Blaze had been bracing herself for a long conversation with the Coconut Crew as she tried to explain what had just occurred… but Marine had just waved a hand vaguely and said "It was another bit of dimensional baloney. Blaze sorted it." and they all nodded and accepted her words. She didn't know whether to be disappointed or heartened.
Marine then scampered up to the Ocean Tornado's stern, where the lookout and steering wheel both were. With a spyglass in hand, she set to scanning the horizon.
"What are you looking for?" Blaze asked Marine.
Marine gave her an odd look. "For drongo pirates, of course!"
"Pirates?" Blaze echoed, puzzled. "But we destroyed all of the pirates terrorising these seas already!"
"Fair dinkum?" Marine responded, uncertain. "Weren't that what we had planned for this arvo? Pirate hunting?"
Blaze opened her mouth to protest… then realised that she too, remembered making plans to further hunt pirates this day, confusing other memories of already having hunted them to extinction. In this world of overlapping histories, had those pirates been destroyed or hadn't they? …it would be very irritating, having to hunt down those imbecilic robot pirates while already remembering the sweet release from her duty of destruction.
Unable to think of a satisfactory answer to Marine's question, Blaze chose to scan the horizon herself. She couldn't see any sails, but she did think she could see the distant form of Sky Babylon, the ancient island floating above the sea.
When they'd first explored Sky Babylon, Tails had excitedly babbled about a similar floating structure from their world called 'Babylon Garden', and had wandered if the two were direct alternates of each other, created by the same ancient civilisation.
They hadn't had the opportunity to investigate at the time, though Blaze knew that these days Sky Babylon was crawling with archaeologists keen to earn a name for themselves. Maybe one day they'd be able to answer Tail's hypothesis – though obviously that would require comparing notes with their counterparts in Sonic's world.
A much clearer relationship was that between Pirates' Island and Angel Island. Having visited both islands personally, Blaze was very confident that they were, in fact, two different versions of the same island. Given that Pirates' Island had crashed back to earth untold centuries ago, she wondered if that meant her world had an alternate of the Master Emerald…
…perhaps that was where the Jewelled Sceptre had come from.
"We're making good time!" Marine called in satisfaction. "We'll be within cooee of the palace well before tea time. Then you can flap yer gums to Gardon, and we'll be –"
"Cap'n!" One of the Coconut Crew called in a panic. "It's the jolly roger!"
Blaze spun on her heel, suddenly focusing on the poor koala who had spoken. A ball of fire appeared in both of her hands. "Where?!" She demanded.
The crewman gulped. "Above, yer highness! From above!"
Before she could demand to know what on earth he meant, she got her answer. A vast shadow covered the ship, and Blaze spun around to find a sailing ship sitting impossibly in the skies above, blotting out the sun.
Now, this was not the first time Blaze had seen an improbable flying construct. To this day, she still didn't know how on earth the Eggmens' ridiculous hover machine worked – and she had literally just been staring at Sky Babylon. But she was still taken aback to see a ship with canvas sails and a jet of flame shooting from its back, hovering in defiance of gravity.
"Man the guns!" Marine cried, a savage grin on her face and her hands on her hips.
"How?!" One of the Coconut Crew asked, panic struck across their face. "The cannons don't aim that high up!"
"Not with that layabout attitude they won't!" Marine shook an angry fist at the hapless koala.
From the ship up above, four giant anchors on thick chains were thrown over the sides. The chains went taught, causing the anchors to swing down and into the side of the Ocean Tornado with a crash as they stabbed into the sides of the ship, breaking through the wood.
Clink clink clink clink
Everyone aboard the Ocean Tornado stumbled as the chains started to retract, pulling the ship out of the water with a mighty crash of water.
"The blighters are trying to steal me ship!" Marine cried. Blaze couldn't tell if it was with incredulity, or indignity. "Crew! Get rid of these blasted chains!"
"But cap'n, if we do that we'll fall into the water!" A different crewman protested. "With four holes in the hull, we'll stand no chance!"
Blaze glanced over the side of the ship. Already, they were a dozen meters above the surface of the water, ascending rapidly, and ooooooooooh her vision was starting to swim already. Blaze shook her head and focused her gaze on the ship above, trying to fight back the sensation of vertigo.
"Uhhhh…" Marine stumbled. "Alright, new plan! These bogans want to take our ship, well, we'll take theirs instead!"
"You can't be serious!" The crewman protested out of habit – despite having worked with Marine for more than long enough to know that she was, in fact, completely serious. He turned to Blaze instead. "Princess, please, give us orders!"
