Solaris (Sonic)

"That body of light is the sign of a super-dimensional life-form. Standard attacks won't work on him. He eats dimensions for lunch!"

- Dr. Eggman about Solaris.

"I'm Mephiles, Mephiles the Dark! What, did you forget me?"

- Mephiles the Dark's famous quote.

Solaris (also known by his conscious half Mephiles the Dark and by his raw power half Iblis the Flames of Disaster) is both the main (under the form of Mephiles) and secondary (under the form of Iblis) antagonist of the 2006 Sonic the Hedgehog video game, serving as the main antagonist of Shadow and Silver's stories, a very minor antagonist in Sonic's story, and the main antagonist of the Last Story, also serving as the game's final boss in the form of Solaris.

He was an evil and demonic being who was accidentally created during the ill-fated Solaris Project. Mephiles took Shadow's form after being resurrected and never used anybody else's appearance. Mephiles is the mind and will of Solaris while Iblis is the raw power, and they eventually fuse back together into Solaris and are later defeated.

According to writer Ian Flynn, he believes the Time Eater, one of the antagonists of Sonic Generations, is actually what is left of Mephiles, who managed to slip through a crack in time. While this applies for the comics, it is unknown if it is true for the games, but Ian Flynn states that it is implied for the games, considering the hints and similarities of the Time Eater's appearance and its abilities. However, this might just be a coincidence.

Solaris's conscious mind, Mephiles, was voiced by the legendary voice actor Dan Green who also voiced Dark Yugi.

Mephiles
Mephiles was born from an experiment done on the primordial form of Solaris. The people conducting the "Solaris Project" sought to obtain the power of time-travel, but experimentation on Solaris caused an explosion that split Solaris into two beings; Mephiles and Iblis, both of whom were really powerful and were now escaping the underwater lab the explosion happened in. After he escapes in an formless ooze, he is sealed in the Scepter of Darkness by Shadow the Hedgehog, who traveled through time to 10 years before the events of the 2006 Sonic game.In the present, Dr. Eggman got hold of the Scepter and Shadow went to steal it, so that G.U.N. could have it. At a rendezvous point with Rouge the Bat at the original castle of the Soleanna royal family, Eggman appeared and brought robot henchmen to steal the Scepter back. He attacks Rogue while she tries to get away, but is saved by Shadow. The Scepter on the other hand fell and broke, damaging Eggman's robots. Mephiles (as a cloudy being) flew out, killed the robots, scared Eggman away and landed into the ground, sucking Shadow's own shadow out and using it to become a demonic version of Shadow. He sends Shadow and Rouge into the future with his new time-traveling powers after he realizes that Shadow does not know who he is.

While there, Mephiles somehow found out that Princess Elise the Third had Iblis sealed in her body since the Solaris Project explosion, and the only way to release the demon was to make her cry. She would later also have visions of a frightening future where Iblis destroys everything should he be ever awakened. To accomplish this, he tells Silver the Hedgehog and Blaze the Cat that Sonic the Hedgehog was the cause of Iblis being released into the future (as it has now destroyed most of the world by this point), which led to the destruction of their world. Sonic was, thus, referred to as the "Iblis Trigger". He sends the two back in time, making them believe that killing Sonic would save the future.

Mephiles later tells Shadow (who is still in the future) that the world, and eventually E-123 Omega, will betray him in the future, and asks him to join him in order to punish the world of humanity. First, he explains that when Iblis came around to cause the apocalypse, the world would search for someone to blame ("A search for the guilty. Who did this, you may ask?"), and people used this as an excuse to lock Shadow (in the future, at least) in an energy cage until the end of time. Shadow, however, refused to believe and join Mephiles, and fights him as he takes the form of a crystalline hedgehog while E-123 Omega eventually pops in and aids Shadow.

