Apologies for the routine lateness lately. Next week's chapter will likely also be late, assuming I get it out at all, but after that is more camp nano so I should be able to catch up.

On another note, if you want listening music I recommend either random Sonic music box songs or the Aquatic Base soundtrack. Since that is what I used while writing and editing this chapter respectively.


Alright. Before anything else, check senses.

Sight: eyes still closed, never mind.

Sound: low roaring, a mix of machinery churning and creatures making various noises.

Smell: hot metal and ash.

Taste: oh ew no moving on

Touch: ow.

Mephiles groaned and kicked a loose bit of rubble, finally forcing his eyes open only to see darkness. The damn ceiling collapsed just as he passed under it. Fortunately nothing seemed broken, because he didn't want to find out how fast (or slow) a fracture would heal in his current form.

Instead of forcing his way through the debris, he merged with the shadows just long enough to escape and reemerge outside the pile of concrete and steel. The few creatures in the hall had apparently lost interest in him during his momentary disappearance, so he stepped sideways into what shadows the wall provided before moving forward.

The one nearby flying beast didn't have time to squawk before a kick to the head knocked it into the wall. The other creatures in the room finally noticed him, but he ignored them in favor of dashing toward the door. A worm popped up directly in front of him and roared.

He barely slowed as he bent his knees and pushed, his leap carrying him onto the creature's head. He immediately jumped again, repeating the maneuver twice more on a couple of nearby fliers and landing on a platform just above the next door. With one last glance at the creatures, he swung through the doorway and perched atop the frame.

The chamber was his original destination, but it was immediately obvious that Iblis had already vacated the premises. He looked around, careful only to focus on anything that didn't feel familiar. No broken glass, no blood, no - actually that injured-but-not-dead scientist there was worth noting, though he wouldn't be if that lizard reached him.

The idiot didn't even look up from his keyboard when his attempted assassin was blasted away. Much as Mephiles gave him some credit for dedication, he needed directions.

At least the scientist couldn't miss being yanked round by his coat. "Huh, wha- wait, you?"

Mephiles' expression darkened. "I should be the one saying that," he said to the duke of Soleanna. He shook his head quickly. "Never mind, I'll deal with you later. Where did Iblis go?"

He raised a shaky hand to point. "That way, but you won't-"

"Everything has been accounted for. The seal will work this time."

The duke had been half leaning on the cracked console, but at this point finally slid to the floor. "You- how- we tried everything, what-"

"Everything except thinking outside the box," Mephiles replied, unimpressed. "Then again, you never were particularly good at that, were you? Never even noticed the additions to your equipment, much less thinking of..." He glanced up as the room trembled, then back at the human in front of him. "I'm going to go fix your mistakes now. Don't die before I get back - I have a lot to say to you in particular."

He turned and ran off without a backwards glance.


Mephiles dashed to the end of the platform, triangle jumped off the wall, and used a pair of conveniently positioned fliers to make it the rest of the way to a small post. "This is a lot more fun to watch than do," he muttered, scowling at the bottomless pit below him. The pit didn't respond.

Something smacked him in the back, knocking his breath away and almost throwing him off the platform. He turned to scowl at one of the fliers he'd used as a bridge, now floating much closer and readying another projectile. "That. Hurt."

One ball of energy later, the bird-like creature was reduced to ash.

Mephiles dusted his hands off and looked toward the other end of the room. One of the nice things about Iblis was that it was easy to track indoors. Just keep heading forward, and change directions if it stops getting hotter. With how hot it was now, he had to be getting close, and the occasional fire that had yet to go out was a good indicator as well. Iblis couldn't be more than a couple rooms away.

But before he could think about that, he needed to get the rest of the way across this room.

A moment of calculation and an annoyed huff later, Mephiles resigned himself to risking the barely visible platform around the corner and returned to his shadow form to reach it. Which of course had him landing right next to a lizard.

The creature's mouth opened, energy already building, but before it could finish the maneuver rapid gunshots rang out and it collapsed into the pit. Mephiles winced, as much at the lack of an impact sound as at the shooting, and turned to the Eggman robot standing just past the door. "So are you an ally or was that a fortunate coincidence?"

It reloaded and aimed at him.

Mephiles sighed. "Bad planning. Honestly."

The robot followed the lizard into the pit.

Dusting his hands off, Mephiles entered the next room. It was one of the large circular ones, with this door and one other on the upper level. Which was fortunate because the ground was on fire.

Iblis was definitely nearby, he thought, peering over the edge. It hadn't recovered enough to really start rebuilding its fiery wasteland, but it had done a pretty good job in here. This was going to be tricky.

He took a breath and stepped to the edge of his platform. He bent his knees briefly, readying himself before springing up into the air, grabbing onto a jutting pipe, and using his momentum to swing around and land on the next platform.

The concrete promptly gave way, and he made a startled noise as his footing vanished. He grabbed at the platform as he slipped, but it crumbled in his hand and there aren't enough shadows this close to fire-

He stopped falling, something wrapping around his arm and holding him steady. That gave him the time he needed to grab a new handhold - steel reinforcement this time, thank chaos - and kick one foot up high enough to get some friction, then shove himself up onto the platform proper with the help of an upward yank.