"Actually, I agree with Marine." Blaze said calmly.
The two crewmen who had spoken up shot dismayed looks at each other. "We're doomed!" They cried together.
"Avast, ye swabs!" A new voice yelled down from above. "Yer ship now be property of the fearsome Captain Plunder! Surrender all yer valuables to me, and I drop yer ship at the nearest harbour! Refuse, and I send ye straight to Davy Jones's locker!"
Blaze looked up. The bottom of the sky-ship had portholes, presumably so that the crew could see what was underneath them. Curiously, though, nobody was manning them at the moment – meaning that the crew of the pirate ship couldn't see what they were doing.
Blaze took a deep breath, closed her eyes, grabbed onto the chain nearest herself, and started climbing.
"Ye have one minute to make yer intentions known!" The voice (presumably that of 'Captain Plunder' bellowed again). "After that, I cast ye down to the depths of the deep blue!"
Blaze could hear the clink clink clink of the chain retracting into the ship getting nearer and nearer. Heart pounding, she opened her eyes and saw that the chain she was holding onto was about to be pulled into the sky-ship.
With hear heart leaping into her mouth, Blaze jumped upwards for the railing above, grabbing and swinging herself onto the deck of the sky-ship.
"How about this instead, Plunder." Blaze snarled. She was very uncomfortably aware of the long drop behind her, but there was fire in her eyes nonetheless (and, more importantly, fire in her hands). "You and your crew surrender, and I won't melt you to…" She trailed off. "You're… organic?"
"What in blue blazes?!" Captain Plunder (judging by his big tricorne hat) yelped, jumping back from the speaking tube he had been yelling into. Blaze wasn't completely sure what species he was, but she thought he might have been a boar based on the two large tusks jutting upwards from his jaw. With a green long-coat, a wooden leg, eye-patch, hook in place of his left hand and the robotic parrot on his shoulder, the pirate could hardly be mistaken for any other profession.
"Filch!" Plunder yelled, drawing the large cutlass holstered at his waist. "I told ye to set sail for uncharted waters!"
"Aye captain, I did!" Yelled back a voice from the rear of the ship, where the steering column was. Blaze couldn't see them that well from where she was, but they seemed to be… transparent?
"Then why we be under attack from costumed wenches with powers like we was in the Special Zone?!" Plunder thundered.
"Costume? Wench?!" The fire in Blaze's hands raged up and over her head, her face furious. "This is my royal garb!"
She charged forwards, hurling her fireballs at Plunder. Plunder, being a big brave pirate, squealed like a little girl and threw himself to the ground, watching in panic as the fireballs soared over his head – and fortunately for the ship, over the railing.
Blaze, not having expected Plunder to dive, stumbled as she awkwardly altered her charge to avoid tripping over him. Plunder, suddenly seeing his chance, grabbed her leading leg and heaved. Plunder was huge – nearly twice as tall as Blaze was, and several times as broad – so Blaze found herself flying, heading for over the railing.
Letting out a very un-princess-like cry of panic, Blaze shot fire from her hands, pushing back against gravity and back towards the ship. Desperately, she reached out and grabbed onto the railing as she fell, grabbing and holding onto it with a death-grip as her body swung around and slammed her against the side of the ship.
"Oh, is that so?" Blaze looked up to see Plunder's leaning out over the railing above her. His earlier expression of panic had been replaced with a look of smug glee. "Well, then I'm very sorry yer highness, that I am. Had I known of yer title, I'd have rolled out the red carpet!"
"Do not mock me, pirate!" Blaze snarled, trying to fight back against the vertigo clawing at the outside of her vision. Oh, why oh why did this pirate have to fly?!
"Oh, I ain't be mocking, yer highness. A king is worth a king's ransom and all that." Plunder chuckled. He leered down at her. "What's the matter, princess? Afraid of heights?"
Blaze spat a tiny fireball into his face.
Plunder roared with pain, clawing at his face in a desperate attempt to save his last good eye. "You little wench!" He roared.
Flames shot from the soles of Blaze's shoes, and she pulled with her arms in concert with the Axel Tornado to pull her up and over the railing.
Plunder stumbled around and took his hands away from his face just in time to see Blaze land in front of him, engulfed in flames.
Plunder swallowed. "Filch! Simpson! Get out here and attend to yer captain!" Spinning on his heels, Plunder ran away from Blaze as fast as he could manage.
