Gosh, this took for-freaking-ever. I apologize again... ^^;
I should say that the original ending has been now omitted from the story, since some of you might now what was going to happen, so I decided to start with a fresh idea, since that ending was over a year old. Enjoy the start of the long awaited face off. ^^
"Are you going to tell us what's wrong then..?"
Mephiles looked up at Shadow, having been staring at the ground and been silent for at least five minutes.
"... What if one of us gets hurt... like... badly..?" Mephiles said slowly, trying to mask over what he was really worried about. "... You know that there's going to be a fight... and there's a tree... rocks... fall on something wrong and that's it... and what about that pon-"
"You worry too much..." Shadow raised an eyebrow.
"... Because I know what can go wrong..." Mephiles muttered to himself, trying to suppress a shudder that happened as soon as the chill factor in the wind picked up. He folded his ears back against his head to keep them from freezing, and looked at Dark, who didn't seem to either care or notice the drop in temperature. "Isn't it a bit cold for you right now..?" Mephiles added to him, and Dark shrugged.
"... Darkness and shadows thrive in cool temperatures..." He muttered. "... this is merely a touch below average... so this is tolerable..."
I keep forgetting he's not really a hedgehog... Mephiles said to himself, nodding slowly at Dark. As for Mephiles himself, his fur was on end from the cold air. I hate that even though my body can't be hurt by extreme temperatures... I can still feel the temperature difference... You can't see what happens on the outside... but I can sure feel it all...
Mephiles looked back at Dark, who had a blank look touching his eyes as he walked aimlessly, holding his head in one hand. The hedgehog frowned slightly in concern and grabbed Dark's free wrist to keep him from wandering away from the group.
"Head still hurting..?" Mephiles wasn't really asking for an answer, since he knew it already. He was merely trying to see how well Dark could focus at the moment if he was having such an impairment.
With one eye open slightly, Dark peered at him from the side and just grunted. After several minutes of silence from him, he finally muttered: "... He's making it worse... I just know it... Never had this problem before he showed up..."
"Think it'll stop being so bad when he's gone..?"
"... I wouldn't know..." Dark murmured, choosing to shrug rather than shake his head, a bit worried that he might worsen it. The blank look became more prominent, and it was soon obvious that Dark was trying to block out the migraine, relying on Mephiles to lead him in the right direction.
Shadow exhaled one long breath and shook his head a little bit, finding it a bit much to know that the very same guy that terrorized them at least two months before was now like this. Just when Shadow thought he had seen it all, too...
"So let me get this straight..." He told Rouge just loud enough to not be overheard by the two look-a-likes. "We're taking six Chaos Emeralds to a fire element that wants to destroy us anyway, in exchange for a cat that was stolen from the dark half of Mephiles, who can't make up his mind what state of mind he's going to be in, and we're supposed to somehow get out of this with the Emeralds, the cat, our lives and previously mentioned double who has a screw loose is going to live with us or something like that when this is all over..?"
"Pretty much..."
"You do realize that this house has only one bedroom, right...? And right now, two of us are sleeping on the floor..."
"You never complained about it before..."
"..."
Mephiles looked back at Dark.
"Y'know... maybe after this is all over..." He said slowly, giving it some thought. "We can see if Dr. Thizon might be able to prescribe anything for it..."
Dark cracked an eye open in annoyance.
"... The last time any of them gave me anything to deal with pain..." He said with a bit of a defensiveness to it. "... resulted in my tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth... and me feeling like I might as well vomit... I'm having trouble deciding if it's worth it to scar what ever shred of dignity and pride I have left..."
"It's not always going to be like that... that was a-"
"Side effect... yeah... I know..." There was a pause where he blinked and then shouted before wincing at his volume: "WHY DO I KNOW THAT!?"
"I honestly don't know..." Mephiles offered. "Maybe that's just a side effect of whatever... eh... h-happened in... S-soleanna..." Mephiles faded a bit on the sentence, unsure if it was wise as of the moment to mention that. "Y'know... you really don't have to come with us if you don't want to... I'm sure that we can handle it or something..."
"The flame took my cat..." Dark said slowly and clearly, obviously having made his mind up about it. "Me not showing up to retrieve him shows cowardice... shows that he's gotten in my head..."
"Has he?"
Dark didn't answer, but rather averted his gaze to the ground as Mephiles' ears drooped to that response.
In a few minutes, they arrived, and no sign of the cat and Iblis could be seen. Dark immediately round on Shadow, yelling that he took too much time, and all that, obviously angry, and Shadow's calm response that suggested that they should wait before jumping to conclusions did anything but make Dark settle down, and before anyway could say or do anything... Dark jumped and Spindashed into Shadow, knocking him to the ground before unrolling to grab and pin both of Shadow's hands by the wrist above his head on the ground with one hand while the other was held with the claws ready to slash.
