Time to fire up the next chapter.
In advance... I apologize for what you might feel towards me in the end of this chapter... ^^;
Mephiles' eyes shifted to the side slowly, taking in the world around himself at a sluggish pace. He was starting to recover from his panic attack, and was starting to become aware once again of the situation that they were in.
Lifting his eyes to Dark, a hint of a frown started to work it's way into his features, and his ears swiveled back even more.
"... I knew he shouldn't have come..." He muttered almost inaudibly. "... His brain's still hurt..." He lowered his head, closing his eyes. "... I'm sorry... I let him get the Emeralds... It's going to be my fault if he gets hurt now..."
"That's not-"
"You don't understand, Rouge..." Mephiles interrupted the bat. "I-I know that something bad is going to happen. S-something really bad is. D-dark..." He started to dissolve into a sort of frantic babble, working his fingers into his quills, then gripping behind his head slowly as he tried to explain why he was so paranoid this time. "... I... I s-saw... there was... H-he's..." He inhaled and said with a bit more coherence. "Just as good as killed us all anyway! We're two Emeralds shorter than we were!"
By this time, Tape was already awake, and in a few seconds, was very alert, pulling himself out of Rouge's hands to her mild surprise as he shook his whole body as if to get rid of dust and used his back foot to scratch a place behind his ears, before suddenly stopping and fixing his yellow eyes on the fire demon, becoming very still as the fur on his shoulders stood up and he pulled his ears back, crouching low to the ground as he wrapped his tail close to his body. From the body language, and the low growl, it was obvious that Tape was not at all pleased at the guy that had forcibly taken him from the hands of one he picked to be his caregiver.
Iblis' ears pricked a bit as he listened in on the hedgehog's frantic talk. Now, there was something he could use...
"Seems like your hedgehog doesn't have much confidence in the survival of you..." He directed at Dark, glancing out of the corner of his eye at him to see his reaction. Dark didn't verbally respond, but a slight clench in his jaw could be seen. Not exactly what he was wanting, so he prodded a bit more. "Y'know... I'm a little curious. Between the both of you... who's the most stable? We all know you're a ticking time bomb... but he seems to be emotionally unsound... but then again..." He gave a small but in no way friendly grin as he looked over his shoulder to set both eyes on Dark, who had made it to his feet and took a stance that left little opening, but seemed unenthusiastic about doing so. "You're quite the messed up one, yourself. Short fused, ill tempered, self contradicting, selfish, arrogant, miserable, alone..."
Iblis then snapped his fingers in mock discovery as he started to pace around slowly, at least several feet away from Dark, who tensed. "Oh, I see now. You want to change that. You saw what good it did for that rat, and like the copycat you are... you want that too. You want to feel like you belong somewhere so that your existence might be noticed..."
He stopped in front of Dark and struck quickly, catching him under the jaw for a place to grab as he slammed and pinned him against the tree truck. Dark barely had time to react, and gasped in a quick inhale as the back of his head hit the truck with a painful amount of force, embedding a few quills that pulled out when Iblis let him slide to touch his feet to the ground, not wanting to choke him yet as he continued to have him as a captive audience. Dark cringed, feeling an ache work up near where his skull had been fractured weeks earlier.
"Let me make this a perfectly clear as I can for your broken mind..." Iblis said evenly, clenching his teeth as bared them viciously. "... You've let yourself deteriorate to the point that you hardly have a grasp on anything, especially yourself. You're unpredictable, savage and physically dangerous, both with and without your Aura. You have a low threshold for irritants, and you let the primitive part of your brain think for you... who would want you? There are wild beasts with more cuddly dispositions than you..."
"... you... you made me this way..." Dark managed in a quiet voice, the hold on his throat making it tough to speak louder out of fear that the hand might tighten. His eyes flickered to the side for a moment, and he vaguely noted that the sun was nearly gone behind the horizon, the sky burned with oranges and reds as the tiny lights of stars decorated the sky like bits of glitter placed with obsessive compulsive detail.
