Mania

Countless eons before Mobius would ever know his name, deep within the molten chasms of Hell, existed an archdemon whose very presence warped the air around him. Dzanmar was no ordinary demon, he was born into a lineage of infernal royalty, a bloodline forged through carnage and tempered through endless war. His ancestors carved their thrones from bone and ash, their reigns defined by brutal conquests that spanned ages beyond mortal comprehension. From the moment Dzanmar opened his eyes, the air around him trembled with dormant power, the kind that made lesser demons avert their gaze or fall to their knees without being commanded. Even in infancy, his cries shook spires of obsidian and ignited patches of brim fire across the plains.

In his region of Hell, conflict wasn't a cycle, it was a constant, a never-ending storm of violence and ambition. Demons tore each other apart for territory, status, and the right to exist another day. Cities rose and fell in the span of hours, rebuilt only to be razed again in the blood-soaked frenzy of demonic hierarchy. Yet Dzanmar towered above all others. His command over both Hell Magic, raw and volatile, and Dark Magic, ancient and refined, made him a living calamity. His mere footsteps could literally distort the ground; his glare alone could silence gatherings of battle-hardened fiends. Even the elder demons, ancient titans older than the concept of time, whispered his name with caution and dread.

For centuries, Dzanmar ruled with unchallenged authority. His kingdom burned endlessly, its skies choked with smoke and screams, rivers of molten blood weaving between jagged cliffs. Legions bowed to him, entire factions yielded without need for battle, and those who dared oppose him were erased from existence, their essences scattered across the hellscape. But absolute power breeds absolute fear. And fear, especially in Hell, births treachery. The higher-ranking demons, ancient, paranoid, and unwilling to lose their positions to an upstart they themselves helped create, began conspiring in shadows too dark for even hellfire to illuminate. He was too powerful. Too ambitious. Too dangerous. Too fucking unpredictable. Their whispers grew into plans. Their plans into rituals. Their rituals into betrayal.

A forbidden invocation was prepared in secret. When it was finally unleashed, it took the combined might of dozens of high-ranking demons, each even sacrificing fragments of their own infernal essence, to bind him. Dzanmar, despite his raw power, was momentarily caught off guard. Chains forged from the core of Hell itself wrapped around him, glowing with primordial runes designed to suppress even the strongest of their kind. But even an archdemon cannot break a ritual built upon the very essence of Hell.

He was overwhelmed, stripped of crown and title, and cast into the void, hurled through dimensions unseen even by infernal eyes, past realms mortals couldn't fathom and planes that twisted in ways no sane being could ever really describe. His exile had no destination, no purpose, and no real no mercy. But fate found one. And boy did it find one good.

Dzanmar struck the sky of Planet Mobius like a meteor, a blazing mass of wrath and fire. The heavens split with a deafening crack, a rift of light tearing across the sky as if reality itself resisted his very arrival. When he hit the atmosphere, the world shook. The peaceful forest below had only a heartbeat to remain quiet before the demon collided with the planet.

The impact was catastrophic. Soil and molten stone erupted skyward in a plume of steam and embers. A crater spread outward like a fresh wound etched into the planet's skin. Smoke curled around the towering figure as Dzanmar slowly rose, each movement stiff and resentful, his bones aching beneath the unfamiliar weight and gravity of a mortal world. His body felt compressed, insulted even. He probably broke his back a little during that fall.

Mobius was wrong. It was too bright, too peaceful and quite frankly, pretty ugly in his eyes. He didn't belong here and he knew it. His burning eyes scanned the horizon as he exhaled a deep, low growl. The air tasted pure in a way that offended him, sweet, clean oxygen that lacked the dense metallic tang of his native infernal domain. Even the sunlight felt hostile in its gentleness, brushing his skin like a warm hand trying to soothe him. He hated it with a burning passion that began to grow fast.

He pushed through the thick underbrush, crushing branches beneath clawed feet, leaving behind a trail of scorched earth. As he ventured deeper into the woods, he heard them; Voices, light and carefree. Laughter. Conversation. The sounds of creatures so blissfully unaware of the horrors lurking beyond their peaceful existence.