"DARK! STOP IT! THAT'S NOT GOING TO HELP ANYTHING AT ALL!" Mephiles cried out, rushing over to grab his arm to try and stop him from swiping his hand at Shadow.
Dark growled and pulled his free then backhanded Mephiles, who squeaked in pain as he fell back, clutching both hands to the side of his face. Dark seemed too absorbed in what his mind had already made up to have noticed that he had hurt Mephiles, and did not hesitate to resume what he was going to do.
Knowing that this would soon get out of hand if he didn't do anything, since Shadow was unable to, and he wasn't about to make Rouge do it, Mephiles did the first thing he could think of doing, and launched himself at Dark in a self propelled Homing Attack, using his feet to kick himself off the ground, unable to do a true one under any circumstance due to his handicap of not being a true Mobian Hedgehog. He succeeded in knocking Dark off Shadow, stunning both himself and Dark from the impact, and leaving the both of them lying sprawled on the ground, Dark on his back, and Mephiles on his front, with dazed looks touching their eyes, Dark unsure of what happened exactly, and Mephiles quite certain that he must have knocked his head into his double's.
Mephiles' eyes shifted back into focus as soon as he saw Shadow make it back to his feet, and knew right away what the hybrid hedgehog intended to do next.
"Shadow... just... leave him alone..." Mephiles managed to catch him by the foot to get him to stop and stay where he was at.
"Did you not see what he just tried to do?!"
"... He just wants Tape back... unharmed..." Mephiles grunted as he partly lifted himself off the ground, still a bit dizzy as he leaned into an arm while rubbing his head."He just got a little hysterical... that's all..."
"A little is nowhere near as out of hand as that!"
"... It won't do us any good to yell at him right now..."
Shadow huffed and rolled his eyes before sending a glare at Dark, who just stared.
"Y'know... that excuse won't work forever..."
"... I know..." Mephiles said quietly, lowering his head.
Suddenly, his ear twitched and he lifted his head up quickly as Dark gasped softly, picking himself off the ground to be sitting up, swiveling his ears to catch what Mephiles was hearing.
He heard nothing. But he felt something...
His fur and quills bristled from unease as he felt a slight rise in the air's temperature, but he didn't need that to tell him who was there.
Dark scooted back as Iblis appeared from behind the tree, holding Tape by the scruff, who appeared to have been knocked out. The sight of that made Dark's blood boil.
"... If you hurt him at all..." Dark growled threateningly as he got to his feet to establish that he was not going to make himself inferior.
"Getting a backbone, now are we?" Iblis smirked, completely shooting down Dark's confidence in just that one sentence. "Too bad it's too late to really intimidate me..."
"Just give me back Tape..."
"What kind of a name is that anyway?" Iblis said over him, pretending to be pondering that while scratching his ear. "Not a very clear origin to that... Was it because you thought this kitten really could help you?"
"Give him back, now..."
"You're like the child your age says you are..." Iblis had yet to hand the cat over. "You think everything has the potential to be 'fixed', and that as long as there can be 'attachment'... everything can be-"
Before he could continue, a Chaos Spear stung him in the hand, and he dropped the cat as Mephiles dove to catch him, sliding on his back to a stop as Tape landed on his chest and he looked up nervously at the ticked off Iblis, flashing an anxious smile before scrambling to him feet and hurrying back over to his friends, with the cat in his arms, muttering countless exclamations of relief to himself that he did not end up getting toasted for that.
"Here, take him, take him, take him!" Mephiles handed Tape to Dark, who immediately checked him over, narrowing his eyes angrily.
"Well, you got your cat..." Iblis folded his arms. "Now, there's just the matter of what I get having returned him..."
"You're the one who took him in the first place!" Mephiles shouted.
"And as promised, I returned him..." Iblis explained with an impatient air, as if annoyed that something was bing overlooked. "The deal was that no one was going to get hurt if I got the Emeralds..."
"You already have one..."
"All the Emeralds..."
"And you stole a cat to get them... that's just low..."
"You best be watching your mouth, rat..."
"For the last time: I AM NOT A RAT." Mephiles pronounced the last half of the statement clearly and loudly to make his pound. "Do I have ever growing buck teeth and a long naked tail? No, I have quills and can roll into a ball! BIG difference!"
"Meph, shut up..." Shadow looked at him sidewise.
"Shadow! He keeps calling me a rat! I find that highly offensive!"