"That's right. And you still didn't turn out right. Years of planning, wasted! That stupid hedgehog interfered!"
Dark bared his teeth slightly, anxious in his mind as to when Iblis might decide to start draining him from contact.
"... Tha... That's it then..? That's all I was to you..?" He lifted his head slightly to have direct eye contact, narrowing his eyes as well. "... a wasted plan..? You planned this? You planned ALL of this!?" For the first time since any of this, Dark's voice rose in volume against Iblis as all his fear and unease at Iblis was replaced with something he hadn't felt in a while: pure rage and hatred.
Iblis was secretly pleased with that. The more Dark exploded in anger and ferocity, the more he could draw from that. To Dark's question, he simply nodded with a mischievous grin, intending on fueling Dark even more.
"A bit of a long plan, mind you..." Iblis snorted, watching Dark's quills stand up. "And was really only a general idea, being that I had to account for variables in environments you ended up in, but the intent was to get you to be more like me... that day... the accident..." By this point, everyone present had become silent to watch the drama between the two elemental creatures, so that even the slightest whisper uttered by them could be heard. Not too much of a problem for most the ones there, except for Shadow, who lacked the enhanced hearing the others had, but was close enough anyway. Iblis snickered and leaned forward to whisper it in Dark's ear. "... That was no accident. The math was all correct... the scientists... they made no error... other than not accounting for agitating an all powerful source of light..."
"... You..."
"One burst of energy can cause so much damage. You were too weak to recover as quickly as I did, and just peeled off me in a daze. Half of me was glad, to be honest. You were so startled, you wouldn't shut up..."
Dark exhaled slowly as that memory came back in bits and pieces. All the sounds and voices seemed a garbled mess only he could hear to his ears. His eyes flickered to the side, his brain processing this rapidly, sorting through and trying to fit it with the jigsaw puzzle of his mind. It slid into place and he stared before lifting his eyes in an unreadable expression, half closing them as he pulled his ears back.
"... You left me behind..." He finally said softly. "... you never looked back... never once tried to find me... you... you just abandoned me..."
"You could have followed. It's your own fault, Brother."
"... You never cared..." Dark's voice gained volume a bit. "... how dare you... How dare you call me that?! You have done nothing, NOTHING to earn such a title!"
"Shouldn't matter in a while, anyway..." Iblis grinned. "I win."
The night was starting to become more prominent, and instead, it was Dark's turn to laugh, much to everyone's surprise.
"What's so funny?" Iblis jumped only slightly, having not expected the snickering Dark gave with the smirk that was one of Dark's most well known actions.
"... Thinking too far ahead..." Dark lifted his head again and his eyes lit up with amusement, as if he knew something that only he could see far enough ahead. "... counting Chao before they hatch..."
"What are you babbling about..?"
"Tell me... what do you see in the sky..?"
Iblis was not in the mood for riddles.
"It doesn't matter... I already have three Emeralds..."
"And we still have four..."
"Keep talking like that, and your life expectancy will shorten drastically..." Iblis glared.
"I'll tell you what I see... Nighttime... darkness... shadows... the temperature is down... the world will soon be at rest within the hours..."
"Point being..?" Iblis rolled his eyes.
Dark grinned slyly, something that started to grate against his twin's nerves.
"What's my element?"
Iblis' eyes widened a fraction. He had forgotten about that...
He growled and prepared to slam Dark's head into the trunk, only for the shadow creature to disperse before it could strike against it.
"Go ahead and hide, you coward!" Iblis barked, tracking the shadow's movements as it dipped in and out of the ground, simply making sure not to remain static for too long at a time. "That's all you've ever excelled in! Hiding! Like a child!"
…
…
"How-?" Shadow said slowly, not sure if what he was seeing just happened this quickly.
"Dark's a shadow..." Mephiles said also slowly, trying to read what he could from Dark as the element traveled in no real pattern. "... I... I think that... well... know how some card games have field advantage, and stuff..? I think Dark has a... field advantage right now..."
"This isn't a card game, Meph..."