Mephiles retreats to the present, and somehow transforms back into his Shadow form on the way in order to keep manipulating Silver and Blaze. He tells them that Sonic is at the terminal station, and it's now or never if they want their world to be safe. Later, he encounters Omega at Wave Ocean, who starts to shoot him. After getting shot, Mephiles reveals that Omega himself was created to defeat Shadow in the future. Enraged by this, Omega switches to his machine guns, and shoots Mephiles again. As Mephiles started to fade away, he laughs evilly. After Omega told Shadow about Mephiles' statement, Shadow feels hurt and walks away. Meanwhile, Shadow, Omega, and Rouge encounter Mephiles once again at Dusty Desert, now having discovered his plans to obtain Chaos Emeralds and fuse with Iblis, and fight him in a temple, all while he taunts Shadow and sends clone after clone at him. After they defeated him, Shadow tried to imprison Mephiles with their new Scepter of Darkness, but Mephiles proved to be immune to this imprisoned and pushes Shadow and his partners away. He then uses his Chaos Emeralds to create a massive load of Mephiles clones, enough to take on an army of Eggman's robots. He then boasts to Shadow that he can't defeat him, and asks why he is even bothering to protect a world that will eventually turn against him. Shadow responds by saying, "If the whole world decides to become my enemy, then I will fight like I always have", and he removes rings on his wrists that unleashes a super-power that allows him to bulldoze through the army until it becomes a puddle of goo.After either Mephiles escaped or survived the battle with Shadow, he finds the purple Chaos Emerald (despite possessing it previously to deceive Silver), uses it to warp to Sonic and Elise's location shortly after they escape Eggman's exploding Egg Carrier, blinds them with the Emerald's powers, and impales Sonic through the back with an energy beam, killing him instantly. Elise cries over his death and, as a result, releases Iblis (as a mere fireball). With this done, Mephiles took his Emerald and used it to fuse with Iblis and transform into Solaris, and release a bright light that engulfs the Soleanna Castle Town and transports all the protagonists (and even Eggman) into a shattered dimension. It is also revealed here that his lie to Silver and Blaze about Sonic being the Iblis Trigger was actually a half-truth: Sonic is indeed the Iblis Trigger, but his death would not stop Iblis's resurrection, but it seems that his death would be the very event that would release Iblis from Elise's soul. The key to Iblis's freedom was an event that would cause Elise to become so consumed with despair or guilt that she would cry, and she had formed a very close (possibly even romantic) bond with Sonic.

Solaris tried to consume all existence while the protagonists go through the past levels in the game to get the Chaos Emeralds. Solaris sends black hole-like anomalies and evil monsters to stop them, but they got the Emeralds and revived Sonic. Solaris was then taken down by Super Sonic, Super Shadow and Super Silver all taking turns, which drops Elise and Sonic into a time-warp that sends them to when Solaris was only a measly flame. When Elise blew out the flame, Mephiles was erased from history and the game's events were actually part of an alternate timeline.

However, Mephiles later returned, as evidenced by his appearance in Sonic Runners and Iblis's survival in Sonic Generations, the latter which seems to imply the return of Mephiles as well.

Iblis
Before the games events, Iblis was split with Mephiles the Dark by the Duke of Soleanna. Elise then appeared and the explosion happened. Later, Silver the Hedgehog tried to seal Iblis, then the Duke of Soleanna sealed Iblis inside Elise.

In the future, Silver and Blaze fought against Iblis, but no matter how many times Silver defeated him, he would always survive, only reduced to a ball of fire from which he regenerated. Mephiles tried to manipulate Silver into going back in time and killing Sonic, claiming that Sonic would be the one to release Iblis, but his true intent was to release Iblis from inside Elise. After Silver defeated Iblis the final time, Blaze sealed him inside herself and presumably destroyed herself along with him. However, what happened next in the present would erase Iblis's future events from history.

To get Iblis out of Elise, Mephiles killed Sonic with a Dark Chaos Lance. Elise dropped down crying, releasing Iblis. The two then joined up to become one, Solaris the Timeweaver. Later, Elise revived Sonic using the Chaos Emeralds and one kiss, turning him into Super Sonic. He joins up with Shadow and Silver to defeat Solaris. After destroying Solaris, Elise was sent back to the past, where she put out the flame that would become Solaris, thus erasing Iblis and Mephiles from existence.

