Iblis reappearance shook the world into fierce quake that would make even the sturdiest of buildings rumble down to the ground and make even the smallest amount of water to shake violently like a tsunami wave. The eternal flame had grown so large that everyone around the world could see him, from the mountain peaks of Angel Island to the luminescent lights of new tech city, or it should be said dimming lights. The people of the city were going into a panic in the streets
"IT'S IBLIS!"
"HE'S RETURNED!"
"AND WORSE THAN EVER!" everyone quickly started to get erratic and start stealing from the shops that lit up the same strip that our hero's went through before they left. Fires began to start as people got careless when trying to drive out of the city. But through all this chaos stood the city's hero on his jet board, looking disappointed that the people of his city would be so quick to do this. Then just before he was about to jump into action he heard a tiny cry pierce through the crowd of people. Blackhawk looked down to the scene at hand to find a little girl with brown hair that barely touched her shoulders with a older boy with the same brown hair but not as long nearly getting trampled.
"Come on you gotta get up." the boy said to the now weeping girl
"But I want mommy and daddy." the little girl said through her tears as she wiped them off her eyes
"I know you do." the boy said as he hoisted her up into his arms "But we have to find them first." she quickly wrapped her arms around him, seeking security from him. The boy quickly started to jog forward through the chaos that was before them and tried to look for somewhere safe. Blackhawk looked to them with empathy, they knew what was important unlike a lot of these people. So he quickly rode down into the city and maneuvered his way through the chaos and yelled out at the top of his lungs
"EVERYBODY STOP!" immediately all eyes were on him as he caught his breath
"You should all be ashamed of yourselves, at the first glimpse of danger this is what you guys do?" he said in a disappointed tone as some of the crowd slugged their heads down in disappointment. Blackhawk looked through the crowd and pointed out those same two children that he saw from above. "Now those two kids have the right idea, their trying to look for cover instead of being hysterical like you guys." then he did a quick kick on his board that made something pop out of it and into his hand. Then with a quick press of a button the streets began to rumbling making people rush for the sidewalks. Large sections of the streets began to rise reveal stairs that lead far below the city to emergency bunkers.
"Everyone into bunkers, NOW!" and with that everyone began to rush down underground. Blackhawk didn't immediately go underground; he wanted to make sure everyone got to the bunkers before he did. Then just as the crowd began to thin down he heard something
"Wait they could still be out there!" he heard a woman say then saw her run out to the empty city.
"But they could already be in the bunker" a older man said as he ran to her
"But what if they aren't? I'd never forgive myself if he got them!" Blackhawk could clearly tell that she was a mother looking for her children. She looked familiar like he had seen her somewhere before. He gasped out of realization when it came to him, she looked like that young boy and young girl, she was their mother.
"Hey you two wait!" he said as he quickly rode over to them and stopped the mother in her tracks, making her mad
"Get out of my way I need to find my babies!" she yelled out trying to get around him but being cut off at every turn.
"Ma'am wait I've seen your children." she immediately stopped when he said that
"Wait REALLY!" she said anxiously as she clung onto his chest demanding a answer before her husband came and yanked her off him. Blackhawk dusted himself off then nodded
"Yes they first ones to go in, now please get to the bunker I don't want anyone to get hurt right now!" he said as he pointed them to the bunker. With no hesitation or doubt they rushed to the bunker and thanked him for telling them where their children were. Blackhawk put on a small smile; even in the face of certain doom he gave people hope and relief. Before he jet back to the bunker he looked towards Iblis with a scowl.
"Why is it that creeps like you just can't stay dead?" he asked to himself as he clenched his hand into a fist. Then his eyes began to wander away from Iblis and towards 5 golden dots, almost like 5 glimmering stars that shone so bright that they could be seen during the day. But he knew better, he knew what they really were. So with a smile and a quick nod he quicked his board into motion and flew to the bunker.
"Good luck Sub."
Meanwhile at angel island
The trees that hid the echidna ruins began to bend from the intense winds that came with Iblis. Knuckles on instinct ran to the master emerald to protect it from the fierce weather that was cascading around the island.
"What is the meaning of this?" Knuckles yelled to emerald as it began to glow then shot a small beam towards the sky behind him. He quickly turned around and shuddered with fear at what he saw.
"I-I-Iblis..." he said nearly trembling at the enormous size of the creature before him. His old wounds began to ache at the mere memory of that creature's strength.
"Ho-how can this be, I thought Silver took him out?" Knuckles asked to himself and to his surprise his question was answered. The master emerald began to glow fluorescently making Knuckles turn around to investigate the matter. He starred deep into the crystal clear gem to see something moving around in there. Upon his further investigation did he find out what it actually was, images of what had happened. He saw Sub with all the chaos emeralds, then him opening a portal, then finally Iblis clawing his way out that portal and back into this world. Knuckles gasped then looked back to the monster who appeared to be swatting something.
"What is he doing?" he wondered as he narrowed his eyes to see what he was trying to hit. He saw 5 tiny specks of gold that were rush around Iblis and a few were trying to strike him. Knuckles settle his eyes back to there normal focus and grinned "I see, he's trying to put out the only gleams of hope that we have." then he quickly turned to the master emerald and raised his hands up to it
"I'm not staying out of this fight." he said as he looked up at the enormous gem before him. "The seven are the servers, our hearts intensify their power. Oh great master emerald I ask this of you." he paused to take breath before he turned around one last time and pointed at Iblis "Please help this world by giving it's hero's the power to take down this abomination." then he waited for what seemed like endless minute for its response. Then with one breath he said but only one word under his breath "Please, help my friends." at the spilt second he finished his plea the master emerald began to glow brighter than before and began to spin. Then it sent a large wave of energy traveling faster than even Sonic himself toward the terrifying monster. Knuckles collapsed to the ground landing on his right fist as he caught his breath and clenched onto his chest. He could feel himself getting weaker with a build pain surfacing inside him. But of course he knew this was going to happen. On that day that he was but a inch away from death and his friend tails brought him home, the master emerald binded itself with Knuckles. The energy from the emerald could keep him alive for as long as he wanted to be, but there was a price. Knuckles could no longer go anywhere without the master emerald being somewhere close to him. In short he was like a lamp that needed a outlet, without the power there would be no light or in his case no life. He let out one big sigh before he rose his head with a grin and forced his body back so that he could lay his head on the emerald.
