Chapter 3: Blazing Fight
Silver and Blaze ran up to the monster and braced as it roared at them, showing its jagged, hard teeth along its horned jaw. Its hardened obsidian body took on an orange tint as the lava pool glowed like fire. Liquid magma flowed down its body in small rivers, hardening into obsidian before falling off into the lava below and exploding at the harsh heat.
Iblis took a breath, before spewing hot flames from its mouth, creating a wall of flames that stopped the two from getting any closer.
Silver and Blaze shielded their faces from the blast of heat the flames carried, before glaring back.
"Come on, you monster!" Silver shouted up to Iblis, as a turquoise glow began surrounding him. Blaze noticed this, and began to route the fire in her body to her palms.
The monster roared again, throwing its head back and puffing itself up, seeming to enlarge its body.
Silver scanned his environment as he knelt and touched the ground, getting a feel of everything around him via psychokinesis. He looked right, and saw some boulders and chunks of steel beams strewn across the area.
Behind Iblis, he felt the collapsed roads and pieces of concrete, plus the hardened magma forming obsidian around the monster.
Many possibilities formed within his mind as he got a sense of what he was working with. Iblis was strong, but they had sent him back to the lava he formed from multiple times before.
What was one more time?
"I have a plan again. After we fight him for a bit, I'll shout to you. Ready?" Silver said to Blaze.
"Ready," Blaze answered, watching Iblis raise one of its multiple arms.
They both watched, ready to duck to either side as the arm swung back down. It got closer, and closer, cutting through the air on its collision course with the ground.
"GO!" Silver shouted, flying to one side while Blaze darted to another as the magma arm slammed into the ground.
Silver extended his hand to the right, picking up the scattered objects. He brought them closer so they hovered around his body, before throwing them at Iblis, sending the monster reeling back as they collided with his body.
Blaze sent fireballs at Iblis, aiming for body shots as she jumped from unsteady platform to platform. They hit their target, further knocking the beast off balance, and angering it in the process.
Iblis took a huff, blowing bullet-like pieces of magma at the both of them, accompanied by a spray of flames that set fire to the ground, coming at Blaze quickly.
She braced, planting her feet into the concrete and lighting her hands on fire, before blocking the pillar of flame from Iblis with her hands.
The flames were hot, almost overpowering her as she stood her ground, blasting back with her own fire as the two came to a stalemate.
As she strained herself, she saw Silver waving his energy covered hands, sending sharp crescent projectiles at the monster's arms.
The obsidian on Iblis acted like armor, shielding Iblis and doing no harm as the projectiles Silver launched at it ricocheted back at higher speed.
"Silver, watch out!" Blake shouted, jumping over one of the monster's swinging arms, narrowing avoiding the spikes on it.
Silver looked back and saw the energy crescents racing back at him, closing the distance rapidly. He began dodging in place, ducking and side-stepping as his own projectiles flew by.
As he dodged, he saw the monster's arm start to swing back around, heading toward Blaze as the monster kept her at bay, blasting her with fire.
"Blaze, augh!" he started, before being cut off by one of the crescents grazing his arm.
"Huh?" Blaze asked, before screaming as she was slammed by the swinging arm. She soared back before slamming into a wall and tumbling down onto the concrete.
Silver looked at her as she slowly attempted to get up, then at Iblis as it prepared to send a wall of fire at Silver, puffing up its body again as the glow on the crackling lava grew brighter.
He looked around, trying to think quickly, before seeing a metal storage container.
A lightbulb went off in his mind as he began trying to pick it up via psychokinesis, using his uninjured arm only.
Slowly, the storage began to move, and slowly the glow from Iblis began to shine brighter.
"Come on," he whispered to himself, gritting his teeth and closing his eyes.
He could feel the air in front of him getting hotter as the container inched off the ground gradually.
As her ears rang loudly, Blaze turned over, putting a hand on her hand as she tried stabilizing her spinning, blurry vision.
She focused, and saw Silver trying to lift a storage container with one hand as Iblis prepared to blast him with fire. She could see the metal box slowly rising off the ground, but it didn't look like he could hold it for much longer.
She had to move. She couldn't let him die here.
"Come on, legs. Work!" she scolded herself, trying to crawl up onto her knees.
She saw her friend fall to his knees, still trying to hold the container higher. This only spurred her on more, feeling the air between her, Silver, and Iblis get hotter as the tension of the situation grew thicker.
"The flames that Iblis will shoot at you will melt that container easily; what are you planning?" she thought, still trying to crawl toward her friend.
Silver was trying to raise the container even higher, staring down Iblis as flames began rising from the monster's mouth, ready to turn him to ash.
"I'm not gonna make it to him in time," Blaze realized as she stopped crawling, her eyes wide with fear for her friend.
Was she really about to see her best friend, the greatest friend she'd had in years, die before her eyes?
"You have to stand; you have to help him!' she told herself, slowly and shakily standing on her feet.
But as she did this, Iblis finally released its attack, sending a stream of hellfire toward Silver.
"NO!" she shouted, watching the flames close the gap between Iblis and Silver quickly.
Silver suddenly let out a warcry, spinning the container around before chucking it toward Iblis. The container began glowing red almost immediately as it diverted the flames up away from Silver, before hitting the monster in the face and sending it reeling back.
Silver dropped to his knees, panting as Blaze mustered the strength to run over to him.
"Are you okay?" she asked, putting her hands on his shoulders.
"I did another dumb thing," Silver gasped out, smiling at her.
"Yeah, you did," Blaze answered, before throwing her arms around him, stunning him.
"Don't scare me like that again, got it?" she whispered, hugging him tightly.
Silver scoffed and smiled, hugging her back.
