Ch.10: Starting Anew

Five minutes later, Sonic found himself waking up from Tails frantic shaking of his body. Wearily, Sonic's green eyes scanned his surroundings. Shadow and Silver had also been knocked unconious and were being woken up by Charmy and Espio.

"Come on Knuckles!" Sonic heard Vector's desperate voice say " you got to wake up buddy!"

Sonic got up and looked towards the echidna in question. From the looks of it he was still in Hyper form. The crystal that had formed on his dreadlocks and hands didn't go away. Although he was back to his regualur red fur now.

It was still kind of disturbing to see Knuckles hands without the gloves, but Sonic quickly pushed that fear aside after Vector finally managed to get the unconious echidna to awaken.

"Wha...what happened?" asked Knuckles confused, then suddenly all the memories came flooding back to him like a tidal wave " oh yeah, I remember,"

"Glad to see you back among the living Knux," grinned Sonic, walking over.

"Yeah" said Vector " it took forever to wake you up,"

"Where's Mephiles?" asked Knuckles.

"Over there," said Vector, pointing the bottom of the Master Emerald shrine.

From the rising and falling of Mephile's chest, it was pretty clear to everyone he was still alive. Of course, once Shadow realized this, he recovered from his woozy state quickly, and ran over to finish off Mephiles.

Shock consumed everyone as Knuckles managed to push himself faster, and appeared right in between Shadow and Mephiles.

"That's enough Shadow," growled Knuckles.

"After all that's happened" said Shadow " you still defend that monster?"

"He's not a monster!" said Knuckles " at least not anymore,"

"What do you mean?" asked Silver, approaching behind Shadow.

"I absorbed his evil side," said Knuckles.

"Really?" said Sonic, as everyone else gasped in shock " can you do that?"

"It has always been one of the Guardian's powers" said Knuckles " but we've never had a reason to do it before,"

Suddenly, Mephiles picked that exact moment to awaken. His yellow eyes held a confused look as he looked around, observing everyone gathered around him. His curious gaze landed on Knuckles new form, seeking answers.

"What happened?" asked Mephiles " why are you in that form? What happened to Rouge's birthday party?"

"It's a long story Dusk," said Knuckles, kneeling down by the hedgehog's side.

"So after all this trouble" Knuckles thought " he has amnesia again. Only this time, he no longer has his evil personality to tempt him back into his evil ways. I'll have to keep a close eye on myself though. Don't want to accidently close my eyes and destroy the world. But I'm glad everything is back to normal,"

And back to normal they were. At least as normal it could get in world where Sonic the Hedgehog thrived. Mephiles was back to being Dusk and lived happily on Angel Island along with Knuckles and the Chaotix.

Once or twice a week he would come down to the surface for a visit. Sonic and Tails greeted Dusk warmly, happily accepting the return of his friendly nature. The girls accepted Mephiles as a friend right away, still remembering the way the hedgehog had protected Knuckles at Rouge's birthday party.

Shadow was still reluctant to be friends with his former enemey, and still thought Knuckles was a fool for not killing off Mephiles when he had a chance. Even now if Silver's future was restored to a peaceful and loving place, Shadow didn't care. There was no way in the world that he would befriend that monster!

"Shadow?" asked a familiar voice " what are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing" said Shadow, turning around to face the echidna " sometimes I just don't understand you Knuckles. Mephiles is an enemey. He nearly destroyed the whole universe! How can you accept him as a friend so quickly?"

"Because" said Knuckles, walking up next to Shadow " if there's one thing I learned from my adventures with Sonic, is that people can change,"

There was moment of silence before Knuckles continued.

"A long time ago Shadow" said Knuckles " I also thought you were the enemey. Back on the Space Colony Ark you were willing to destroy the entire world just to avenge the death of your friend Maria. You were like Sonic's evil half brought to life. But if you can change, why can't Mephiles?"

Shadow stood silent for a moment, thinking over what Knuckles had said, before turning away and saying...

"We'll see,"

Knuckles smiled as the black hedgehog walked away, knowing in his heart that Shadow would try to adjust and give Mephiles that chance, before returning home to Angel Island.

The End