Back on solid ground, he took a few deep breaths and turned to his rescuer. "Not that I don't appreciate it, but why are you here?"

Silver grinned. "We weren't going to leave you to do this all yourself."

Sonic, ever the drama hog, chose that moment to bounce on a nearby flier and homing attack over to them. "Took a while to reach you though. You move fast for someone so slow."

Mephiles rolled his eyes and climbed to his feet. "I'll take that as a compliment. Where are the others? And how are you here, for that matter?"

"Shadow dropped us in the big room, and we followed the trail of damaged creatures while he went back to help Knuckles and Tails move the... uh..." Sonic made a face. "Okay, gonna be honest here, I can't take this plan seriously. And this is me we're talking about. Is this really going to work?"

"It better," Mephiles said, looking out at the room. "Or we're back to Silver's old future."

There was a beat of silence as they all stared at the flames. While the fires on the way had seemed to fade with every passing moment, these almost seemed to grow.

"We need to go," Silver said. Nobody argued.

Sonic used his homing attack to cross the second gap, while Silver lifted himself and Mephiles across. The hedgehogs stopped to spare a glance at Mephiles when they landed, but he was already walking through the door. They looked at each other and hurried after.

Iblis hovered in the center of the chamber, a brilliant ball of flame that gave the impression of looking down on them even without eyes. It burned brighter than any of them had seen before in any time. More important, there wasn't any particularly obvious way to reach it, or any indicator of what to do if they managed.

Sonic looked at Silver. "So, stalling. Any ideas?"

Silver shrugged. They both looked at Mephiles once more.

Mephiles barely seemed aware they were there, his eyes for the flames alone. "Yes. And, no. It's..." He trailed off and heaved a sigh. "It's different now."

The others exchanged another look, this one more confused. Sonic moved up beside Mephiles, tilting his head like he thought looking from his position would let him see something different. "Are you two... talking?"

Mephiles spared a moment to glare at him. Sonic held his hands up while backing up a step, and Mephiles turned back to Iblis. He was silent for a moment before tilting his head just so. "What? I... You think that..." He shook his head. "No, that hasn't changed." Another pause. "But that might have," he added, slow, almost begrudging.

"What's going on?" Silver asked, voice coming out softer than he'd planned.

Mephiles continued to keep his eyes forward. Iblis almost seemed calm, for a giant ball of fire. "We're two halves of one being. It shouldn't be surprising that we can communicate."

"Not exactly what I meant."

He didn't respond this time. At least, not to Silver. "It's not the same, it can't be. It's a physical impossibility. But different isn't always bad, is it?" There was a pause, then a frustrated huff. "You aren't capable of deliberately misunderstanding me so why do you keep saying that?!"

There was a longer pause this time. After several seconds, Mephiles turned slowly to look over his shoulder at Silver and Sonic, then down at his shoes. "I'm sorry."

For a moment it wasn't clear who Mephiles was talking to - Silver and Sonic, Iblis, or himself. In the next moment Mephiles spun to face them, eyes wide. "Beh-"

He cut himself off at a thud. The pair looked back to see a collapsed golem turning to ash, revealing Shadow with fire still dancing across his fingertips. "You really should pay better attention to your surroundings," he said, extinguishing the last traces of energy and striding forward. "The others should be here soon. What's your status?"

Silver looked at Mephiles, who was now facing Iblis and hissing something inaudible. "Iblis is talking to Mephiles, I think? But I'm not sure what it's saying, especially after... that." It had seemed like an almost calm conversation up until they'd been attacked.

"Come back to the dark side, we have cookies," Sonic muttered, followed by a quiet "ow" when Silver elbowed him. Hard.

Looking around now, there were more creatures scattered around the room than just the wannabe assassin, previously concealed behind posts or laying flat against platforms. Sonic cracked his knuckles and grinned. "Well, I may not know what's going on, but I know a fight when I see one. I'll keep them distracted." He took off like a shot, running up the wall to reach the nearest platform.

Mephiles turned very slightly as he passed. He waved a hand, and a half dozen shadowy figures formed around them. "Go help him," he instructed, and the shades took off, most in the general direction Sonic had gone, a few the opposite.

Silver blinked, then shook his head. "Since when could - never mind. Why didn't you do that earlier?"

"It takes a lot of energy. A bit wasteful as I am currently, but..." His voice took on an odd note, different from how he'd spoken before. "We don't have time."

Someone took his hand and pressed something into it. He turned to stare at Shadow, who simply folded his fingers more securely around the chaos emerald and pulled away. "See if you can regain some energy from this. I shouldn't need it for something like this." He turned and took off in the opposite direction from Sonic.

Mephiles stared after him, then down at the gem in his hand, then over at Silver. "What am I supposed to do with this?"

Silver looked far too amused by the situation. "Try to get energy from it? What else?"