Two small creatures came into view, one blue, bright, and energetic, radiating so much optimism it made Dzanmar's stomach twist. The other was a young fox with twin tails spinning in idle motion as he hovered above the ground.

They were laughing, playing like children. The sight almost made Dzanmar retch. But beneath his disgust, something else coiled inside him, he saw an opportunity. If he could infiltrate this naïve, soft world, he could bend it to his will. Destroy it from the inside. Infect it with the chaos he craved. So he studied the blue creature carefully, observing the details, the proportions, the posture, the small quirks in the creature's grin.

Then he molded himself. His body shifted, stretched, hollowed, and reformed. At first, the imitation was crooked, a rather somewhat grotesque approximation. But with each adjustment, he refined it. the muzzle shape, the quills, the stance until he resembled Sonic almost perfectly. Almost. There were still subtle deviations, tiny fractures in his illusion: a stiffness in his smile, a twitch beneath the eye, a slight wrongness that lingered like a cold really shitty draft in a warm room.

When the real Sonic sped off in a sudden blur, leaving dust and a faint echo of laughter in his wake, Dzanmar's gaze drifted slowly toward the fox, his lips stretched into a slow, hungry, disgusting smile.

The little fox... Tails, though Dzanmar did not yet know his name, hummed quietly to himself as he tinkered with a small contraption on the forest floor. He didn't hear the footsteps behind him at first, not the crunch of those leaves, nor the soft shift of branches. But, he did feel the sudden drop in temperature, a creeping, unnatural chill that slid across his fur like the breath of something ancient and wrong.

He paused mid-tinker, ears twitching, tools slipping from his small little hands. A shiver crawled up his spine. Slowly, he turned. And froze right where he stood.

"S-Sonic...?" Tails whispered, voice already fracturing with fear.

The figure wearing Sonic's face stood unnaturally still, like a puppet waiting for a string to be pulled. Its smile was stretched far too wide, a sharp crescent of teeth. Its stance was rigid, predatory, and its eyes, empty, cold voids. It carried none of the warmth the real Sonic so effortlessly possessed.

Before Tails could even begin to make sense of the nightmare before him, claws, real, curved sharp fucking claws lashed across his arm. Pain flared. Tails stumbled back with a strangled yelp, his knees collapsing under him.

"Wh-Why are you doing this?! Sonic, why?!"

The creature didn't answer. It only tilted its head slowly, thoughtfully, studying him like an animal making unfamiliar sounds, a predator savoring confusion.

The torment began in earnest. Dzanmar, circled him like a wolf toying with its prey. He darted in and out, claws slashing across Tails' legs, sides, and back, each strike sharp enough to draw blood but not to kill. Tails cried out again and again, voice cracking as he screamed for help, for Sonic of course, until his throat felt scraped raw.

After several minutes that felt like literal hours, his desperation finally summoned the real hero. Sonic quickly but surely, busted through the trees, breathless, but ready to save his best friend.

Overwhelmed by terror and agony however, Tails triggered the trap he'd built only minutes earlier; A simple pulley of vines holding a boulder aloft. It was meant to startle of course, to scare away whatever monster stalked him.

The boulder snapped free.

The world cracked with the sickening, final sound of bone crushed instantly. Sonic collapsed where he stood, his head completely and utterly crushed, it ended his life instantly before he could even react. Silence followed, eerily absolute. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath. Tails stared, pupils shrinking, body trembling so violently he could barely breathe. He just whimpered, his voice barely audible as he had to begin and process what he had just done.

But behind him, Dzanmar stepped forward, towering over the broken fox. Tails didn't even manage a scream. That was the moment Mania was born.

With calm, almost surgical precision, Dzanmar brutally severed the twin tails from the child's small body. He draped them around his shoulders like a ceremonial garb, the fur soaking red into his skin. Then laughter, jagged, unrestrained, monstrous, tore out of him, echoing through the forest as though the trees themselves recoiled, the fox slowly bleeding out and dying in the background.

He had lost his crown. His kingdom. His power. His own birthright. But now? Now he had a purpose.

A new identity forged from chaos, blood, and madness one he embraced with glee. He was what he had felt; He was, Mania.

