Chapter 67: Sacrifice
In the desolate future engulfed by unholy fire, Silva and Blake arrived via the white vortex created by the Silver and Blue Chaos Emeralds Silva carried with him. Blake then looked around and took off in a particular direction. Silva followed close behind her, but felt his chest tighten for some reason. Then in a split-second, his mind was filled with the images he saw from the nightmare he had at the hotel in New City.
"Silver," Silva said, followed by Silver's apparition appearing before him. "The images I saw the night you stopped me from killing Sonic…were they visions of the future?"
"Why do you ask?" Silver wondered.
"Because Blake and I are about to face Iblis, and I dreamed of a conflict between Iblis and two creatures," Silva answered. "In fact, one of the creatures kind of looked like you."
Silver closed his eyes and shook his head. "What you saw weren't images of the future."
Silva's eyes widened in response. "They weren't?"
"They were my memories, from when I was alive."
"Then you know how the battle will end, right? Do we win?"
Before Silver could answer, Blake suddenly stopped at the edge of the same building they stood on when Mephiles brought them to the future for the first time. Immediately, the lava-like flames rose and from them emerged Iblis. Silva then responded by transforming into Silver while a purple aura with flames surrounded Blake. After Silver used his psychokinesis to send several projectiles at Iblis, he looked over at Blake and saw her irises had grown more narrow. She also had a pair of purple cat ears and a matching tail that were visible.
"Blaze," Silver said with disbelief.
"Hey," the cat-eared girl said waving at Silver. "I thought you were gone for good."
"Same here," Silver replied when Iblis fired several flaming projectiles at them both.
"Let's catch up later," Blaze said as flames appeared around her hands. "We've got to deal with Iblis first."
"Right," Silva nodded and levitated the projectiles Iblis threw at them.
He in turn sent them hurling at Iblis, who was wounded but quickly recovered afterwards. Blaze in turn sent her own waves of fire at Iblis, which didn't damage him but it made his flames gradually weaker. This in turn allowed Silver to hurl more projectiles at Iblis and keep him from recovering faster. Then just before Iblis sank back into the lava-like flames, Silver walked up to the edge of the building, held one Chaos Emerald in each hand, and was about to speak when Blaze walked up to him and placed her hands on the Chaos Emeralds.
"You know what must be done, right?" Blaze said looking down at the Chaos Emeralds.
"I do," Silver said, and withdrew the Chaos Emeralds from Blaze's hands. "But if I seal you away, your host will be sealed as well."
"I've already talked to her about it, and she understands," Blaze said and walked towards Silver. "Now give me the Chaos Emeralds, Silver."
"No," Silver responded. "I don't want us to lose you again."
"Then would you rather have Iblis still exist to cause misery in this timeline?"
Silver hesitated and then he sighed. "Why must we make sacrifices in order to save the world?"
"Think of this as a temporary parting," Blaze said as she took the Chaos Emeralds from Silver. "If all goes according to what happened last time, none of this will happen to begin with."
Before Silver could stop her, Blaze walked toward Iblis with one Chaos Emerald in each hand.
"Eternal Sun!" Blaze shouted as a red chakra gem appeared on her forehead. "The Living Flame that has been entrusted to the royal family! Fall into slumber within my soul, so that your disastrous flames may never harm anyone again!"
As the Chaos Emeralds glowed brightly, Iblis was reduced from a towering monster to a fiery orb. Next, it disintegrated into the two Chaos Emeralds and red beams shot from the Emeralds into Blaze's chest. Afterwards, Blaze tossed the Chaos Emeralds to Silver as she was surrounded by the unnatural flames of Iblis.
"Do it now, before Iblis changes his mind," Blaze said urgently.
Silver reluctantly nodded and shouted, "Chaos Control!"
A purple vortex appeared with Blaze inside it, followed by a bright flash. Then when the vortex vanished, Blaze was gone. Silver watched as the smoky clouds suddenly began to part overhead while he changed back into Silva.
"Did you know this would happen, Silver?" Silva said, trying to fight back the tears that were streaming down his face. "Why didn't you tell me?"
In response, Silver's apparition turned away. "I was going to, but then Iblis showed up and—
"You don't need to say anything more," Silva abruptly said, and used the two Chaos Emeralds to create the white vortex. "Let's go back to the present. We're needed there, right?"
Silver nodded as Silva stepped through the white vortex with heavy shoulders.
