Penultimate chapter! We're approaching the end. Will the heroes win? Read to find out.

Sonic the Hedgehog:

Tales of Soleanna

Chapter 25: His World Part 2: Resurrection of Flames

So, here we are. This is where I started telling this story. The city in ruins, dark sky and a heartbroken hedgehog surrounded by not only his old friends but new ones, as well as Eggman and Smit. They had all seen Elise sacrifice herself for Sonic and all he could do was hold her body and cry. He hadn't done that for a long time but he didn't care. She was gone. He couldn't be bothered to even turn into Dark Sonic and kill Mephiles, since that wouldn't help.

As the heroes crowded around Sonic and Elise, something flew out of her body and Mephiles grabbed it.

"Not what I was expecting but it'll do. It doesn't matter if it's your time energy or hers, the prophecy will still be fulfilled!" he cried.

Behind Mephiles, unknown to him, someone had appeared and saw the dark being and then the body of Elise.

"NO! I'm too late!"

Mephiles turned and was knocked sideways by a claymore. It was Chrono! As Mephiles was hit, he dropped the red and white emeralds, which Aqua and Rouge made a dive for. They grabbed them but Mephiles was already up and swatted the two away, retrieving his prizes.

"Who are you?" he asked, turning to the tanuki.

"I'm Chrono and I'm going to destroy you and save the future!" Chrono declared.

Shadow stepped next to him. "If anyone's going to kill him, it's me!"

Mephiles chuckled. "I'm afraid I'm the last person to wind up dead. I better get going" he said, jumping into a purple portal. Shadow and Chrono tried following him but it closed up before they could.

Silver ran up to them. "Chrono. What are you doing here?" he asked.

"I discovered that there was another side to the prophecy. If Sonic didn't die, it would be because of Elise. Now that she's dead, a much bleaker future is being created" Chrono explained.

"We have to track that freak down and stop him" yelled Knuckles.

"We could follow his energy signature" suggested Eggman.

"But for that we'd need the Chaos Emeralds and Mephiles took them all" said Blaze, disheartened.

Rouge and Aqua began to smirk, before pulling out the red and white emeralds.

"Hey, I thought Mephiles took them off you!" Tails exclaimed.

"Correction, he took the fakes" explained Rouge.

"Oh, you girls are geniuses" Strike cheered, kissing Aqua.

"Now we can find that bad man and stop him!" Cream cried, enthusiastically, with Cheese joining in.

"You mean I'll find him" Shadow said. "He's my opponent and I won't let anyone fall before him!"

"You can't go by yourself" Silver argued. "I'll come too. I owe that guy a lot, and not in a good way!"

Chrono stepped forward. "My mission is to save the future. Destroying Mephiles is part of that now so I'll work with you to defeat him."

Strike joined in. "Leave some of that action for me. No one hurts my family and gets away with it!"

Shadow smiled and he and Strike took the emeralds off Rouge and Aqua, giving them one last kiss before leaving. Silver gave one to Blaze too before turning to Sonic.

"Hey, Sonic, you wanna come?" he asked but Sonic didn't reply. Amy stepped forward.

"I'll look after him. You lot just stop Mephiles" she said. Silver nodded.

Omega began to beep. "Mephiles has been located in the volcanic region of Red Mountain."

"Why would he go there?" pondered Shadow.

"Less talk and more getting there!" yelled Strike. Shadow nodded as he grabbed both emeralds and cried "Chaos Control!" There was a flash of light and the four heroes were gone.

They arrived on a rocky outcrop near a huge crater filled with lava. Strike began to fan himself.

"Mephiles has to be here somewhere. Everyone keep your guard up" Shadow ordered.

Suddenly, he was knocked back by a purple tiger that came out of nowhere, causing him to drop the emeralds. Mephiles landed in front of them and grabbed the emeralds.

"I can't believe those girls tricked me into taking those fakes. Guess they'll have to be the first ones to die!" he said, angrily.

"Over my dead body!" cried Strike, gritting his teeth. He was about to attack when Shadow stepped in front of him.

"Strike, leave Mephiles to me. You and the others handle our friends here" he said, indicating the number of enemies that had suddenly arrived. Strike was about to argue but after seeing the serious look on the black hedgehog's face, he nodded and rushed off to help Silver and Chrono.

Shadow turned to his rival. "I'm ending this right here! You'll pay for all those people you hurt!"

Mephiles chuckled and threw the two emeralds behind him. "Bring it on!"

Strike was jumping off of the creature's heads repeatedly, crushing the tigers and birds under his weight. He was taken by surprise when a worm came out of the ground and fired several spiky balls at him. He managed to dodge them and threw thunderbolts into its open mouth, destroying it. Another worm came from behind and was about to eat him when Silver held it in its place and threw it into a bunch of tigers.