He walked out of that forest, now wearing Sonic's face, and had accepted it as his new look; He already started to enjoy the hell out of it. The expression fit him disturbingly well, a familiar mask stretched over something so ancient and so very, very wrong. Each step he took seemed to distort the silhouette further, like the world itself struggled to reconcile the shape of a hero with the presence of a filthy demon.

Now that stolen face twisted with the demonic mania boiling inside him, a grin carved far too deep, eyes far too sharp, movements far too fluid to belong to anything mortal. His new form thrilled him in a way he hadn't expected. Every breath he took in this world filled him with an intoxicating almost drug-like sense of possibility.

He CRAVED chaos. And now he was ready to be its' delivery boy. Mobius would give him everything he desired. He felt it in his bones, this realm was weaker than Hell, softer, unprepared for anything like him. It was ripe for ruin, begging to be reshaped into his image.

His first targets were small towns, peaceful, defenseless, unprepared for anything beyond their quiet, day-to-day lives. He descended upon them like a force of nature, tearing through them without effort. Buildings crumbled beneath shockwaves of dark magic. Streets split open as corrupted energy rippled outward. Bodies fell faster than screams could even form.

Mobians attempted to flee. Tried desperately to hide in basements, behind locked doors, deep in forest thickets. To fight, some brave, some foolish, all hopeless.

It didn't matter to him. Every spell carved wider craters. Every swipe of claw shredded another defender. Every blast of demonic power turned hope into blood and ash. The demon destroyed them all. Entire towns were erased in minutes, their lights extinguished before the world even realized something was wrong.

But soon, the heroes noticed.

Ray the Flying Squirrel was the first to witness the carnage from above. Smoke trails carved ugly lines across the sky, twisting like scars across Mobius' once-peaceful horizon. Ray's heart hammered as he swooped lower, wings slicing through the sooty air. He'd expected maybe a crashed ship. Maybe Eggman. Maybe anything that made sense. But instead, he saw Mania for the first time.

"Sonic?" Ray called, voice trembling, desperate for the shape before him to be something familiar.

The creature looked up and smiled. Slow, unnatural, wrong in every way a smile could be wrong.

A dark bolt of energy erupted skyward, faster than Ray could blink. It tore through his wing, bone cracking with a sickening snap. Pain shot through his entire body as he spiraled uncontrollably, the ground rising quickly to meet him. He crashed hard enough to rattle his skull, dirt exploding around him.

Before Ray could even groan, Mania was there, appearing in a flicker of shadow, towering over him like death itself. There was no time for Ray to beg. No time to crawl. No time to even breathe. Mighty arrived seconds too late.

The armadillo skidded into the clearing, eyes wide with horror as he saw Ray collapsed and bleeding. Rage ignited in his chest. He charged at the false Sonic, fists like sledgehammers. His first strike connected hard slamming into Mania's jaw and actually making the demon stumble.

For the first time since arriving on Mobius, Mania finally felt some actual resistance. He grinned and began to laugh, he was delighted at the sight of a challenge, delighted that maybe this planet had something worth destroying for.

Mighty fought with everything he had. He was faster than he looked, stronger than anyone gave him credit for. Blow after blow rained down, each one fueled by fury and grief. One punch even split Mania's lip, drawing a thin line of dark, unnatural blood, the first any Mobian had managed. But strength alone could not match an archdemon.

Mania caught Mighty's arm in mid-swing, twisted it effortlessly and ripping it right the fuck off. He then leaned in close as if savoring the moment. Then, with one clean, brutal motion, he snapped the armadillo's neck. Mighty's body fell still, and Mania smiled wider.

Teams kept forming, defenses were being mobilized. Hope flickered, desperately and faintly, like the trembling flame of a candle in a storm, struggling against a wind that only grew stronger with every passing second.

But Mania just kept extinguishing every spark, not with effort, but with the casual ease of brushing dust from his shoulder; As though the resistance of an entire planet was nothing more than a minor inconvenience.

Team Chaotix attempted strategy; A battle plan they had refined through years of their own near-death situations. Espio vanished into stealth, his form dissolving seamlessly into the smoke-darkened air. Vector charged in with brute force, Charmy zipped in frantic, lightning-fast loops, desperately trying to confuse Mania's senses and create even the smallest opening. They all moved with the precision of a team forged through hardship. It almost looked like they might overwhelm him. Espio too managed to land a precise strike across Mania's face, a blow sharp enough to snap the demon's head to the side. It wasn't pain, but it surely was a surprise. And Mania loved surprises.

