"It's all over now."
Shadow spazzed, screaming as raw power overcame him, Revenge howled as the pure Chaos Energy of his core grew, fueling his emotions even more.
Pride, the great leopardess lunged, pinning Revenge to the ground, and sinking her teeth deep into his throat. Revenge shook, trying to get it off of him, but it was useless.
Another, a rhino known as Power charged, stabbing Revenge and ripping him apart.
Shadow looked away, but realized something was wrong, this was physically himself inside his core, that would bring his core outside to effect his body and-
Oh crap.
Maria shielded herself as a bright light glowed, blocking out Shadows form altogether but keeping the others in distance.
Maria felt power, pure raw power seep into her flesh, but she didn't want it, this was Shadow's power, wouldn't this be stealing?
Silver groaned, dropping to his knees, his core was reacting to Shadows, being drawn out also, Blaze had the same feeling. It was slightly different because of the Sol Emeralds but still all of the same.
Knuckles dropped, then Rouge, then finally Amy. Yet Sonic was still standing. He faced the bright light that was Shadow and took a step.
He shouted in surprise as power beyond power rushed into him. More than in his super form, more than he had ever felt before.
He watched in fascination as a blue light seeped through his skin and spread, running over his fur like a current. With a fast pace, much like Sonic himself, he changed much like his Super form.
His fur remained the normal blue, but it spread over his belly, turning the original tan to his natural. He blinked and his eyes became slightly cat like, he could see farther, see movement better. His quills hardened, not moving at all in the breeze, a few on his back grew even longer and two spines emerged from the back of his calf, helping him to run even faster.
A loud crack made him wince as his Tibia and Fibia snapped, bending backwards into another joint to gain even more speed as he ran, like a giant dinosaur.
Two more spines sprouted from his fur, one just above the elbow, and the other was directly between the wrist and elbow.
Sonic yelped as he was forced onto the balls of his feet, his heel flattening and extending upwards like a cat's, but giving him even more speed.
Sonic groaned, looking down at his stiff and strange form, he cautiously looked over at Silver and gasped.
Silver's quills had grown longer, shedding the fur and resembling bone. Six spines of each arm sprouted from his fur, one of his wrist, middle, elbow, middle, and then shoulder once again repeated on the opposite side. More spines sprouted from the back of his legs and the blue symbols normally on his gloves seemed to be carved into his flesh with pure white bone.
Blaze was a different story.
Her tail had split into two parts, both wiggling around like the normal did. Her ponytail was gone, letting her fur drift around her neck. On her arms six jewels seemed imbedded on her flesh, three on each. Finally one was imbedded on her forehead.
Not to mention the fact that blue and orange flames twirled around her body.
The three gasped and looked over their changes, not to mention the strange auras that swirled around their bodies.
Tails yelped as did Knuckles. Rouge just flinched
Knuckles body quickly darkened to almost black, his dreadlocks curling outwards and sharpening. His spike on his knuckles seemed to multiply until four easily set, extending out more until they seemed to be strange blades. Similar blades worked out of his joint, making his have a very frightening appearance.
Tails' leg joints had broken, causing him to drop onto four legs as his arms had lengthened. Short stubby claws protruded from his fingers and toes, digging into the ground slightly. Something in his neck snapped, letting him look upwards with ease, but he gasped as his fur started to lighten to a cream with slight ruby tints in areas. His two tails split into four, turning darker and softer in color.
All in all, he looked slightly like a strange, but very fast Fox.
Rouge watched as her ears pointed a little more and her wings grew larger, allowing her to fly longer. Her tail grew longer also, and strange hooks like nails came from her nails.
Amy closed her eyes and expecting the worse, but she sighed in relief as little pink spines sprouted from her back, webbing in-between and a little stub of a scythe came from her tail tip.
"What….What just happened?" Sonic asked, noting his stronger and faster legs and their slight dinosaur look.
"My guess is this is what the Chaos Energy wanted to enhance. So now we should excel in our best skills to make us even better." Knuckles tired to explain.
Tails shrugged, doubting that his new 'tails' could actually lift him up. Knuckles could fight better though, Blaze could with no doubt shoot fire better, Sonic could run faster, maybe the spines would help Silver distribute his power or something.
"What about Shadow?" Amy asked, looking towards the ball of light, but she spun, suddenly looking at the quivering mass of black tar like substance.
"Guys?" She squeaked. Tails tried to walk on his hind legs but only fell, so he trotted slowly over on four legs.
The ball of black tar clung to the ground, flinching so often.
"Mephiles?" Tails' voice rose in the end, making it sound like a question.
"I can't take it…." Mephiles strained to speak, his body trembled again. Knuckles caught on first.
"You don't have a core do you?"
Everybody turned to look at him as he simply stared at Mephiles with his dark body.
"You feed on an energy source, but don't truly have one. When shadow forced us to revert into our core….You're dying."
Mephiles flinched again, trying to rise but fell back into tar, not strong enough to hold a form.
"Blaze…." Mephiles gurgled slightly, as if speaking through blood. Blaze hesitantly walked forward, the blue and orange flames lit up the pool by her feet. The tar somehow rose very faintly, but grew taller until it was an outline of Mephiles's true form.