"No promises," he answered, before looking at Iblis again.
"Hey, Blaze. You see how it's still stunned from that hit?" Silver said, observing Iblis.
"Yeah?"
"Its weak spot might be its head," Silver answered, before thinking back to his previous plan, remembering how the environment was set up.
"Race around him and try to get hits in. Don't stop moving. I'll try and do the same," Silver explained, standing up.
"Right," Blaze said, standing up with him.
They saw Iblis shake off the attack finally and roar again, angered even more by the attack.
"Ready?" Silver asked Blaze.
"Ready!" Blaze responded, setting her palms alight.
The two watched as Iblis took a huff of air again, before beginning to blow obsidian bullets toward them.
"GO!" Silver shouted, darting in one direction, while Blaze did the same in the opposite direction.
As Silver began redirecting the flames back at Iblis, he saw Blaze start to race around the ring like space the collapsed structures had made. She jumped from platform to platform, before rocketing herself down toward Iblis's head.
This stunned the beast again, as it let out a pained roar. Silver took this opportunity to launch more energy crescents as Blaze bounced off its head, and those attacks connected as well.
They continued this method, giving Iblis no time to react at all, constantly moving around and attacking from different angles.
Silver flew around, and saw something that caught his attention immediately.
He saw a destroyed crane below him, and noticed the metal cords used to winch things into the air were snapped.
The gears started turning again as he came up with another idea.
He landed on the ground, and began using his powers to try and pry the metal apart, gaining access to the wire cords. Once he got them free, he looked toward Blaze, who was setting up another attack.
"Blaze!" he called to her as she bounced off of Iblis's head again. She looked toward him, still soaring through the air.
"Use your momentum and land on this cord!" Silver told her, holding up the metal cord with his psychokinesis.
Blaze nodded, instantly realizing what he planned on doing.
She launched herself back with her fireballs, landing on the metal cord as Silver tugged it back.
"Can you make the shot?" Blaze asked, making her palms glow bright orange, ready to blast her off.
Silver scoffed, "I have psychokinesis, of course I can make the shot."
Blaze giggled, before looking at Iblis again. It was starting to recover from the previous attack. They had to act fast.
"Ready, Silver?" Blaze asked him, sending more fire to her palms.
"Ready. On your call, princess," Silver answered, tugging the metal cord back further.
Blaze focused on the beast again, waiting for its head to tilt again. Then finally…
"LAUNCH ME!" Blaze shouted.
"And…RELEASE!" Silver cried, letting go of the cord and slingshotting Blaze toward Iblis in a fiery blast.
She detonated the fire on her palms, accelerating faster and faster as she got closer to the beast.
With a powerful warcry, she extended her leg out, launching a flying kick at the side of Iblis's head which connected squarely.
That seemed to be the nail in the coffin. Iblis let out a pained roar again, before falling back, taking some of the destroyed buildings with it as it sank into the lava.
Blaze landed next to Silver, trying to regain her breath.
Both had no reason to celebrate the win, if you could even call it that. They knew they would be back to fight it again, and again.
Blaze noticed Silver's face as he picked up a piece of obsidian and stared at it. His gold eyes were stormy, and a look of apathy was very present on his expression.
She knew what he was thinking.
"Well, we did it," Blaze said, trying to put a cheery tone over her tired voice.
"That's what we said a month ago, and a couple weeks before that. And every single time, it rises back up from the lava again," Silver responded, taking one long look at the obsidian before chucking it into the lava, watching it explode on contact.
"That's one less thing to worry about for a month at least. We won't have to worry about Iblis interrupting rescues in that time-" Blaze started.
"But I don't want 'one less thing to worry about for the month', I want it gone! Just nonexistent!" Silver cut her off, sending a piercing look her way.
Seeing how she startled her, he sighed.
"Look, I'm sorry I shouted at you. I'm just wondering what the point of all this is? It'll never end," Silver explained, beating his fist against the stone slab next to him.
Blaze let out a sigh as well, not being able to shake the feeling he might be right.
Her attempt at optimism was something she'd learned from her friends back in the past Chaos Dimension, but seeing an environment like this and having to constantly fight a seemingly immortal monster shook that faith she had. But still…
"There has to be a way, Silver," she said, looking at him.
"Then tell me what we should do. How can we completely destroy Iblis?" Silver asked.
Before the words "I don't know" left her mouth, a darker voice interrupted.
"By knowing the truth, of course," it said.
Both Silver and Blaze looked up and saw a black and gray hedgehog, standing atop a ruined building.
"Just as a flower comes from a seed, or a chicken comes from an egg, everything has an origin. You need to find the being originally responsible for this catastrophe," the hedgehog explained, raising his fist.
Blaze looked at him, noticing he looked very familiar, like Sonic's counterpart, Shadow.
"But this hedgehog's quills are black and gray instead of black and red. It can't be him," Blaze thought.
"Who are you?" she called him.
The hedgehog suddenly jumped off the building, flying through the air before landing in front of them with a long boom.
As he stood up to his full height, Blaze scanned him further. He did look like Shadow, but his eyes were green instead of crimson, and had slit pupils instead of round ones.
He also seemed to be missing a mouth, which sent shivers down Blaze's spine.
"I am Mephiles, girl, and I can show who's responsible for this ruined world," Mephiles answered.
Blaze couldn't ignore the uneasiness in her stomach as she looked at him over again. Silver, however, didn't seem to be showing the same fear.
"Is that really the answer to our problem?" he asked.
"How do you know who or what it is?" Blaze asked, with obvious distrust in her tone.
Though he had no mouth, Blaze swore she could see a sinister look on his face with just his eyes alone.
"Follow me, children," he answered confidently.