At the same time as this, small tan gloves appeared over the railing on the other side of the ship, heralding Marine pulling herself up and over. "Crikey!" She gasped for air, collapsing down into a sitting position. "You blighters don't mess about, do ya?"
Seeing Blaze chase Plunder over the deck seemed to restore her energy though, and Marine jumped back to her feet again. "Woo! Go Blaze! Show that standover man that he's a no-hoper!"
"Don't count me captain out yet! He's a mean ol' pirate when the cards are down. I should know – he killed me over a biscuit!"
Marine blinked.
Then she turned around, coming face to face with the grey, semi-transparent form of a reptilian of some description. A very large, very neat hole had at some point been drilled through his forehead.
Marine held up a shaking finger. "G-g-g-g-g-gh-gh-gho-"
Filch shoved his hands forward and stuck out his tongue. "Boo!"
"Ghhhhooooooooossssst!" Marine screamed in a wild panic, sprinting away from the spectre. Tripping on an uneven bit of decking, the young raccoon went tumbling across the deck, and then down the stairs to the lower deck.
As she tumbled down the stairs, she passed a black and white cat who was casually strolling up the second set of stairs on the ceiling. He waved as she tumbled down underneath him.
Wait a blasted minute…
The observation that there wasn't a second set of stairs on the ceiling was squashed out of Marine's head as she crashed to the floor at the foot of the stairs.
"Ughh…" She groggily sat up, blinking stars out of her vision. "Blasted pirates… using a ghost's no fair!"
"Blimey! Is that a sheila's voice I hear? Help!"
Marine blinked rapidly. Across the room from her was a crude brig of iron bars wedged into the ceiling and floor. Inside were a motley crew – a wallaby, a wombat, a koala and an emu. Only the wombat seemed to be awake – the others were slowly rousing from a rough sleep on the floor.
"That blighter picked us right of the street, he did!" The wombat shook an angry fist. "Wanted to press-gang us into his crew – and when we didn't play ball, he chucked us in the clink! Fair dinkum!"
Marine got to her feet, and grabbed onto the bars of the cage. The wombat leaned back, sweating, as Marine's eyes suddenly shined with gleeful intensity.
"Finally!" She cried in delight. "Some blokes who talk normally!"
Meanwhile, above decks, Captain Plunder was in something of a bind. He was stuck in the bow of his ship, with nothing behind him but a very long fall and a very angry fire cat in front of him.
"Yar!" Filch cried, his ghostly form stepping in front of his captain. "If yer be wanting to hurt me captain, yer be having to go through me!"
Blaze pointed at the dead pirate with a hand engulfed in fire. "Back, spectre, or we'll see if my flames cannot scorch your soul." She said, her face and voice both dead serious.
Filch processed this for a moment. "Er… beggin' yer pardon, cap'n, but I be suddenly remembering somethin' very important I be needing to do below decks." With that, the ghost dived down and through the wooden deck.
"Filch!" Plunder roared in betrayal. As Blaze stepped forward, however, his fury quickly turned to panic.
"Parley!" He squeaked.
"Parley?" Blaze hissed. "Usually, this is when I would melt you to slag." Plunder swallowed nervously. "But you aren't like the usual breed of pirates that infest this world. You're alive. So I'll give you a choice – surrender your ship and your pirating ways, or face summary judgement at my hands."
(Her hands, just to remind you, were currently covered in flames that burned but did not consume.)
Plunder raised his cutlass somewhat desperately, sweat rolling down his face. "Beggin' yer pardon, yer highness, but I'm afraid this captain is in a lot of debt to a very scary witch; and she says if I fall behind in me payments, the curse she removed from me person will come back. So you see, I'm far more scared of her than I am of you, savvy?"
Blaze's expression darkened. "Very well then." She said, stepping forwards "You have chosen your –"
And then she stepped on a banana peel left carelessly out on the deck, slipped, and went flying comically backwards.
For a moment, Blaze just stared up at the bright blue sky, her face locked in an expression of abject disbelief.
"Simpson!" Captain Plunder roared, shaking his fist. "You took yer sweet time getting here, ya lazy layabout!"
"Sorry, cap'n!"
Blaze turned her head slightly to find a cat sitting on the ship's railing. Bizarrely, he was coloured in stark black and white – no gradients of any kind, like he had leapt directly off the pages of a comic book. In his hands he held the banana whose peel had presumably just caused her current indignity.
