Disclaimer: All material belongs to Sega.

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White Space:

Mephiles' remains faded into the nothingness, temporarily granting the two rivals with the sight in front of them. Swirling purple vortexes popped around randomly and we're scattered everywhere. Searching for where Mephiles ran off to, Sonic gasps in surprise to see his friends right in front of him. He leaves Eggman behind as he races off to the bubble holding them.

"Sonic!" Amy exclaims excitedly. "I was so worried about you! Where have you been?!"

"Long story. Are you guys ok?" He asks while looking them over. They all look a little shaken, sans Knuckles who looked like he hurting quite a bit. He eyes stop at Rotor for a second, not recognizing him.

"Hi, I'm Rotor. Nice to meet you." Rotor says with a small smile.

"We don't have time for introductions!" Eggman shouts over the roaring of one of the vortexes. "There are bigger problems happening right now!"

Shaking the ground, purple smoke dances across the floor in front of the bubble. Now forming into a figure, Mephiles reappears holding two energy balls in his hands. With a mighty swing, he flings them overtop of his head while they land directly behind him. Bubbling on the ground, the energy spreads below him, revealing a strange orange energy emerging from its depths. The two colors combine fiercely as they snap and crackle from the pressure.

Not wasting anymore time, the dark one puts his hands over top of the puddle and begins absorbing the new power. Slithers of colorful energy dance around his body as it begins to take a new shape. Growing giant crystals on his body, he begins to slowly transform into a hideous looking beast. His body triples in size as his new muscular arms hold his torso off the ground. The bottom half his body is submerged into the ground below, casting a large shadow of purple energy below. The orange energy continues to mix into his being, crawling all the way up to his new monstrous head. And embedded in his chest is the red chaos emerald.

"What. The. Hell?!" Knuckles exclaims in shock at the creature. Small dark shadows appear in the white ground around him, making small puddles of dark energy. They then take shape and form into hundreds of copies of Mephiles before everyone's eyes.

The beast lets out a mighty roar while staring straight at Sonic and Eggman. "Let's get started shall we?" It asks with a very deep voice.

With a mighty roar, the clones immediately charge at Sonic. Reacting quickly, he jumps over top of the first part of the horde and on the other side of Eggman. "Eggman!" He yells over the roaring. "Find a way to get them out of here while I fight him off!" Before anyone can protest, Sonic races back into the fray.

Aiming a ray gun at the bubble, the doctor prepares to shoot. But Rouge quickly interrupts him. "Wait! Why are you even helping us?"

Charging his cannon, his replies with a hint of disgust in his voice. "Help you? Don't make me laugh. This is only a temporary truce until we get out here. After we leave, you're all fair game." He frowns deeply as he waits for the charge buildup. "But first I'll need to figure out who's been trying to take all of my plans…"

"Whoa, wait just a minute!" Amy exclaims. Sonic is heard rushing toward Mephiles in the background, destroying a part of the clone horde in the process. The ground shakes violently. "You're the one who put us here in the first place…right?" She ends with a question when she sees the confusion on Eggman's face. It wasn't like to not at take any credit for something he did.

Eggman huffs, not answering her as the cannon goes off. The bullets bounce off the shield, leaving small cracks on the exterior. He goes to recharge the cannon once more. "Sonic tried this already. And I explained that I have done nothing. I appeared hear without an explanation as well."

"You expect us to believe you?!" Knuckles roars at the man. "Metal Sonic has been on our case all day searching for emeralds. Do you think we're stupid?"

"Metal?" Eggman questions. "But he's been out of commission for months! There's no way he can be up and running! I haven't even begun my new upgrades for him yet!"

His cannon goes off again, leaving more cracks. A shattering sound is heard behind the hoard, making the beat scream out loudly. Knuckles goes to stand up afterwards, looking very angry. "Oh yeah, I'm sure you nothing to do that with either? You're robots have been causing damage for days now. Just what are you playing at?"

"Both of you SHUT UP!" Amy screams, pulling out her hammer. "You're guys' arguing is driving me crazy! Let's just get out of here, then you guys can tear each other's throats out!" She swings her hammer on the bubble in anger, instantly shattering it. The group of mobians come tumbling out to the ground with a gasp.

Another roar shouts out, causing everyone to snap their heads over to the battle. Sonic has seemed to have weaken Mephiles some; as most of the clones have disappeared and one of his arms is broken. The red chaos emerald begins to glow intensely as the beast charges at him with his other arm.

Sonic dodges and performs a homing attack on the other arm, causing it to shatter like the other. Having no defense left, he roars at the remaining clones to surround Sonic, trapping him. Eggman and the rest of the group charge towards them, helping to eliminate the remaining threat swiftly.

Sonic and Eggman now stand side by side, facing the remains of Mephiles. "Just give up the emerald Mephiles! You're out tricks." Sonic says while gazing at the now dimmer emerald.

"I will not be defeated by you people again!" Mephiles responds desperately. "Why won't you all just die?!" He materializes dark energy balls at the group, causing them to scatter. Sonic, seeing an opportunity, attacks Mephiles' head directly. The blunt force causes more crystal to break off him and cracked his torso. The red chaos emerald, having no support, tumbles to the ground as Mephiles roars in rage.

His beat form begins to melt, leaving Mephiles looking like his old self again. He crashes to the ground in rage, smacking his hands fiercely. "No! They promised me my revenge!" His body continues to melt, him screaming in anger. He finally transforms into a mere puddle of purple goo before slinking off into the ground. Nothing is left.

The scene is quite for several minutes as everyone recollects themselves. Charmy is the first to break the silence, stopping from trying to see what happened to Mephiles after the battle. "Wow! Who was that guy?"

"I have no idea." Sonic replies with a stretch. He gazes over at the emerald lying on the ground. "But, it doesn't matter. No we have our ticket out of here!"

He jogs over at the emerald and carefully picks it up. Then a low pitch hum rolls into the scene. A purple vortex begins to materialize in front of him. "Alright, guys. Let's get out here first before something else happens!"

He motions for the others to follow him through and jumps in. Everyone else follows suit and goes after him, not wanting to be in that place any longer. When reaching the outside, they all land on green grass and rolling hills. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief.

However, the peace is short lived when suddenly Sonic spindashes the legs of Eggman's mech. Crying out in surprise, Eggmans falls to the ground outside and snaps his head up in shock. But he frowns when he sees everyone suddenly surrounding him.

"Ok, Egghead." Sonic begins. "You have some explaining to do."

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Alright, new chapter posted pretty quickly! I'm hoping to update once a week or two from now on, but it will all depend on my schedule.

As for this chapter, we'll be seeing hearing more of Mephiles later on. So if you though his departure was pretty anti-climatic, it was purposeful. We're going to be getting more into action in the future as well. Things will be getting a little dark later on.

Finally, thank you for the new follows/favs/reviews! It means a lot. :)