Sonic and Tails told Dr. Eggman of their failure when they came back and he was not pleased at all. He was so displeased, he tried using his robots to kick the heroes out of his base! Of course, over the years he still hasn't learned that his robots have no affect and were smashed to bits. Sitting in a chair, pouting like a child, he lets the heroes stay due to him being 'allied' with them. Sonic rolls his eyes and continues to talk with Lumina who is sitting on the portal frame.

"How long have you known me?" Sonic asks as Lumina looks wistfully to her home world.

"Ever since you could have intelligent dreams, Sonic. Your very first being your mother and father playing with you."

"You remember that far back? Heck I can't even remember what I had for dinner yesterday."

Lumina's small wings open like a canvas as she plays all his earliest dreams in quick succession. The little broken pieces of the Precious stone vibrated weakly. Then Lumina had an idea of maybe how to prevent Iris from coming back into the dream world...for a little while.

"Sonic... do you know where she lives?"

"Uh... she might live with Mephiles. Why?"

"If you can wake her up from her sleep. Make her stay awake long enough, I might be able to block her from accessing the dream dimsension."

"Hmm.. Knuckles and Shadow could deal with the likes of them. Tails and I will stay here with you. We want to help you if she decides to hunt you down. Let me ring them up."

Sonic calls the guys up and they are all in for it.

"I can't wait to see the look on his face as I chaos blast that monster back into the Flame Core!"

"Yeah! Knuckles must smash!"

"Okay calm down before you blow a blood vessel." Sonic says as he tells them the details.

Shadow and Knuckles glide and ride over to their enemies' cave with caution. Shadow yells for Mephiles. Mephiles can't be bothered to emerge. Instead, he forms a crystal blue wall to seal up his cave entrance. Shadow knocks on it violently as the echo reverberates and makes Mephiles' ears twitch. Shadow keeps knocking and triggers a violent response from the crystal wall. Spikes come off it as Shadow pulls his hand away.

"you know what..." Shadow says as he slips through a narrow gap into the pure dark cave. "Come on Knuckles."

"Allllright then..." Knuckles says as Shadow pulls him in.

Feeling their way along the rocky corridors, they finally come to Mephiles who is curled up on a bed of lava rocks, tendrils of darkness, and bones. The demonic hegehog snarls in his slumber. Shadow and Knuckles creep around him and take a look around the huge living chamber. Seeing nothing but faded outlines of skeletons, they get a weird feeling. Knuckles jumps as black goo falls on his shoulder. Mephiles has awoken and is hanging from the ceiling, observing them. Shadow does chaos control to freeze Mephiles, but Mephiles unfreezes time a few seconds later. Shadow and Mephiles exchange murderous looks. Knuckles looks worried for his well being.

"Let's end this Mephiles! No more will you be a terror!" Shadow says as he takes a fighting stance.

"Let's not. For now. How about tomorrow? I will be well rested then." Mephiles says as he waves Shadow off. Melting down to the floor, he takes his regular form.

"Hmph. No. Let's do this now!"

"Your not here for me originally, are you? You were sent on a task of sorts. What do you seek here?" Mephiles calmly replied as Shadow kept his arms crossed.

"Wouldn't you like to know. We will find it ourselves!"

"In a labyrinth of dark and decaying corridors? Filled with the remains of my withered victims? Not the most safe way to traverse. If you would just tell me..."

Knuckles did not want to see any of that and blurted out. "Iris! We need to wake up Iris!"

Mephiles tilted his head. "First it was Sonic who needed to see her, now you two. What has she done so terrible that your on a witch hunt?"

"She's messing with the dream world real bad. Sonic wants us to wake her up to stop her before she distorts and unbalances everything!" Knuckles yelled as Shadow shot him dagger looks.

Mephiles laughed and gave a toothy smile to the thought of her achievement. "I will have to say congrats when I see her. No wonder she's been keeping to herself lately."

"Yeah well, is she here?" Shadow asked as Mephiles was already thinking of what he could say when he saw her. "HELLO!?"

"WHAT?! Oh no she is not. She's been at her own cave, doing this apparently. Now shoo!"

As Mephiles tries to force Shadow and Knuckles out, a purple light flashes for a second deeper within the cave.

"She's not here, are you sure?" Shadow says as he pushes past Mephiles and skates into the deeper chamber, Mephiles' gift chamber.

"STAY OUT OF THERE! HOW DARE YOU INTRUDE EVEN MORE THAN WHAT YOU HAVE!" Mephiles screams out in a beastial voice as Shadow picks up a few pieces of jewelry laying out.

"You wear jewelry? You didn't strike me as that kind of guy..." Shadow says as he puts the necklaces down with a strange look on his face.

"I'm not. Those were gifts. Everything here is. So don't pick anything else up or I will hurt you."

Knuckles punches through a thin layered wall and reveals the source of the flashing light. Iris is snugly covered with a type of armour within, two long stemmed Irises wrap around the edge of the armour. One of her beasts lays ontop and opens it's maw at the intruders.

"Hey Shadow I found her!"