"And he is the guy that can potentially smite all of us with that Emerald, so I suggest that we keep the talking to a minimum..."
"Wise choice, hedgehog..."
Oh, now, he's just getting on my nerves... Mephiles mentally huffed to himself once Shadow was called what he had just demanded to be.
"Now then, the deal was that in exchange for the cat, I would get the rest of the Emeralds..."
"If you didn't harm the cat, that is..." Shadow said casually while getting warmed up for some soon to be high speed movement, not unlike the way Sonic does while waiting. "So far, the cat is knocked out, which can lead us to believe that you broke that agreement. One strike on ya, creep..."
"The thing's still alive, isn't it?" Iblis rolled his eyes and snorted in annoyance through his nose. "I fail to see why Dark finds this creature so important... it's-"
Before anyone knew what happened, Iblis hit the ground when an identical shape curled into a ball slammed into him with enough force to send him sliding, digging away dirt and grass as he came to a halt.
Getting up and shaking his head a bit to shake out the grass and whatnot out of his quills, flicking off a few bugs off his shoulder, Iblis had a blank look on his face until he realized what happened and who did it.
Dark was crouched on the ground near Shadow, having given Tape to Rouge, and had been bounced back a bit from the impact, panting slightly as he narrowed his eyes at Iblis. After about half a minute of the two brothers staring at each other, Dark cracked a smile before twisting it into his old smirk, lifting his head a bit before saying: "... I think my quills might have nicked you..."
Sure enough, Iblis felt something run slowly down his cheek, and he reached up and touched two fingers to it to pull them away and look. Dark was right... his quills had cut him right on the cheek.
Iblis rubbed the blood between his fingers, thinking for a moment as he look at them. Then he looked up with an eerily calm stare.
"... Oh... Now I'm going to kill you..." He snapped his fingers and summoned a fireball in one hand before throwing it at Dark, who froze, ears plastering to the side of his head, having not planned what to do next.
Just seconds before receiving a faceful of flames (which, again... would not really do much more physical damage than singeing his fur off his face... but that still doesn't stop him from feeling the heat...), Dark was pulled out of the way by Shadow, who grabbed him by a handful of quills and yanked him just out of the way.
"Are you trying to get yourself killed?" Shadow said, as if he was trying to point out the stupidity of what Dark just did.
"LET GO OF MY QUILLS!" Dark seemed to have forgotten about being grateful for having been saved, and merely responded by swiping his claws at Shadow's hand, prompting the hedgehog to release him.
"Geeze, fine... you're welcome for saving your fur from getting melted, jerk." Shadow heaved annoyed sigh and rolled his eyes while folding his arms.
"I can take care of myself!"
"Of course you can... that's why you came to them for help." Iblis snorted, failing to hold back the laughter at Dark, who flinched. "Because you have everything under control... Don't you?"
Dark didn't answer, but rather looked at Mephiles with a pitiful expression, as if asking him to do something. Mephiles felt helpless... he had just as much of a chance at holding his own as Dark did right now. Dark's face fell even more when Mephiles returned the same look.
How can I tell him that I don't know what to do..? He already looks like he's close to breaking again... Mephiles thought grimly, clenching his teeth. But I can't do that to him... I just can't...
Iblis watched them almost excitedly and added: "Well, then... go ahead and tell him it's hopeless, you prickly rat. No use in lying to him, I think..."
Mephiles twitched, swiveling his ears back as Dark pulled his down, visibly dreading what he might hear. Mephiles stared at the ground and took a slow, deep breath before looking up and taking a few steps to where Dark and Shadow where, kneeling down to where Dark was and looking up at him.
"Think we stand a chance if we do this together? With Shadow's and Rouge's help, too?"
Dark let go of his ears and looked away listlessly.
"... I dunno..." He hardly put any effort into shrugging.
"How about if we do it as brothers, then?"
Dark's eyes brightened just enough to breathe some life back into them. A shred of hope could be seen, not much, but enough to work with.
"... You know that it's still a slim chance..."
"Still a chance... enough to still try... and I'm a pretty lucky kid, after all... all the instances of danger aside, that is..." Mephiles smiled a little, Dark mirroring him and nodding. "Let's just beat him so we can save the world and just go home... 'Kay?"
Nod.
"Oh, and please try to get along better with Shadow... he just stop you from getting hit with a fireball..." Mephiles added.
Dark looked up at Shadow for a moment, then back at Mephiles.
"... How 'bout we just beat Iblis..? That's a whole lot easier..."
I don't think Dark and Shadow are going to get along any time soon. XD
I hope this is good, it was kinda tough to plan out, and barely have had enough time to work on this. ^^;