###
"So where is Mephiles located?" Shawn asked once he and Rouge met up with Omega in the Dusty Desert ruins.
"According to my sensors, he is inside these ruins," Omega answered as he reloaded his cannon arms with fresh cartridges. "He won't get away this time."
"Let's hope not," Rouge said as she transformed. "Are you ready for this, boys?"
While Omega nodded, Shawn quickly changed into Shadow and together the three of them went inside.
The ruins themselves were practically empty except this one had lit torches lined all around the room. At the center was an altar-shaped structure where Mephiles was floating up towards the Yellow Chaos Emerald placed in the center of the altar. As soon as he reached for it, Mephiles turned around and looked down on Shadow and the other two. His hair and skin were still crystallized in dark and light-blue colors and the whites of his green serpentine eyes had gone pink while his non-existent mouth moved.
"I knew you would eventually come after me, Shadow," Mephiles said casually. "I'm just surprised you didn't show up sooner."
"You're not going to win, Mephiles," Shadow said as he took the Scepter of Darkness from Rouge's hand and held it next to the Red Chaos Emerald while Rouge and Omega took out their Chaos Emeralds as well. "Once this is fixed, you're going back in the Scepter of Darkness for good!"
As the Chaos Emeralds glowed, the cracks in the Scepter's shaft were fixed. Then Shadow held it over his head and the Scepter emitted a bright light that made Mephiles flinch. However, Mephiles did not disintegrate into the black mass that was his true form and instead he laughed maniacally.
"Did you really think that trick you used ten years ago would work on me again?" Mephiles asked sarcastically. "You should've remembered that from the first time you tried it on me."
Mephiles then sent a purple orb of energy at the Scepter, which shattered to pieces in Shadow's hand. Next, Mephiles held the Purple and Yellow Chaos Emeralds in each hand, and allowed them to float above his head. In turn, the Emeralds glowed brightly as several copies of Mephiles appeared throughout the room.
As the copies of Mephiles closed in around Shadow and the others, the real Mephiles hovered above them with his arms folded.
"If you join me, Shadow, I might spare your friends," Mephiles said.
In response, Shadow just removed the gold rings from his wrists and glared up at Mephiles. "You don't scare me. I'm willing to take you on, and so are my friends."
Shadow then released a huge blast of energy that passed through all the Mephiles copies and weakened them severely. While they were stunned, Shadow blazed his way through them while Rouge flew overhead and Omega used his cannon arms to blast a path leading straight to Mephiles. However, once they got to the altar, Mephiles was nowhere to be seen.
"Dammit," Shadow cursed. "Those copies were merely to distract us so he could get away."
"It's okay, Shadow," Rouge said. "Omega will figure out his location and we'll go after him again."
"Well, Omega had better hurry," Shadow said impatiently. "Because if we don't stop Mephiles, he's going to kill Sonic."
###
After Sonic had gone through the vortex that he and Silva created, he found himself back in New City one hour before Elise gave herself up to Dr. Eggman as he threatened to destroy the city if she didn't. Avoiding the hotel completely, Sonic ran throughout the town until he came across another trans-dimensional gateway near the canals that took him directly to Aquatic Base. There, Dr. Eggman's robots immediately spotted him and attacked. But he didn't bother to destroy them and made his way to the hangar where the Egg Carrier was preparing to launch. As the doors opened to reveal water pouring down the sides of a runway that ran through part of the ocean, Sonic jumped onto the top of the Egg Carrier as its jet engines fired up and blasted it through the parted sea up into the air.
Fortunately, there weren't any robots on the Carrier's topside, so Sonic wasn't interrupted as he watched Elise allow herself to get taken by Dr. Eggman up to the Egg Carrier's underside. While Sonic was tempted to save Elise then, he decided it would be too risky and waited instead. After several hours passed, Sonic thought he saw someone appear out of nowhere and float in midair several feet above the Egg Carrier. He couldn't see the person very well, but made his way into a nearby porthole as the mysterious figure fired purple-colored energy blasts at the engines which immediately caught fire. Sonic then made his way to the bridge, and found Dr. Eggman panicking at the control-panel while Elise was standing up nervously behind him.
"Playtime's over, Eggman!" Sonic shouted, getting Elise and Dr. Eggman's attention.
"Sonic!" Elise exclaimed and walked around Sonic till she was standing in the doorway to the bridge.