"….goodbye….Iblis…"
Mephiles groaned and Blaze gasped, watching as Mephiles dropped back to the tar, thinning until it lay limp. Slowly it seemed that the reddish bits of her flame were reaching out towards the puddle, mourning as Mephiles faded and laid there, his carcass glinting slightly.
Iblis died down, nothing without his counterpart. Very slowly, the red bits of flame died down, growing smaller, before turning a sickly grey, then white, then nothing…
Blaze felt something leave her mind, the strange presser that always tried to make her do the wrong thing, but now….it was gone.
"Blaze?" Tails broke the silence, pawing at her with one of his cute paws; she shook her head and looked down at the pile with a little frown.
"He's gone." She simply said, Sonic nodded and bowed his head.
"This is just like Mecha, was a foe, but in the end saved my life." Sonic's voice was empty but a loud shriek caused the group to look back over.
From the glowing white form of Shadow and Maria a thick black shadow was forced out, spitting and recoiling as it was thrown roughly into the side of a still standing building.
Slowly, the light died down and nothing really was different from Maria as she was human and not a user of Chaos.
Shadow seemed not even touched except for a few things; his fur was back to normal, as were his eyes and aura. He was leaned into Maria, shaking from how he could be crying.
"Shadow!" Sonic shouted and Shadow snapped his, you called it, tear stained muzzle upwards. His eyes were glassy and sadden, as if he couldn't just believe what had happened.
His eyes widened slightly as he looked at Sonic's new form, but Sonic didn't really seem to care.
"You're alive!" Silver exclaimed in slight shock, and slowly, not to mention wobbly, Shadow got to his feet, looking around.
"Where's Mephiles." He demanded quietly, voice shaky and still slightly terrified. Nobody dare ruin the silence so Shadow assumed the worse.
"Where's Revenge." He asked again, this time Tails took a step…..paw step forward.
"Revenge?"
"A demon…..a black demon." Shadow tried to explain and Amy immediately looked over towards the black bundle quivering on the building. Shadow blanched.
"Oh no." He groaned taking a step back, built quickly Revenge looked up, eyes glittering with hate.
The group gasped to see the demonic Shadow, but Shadow himself dropped into a fighting stance.
The demon slowly got to his feet, wings outstretched and for once, Amy noticed something.
"Hey Shadow, how come you aren't enhanced like the rest of us?" She piped up, and for once, the group witnessed a rare sight.
Shadow smiled.
"Oh, I changed alright."
With that, a strange grey and white thing moved, long and black with thick white seemingly fluff attacked snapped out, catching eyes of all around.
Knuckles was the first to realize what it was.
"Those are feathers!" He shouted, looking at the pure white innocent feathers strung to the black skin underneath. The symbol of innocence strapped to the back of Shadow. If a fight wasn't about to happen, Sonic would have laughed.
The demon-Shadow got to his feet, ignoring the ribbons that used to be his legs, or the large rips in his wings. He could still fly, and that was all that mattered.
"Hello Shadow." Revenge hissed and Shadow growled. Crouching slightly.
"Revenge, although I must say, I'm surprised you were smart enough to escape by ramming into my core."
"Sometimes the greatest escapes are the simplest things." Revenge hissed back, flapping his wings, Shadow mimicked him with his own wings.
Sonic and the others watched in awe as the two took flight, ramming and becoming a mess of black and white.
Inhuman screeched came from both of their mouths, piercing the night and all who stirred.
Maria bit her lip, finally deciding to cheer.
"Come on Shadow! You can do it!" She shouted, the others blinked but quickly joined in.
"Come on Faker!"
"Beat him Shadow!"
Shadow had heard this and smirked, clawing a large chunk out of Revenge's shoulder. Revenge hissed swiping, but Shadow retaliated with a kick, breaking something in his arm. Shadow trusted backwards, tucking in his wings and diving before suddenly spreading them, rushing up and slamming into Revenge with enough force to crumple the Tornado.
Revenge screamed and thrashed, but Shadow dove again, this time a red aura swirled around him as he landed, raising his hands towards Revenge's diving figure.
"Chaos…" He started, red and yellow energy gathering.
"LANCE!"
Bright energy shot out, easily blasting through Revenge who screamed in agony before seeming to blow away in the wind, a giant ball of smoke, dead.
Shadow landed, eyes closed and very slowly the group watched as their aura's sunk back into their skin, changes reversing to their old form.
Slowly the wings glowed before sinking back into Shadows back, his head still facing down. Maria walked forward, lifting shadow's head up slightly.
"Shadow?" She asked softly, his eyes were glazed, almost dead…
"I was a monster." His tone was flat and it unnerved the group greatly.
"I killed people…..for no reason." He continued and with one graceful sweep Shadow was pulled into a hug, trembling until the tears started rushing, dripping down and breaking like crystal onto the ground.
"You aren't a monster Shads." Maria coed, rubbing circles between his back quills.
"Revenge is gone; you don't have to worry about him any longer." She whispered and eventually Shadow let go, not looking directly at her.
"I'm a murderer." He muttered and she frowned, pulling his chin up to look at her.
"You are not a killer. GUN killed me, you were simply doing a noble deed, and that deed is done"
A small light returned to Shadows eye and he nodded, the group watched in awe as the single key to Shadow was opening the shell of his emotions.
"It's all over now."