Simpson the Cat squeezed the banana in his hands, sending it flying up into the air. He opened his mouth and closed his eyes, waiting for it to fall back down into his waiting gob.
Right as that was happening, though, Plunder reached over and grabbed Simpson by the neck, shaking him back and forth. "When I say to attend to yer cap'n, that means now, ye scurvy dog!" Plunder roared.
Simpson didn't respond, too busy choking on the banana that had somehow become lodged sideways in his throat. The long shape of the fruit protruded out from both sides of Simpson's neck in a way that didn't seem anatomically possible.
"And you, Filch! What be yer excuse?!" Plunder roared.
"Beggin' yer pardon, cap'n, but I couldn't exactly do much, now could I?" Filch floated up though the floor to stand next to Plunder. "With me being dead and all…"
"One o' these days, Filch, I'll stop buying that sorry excuse for an excuse."
Blaze shook her head, chastising herself for getting distracted. She made to get up, but the point of Plunder's cutlass swung around to touch her throat.
"Uh uh uh." Plunder grinned. "None o' that, now. Look's like old Plunder's luck is finally turnin' round!"
Which is when a boomerang hit Plunder square between the eyes.
"Gah!" Plunder roared, reeling back with the force of the blow. Blaze seized her chance, leaping up to her feet and grabbing his cutlass in a fiery fist. The thin blade quickly turned soft in her hand, then separated with a splat as the metal melted. The blade hit the deck with a clang and a sizzle as the deck sprouted flames around the molten metal.
"Captain Plunder, it's time you took a long walkabout off a short gangplank!"
Blaze took a step back out of Plunder's reach, and glanced behind her. A group of new people were coming up from below decks, lead by a kangaroo (or maybe a wallaby?) catching the boomerang on the return, and Marine.
"Spent all yer time down below thinkin' of that one, did ya?" Plunder grumbled, rubbing the sore spot on his face.
"I…! No!" The wallaby denied furiously, but their face turned a very interesting shade of red, visible even through their fur.
Simpson swallowed, the comical bulge in his throat travelling down until it disappeared into his chest. He jumped forward, his hands raised in what an amateur would think was a boxing stance. "No worries, cap'n! I'll get 'em!"
He stepped forward, winding up for a swing.
Blaze set him on fire.
Simpson screamed in a childish, high-pitched voice, his tongue flying out of his throat for a moment. Quickly, he tore off the thick black outline from around his body and began frantically stamping on it to put the fire out.
All present looked upon this absurd scene, then as one – through simultaneous, unspoken agreement – looked away and did their best to ignore it.
"I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but who exactly are you?" Blaze called to the group behind her, keeping her eyes fixed on the pirates in front of her.
"I'm Walt Wallaby!" The leader introduced himself.
Marine the Raccoon blinked. "Ya mean Walt the Wallaby?"
"And I'm Guru Emu!" The emu dramatically posed.
"I think he means Guru the Emu." Simpson the Cat confided to Marine, slipping back into his outline.
"Barby Koala!" Said koala smiled.
"Do you blokes really not know the naming convention?" Marine grumbled, resting her chin in her hand.
"And I'm Wombat Stu." The final member tipped his hat. "Nice to meet'cha!"
"Okay, that one I'll allow just for the pun." Marine nodded reluctantly.
Barby paused. "Wait, what pun?"
"And we're the Downunda Freedom Fighters!" Walt nodded, having ignored the peanut gallery.
"…you were stuck below-decks for so long you formed yer own club?" Marine scratched her head.
Walt sweat-dropped. "Not down-unda the decks! Downunda the continent!"
"What's a continent?" Marine asked, clueless.
Everybody turned and gaped at Marine – well, everybody but Blaze, who just sighed.
"It's an island so large that to walk across it could take months." She explained.
"Blimy!" Marine jumped. "They can get that large? How does your average drongo sail around them then?"
"Well, there's these things called 'canals'…" Guru trailed off.
"Hold up." Barby raised her hands. "You've never heard of a continent before?" At Marine's nodding, she asked "…how?!"
"There aren't any on this world." Blaze said, simply. "I only know about them because I've been to Sonic's world."
"Sonic's world…" Walt echoed, suddenly looking very worried. "As in, the world where Sonic lives? Which is… not where we are?"
"I should blasted well hope not, or else I be needing to fire me navigator!" Plunder said, glaring at Filch.
Several angry glares, a raised boomerang and a new burst of fire from Blaze made Plunder suddenly sit down and shut up.
