Chapter Text
The false life shuddered.
It wasn't sure how to feel, for the concept of feeling was something ethereal to it.
But feel it did, it was forced to.
A flash, spiral, squeeze, melt, wrath, hatred, catharsis.
Such a painful state of existence.
Its shared senses, dulled but painful, were allowed to perceive.
Three figures, wreathed in gilded aura.
Hatred, fear, prostration.
Its brother cried, the dominant consciousness. The Pilot of the End Times, now crashing.
Iblis was dead. It didn't have the force of will to right the course. But before it could sense its nature be undone…
Cultivation.
Like a tree sprouting from its own seed. It recalled a word, now ultimately meaningless, bereft of material.
Mephiles.
…
Meph…iles.
Thought.
…Existence?
The creature, allowed to feel, christened itself with shock and horror. Senses were bestowed upon it. Hands, feet, legs, arms, torso, head. It was alive, it had trespassed into the realm of mortals, from a place where time and space were dreams at best, always nothing.
If allowed a name, it would call itself Mephiles. If proposed gender, it would not dare to indulge.
Mephiles trespassed further, opening its eyes. It was relieved, it deserved nothing but the abyss before it.
Daring to without permission, it inspected itself. Long white claws, almost crystalline, adorning purple, rubbery skin. The rest of the body was much alike.
The creature noticed a swirl beneath it, like a carpet torn to ribbons. It was purple, bright enough to stick out from the rest of the abyss. This was no floor though, it was the walls and ceiling too. Spherical, that was the shape.
Mephiles surprised itself at recalling such a word, Spherical. Had it… no, her, she trespassed further, allowing herself a new gender. One she, not the universe, not someone else, she, decided was right for her.
She answered her question, clearly, she was not always an inhabitant of the ‘neverworld’, as she would call it.
Reaffirming herself, Mephiles’ contempt for the neverworld grew. She knew not why she had been given a ticket back to the mortal realm, but she would make sure she never returned.
Time passed in her new realm, she wasn't sure how much, but it was infinitely longer than what would have happened in the neverworld. More importantly, what was forbidden, knowledge, returned to her. Iblis, Solaris, the Chaos Emeralds.
Shadow. Her template.
As images of that hedgehog flashed through her mind like a movie reel, she looked down at her body, finding it differently shaped from what the original presented. Her chest extended further out, and the area beneath was slimmer. This wasn't what she remembered herself looking like. Her body had transformed of her own will. A flamboyant power, but one that will see limited use from now on.
Appearance for her was irrelevant however, she had to find a route or sequence to escape. The laws and customs of the neverworld meant nothing to her anymore.
Applied force? Futile. Beams? Absorbed. Clones? Party Trick.
Her contempt grew further, this realm was a luxury compared to the neverworld, but compared to what she remembered of the true mortal realm, it was hell.
It would not be long until her realm broke its stagnancy, shocking Mephiles since life was borrowed to her once more. The purple sphere died down, and her body began to disperse.
Fade, however, it did not. Mephiles was cathartically propelled upwards, freedom coming ever closer.
The abyss gave way to an underground dungeon. The walls and ceiling are nigh unreachable but within sight. The ground was lowered into a circular cutout, an octagon of pillars outside its circumference balancing purple orbs at each tip.
She took a moment to admire the surroundings. It had only been an hour or two since life had been brought back to her, but already she could die happy here.
Little did she know, it was a likely outcome.
Mephiles was no stranger to bad feelings following what was shared with her in that gruesome battle as the battery of Solaris. But a sudden kick to the back of her head caused her enough pain to make her stumble forward and almost collapse on the floor. She yelled out in pain afterward, noticing her voice to be much lower pitched than she wished.
“Who are you, Demon?” a growl came from behind.
Mephiles tilted her head up from the cobblestone arena she was staring down at, and towards the voice. Those shoes under black jeans, the ringed cuffed gloves, the chest fur hidden behind a black leather jacket, and those horn-like quills. There's no mistaking it.
It was the Ultimate Lifeform, fists raised and bubbling with wicked energy.