"Hehe you know I'll never understand why you kept me alive but I'm not complaining." he said as his eyelids slowly fell while he had a smile on his face.
"Go get him guys."
Back with Iblis
Everyone was scattering around him, Shadow and Vincent kept firing spears at him while Sonic and Sub distracted him. Iblis could only laugh at their simple attempts to stop him
"Enough of this." he said then cocked back his arms expanding off a large wall of flames. Sonic and the others quickly flew away from the flames, only being a inch away from it the whole time they were fleeing. Once the flames quickly went down Iblis went to work rapidly throwing fireballs at the four hedgehogs. Sonic and the others were having a hard time dodging his attacks, the souls he was burning seemed to be giving him a big boost in almost everything he has.
"Sonic...!" Shadow yelled out as he barely dodged another fireball, nearly smelling the odor of singed fur. "I don't think we can last much longer!"
"Oh come one Shads! We've been through worse!" Sonic said as he rushed up to one of the firballs and literally ran off it. meanwhile on the other side of them Vincent and Sub were staying very close to each other while the balls kept flying towards them.
"Dangit what's taking him so long!" Vincent yelled out in anger
"Well he did say it could be difficult."
"Yeah but he didn't say anything about taking his time with it." Sub just rolled his eyes at Vincent then diverged from him and kept sorting his way through the barrage of flames.
Meanwhile on the ground
Silver stood behind Iblis, glaring at him.
"This time I mean it, this the end." He said confidently then clenched his fists shut and took in a deep breath. Then he quickly put his hands in the air and gritted his teeth. Iblis was still firing his barrage of attacks and didn't even notice that his base was beginning to glow. The four hedgehogs in the air began to grin even shadow, which left Iblis confused.
"What are you so happy about?" he said as he ceased his attacks.
"THIS!" he quickly looked down to the portal and saw Silver raising his arms as far up as he could making the ground shake. Then Iblis began to glow intensely and begin to rise up from the portal. Iblis quickly started to react by shifting his arms downwards and producing twin streams of rolling flames. Sub quickly reacted gathered as much power as he could and did a supersonic boost and flew like a golden arrow through one of Iblis's hand then quickly to the other making them crumble to nothing with the flames disappearing just as quick. Iblis screeched out in pain as he dealt with the pain that had just been inflicted to him. Sub quickly flew down to silver and got under Iblis and began to exert any and all energy he had left to try and thrust Iblis into the air. his dad and the two ultimate life forms saw what he was trying to accomplish and quickly rushed to his side and began to the do the same. Iblis began to rise into the air much like a rocket with golden thrust coming out the end instead of flames. The entire world watched in awe as the creature rose from the earth below to the skies above slowly dieing from the increasing lack of oxygen to maintain its flames. When they finally reached space Iblis struggled for air as all of his body became stiff and rock like.
"No I can't be defeated..." Iblis said with his last breath as the burning glow from his eyes finally died out. The five hedgehogs weren't hesitant as they powered for one last attack. Sonic kicked it off with a supersonic boost that broke Iblis into large chunks. Then Silver charged up a flat physic disc and threw it at the chunks slicing them in half and further making them smaller. Then Vincent and his father charged up chaos spears and launched them turning what was left of the monster into small boulder. The once immortal monster was now a small version of the asteroid belt, but Sub wouldn't let it stop at that. He charged up all his energy into his mother's hammer then quickly smashed Iblis into stardust and whisked him away into the solar system. Then he looked at one big reaming chunk, it was a fragment with Iblis's eye carved on it. he took in one big breath then cocked back his hammer
"Nothing lasts forever you monster, now die and burn in HECK!" then with the strongest wack he could produce, he knocked that piece into the sun so he could be certain he would burn. The five were breathing heavily as they smiled at the defeat of Iblis. With the last of his strength Sub raised his hand for a thumbs up and looked behind him at his father and friends. His father returned the gesture and chuckled
"You're so much like your mother." then his energy finally ran out and he turned back to his normal form. Then one by one everyone turned back to their normal forms and started crashing back to their home. They plummeted quickly to the ground looking like 5 shooting stars. Then out of nowhere the souls that were sucked out of the portal by Iblis rushed to the sky and cascaded around the five heroes. They wavered them down to the ground gently and laid them down on the ground and let them rest. Then they rushed back into the portal knowing that they were not meant for this world. All of them returned to the portal, all except 4 that stuck around the heroes. One of the souls that hovered over Sub and Sonic had a pinkish tint, while two behind it had a yellow and orange tint. The last was purple and hovered over Vincent and Shadow. It knew it wasn't meant for this world unlike the other three. The only reason it was there was rub against Vincent's cheek almost like it was rubbing a hand over his face. Then it flew over to shadow and gently landed on his lips like it was giving him a kiss. Finnaly it rushed over to the portal and returned back to where she belonged. Vincent said something in a whisper that no one really heard, but it sounded like 'mommy'. Then the three souls that remained slowly hovered toward Sub and Sonic's chests and in a flash of light were restored to their physical form and laid there with them.
Sorry that this chapter ended weirdly but it'll make sense in the next one (which is the last one, finally!)