The white hedgehog was then attacked by several swooping birds but held up a shield to protect himself. He released it, knocking the birds out of the air. A titan came from behind and pinned Silver down with its foot. It put its weight down, crushing him but Chrono whipped out his claymore and smashed it across the titan's body, knocking it over.

As Silver ran off to deal with some other monsters, Chrono got into a stare down with the titan that was getting back up. Chrono focused all his power and saw the titan bringing its fist down. The titan brought it's fist down with amazing speed but since Chrono saw it coming, he countered by shoving the fist away, jumping and digging his weapon into the titan's core, killing it.

Shadow and Mephiles were exchanging and blocking each other's punches and kicks. Neither was winning. They both jumped back and fired their own Chaos Spears that hit and caused an explosion. As the dust cleared, Mephiles found that Shadow was nowhere to be seen. The hedgehog in question then appeared above him and bashed him across the back of the head with his foot. Mephiles jumped back up and fired several purple orbs that exploded as they hit the ground. Shadow weaved his way through them before sliding into his opponent, knocking him into the air. Shadow punched upwards into Mephiles' gut and sent him flying upwards even further. Shadow teleported above Mephiles and kicked him back down. Shadow then grabbed Mephiles by the neck and used Chaos Blast. It didn't hit his friends but the remaining monsters were taken out.

As it cleared down, Mephiles was weak and was having trouble standing. Shadow stepped closer to him.

"Now to finish what I started!" he declared. He was taken aback when he realised Mephiles was laughing.

"I'm afraid I'm the one finishing it" he said, pointing behind Shadow. He and the others turned to see the emeralds floating above the lava, circling a sphere of flames. Mephiles then opened his hand and released the time energy he took form Elise. It entered the sphere and it began to get bigger and take form. The heroes could only stare in shock at it, while Mephiles began to laugh even harder.

"The resurrection of flames is complete. Now, awaken my brother, Iblis!"

Mephiles wasn't lying. Standing before our heroes was none other than Iblis.

"How can this be?" questioned Silver.

"Iblis is the other half of Solaris. When Sonic and Elise met, their time energy wasn't enough to bring him back. So, I had to kill either one of them to get all of it and fuse it with the power of the emeralds. Now, Iblis and I will ruin this planet!" Mephiles declared.

He faced Iblis. "Come, Iblis. Eradicate these nuisances!" he ordered. To his surprise, Iblis turned to him and whacked him away with a swipe of his hand. He then grabbed the emeralds in the palm of his hand and began to glow as it let out a roar.

As the light died down, a new creature stood before them. It looked an awful lot like the Egyptian sun god, Ra, only wearing gold robes, huge golden wings, a curved beak and the fact it was as big as Iblis.

Mephiles was the most shocked by this. "Who are you?" he demanded.

"I am Solaris" the new figure boomed.

"What? You can't be Solaris!" Silver yelled.

"But I am. I am the sun god of Soleanna!" Solaris replied.

Mephiles was in total denial. "You can't! Solaris needs to be formed by combining me and Iblis!"

"I'm afraid your plan failed, Mephiles. Elise's time energy is different to Sonic's. If you had used his, Iblis would've obeyed you. But instead, Elise's energy gave him a will. He would no longer obey you and used the emeralds to turn into me, an alternate form if you will" the god explained.

He then extended his wings. "Now, I shall carry out my own plan. My plan to wipe out every planet in every galaxy in every universe in every dimension! Then, I'll create new ones and rule over them as a god should!"

He cawed and vanished. Shadow turned around to see Mephiles retreating into one of his portals. He was about to follow him when Strike called after him.

"Leave him, Shadow. We've got to get back to Soleanna."

Shadow nodded and gathered the fallen emeralds and Chaos Controlled the team back.

In Soleanna, the sky was beginning to be filled with thunder. The rest of the heroes were wondering what was going on until Shadow and co. arrived.

"What's happening?" asked Cosmo.

"Mephiles brought Iblis back but since he used the wrong time energy, Iblis betrayed him and turned into an alternate form of Solaris" Silver explained. "Now he plans to wipe out the whole of reality!"

"What do we do?" Smit panicked.

Shadow, who was still holding the emeralds, said "Isn't it obvious? We go up there and stop him!"

He turned to Silver who got the gist of it. He made one last look towards Sonic, who was still in despair. Shaking his head, he said to Shadow "Let's do this!"

The two hedgehogs held the arms out as the emeralds began to circle them. Shadow transformed back into Super Shadow and Silver's fur turned gold too. He was now Super Silver. The two heroes waved to their friends and lovers as they shot up into space to take on Solaris.