He countered Espio's camouflage by flooding the field with hellfire, waves of crackling red energy that ignited the ground and forced the chameleon into harsh visibility. Vector's second charge ended mid-sprint; Mania seized him by the jaws and split him right open in half. Charmy's desperate flight to retreat lasted only seconds longer. A single, contemptuous swat sent him spiraling into the dirt, wings shattered, body limp.

Team Babylon fell shortly after. Jet's speed was nothing compared to demonic teleportation, every sharp turn and skyward sprint he attempted was met with Mania appearing directly in his path, forcing him to dodge by inches, then by fractions. Wave's gadgets sparked, overloaded, and exploded as magical interference tore their circuitry apart along with her. Storm charged with a roar of rage and loyalty, his massive frame shaking the ground, but his strength was no much for Mania, not even a little.

The demon's rampage finally drew the attention of stronger fighters. Rouge, Amy, Fang, and Knuckles converged on what was left of Spiral Hill Village. Homes reduced to skeletal remains, streets broken and smeared with ash, the air thick with the salty scent of blood. And in the center of it all stood Mania, holding Tangle's dead body in one hand like a discarded ragdoll. Whisper laid not too far as well.

Rouge's wings froze mid-flap. Amy staggered back with sweat pouring down her head. Fang's finger hesitated on the trigger. Knuckles clenched his fists so hard the stone beneath him cracked. And Mania tilted his head with the curiosity of a predator inspecting a new toy. Then he lunged.

The fight erupted instantly; Brutal, chaotic, far more intense than anything he had faced so far. Amy's hammer swung with earth-shattering force, every strike rippling the air. Rouge dove and weaved with precision, landing kicks aimed for pressure points. Fang fired every shot he had, ricocheting bullets off debris and creating openings for the others. Knuckles moved like a living avalanche, unleashing strength that could split entire mountains.

Mania began to seriously struggle. Their coordination was sharp, their synergy honed from years of shared battles. But alas, even the strongest can falter.

A single moment, just a single glance, spelled their downfall. Rouge's eyes flicked toward Tangle's body, despite not even knowing her, she began to feel a huge sense of grief and rage, knowing just how many Mania has killed. Mania, of course, exploited this instantly. He appeared in front of her in a blur, his hand piercing her chest with a single, merciless strike. Rouge fell without a sound, wings crumpling beneath her. The others hesitated. The rhythm of the battle shattered, and Mania began to tear them apart.

Amy charged with a scream that cracked into tears, only for Mania to catch her hammer mid-swing and pummel her into the ruined ground. Fang fired wildly in panic, backing away before Mania closed the distance and knocked him into the wreckage. One by one, they fell, crushed beneath the weight of power they couldn't comprehend, until only Knuckles remained.

Their final clash was cataclysmic and went across Mobius. The ground shattered beneath them, chunks of stone launching into the air with every blow. Knuckles fought like a warrior with nothing left to lose. He landed a devastating punch to the dick that actually staggered the demon, ripping a snarl of pure rage from his throat.

Enraged, Mania proceeded to dig into Knuckles' spinal cord, grabbing the literal bone, snapping it, and chucking him off the edge of the ruins of Angel Island were the battle ended at. The guardian's body tumbled through the sky, colliding with stone far below.

Knuckles, somehow survived, barely, and all his strength was spent, his vision blurred, his breath shallow. And he would not return in time.

Sixteen hours. Sixteen relentless, merciless hours, that was all it took for Mania to tear Mobius apart, grinding its bustling population into scattered, terrified fragments clinging desperately to hope that no longer existed. By this point, Mania began to feel the exhaustion, but only a little.

The entire planet was deeply shaken to its core; Fires burning in the distance, cities ruined, and Mobians scattered into desperate, terrified factions, at least the ones that were even alive. The world itself seemed to tremble beneath Mania's rampage, and so even the most unlikely alliances were forced to form, not out of trust, but out of the raw instinct to survive just a little longer, a final gamble that might buy Mobius a few more hours of breath.