"No." Blaze answered, finally turning to face the D.F.F. "The Zone Cops call this world the 'Sol Zone'." She ground her teeth somewhat as the name 'Zone Cops' reluctantly left her lips.
"Uh." Walt swallowed. "Any chance you know a way, y'know…"
"Fortunately for you, I will shortly heading back to Sonic's world." Blaze preempted his question. "You may accompany me, if you pref–"
"Yes please!" Walt squeaked, before blinking and coughing. "I mean, uh, yeah mate, that'd be ripper. Things were bad last we were there, and I can't imagine they've gotten better while we've been gone."
Guru Emu folded his arms. "I'm picking up some negative vibes, man." He said to Blaze. "What's your beef with these Zone fuzz guys?"
One of Blaze's eyebrows twitched. "'Beef'? Me? No. Why on earth would I despise a group that allowed Eggman Nega to steal my family's sacred treasures – without which, incidentally, my entire world will be destroyed – and then obstructed my attempts to recover them?"
Or… wait, wasn't it Eggman who stole the Sol Emeralds, even if on Nega's suggestion? Blaze suddenly wondered. …I don't regret saving my world, but these duplicated details are going to be very confusing.
"Ah." Walt swallowed. "Right."
"They not even be paying attention to me anymore." Plunder complained to Filch. "They not be afraid o' me at all!"
"Don't worry cap'n, I still think ye be fearsome." Fitch reassured.
"So, where's the nearest entrance to the Cosmic Interstate?" Wombat Stu scanned the horizon, as though he expected to see a giant floating hole in the sky with a road sticking out.
"The… what?" Marine raised an eyebrow "Mate, I think ye might have spent too much time out in the bush."
"Yeah, there's no way my cosmic taxes are going towards things as useful as highways!" Simpson chimed in, shaking an angry fist.
"The Cosmic Interstate no longer exists." Blaze said with certainty. If it had, she would have seen it during her… episode… with the Jewelled Sceptre. "Fortunately for the both of us, we do not need it – the power of the Sol Emeralds will carry us to our destination."
"Good thing too, otherwise I'd need to try and make sense o' Tail's old notes again." Marine said, a haunted look in her eyes. "I dunno what a 'reverse geometric vacuum pulse' is, an' I'm scared to find out."
"Oh, Tails has been here too?" Barby said, a dreamy smile on her face. "It's been ages since I've had a chance to see him…!"
Blaze blinked in confusion. "Tails… the Fox?"
"Yes, that's the one!" Barby smiled, sighing contently.
"…the eight year old child?" Blaze clarified, her confusion only getting worse.
Barby's eyes blinked in honest confusion. "What? No, no! Tails isn't eight!"
"That's right!" Walt added on. "Sally would never let an eight-year-old serve in the Freedom Fighters!"
Barby nodded frantically. "Yes, exactly!"
"He joined at ten." Walt finished. "Which, uh… I think would make him twelve now?"
Barby stared at Walt, her eyes so wide Blaze briefly wondered if they were going to pop out of her head.
Walt blinked at Barby. "Uh, Barbs, something wron–?"
Without saying a word, Barby dashed to the deck railing and started to be violently sick into the sea below.
"Er…" Marine blinked. "What's that on about?"
"I… think it's better that we don't ask." Walt, indeed, looked like he was trying not to think about Barby's reaction.
As Barby finished emptying her last meal into the ocean below and shakily wiped her mouth with the back of her furry hand, she gazed down at the water, her eyes unfocused.
She suddenly blinked, her nausea temporarily forgotten, as she saw a massive shadow on the water's surface below, moving quickly towards the shadow of Plunder's sky-ship. She turned around and searched the sky, but couldn't see anything that was casting it.
"Ark!" Guru Emu suddenly jumped high into the air, like he'd just been bitten on the behind. "Bad vibes! Bad vibes! Very very bad vibes!"
As Barby stared in confusion at her teammate, the shadow on the water silently merged into the ship's shadow, then appeared on the deck behind her. It was much smaller now, about the size of Barby and the others, and moved smoothly across the deck.
Outside of Guru's freak-out, nobody noticed the shadow until it merged with Blaze's.
"!" Blaze suddenly whirled around.
Her shadow did not copy her movements.
Instead, it started laughing. A deep, booming laugh that set her ears to ringing.
"Fake princess of a future that no longer exists…" a deeper, echoing version of Blaze's voice mocked her. "Did you think you could hide from me by casting off even the dimension of your birth?"