"Well, how else am I suppose to explain it!? I'm already frantic enough right now!" Mephiles shouted, still grabbing his ears. "Dark's a shadow and there are shadows everywhere now!"
…
…
Iblis lost sight of Dark for a moment, and that was just enough.
The shadow shot out of the ground from behind, and Dark took his normal form for a moment while in mid air, clasping his hands together and bringing them down on Iblis' head before the flame had any chance to turn.
"That's practically how those migraines you cause me feel!" Dark snapped, watching his twin hit the ground with a cry of surprise. "But that's just a taste of it... I have to endure that for hours on end!"
Iblis lifted his head up quickly and snarled.
"If that's how you want to play... fine... I'll bite..."
Iblis then became his base form, lunging at Dark in a fiery flair as the shadow sank into the ground.
"Who's too slow now?" Dark's voice sounded in the air as the fire missed, burning a patch of grass. "What's wrong? Am I suddenly a challenge for you?"
"You're a pest! A nuisance!"
"I'll take that as a yes!"
For several minutes, the elements raced around the landscape, Dark in front and leading as Iblis stayed in close behind, burning, drying and wilting the plants and grass as he got close to them. While Iblis simply stayed above ground, Dark took advantage of the shadows, diving the mist form into the darkest and most prominent shades, then reemerging close by in another shadow.
While Iblis left trails and disturbed the landscape in his base form, Dark was practically the opposite, able to leave where he was untouched and reappearing elsewhere again as if he were some sort of dolphin in the water... but much quieter and if possible... more graceful.
Mephiles was watching with an anxious dread. This would be the sort of thing that could cause either of them, especially Dark, to falter and end up in that pond that was worrying him.
"Dark! Pond!" Mephiles squeaked when the two elements got too close. Dark swerved and avoided it, and Iblis, oddly, halted immediately at the edge, and did an about face, backing up a few feet before taking off after Dark again.
That was weird... I guess he doesn't like water... I hope Dark caught that...
Dark wasn't concerned with what nearly happened. He was focused on what he could make happen. Moving as fast as he was right now, he needed to think quickly and work with what he had. Iblis would follow him closely, it seemed, and he needed to take advantage of that. Being in his element right now, Dark felt more alert and awake, and had more energy to use from a sudden burst, most likely from his high end effect of his bipolarity, which for once, he was thankful for it for the time being. That was something Iblis did not have. Unlike Dark, right now... Iblis would eventually begin to tire, having expended energy in not only maintaining a now not naturally common form, but moving at such speeds and concentrating on doing so with plan of action.
If Dark said he planned that all along... he would have been lying. His rapid thought brain put that together in a matter of seconds once he realized that twilight was fading into night. The probability of a positive outcome sparked a bit of life back into him, and his depression flipped upside down.
But, though possible to win, there was still room for error. Dark needed to be alert, and ready, knowing the slightest slip up would not only crash the plan, but himself, in both senses of the term.
All that aside, he found it quite calming to be not only ahead, but also holding his own and giving such a chase. He felt a somewhat proud of himself, a feeling that in the recent months seemed to have long faded from his memories. He felt quick,
Suddenly, the flame swerved from path behind Dark, and went for something else. Sensing it was no longer behind, Dark formed on the ground back to normal, crouched on all fours to see more accurately. He blinked and his eyes widened at not only what he was seeing, but what flashed in his mind as well.
"NO!"
Mephiles froze where he was. Iblis was heading right for him now, and he was too scared to turn into a shadow too, half worried if the target may change if he did. Panting in fear, knowing that he would never be able to make his body respond fast enough, because it had already locked up, he closed his eyes, preferring if anything bad happened... he didn't want to see it.
"Stupid hedgehog! This is all your fault!" He heard Iblis roar at him.
What happened next did so so fast that it took him a few seconds after he opened his eyes.
First, he felt someone tackle him to the ground, and heard a grunt of pain that was easily recognizable as to who it came from.
Instinct was screaming at him not to look. There were so many scenarios he could draw up that he might see, and neither one of them good...
