Chapter 62: Blame

After several hours of searching, Sonic and the others manage to locate the Chaos Emerald that Tails' Detector sensed. It was the cyan-colored one, and floated in mid-air next to a pool of lava in the depths of a rocky valley with dead trees and steep cliffs. Immediately, Rouge flew up to the Emerald and touched it with her gloved hands.

"Don't touch it, Rouge!" Shadow said urgently.

Behind Rouge, a loud roar emanated from the pool of lava before a large serpentine creature emerged from it.

"Iblis!" Sonic exclaimed as Rouge flew back. "I know Tails mentioned him earlier, but I didn't remember him until now."

"The same thing happened when you encountered Chaos," Tails said as he flew up to grab the Cyan Chaos Emerald. "The memories you had of him didn't click until you actually saw him in person."

Knuckles groaned. "Can we please save the discussion for later? We've got a big frickin' lava monster to deal with at the moment!"

"Then let's split into two teams," Shadow suggested. "We'll take turns attacking Iblis, and then when he's weak enough all five of us will attack together."

"Good idea, Shadow," Sonic responded, then he turned to Knuckles and Tails. "Let's roll!"

Knuckles and Tails nodded as they followed Sonic towards the lava pool. While Sonic attacked Iblis from the front with his Homing Attack, Tails focused on puncturing Iblis' eyes and Knuckles glided around the creature's body with flying punches. Then once Iblis sank back into the lava, Sonic and his friends retreated while Shadow and Rouge took their place. As soon as Iblis' head reemerged, Shadow sent a barrage of Chaos Spears at it while Rouge assisted by raining a handful of bombs down from high in the air. The creature howled in pain and sank back into the lava a third time. After a few seconds, Iblis appeared once more. But Sonic and the others were prepared as they attacked him all at once with numerous kicks, punches, energy blasts, and bombs.

"All right!" Sonic cheered as Iblis melted into the lava.

A few minutes passed, and the creature didn't reemerge.

"Now that that's over with, let's get back to our own time," Shadow said, and held out the Green Chaos Emerald.

"You said it," Sonic responded and took the Cyan Chaos Emerald from Tails.

The two boys then walked towards one another and then after holding their Chaos Emeralds up they shouted in unison, "Chaos Control!"

As the Chaos Emeralds glimmered, a white swirling vortex appeared above their heads. Immediately, Sonic jumped into it followed by Tails and Knuckles. Rouge and Shadow were about to leap into the vortex as well when a cloud of black smoke suddenly appeared a few feet from them. The smoke eventually became a solid form which turned out to be none other than Mephiles.

"Come on, Shadow," Rouge said urgently.

In response, Shadow tossed the Green Chaos Emerald to Rouge and said, "Take it and go."

As Rouge caught the Emerald, the vortex started to close behind her. "But Shadow—

"Go!" Shadow urged as he dashed toward Mephiles.

Rouge huffed in response and flew through the shrinking vortex. After she went in, the vortex vanished completely. Mephiles then disappeared before Shadow's eyes and reappeared again several feet away from the lava pool near the cliff where Shadow beheld a strange sight. Next to Mephiles stood a large diamond-shaped structure that stood upright and inside it was Shadow himself. Then at the foot of the diamond structure lay E-123 Omega, whose red electronic eyes were dim at the moment.

"What the hell is this?" Shadow asked.

"This is the future of the human who serves as your host, Shadow," Mephiles answered. "Once Iblis was released into the world, the world governments immediately placed the blame on you. After all, you did aid the Black Arms in their invasion of Mobius not too long ago. So naturally, you were the prime suspect and they sealed your human host in this containment device with that robot friend of yours standing guard in case you managed to break free."

Shadow chuckled slightly. "If you think this is going to persuade me to join you, you're mistaken."

"I know you won't, but what about your host? What does he think?"

In response, Shadow briefly closed his eyes and saw Shawn standing in the observation-room of the ARK that served as a representation of their combined minds.