He looked down at the gem again. "That's not what I meant exactly."

Silver rested a hand on his shoulder, offering him a half smile. "We trust you, remember?"

His gaze shifted once more, now back to Iblis. "You really shouldn't."

Silver was silent for a half second. Then - "You know, I think we already had this argument."

"We did." He shook his head before refocusing. "And I stand by what I said. But we don't have time to argue about this. It's only a matter of time before Iblis creates a more complete form or melts its way out of this base, and even if they destroy the creatures it's not hard to make more."

Silver made an agreeing noise. "Sure, but we can keep their numbers down until the others get here, and maybe provide a distraction. What were you planning to do as a stall?"

"Talk to it, actually. Which would have gone better if you all hadn't been here." He paused, then added, "That's not entirely a bad thing."

A sort of crunching noise caught their attention, and they turned back to see Knuckles dashing across the last platform with a metal crate held over his head and Tails flying after. "Still don't get why Shadow couldn't have taken us in too," Knuckles grumbled, setting the crate down with surprising care for him. It buzzed angrily, but nobody paid much attention.

"Because of the chaos residue," Tails said with the air of someone who had already said this several times. "The extra energy would subvert-"

"Alright, it's important, I get it!" Knuckles threw up his hands, barely missing the box. He gave it a worried look, then crossed his arms firmly. "So who's doing this? Whatever it is, I'm just the delivery guy."

Mephiles' eyes darted away briefly, but his voice was even when he spoke. "I suppose that's me, since nobody else had a chance to examine the ritual, much less practice."

The sound of distant fighting and fire crackling prevented it from being silent, but for a moment it didn't feel like it.

Knuckles uncrossed his arms and reached behind his back. "Alright, you'll be needing this." He pulled out a chaos emerald and held it out to Mephiles. "Shadow gave you his?" Mephiles nodded, reaching out to take the emerald with no hesitance, but no words either. "You take care of this, I'll be out there." Then he, too, ran into the massive room.

Mephiles watched him go, then turned to Tails. "Are you going to run off into this pointless fight too?"

Tails looked at him for a moment, head tilted just so, then shook it in the negative. "I think being support here is more important right now than helping them fight stuff." He exchanged a look with Silver that Mephiles didn't get to dissect before the fox continued. "Besides, none of the creatures are coming over here really."

Silver looked up at a few fliers that were hovering in their general vicinity but not doing anything else. "Now that you mention it, why aren't they attacking?"

"Same reason I killed so few of them," he said.

He felt more than saw Silver's eyes return to him, too busy watching Iblis again, but he heard the telekinetic's words just fine. "Should I do it instead?"

"No," he said without looking away. "Like I said, I'm the only one who studied the plans."

There was a pause, and he knew Silver heard what he said just fine despite the parts left unspoken. Regardless, Silver took a step forward and placed a hand on his shoulder for a brief moment before retracting it and going still, a silent presence at his side.

Mephiles took a deep breath, resisting the urge to close his eyes as he did so, and held the emeralds out. "Pray we planned this right," he said simply, before focusing on the seal.

Not once did his eyes leave Iblis.


Knuckles punched a lizard creature and spun to see Sonic bounce off a bird, only to land directly in front of a golem - facing away. "Look out!"

Sonic jerked an spun around, ready to dodge the thing's attack - he wouldn't escape it but he could keep it from more than clipping his arm - when the beast suddenly roared and collapsed, the shade previously hidden by its bulk hopping away before it could get smashed by the falling rocks.

Knuckles stared. "What the-"

"I think they're Meph's," Sonic said, checking for any other nearby hostiles as he approached Knuckles. "One of 'em helped me earlier too, and they sure look like something he'd make. And thanks for the save, even if that guy made it useless."

Knuckles eyed him, then rolled his eyes and bumped the offered fist. "I'll take what I can get."

"And thanks to you too!" Sonic said, extending a hand to the shade as well. "That hit would have hurt."

The shade seemed to look at them, but otherwise didn't move.

Sonic scoffed and lowered his hand. "Fine, leave me hanging. So where's the next-"

A bright glow bursting from the entrance interrupted him. Slowly, he and Knuckles turned to face it, a grin crossing Sonic's face as he recognized the sight. "Looks like they've got things figured out."

"They'd better," Knuckles muttered, though he didn't sound as annoyed as he might have.

Across the room, Shadow likewise finished up his opponents and gave the shades a cursory glance before turning his attention to the entrance platform. His eyes narrowed as he watched, preparing himself for whatever came next.


Mephiles watched Iblis with careful intensity, fixing the flame's image in his mind as he traced the mental pathways of the sealing. He'd studied the plan carefully enough to follow the steps in his sleep. Nothing was left but to carry it out, and he poured all his energy into manipulating Iblis' down the required path.

As he worked, a series of images flashed through his mind, thoughts that weren't his but close enough to blur at the edges, memories, symbolism, vague shreds of meaning that still meant all too much -

For the slightest moment, his resolve flickered. And Iblis roared.