Reluctantly, he opened his eyes, and found that Shadow had been the one to tackle him to safety, leaning over him like a protective shield, arms braced on either side of Mephiles, staring at him.
"Are you okay? He was coming right for you..."
"Shadow... where's Dark..?" Mephiles couldn't see with Shadow blocking his view, but the scent his nose was picking up did anything but calm him. Someone was bleeding.
Shadow looked over his shoulder slowly, needing to do just enough to see the rest out of the corner of his eye. His eyes widened just a fraction and his ears shifted, pulling back ever slightly.
Shadow was trying to not make it seem as bad, knowing that Mephiles would read his face.
The crystal hedgehog's muscles tensed and he reached up, trying to shove the other hedgehog out of the way. Shadow braced himself, trying to stay immobile.
"... Sh-shadow... wh-wha... what happened..?" Mephiles stammered, waiting for a reply, but only got a head shake as Shadow tried to restrain the now struggling hedgehog. "Shadow, answer me! D-did... what's... I smell b-blood..." He then realized something all the more terrifying for himself and became even more hysterical. "I can't hear him! I can't hear him! Dark! Say something! Do something! Dark!"
Shadow caught him by the face with one hand, trying to keep eye contact with him. Mephiles was already in tears, but clenched his teeth and tried to quiet his cries, making them a low pitched whine that burned the back of his throat.
"Mephiles. Listen to me. I want to make sure you know this before you see anything. Alright?"
Mephiles ears folded back and he nodded slowly, knowing for sure now that he wasn't going to like what he saw anyway.
"Whatever you end up thinking... it's not your fault. Don't blame yourself at all..."
"... Sh-shadow... Is Dark..?"
The hybrid hedgehog glanced over his shoulder again, and pulled his ears back more.
"... He's not doing good... he's barely breathing... but he's hardly conscious, from the look in his eyes..."
"... N-no... No!" Mephiles shoved him away and hurried to Dark, who had collapsed on the ground, eyes half closed, breathing shallowly and staring at nothing in particular. Mephiles was horrified to see that this was almost exactly how he had found Dark on the floor in the living room several weeks previous, when he had taken "punishment" for attempting to alert someone, anyone of Iblis' intentions. Right down to the wound he was bleeding out from... Iblis had clawed and reopened it...
Mephiles was breathing quickly, trying to fight back a panic attack as a rising bit of rage he was feeling towards Iblis, whom he noted detachedly was staring, hands palms up as he watched the blood drip from one of them, seemingly caught off guard and, unless Mephiles was mistaken... surprised.
Mephiles ignored him and carefully touched a clawed hand to Dark's face, keeping the sharp ends away from him. Dark's eyes shifted, and turned on him, staring at the hedgehog before twitching the corner of his mouth into a weak smile.
"... I did good... d-didn't I..?"
"Dark... you're hurt... I-I can't do anything about this... it's t-too bad for me to try and heal..." Mephiles did a terrible job of trying to hide his tears. He looked away, wiping them from his eyes, not wanting Dark to see that. "... W-why did you do that..? Shadow pulled me out of the way..."
"... didn't want him... coming after you..."
"You didn't have to do that..."
"... I know... I wanted t-to..."
"I'm not worth losing a life over! That's not fair to me!" Mephiles shouted, clenching his hands tightly as he lowered his head, shuddering and whimpering.
Dark managed to move his hand slowly and touched it against Mephiles' arm. Mephiles sniffed and looked at him again.
"... Still a stupid hedgehog..." Dark whispered with a hint of a growl, as if annoyed. "... You're worth to s-some... more than you'll ever know..."
Mephiles' eyes widened as Dark lost consciousness, his arm losing tone and letting his hand drop to the ground. In a rush of panic, Mephiles felt for a pulse and was saddened to find a weak one that was had a few pauses. He knew that meant that it was likely that Dark wasn't going to survive if he did not receive medical care in an hour at the most. He was certain that they would not get there in time, anyway...