Solaris
Solaris initially existed as an apparently living flame which was praised and beloved by the citizens of the coastal city-estate/nation of Soleanna as their patron deity. Nothing is known about Solaris' origins, other that he had been "entrusted" to the Soleannean royal family ruling over Soleanna and its people at some point in the past and had remained under the protection of them and within the bowels of the former Soleannean royal palace in Kingdom Valley for an unpresented amount of time.

In the Soleannean culture, the Kingdom of Soleanna held an annual holiday called the "Soleanna Sun Festival" to honor their god as they celebrate with lights, fireworks, and ceremonial dancing. The final part of the festival begins and ends with members of the Soleannean royal family, accompanied by religious Soleannean priests in yellow hooded robes, offering prayers to Solaris with hopes of bright and prosperous years for Soleanna as they lit the city's treasured stone monument called the "Altar of Light" (also called the "Altar of Flame") in the centre of the city square.

During the reign of the Duke of Soleanna, the Duke prepared a temporal research program known as the Solaris Project to experiment on Solaris in the hopes of using his time control powers to allow humanity to correct its past sins (and also to allow himself and his young daughter, Princess Elise the Third, to see Elise's deceased mother once again). Once Solaris' flame had grown significantly large enough, the Solaris Project was initiated, leading to several experiments being performed on Solaris. However, during one such experiment, Solaris became unstable, ignoring the Duke of Soleanna's pleas and split into 2 evil entities: Iblis, the raw power and Mephiles, the cunning conscious mind. Mephiles was sealed into an artifact known as the Scepter of Darkness by the time-traveling Shadow the Hedgehog, while the Duke was forced to seal Iblis inside of Princess Elise's soul. Before dying from wounds caused by the accident, he told his daughter to grow up to be a strong queen who would never cry as doing so would destroy the seal on Iblis which is said to bring about the upon it's awakening.

Mephiles was eventually freed and he began plotting to reunite with Iblis. He made Princess Elise cry by killing Sonic the Hedgehog, thereby releasing Iblis and the two beings whose fusion empowered by the magical energy of the Chaos Emeralds, joined to form Solaris again. Solaris immediately plunged the world into darkness and prepared to devour time itself by consume all existing timelines. Before he could achieve this, however, he was defeated by a combined assault from, Super Shadow, Super Silver and a resurrected Super Sonic, where the heroes and their allies managed to defeat Solaris by destroying his consciousness. Solaris' defeat reverted him back to his original form, the "Flame of Hope", and spirited Elise and Sonic back to before the fateful experiment. After some contemplation, Princess Elise chose to blow out the very radiant fire that would become Solaris and thus change history by erasing his corporeal form from existence.

Sonic Universe
Mephiles appears in the Sonic Universe comics, set in the Archie Sonic continuity.

Issue 29
Mephiles has been captured by the Zone Cops and locked into the Zone prison due to his messing with the Zones. His powers where taken away due to the Bands placed around his arms.

During his time here he sat with Void in the cafeteria and talked to him, Mephiles noticed Scourge angrily walking away from the Destructix and wondered what was going on.

Issue 32
When Scourge and the Destructix managed to deactivate the Zones defenses. Mephiles attempted to escape from the prison. It is unknown whether or not he succeeded.

Future appearances
Iblis is going to appear in an upcoming Comic, so it is likely Mephiles will return as well.

Personality
Mephiles is a cold-hearted and villainous demon, using lies, threats, and turning people's friends against each other. He is shown to be extremely sadistic and destructive, as he gloats over how Omega will be the one to betray Shadow in the future and takes simple enjoyment over killing Sonic. He is cool, composed, manipulative, and determined, and does not lose his temper once. He is also arrogant and views others inferior compared to him, due to his status as a god. He is also shown to be nihilistic, evidenced by his questioning Shadow as to why he even bothers fighting at all to protect humanity when they will inevitably persecute him later. He also craves destruction, right down to even time itself.

He is considered the most evil villain in the Sonic universe, as he does not have revenge as a motive nor does have a tragic backstory, not to mention the above mentioned desire to destroy everything. He is also considered one of the darkest villains in the Sonic universe, largely for the same reasons.

Powers and Abilities
"Drown in darkness!"