It was the voice from her nightmares. The Sol Emeralds emerged, spinning around her… but Blaze could sense a deep, deep fear from them. They hadn't reacted like this, not even to the Egg Wizard!
"What in blue blistering blazes?!" Plunder thundered, scooting back away from the abnormal shadow, Filch with him.
Simpson, however, just picked up the banana peel that Blaze had slipped on earlier, peering at it closely.
Blaze's shadow started to lift up off the ground, becoming three dimensional. "Entrapping me inside a paradox was clever, princess, even if it wasn't your doing. But did you really think that you were rid of me forever? All I needed was the smallest crack –"
Blaze's shadow lifted up a hand in time to catch Walt's boomerang without ever looking.
Brow furrowed in concentration, Simpson peeled the shadow of the banana peel free from the peel itself.
"Downunder Freedom Fighters!" Walt bellowed. "Atta –"
Blaze's shadow glanced sharply in Walt's direction, instantly incinerating the boomerang with a flash of dark fire. The burst continued out from the end of its hand, burning a hole through the ship's cabin in an instant.
Walt froze, his battlecry suddenly stuck in his throat. A circular patch of fur waved in the wind from where the fire had just barely grazed it. The other D.F.F. also stood, paralysed in place, their eyes wide with fright.
Blaze swallowed. "Mephiles the Dark…"
Marine suddenly looked up in shock. Blaze's voice was choked with deathly fear.
"Indeed!" Mephiles confirmed, their borrowed form of Blaze's shadow reaching out towards them.
"Now, princess, you have one final role to play." They stepped forwards. "Release Iblis unto me –!"
Mephiles's dark, malevolent aura was suitably disrupted when it slipped on the shadow of the banana peel and went flying backwards, over the railing of the ship and down and out of sight.
Simpson dusted off his hands. "Works every time!"
"What in blue blazes – er, I mean, well done lad! I always knew ye be having it in you!" Plunder called from his hiding place behind some crates on the far side of the ship.
"We need to leave." Blaze swallowed, still frozen. "Now."
"Er… you sure?" Wombat Stu bravely looked over the side of the ship. "I really don't think… ack!"
With a deep rumbling noise, a dark shadow grew over the side of the ship.
Plunder's eyes went as wide as saucers. "Mister Filch! Sail us to calmer waters!"
"Anywhere in particular, cap'n?" The pirate ghost called back, even as he sprinted for the steering wheel.
"Anywhere but here!" Plunder called, stumbling backwards.
Simpson frowned. "What are you guys all looking at? There's nothing…"
Suddenly, Simpson's head rotated 180 degrees, and he jumped into the air, screaming. His eyes flew out of their sockets, his pupils extending even further out from his face.
Blaze's shadow had grown in size to the point where its clawed hands were as wide as the ship was tall. It floated in space, glaring down at the ship and its inhabitants.
"This world was a mistake." Mephiles rumbled, swinging a claw back. "A byproduct of a story that refused to end, even when its beginning was taken away. When I am whole again, it shall be the first to –!"
Mephiles flinched, ever so slightly, as a cannonball hit it in the face.
"Aw, shut yer gob!" Marine hopped up and down, waving her hands angrily from her position in front of one of the ship's guns. She turned around. "Blaze, snap out of it! What's the matter with you?!"
"Anywhere but here, aye cap'n!" Filch called, extending out his hands towards the ship's steering wheel – and more importantly, to the Star Post the pirates had spliced into the ship to let it travel between Zones (salvaged from the sunken wreck of Plunder's first ship). With the very weak telekinesis Filch had as a poltergeist, mechanisms began to activate.
"No!" Mephiles cried, reaching up for another swing…
…but their claw swiped through empty space, as the sky-ship (and the Ocean Tornado caught in its clutches below) vanished in a flash of golden light.
Mephiles screamed into the uncaring sky. As it raged, the shadow cast by the Flames of Disaster started to slowly to fade into the light of day.
"Soon…" Mephiles promised, its voice as dark as its heart. "Soon, vessel of Iblis, he and I will be whole again… and nothing you can do will change that…!"
Its dark words echoed into the empty sky as the shadow finally vanished.
If you don't recognise Plunder and his gang, they're from Fleetway. Yes, even the cartoon cat. The D.F.F. are from pre-SGW Archie.
Fun fact: Mephiles's English voice was done by Dan Green, who you might also know as the English voice of Yugi and Yami Moto. (He also did a lot of the voice acting for Knuckles, in both the games and in Sonic X).