"You'll pay for this, Sonic!" Dr. Eggman growled. "Damaging my ship just so you could rescue the Princess!"
"That wasn't me, Doc," Sonic said as he picked up Elise. "But I would focus on not crashing the Egg Carrier if I were you."
As Dr. Eggman briefly looked away, Sonic took off with Elise in his arms. An explosion in front of them caused part of the Egg Carrier to break off and so Sonic was forced to climb up to the top where he saw the Carrier heading towards the cliffs on the other side of the lake north of Kingdom Valley. Sonic then turned his head to Elise, who held onto him tightly.
"You're not scared, are you?" Sonic asked.
Elise shook her head. "No, I'll be fine."
"Okay, then let's go," Sonic said as he ran off the edge of the Egg Carrier and used the chunks of debris that were falling off to jump off from towards the top of the cliffs.
Unfortunately, his foot missed the edge of the cliff and so he held onto it with one arm.
"Are you okay, Sonic?" Elise asked.
"Yeah," Sonic said as his fingers began to slip. "But I can't hold on much longer. I'll toss you up to the cliff's edge."
"Okay," Elise said as she felt Sonic's arm lift her upwards.
She managed to grab the edge of the cliff and pull herself up with ease. Then she looked back at Sonic and grabbed his hand just as he was about to fall. Once Sonic got his footing, he walked quickly up the cliff and onto the top of it.
"Thanks, Elise," Sonic said as he sat down next to Elise who was on her knees. "I guess I owe you one."
"Don't mention it," Elise said as she straightened her dress out. "So I wanted to ask you something before you take me back to the palace."
"Is it a long question?"
"No."
"Then why don't you ask me while I'm carrying you home?"
"Aren't you tired?"
"Not in the slightest."
"Well, if you say so."
After Elise got back in his arms, Sonic took off along the cliffs and around the lake which shimmered in the fading light.
"Sonic," Elise began, though her cheeks were turning red. "Do you…have a girlfriend?"
"Yeah, sort of," Sonic answered casually.
"Sort of?"
"She calls herself my girlfriend, but we're not officially dating. However, my host Sonny is dating the host of the girl who's kind of my girlfriend."
"What's her name? The girl who claims she's your girlfriend, I mean."
"Amy Rose. She's got the same ears and tail that I have, but they're pink instead of blue."
"Oh. She was the one who helped me escape from the Egg Carrier after you vanished."
"Right. I heard about that from my host."
"Does Sonny talk to you?"
"No, we share memories. But we also talk too."
"I see."
For a while, neither Sonic nor Elise spoke as they passed through Kingdom Valley toward New City. However, they saw someone appear several feet in front of them. As they got closer, Sonic saw that the person resembled Shawn, but he had green serpent-like eyes and his skin and hair were covered in a crystal-like substance.
"Mephiles!" Sonic exclaimed, and halted.
"So you're the one responsible for not letting Elise die painfully in the Egg Carrier crash like she was supposed to," Mephiles said as he took out the Purple Chaos Emerald.
"I wasn't going to let that happen, no matter what," Sonic said as he put down Elise and shielded her. "So what are you here for? To fix your mistake?"
"In a way," Mephiles replied and fired an energy beam at Sonic and Elise.
Immediately, Sonic turned around and pushed Elise to the side as he received the full blast of the beam. As Elise watched with horror-stricken eyes, Mephiles laughed maniacally the whole time. As the beam disintegrated, Sonic collapsed onto the ground and changed back into Sonny. Surprised, Elise went over to Sonny and tried to wake him, but he didn't move.
"Why didn't you dodge, Sonic?" Mephiles said looking down at Sonny's body. "Your imminent death certainly would've been more interesting if you had."
"This has happened before," Elise muttered, which got Mephiles' attention. "You killed him so I would cry and unleash Iblis, right?"
"So the Princess remembers," Mephiles responded, walking slowly up to Elise.
"If you kill me, Iblis won't be yours," Elise said, standing up to Mephiles.
"I'm well aware of that," Mephiles replied. "So I'm going to kill you in the most painful way possible so you'll have no choice but to cry, Princess."
Elise flinched as she felt Mephiles' claw-like hands impale her in the gut. The pain was unbearable enough to make tears well up in her eyes, but Elise fought them back. Then Mephiles held Elise's hands up as she struggled, and continued to stab her again and again with his clawed fingers. After a while, Elise doubled over and felt a single tear fall down her cheek.
To be continued…