- Mephiles the Dark

Mephiles
Mephiles is capable of taking various forms by absorbing an individual's shadow, which resulted in his gaining his common form. Subtle differences are applied, however, such as a far darker shade of various colors, a pale complexion, and bestial green eyes. Besides actually taking on a form with someone's shadow, he also can grow stronger by absorbing shadows, especially if it comes from the same type of shadow as the being whose shadow he absorbed earlier outside of time. This is especially evident with his second encounter, where he managed to effortlessly escape imprisonment from another Scepter of Darkness due to his present self having gone back in time absorbing Shadow's shadow while the latter was sealing away Mephiles' past self.

Mephiles can manipulate and move through time with an ability similar to Chaos Control. Whether or not this was due to taking Shadow's form through his shadow or he had this power all along is debatable; however, being one half of the time god Solaris, the latter seems more probable. In addition, he has enough control over his abilities of time manipulation to separate pursuing enemies, as evidenced by how he managed to escape Omega and Shadow after their first fight in the future. His primary offensive technique is a massive sphere of black energy that is spawned from his hands that home in on their targets. He can also use the energy spheres to move himself and others through time. Since Mephiles absorbed Shadow's shadow, he also has the ability to actually be his shadow, as seen in the first boss fight against him. Furthermore, he can alter his physical form to sink into the ground and merge with the shadow of another. He can also manipulate shadows to create "clones" of himself, although they are warped and imperfect without the power of the Chaos Emeralds. He can also merge the clones together to make large shadow monsters. With two Emeralds, he can create an army of perfect clones. As seen in the "Showdown with Mephiles" cutscene, Mephiles can also blast opponents away by firing shockwaves of energy at them. Mephiles' final attack used before fusing with Iblis to become Solaris was a beam of energy (dubbed the "Dark Chaos Lance" by fans) that he extends from his right hand to kill Sonic.

Mephiles appears to be immortal, surviving every fight he takes part in, and whenever he is beaten he seems to just shift into his base form. Whether or not he is capable of feeling pain is unknown; although he reacts to taking damage during his boss battles with Shadow, he merely stood and allowed himself to be shot multiple times when confronting Omega at Wave Ocean. Indeed, when defeated by Shadow a second time, he also declared himself to be immortal, and invincible.

Since he is the mind and will of Solaris, Mephiles also happens to be very intelligent. This is shown in his ability as a master manipulator, being able to easily trick Silver and Blaze into nearly getting his desired result. He is also shown to have adept knowledge on using modern technology, as evidence by knowing exactly which files in Dr. Eggman's computer to use when trying to persuade Silver to assassinate Sonic. This is most likely due to his apparently endless lifespan and time travel power allowing him to study the world around him for as long as he needs to.

Mephiles has also demonstrated the curious ability to, with one Chaos Emerald in his possession, warp the other six Emeralds to his location instantly, which he did after the Flames of Disaster were released from Elise and before reuniting with Iblis. Presumably, he utilized the Chaos Emeralds' magnetic properties to pull this off.

Mephiles also was capable of creating and commanding various monsters, as evidenced by the various monsters that appeared.

possessing several godlike traits, it took the combined might of 3 transformed super hedgehogs to defeat him, and even then, they could not actually destroy him. As another testament to his enormous strength, Solaris is one of the few beings seen that has been able to injure someone in a super transformation through sheer force.

Iblis
???

Temporal Powers
As a transcendent life form, Solaris exists in the past, present and future simultaneously, making him omnipresent throughout time and virtually impossible to defeat, unless he is attacked simultaneously in all time periods.

As a god of time, Solaris possesses the ability to freely manipulate and change the fabric of time itself. According to Dr. Eggman, Solaris is capable of devouring time and space on an incomprehensible scale, encompassing entire dimensions and timelines. He can also create rifts within the time-space continuum which come in 2 variants: black orbs that can suck objects into oblivion as if they were black holes, and red orbs that can hurl meteors of condensed matter with such force that they can bypass the invulnerability granted by a Super State.