Dark was dying... and there was nothing he could do about it.
The hedgehog looked up at Iblis, who hadn't moved since he attempted to attack Mephiles. He still didn't seem to realize what had just happened, as if the concept was suddenly very alien to him. Mephiles saw a shift behind his eyes... but he didn't care this time. Iblis could be faking for all he knew.
Mephiles growled and leaned over Dark protectively, bracing his arms on either side of him, using his body as a shield.
"... Haven't you caused enough trouble?" He shook his head, refusing to look over his shoulder to address the flame. "... you've done more than just break him, now... he's almost dead. You've bled him dry of everything... his power, his confidence, his personality, his self esteem... you robbed him of his sanity. I tried to bring it back...You depressed him so much, he started to lose quills and stop caring about how well he kept his fur. I kept trying to get him to at least run a comb through it... When you dislocated his shoulder, I put it right, and tried healing it. When you traumatized him so much, he had a nightmare... I was the one dodging everything he was throwing, trying to calm him down. It doesn't matter to me how screwed up he was... you ask who would want him? Who is willing put up with him and help, no matter how much he explodes into a rage fit, and no matter how much he lashes back in return?" He looked over his shoulder finally with narrowed eyes that was in danger of losing a few tears. "... I've been doing that for the past two months now... You took my family from me... and Dark needed one. I hope you're happy with yourself... you finally got what you wanted... you took everything you could from him..." Mephiles blinked and clenched his teeth, turning away as his voice quivered as he tried to carefully push Tape away, who had tried to curl up against Dark.. "J-just leave... he has nothing else you can t-take now, anyway... Just let him g-go in peace... p-please..."
"... He jumped in front of me... he tried to protect you..." Iblis said slowly, as if he hadn't quite heard what Mephiles had said. "... He didn't run away..."
"... Just go away... I don't care anymore... we lost anyway..."
"... He's a shadow... shadows' aren't supposed to die..."
"... He wasn't just a shadow... he was trying to be... he was starting to be a hedgehog... he didn't want to be a shadow anymore..."
"... Why..?"
"I don't know." Mephiles clenched his teeth, wishing that Iblis would just leave them alone now. "... He was probably trying to get away from you..."
Iblis slowly pulled the Emeralds out of his quills and looked at them. Perfectly cut, and glimmering, they were as mesmerizing as they were powerful. He could feel them release energy into the air, and watched them glow from being near each other.
He dropped them at his feet and stepped back, sliding to the ground and lowering his head, much to everyone's surprise.
"... Take them... I'm going to burn out anyway..." He said slowly, not looking up. "... shadows outlive the light they come from... use them to keep him alive... I've put what I took from him in them... it should channel through you if you attempt to heal him while touching those gems... if he really is no longer a shadow... then let him continue doing so... I'll just fade away like fires do..."
Mephiles stared with a distrusting look, jumping his glance back to Shadow and Rouge, visually asking what they thought. Rouge shrugged, but Shadow gave a skeptical look, telling Mephiles that he was thinking what the hedgehog was... and that was that this was too easy and possibly a trap.
"How can I know if you are being serious..? You tried to kill me too much now that I'm not going to just smile and act if that was nothing..."
"... I suppose I deserve this..." The dim orange glow that emanated from Iblis' eyes faded a bit. "... but if you attempt so... and he later asks what of me... tell him what you want... make up whatever you think he wants to hear... don't tell him that I got a heart when he was within inches of death... he'd take that hard..."
Mephiles stared. He was certain that he couldn't believe this...
Dark's not dead yet... but there's still a chance he could survive... which is something we all want. ^^
I'm leaving this at a cliffhanger because I want to be sure you all come back next chapter. Especially you, TARNS. That was nice to see a review after you disappeared for 5 chapters. ^^
And of course to the rest of you, new and old reviewers alike... I thank you all for making this not only my longest story yet, and my most reviewed. Remember... that's all thanks to you. I only wrote it... you were the ones to urge me to continue this. Thank you and see you next chapter... ^^