Chapter 6

EQUAL TERMS

Silver stared in disbelief as the being that was once Shadow and Sonic continued to grin at Mephiles with absolute confidence in his eyes which were green in in one eye and orange in the other
"How did they do that?" Silver asked Knuckles who was still on edge a little
"They've done this before, they used chaos control to teleport to the exact same point in space and time which overlapped them to create kind of a super being" Knuckles explained to Silver before Mephiles began to laugh yet again
"I must admit I did not see this coming!" he said in a highly amused manner
"But even combined you have no REAL hope of defeating me!" Tails had the sinking sensation that Mephiles was not bluffing, but then an idea sparked to mind
"Knuckles, can you sense where Eggman's keeping the remaining 3 chaos emeralds? Knuckles concentrated for a moment before answering him "Yeah, he's got them in his egg mobile" said Knuckles pointing toward the new petrified scientist, Tails then turned to Silver
"Silver, can you use your psychokinesis to send the remaining chaos emeralds to Shadic?" Silver raised his hand, not knowing if he could from such a distance "I'll try" he replied as his body started to glow cyan and before Eggman caught wind of what was happening the remaining chaos emeralds flew out of his transport
"What? No! What's going on?" Eggman shouted as the 3 chaos emeralds started to circle Shadic
"Thanks guys!" Shadic shouted before the emeralds became one with his body and he erupted into a torch of golden energy which cleared to reveal the now golden hedgehog with burning red eyes, he rose into the air to face Mephiles
"Lets settle this" he said confidently to his crystalline enemy
"NOW things are getting interesting, our powers seem to be equal, for now" the demon chuckled, welcoming the challenge before BANG!
Shadic kicked Mephiles to the ground at an alarming speed
"That all you got GEM BRAIN?" the hedgehog taunted as Mephiles calmly stood up before speaking with his non-existent mouth
"Two rodents for the price of one" he then zipped towards Shadic at breath taking speed and Shadic did the same towards Mephiles.

The fight broke out as Shadic countered Mephiles's punches with several kicks in the face, Mephiles punched Shadic up out of the atmosphere before following only to be greeted by hundreds of chaos spears, he was able to deflect a few of them back at Shadic before both combatants took dozens of unblocked chaos spears to their chests and heads, as they both re-entered the atmosphere Shadic moved in and launched a brutal attack on Mephiles, visibly creating a crack in one of the demon's Crystalline quills, Mephiles then grabbed Shadic and held him in front of him to take the full burning heat of the re-entry, but Shadic wasn't finished so easily as he pressed one of his feet into Mephiles's face and sprayed the jet skate's ignition into his eye, Mephiles grunted in pain before planting his fist firmly is Shadic's stomach which knocked him away, the pair then almost instantly stopped in mid-air, once again above angel island
"It's time to end this and send you back to oblivion!" Shadic said as he raised his hand, all 4 of his inhibitor rings loosened and his gold glow turned scarlet
"CHAOS CONTROL!" a jet of green energy shot out of Shadic's hand and rocketed towards his shadowy opponent, but Mephiles had other ideas
He charged his hand up and then bounced the beam back towards Shadic, Shadic couldn't afford to be sent out of reality, the options he had were bad or worse, Shadic then vanished in a flash of light which Sonic an Shadow zipped out of, still in their super forms, the streak of green energy narrowly missed the 2 hedgehogs and instead hit the Egg carrier behind them, erasing it from existence, Sonic only just supressed a chuckle as he heard Eggman's reaction
"I HATE THAT HEDGEHOG!"

The 2 hedgehogs hovered in the air in front of Mephiles who stayed quiet, waiting to see who would move first, Shadow took the opportunity and teleported behind Mephiles
"CHAOS BLAST!" Shadow shouted as he began to erupt in pure destruction, the blast was small but highly intensified as Sonic stared in awe at the mind numbing ball of chaos, as the light of the blast faded Sonic saw Mephiles who looked worn and chipped in his crystalline appearance, but he also saw Shadow…who was in base form and falling unconsciously to his death, Sonic made a split second choice and dived down, caught Shadow and teleported back to the floating island.

Sonic reverted from his super form as he approached Tails, Knuckles and Silver
"Oh god…" Knuckles said quietly
"I mean we all saw everything but I never imagined it was…THIS bad"
"Where'd Eggman go?" asked Sonic after noticing the absence of the fat scientist to which Tails replied
"He flew off after the egg carrier disappeared" Sonic looked slightly amused
"Typical..." Silver hit the side of the pyramid in frustration
"Dammit! I should have done something!"
"You gave us the last 3 emeralds Silver" Sonic said, trying to calm Silver down
"Without them we would all be dead by now"
"He's coming too!" exclaimed Tails before Sonic and Silver could continue the conversation, Shadow slowly regained consciousness
"Easy there Shadow" said Knuckles as he helped Shadow up
"I can use the master emerald to heal you" but Shadow's eyes turned to Sonic
"You okay faker?" asked the blue hedgehog who began to notice Shadow's undeniable glare of anger at him
"You…imbecile" Shadow slowly said to Sonic while maintaining his glare of rage
"You should've…taken Mephiles while he was…weakened…" he continued before Knuckles transferred him some energy from the master emerald "Phh…your WELCOME…" grunted Sonic who was hoping that Shadow would have at least thanked him for the save
"YOU BETTER GET YOUR PRIORITIES STRAIGHT!" shouted the now rejuvenated Shadow
"OR ELSE NO EMERALD IN EXISTENCE WILL BE ABLE TO FIX WHAT I DO TO YOU!"
"REALLY now?" taunted Mephiles who had returned and was firing a spear of energy towards Shadow
"OH NO YOU DON'T!" cried Sonic as he threw Shadow out of the way…but wasn't fast enough to avoid the incoming spear as it stabbed him…right through the back, time seemed to slow down as Shadow saw Sonic impaled on the spot
"Funny, the killed him the exact same way last time, except this time he saw it coming" he said before swinging Sonic off the diminishing spear like a ragdoll
"This is how it will go, since it's quite clear that this rat's death has caused an impression; I'll leave you for a week to let it sink in" Mephiles spoke in "mature of fact" tone that boiled Shadow's blood
"I will then return to kill another one of you, then again and again until you and everyone you've ever loved is dead" Mephiles let out a slight chuckle before vanishing a vale of darkness.

Tails was on the verge of tears "Sonic…SONIC!" Knuckles followed tails over to the hardly stirring hedgehog
"OH GOD NO!" Shadow rushed over to Sonic before looking over at where Mephiles disappeared
"You'll pay for this…" Silver stared at Sonic with images of a similar event flooding into his mind, Silver broke
"No…not again…"