furiously, Shadow grabbed it and spun around, throwing it as far and as hard as he could.
Three seconds later, he ran back after it, ready to kick himself for such an act.
He stopped and saw that Solaris had found it, picking it up from the ground at his feet in confusion.
Shadow stepped forward, and apologized.
"Oh, I'm sorry... That belongs to a friend of mine..." He reached for it. "It's really important to him, and I think I should bring it back..." He half lied.
Solaris did not let go of it, and just stared, brushing a hand against the missing ear, the balding patches, the torn arm...
"I'm going to need that back..." Shadow said a bit more sternly, getting a firm grip on it and tugging it his way. "It's not yours..."
Solaris mumbled something that Shadow didn't catch.
"What..?"
Solaris looked up and said more clearly, though he himself looked confused: "'The heart never forgets what's important...'" He blinked. "Why do I remember that..?"
Shadow let go of the bear out of surprise.
"... Mephiles..?"
"Why do you keep calling me that..?" Solaris narrowed his eyes in thought. "Who are you..?"
"Tell me this..." Shadow had an eager look in his eyes. "What does your heart remember? Don't think... Just feel..."
Solaris was just as confused as before. Why did he feel so pleased around this strange hedgehog.
"Your heart will tell you why I call you 'Mephiles'..." Shadow urged.
Solaris looked at him, then at the bear, staring for a long time.
"... This was a gift... Wan't it..?" He said slowly, looking back at Shadow. "... Someone was hurt... And this was to make them feel better... A white bat, and a black hedgehog... And... Someone else..." Something clicked slowly. "... You're a black hedgehog..."
Shadow nodded, a small smile working onto his face.
"... There's three for a while... Then two... They live together..." Solaris was working it out slowly. "... Then one, and he's scared... How do I know that..?"
"What did Rouge always tell you..?" Shadow knew it would help, even if a little.
It was more than enough.
"Oh, my God! SHADOW!" Solaris' eyes shifted in recognition and the black hedgehog could see his friend behind them. Solaris dropped the bear and rushed forward, nearly knocking Shadow to the ground and he wrapped his arms around him, crying hysterically. "I can't believe I almost forgot you! I'm so sorry! It probably almost broke your heart that I didn't remember you! I promise I'll never do that again! I'm so sorry! Please forgive me!"
As Solaris who was also Mephiles spouted out apology after apology, Shadow simply smiled, bringing a hand to his friend's shoulder, knowing that they could now exist together again, never to be once more separated by cruel fate.
"Welcome back, Mephiles the Dark..." He said, closing his eyes as tears slid down his face. "... Welcome back, my friend..."