"He's not telling the truth, is he?" Shawn asked, not looking at Shadow as he stared out the window.

Shadow shook his head. "Mephiles is a liar and master manipulator, so don't believe a word he says."

"Then how do you explain the containment device and Omega being here in the future?"

"I'm not sure, but we won't know unless we defeat him."

"Can we?"

"I can weaken him, but without Sonic and Silver he can't be truly defeated."

"So we're just stalling him until we can find a way back to the present?"

"Pretty much. However, I sense two Chaos Emeralds nearby. One is coming from Mephiles while the other is in Omega's direction."

"I see, then let's give Mephiles a beating he won't forget."

Shadow nodded and opened his eyes once more, giving Mephiles an angry glare. "My host says, 'Screw you!'"

Mephiles narrowed his eyes and then a purple aura briefly surrounded him. Once it subsided, Mephiles' skin had crystallized while his hair changed from black with gray highlights to dark-blue with crystal-blue highlights. Then he removed the scarf that covered the bottom-half of his jaw, revealing that he had no mouth underneath.

"Such a pity," Mephiles said. "Then you shall both die here as fools!"

As Shadow rushed at Mephiles once more, Mephiles in turn raised his arms and summoned an army of creatures that were made out of the same crystalline substance. Though they blocked Shadow from attacking Mephiles directly, he managed to destroy them with ease. However, as Mephiles summoned more of them the more drained Shadow became. Out of desperation, Shadow used his Chaos Emerald to warp over to Omega and managed to press the on-switch before Mephiles sent a purple energy blast that sent Shadow flying into the cliff behind the containment device. With the wind knocked out of him, Shadow fell to the ground in a heap as he unexpectedly changed back into Shawn.

"Foolish boy," Mephiles taunted. "Did you really think Shadow had a chance of taking me on?"

Shawn tried to scramble to his feet, but his knees felt weak. Then he noticed Omega getting up behind Mephiles and pointing his cannon-arm in Mephiles' direction. So in response, Shawn pretended to lie down and shouted, "Go to hell!"

At that moment, Omega fired a powerful blast of energy that sent Mephiles flying over Shawn's head. While Mephiles crashed into the cliff-face, Shawn got up and ran over to Omega. While Omega was preparing to fire again, Shawn placed his hand on Omega's arm and pressed it down.

"Why are you preventing me from killing him, Shawn?" Omega asked bluntly. "I saw him hurting you, and no one harms my friend and gets away with it."

"We'll deal with him later," Shawn said, and glanced at Omega's chest-plate. "Do you have a Chaos Emerald on hand?"

"I do," Omega said, and pressed his chest-plate which popped out with the Red Chaos Emerald inside. "The Commander gave this to me to keep for protective purposes and 'special' situations."

"Well, this is definitely one of those 'special' situations," Shawn said as he changed back into Shadow. Then he held the Red and Cyan Chaos Emeralds together while shouting, "Chaos Control!"

Before Mephiles could reach them, Shadow and Omega were sucked into the same white swirling vortex that appeared before and vanished instantly.

###

In the present, Sonic Knuckles and Tails appeared in an empty street within New City after emerging out of the swirling white vortex.

Sonic looked around briefly and said, "Hey, where are Shadow and Rouge?"

"Maybe they appeared in a different location from us," Tails suggested.

"Shouldn't we go look for them to make sure they're ok?" Knuckles asked.

"I think they can take care of themselves," Sonic said. "But we've got more important things to worry about, like preventing Elise from getting killed in that Egg Carrier crash."

"Well, according to my watch only three hours have passed since we left. So all we have to do is find Dr. Eggman and—

A blue wave of energy suddenly caused Tails and Knuckles to fly through the air and hit the pillars of a building behind them. Surprised, Sonic ran to them but then he was pulled back by a mysterious force that caused his whole body to glow bright-blue. He strained his neck to look behind him and saw Silva standing nearby with his hands outstretched and a matching bright-blue aura surrounding him.

To be continued…