Physical Abilities
Solaris possesses unbelievable high physical durability, nearing that of invulnerability, being unaffected by standard attacks from even super transformed characters. Even when unprotected, Solaris's natural durability is so high that so far only super-charged Chaos Powers from super transformed characters can harm him, hinting an immeasurably high level of durability.

Solaris is capable of energy projection, being able to fire energy blasts so great that they can bypass the invulnerability granted by a Super State. When projecting energy, Solaris can fire it in the shape of both large laser beams and purple orbs that will follow the opponent until it hits. In his second form, Solaris demonstrated the ability to generate an almost impenetrable shield of light that can block any attack and which can only be bypassed when Solaris himself attacks as he has to put it down to launch his own attacks.

Much like his 2 halves, Iblis and Mephiles, Solaris' physical body appears to be immortal and indestructible, as he easily came back, fully revitalized, after his first defeat by Super Sonic, Super Shadow and Super Silver. His only weak point is his red core that is his consciousness, which is still vulnerable to attacks. By destroying it, it would still leave Solaris' body intact, but he would be unable to use it.

Solaris is also capable of at least limited shapeshifting, allowing him to assume new and stronger physical forms, as seen when he changed the sun-like appendage on his back into wings and became even more powerful.

According to Princess Elise and Dr. Eggman, Solaris also possesses pyrokinetic abilities, which is further enforced by his relationship to Iblis, a semi-sentient fire spirit.

Stalkers
Stalkers, also known as Mephiles Biters, are lizard-like canines that have succumbed to the control of Mephiles. They behave very similarly to their Iblis counterparts in that they leap forward with claws outstretched and whip their tails to attack. However, Stalkers are also capable of blasting lasers from their mouths, unlike Iblis Biters, which breathe flames. A Stalker can be defeated in two hits.

Titans
Titans, also known as Mephiles Golems, are giants with thick, purple armor. Although the Titan's attack pattern is similar to that of its Iblis counterpart (throwing energy balls and making shockwaves with its fists), it is very tough and resistant, having the dubious honor of being the strongest non-boss monster in the game, and can only be damaged with Homing Attacks or thrown objects. Titans must be damaged eight times to be defeated.

Takers
Takers are airborne, skeletal bat-like creatures. They are mostly the same as Iblis Takers, except that they shoot black spheres of energy instead of fireballs and they swoop at their foes when in close quarters. A Mephiles Taker can be killed in two hits. They are useful for crossing large gaps by using Homing Attacks on them.

Worms
Worms are enormous purple leeches controlled by Mephiles. Just like Iblis Worms, they rise from floors, walls or ceilings when the enemy is nearby and attack by sweeping their bodies around. Mephiles Worms also exhale toxic gas for an extra attack. They take six hits to be defeated.

Solaris
Prior to the Solaris Project, Solaris was nothing more than a tiny, pearly white, flicking flame. After his 2 halves Mephiles and Iblis fused together, Solaris took on a more creature-like form, a hawk-like, skeletal apparition, recognizable from the Soleanna royal crest worshipped as sacred by the citizens of Soleanna for countless years. During the battle against him, Solaris' main body is revealed to be a rather simple figure: He has a large and transparent body made of pure light, with a red orb that is his consciousness/core in the center of his body. He has no head, his upper body only includes the top piece above his core, with a curve behind his "neck", and his lower body resembles a stalactite. He has 3 fingers on each claw-like hand with no visible palms, and his arms are not connected to his body at his shoulders.

In Solaris' first form, he is a incandescent, vaguely half-humanoid figure, with rocky cladding on its arms. He has three shells of light covering his body, giving him a more complex appearance. He has one shell covering each of his upper arms, and one main shell on his body. The lower part of the main shell covers his "chest" area, as well as his core, and the top part of it has a figure, resembling an eagle head with glowing yellow eyes and antlers. This makes it look like Solaris actually has a head. On his back he has a ring with 6 triangular pieces "attached", making it resemble a sun.

In his second form, Solaris is a seemingly-skeletal, hawk-like spirit. While in this form, he loses his light shells, exposing his main body. On his back, he now has a long plate, with a set of wings "attached", where each wing is made up of 5 segments.

Quotes
"AH HA HA HA HA! Oh, how ironic fate can be."

- Mephiles

"I thank you, Shadow the Hedgehog."

- Mephiles introducing himself to Shadow the Hedgehog after escaping from inside the Scepter of Darkness.

"What you gave to me, I now return to you! A one-way ticket to oblivion!"

- Mephiles

"Such foolishness...very well, let's see if you can entertain me."

- Mephiles

"I'm your shadow...you can't even touch me."

- Mephiles the Dark

"You're just a nuisance...robot."

- Mephiles to E-123 Omega.

"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."

- Mephiles, misleading Silver the Hedgehog and Blaze the Cat to find the source behind the Day of Disaster.

"With my help, you can...because I have the power to travel through time."

- Mephiles, manipulating Silver the Hedgehog.

"I was expecting you sooner, as you must know, you're already too late...but there is still time for you to change your mind...join me, Shadow. Let us teach this world a lesson, and rewrite the future..."

- Mephiles to Shadow the Hedgehog.

"I'll make sure you regret this, Shadow the Hedgehog!"

- Mephiles to Shadow the Hedgehog.

"The 'I' of now absorbed your power through your shadow in the past. What may have worked 10 years ago, no longer does!"

- Mephiles

"This just proves you were created to stop Shadow, the ultimate life form!"

- Mephiles about Shadow the Hedgehog.

"Finally, the seal is broken! At long last, I'll be able to join with you! IBLIS!!! Now, Chaos Emerald! It's time for the final curtain call!"

- Mephiles using the power of all the Chaos Emeralds to fuse him with Iblis.

Trivia

 * Mephiles makes an appearance in The Frollo Show as one of Frollo 's friends.
 * Dan Green, Mephiles's voice actor in the English version of Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) also voices Mewtwo from the English dub of Pokémon: Mewtwo's Return, and Knuckles the Echidna who is a former Sonic the Hedgehog villain turned complete and extremely popular Sonic the Hedgehog hero. However his most iconic role is Yami Yugi from the English dub of Yu-Gi-Oh!.
 * Mephiles' name is derived from Mephistopheles, the demon from the legend of the German magician Faust, and possibly after Mephitis, the personification of the poisonous gases emitted from the ground in swamps and volcanic vapors.
 * Mephiles may also be inspired by the "False Prophet" within the Book of Revelations of the Bible as he works in the shadows and manipulates the characters into doing things that would only further his own goals.
 * Silver's theme song, "Dreams of an Absolution", calls him a preacher who lies which could also be a reference to this.
 * Another possible origin for Mephiles' name may be from Arabic, similar to Iblis. Mephiles could refer to "Muffles" (مفلس), in Arabic Muffles means "broke", "a person with nothing". The term extends not just to material objects, but to everything nonmaterial as well, such as good deeds, emotions, hopes, dreams. In a religious context, Mephiles/Muffles/مفلس is a name for the devil (similar to Iblis) and it refers to him as having no good deeds, no hope for redemption, and no chance of salvation. Taken this in mind, and Mephiles' nature in the game, they would seem similar.
 * Mephiles is one of the evilest villains in the Sonic franchise alongside Erazor Djinn and Black Doom. While most Sonic villains have a sense of morality, Mephiles has none. He will do anything to anyone in order to complete his goals, and he will do it sadistically.
 * Both Mephiles and Black Doom are Shadow's enemies.
 * An upcoming villain from the upcoming game Sonic Forces named Infinite is getting compared to Mephiles, considering their design is quite similar and their silent shady and mysterious nature is also very similar. Some even theorize that Infinite is in fact Mephiles. The primary reason of Infinite being Mephiles is because both of them have seemingly time-control, and therefore that Infinite is a re-created version of Mephiles, which is possible.
 * Also, the fact that Mephiles no longer exists cannot be used as a counter-argument due to the following reasons:
 * Mephiles returned in Sonic Runners.
 * Iblis returned in Sonic Generations, so it's plausible Mephiles survived as well.
 * His name came from the Iblis, a Djinn from Islamic lore who refused to bow down to humanity only to end up as the one who corrupts the humans out of revenge.