Mania arrived at the towering doors of Casino Night Zone. He was ready to end his conquest once and for all. Inside, waiting in the flickering glow of dying lights, stood a mismatched line of warriors: Shadow the Hedgehog, the Ultimate Life Form, Metal Sonic and Metal Knuckles poised for combat, Surge crackling with unstable voltage, Kitsunami tense and silent, and the Doctor himself hiding behind them all with a trembling sort of confidence. They were ready for him, or at least, they desperately wanted to believe they were.

Mania stepped forward, slow, confident, savoring every second as though he were walking through a celebration arranged solely for him. His posture was relaxed, almost casual, yet every movement radiated the ominous certainty of a predator who knew there was no hope left for its prey. He smiled. It was yet another chilling, razor-thin grin that split across his face like a soggy wound. In that expression lived not just arrogance, but a deep, ancient cruelty, the kind that had been forged in the infernal depths over countless eons. He knew this was it. The last pitiful spark of resistance this doomed planet could muster, the final, flickering candle of defiance in a world already drowning in darkness. And he relished the thought of extinguishing it personally, savoring the inevitability of total annihilation.

The demon unleashed an ultimate attack, a blast so violent it did not merely tear through steel supports but utterly disintegrated them, sending molten fragments spraying across the collapsing chamber. The reinforced floor buckled like paper, neon lights exploded into showers of flickering sparks, and the entire zone convulsed with a catastrophic rumble that echoed for miles. Sirens erupted into a panicked wail, drowned out almost instantly by the roaring shockwave that ripped through the gathered fighters. The ground beneath them split into savage, jagged fractures as debris and raw force hurled everyone apart. Shadow was thrown into a cracked wall, Metal Knuckles skid across the floor, the others scattered like leaves in a hurricane. Before the echoes of destruction even faded, before anyone could so much as regain their footing, Mania propelled himself forward with impossible speed at his prey.

Metal Sonic engaged first, moving with mechanical precision, every strike calculated to it's tea. Metal Knuckles joined him, his blows rumbling like miniature earthquakes. They fought with everything they had, their metal frames shaking under the strain, sparks flying with every impact. Their combined assault lit the shattered arena with bursts of light, striking Mania from multiple angles, actually doing a great deal of damage.

But against Mania? It wasn't enough. Not remotely. He shrugged off their attacks eventually as though swatting away dust, caught Metal Sonic mid-strike, and slammed him into the ground with a force that dented the floor inward. Metal Knuckles lunged to counter, only to be seized, twisted, and torn apart at the joints. Within moments, the two titans were reduced to twisted heaps of sparking scrap metal, clattering across the ruined battleground like discarded toys.

Mania's gaze then snapped toward Kitsunami. The warrior barely had time to raise his stance before Mania closed the distance in a blur. With brutal, almost lazy swiftness, Mania tore him apart, ripping his head clean off in a single, horrifying motion. He kicked it across the battlefield, sending it skidding violently until it flew directly into Surge's arms. She froze for a heartbeat, shock melting into a seething, feral rage that crackled through her fur like a living storm. Mania welcomed it with open arms.

He lunged at her next, and the air erupted into chaos once again. Sparks, bolts, and shockwaves tore through what remained of the battlefield. Surge's lightning scarred the metal floor, carving deep grooves into the steel as her fury intensified. She was beyond enraged, every ounce of fear and grief igniting into a blazing, furious storm as she pushed herself far beyond her limits.

Surge was soon joined by Shadow, accompanied by the remainder of Eggman's robots, a disorganized but desperate reinforcement. The air filled with the screeching of metal, the hum of unstable energy shields, and the thunder of mounting combat. Mania began to struggle. He felt the weight of true resistance crash down on him, the combined strength, speed, and relentless tactical pressure of his foes pushing him back step by step.

Shadow slipped behind Mania and locked into a brutal hold. Surge seized the moment, unleashing everything she had as she began to electrocute the ever-loving fuck out of Mania with the most unrestrained voltage she could produce. The air violently sizzled and produced smoke even, and Mania's body spasmed violently under the immense electrical force. He felt the pain, deeply, sharply, enough that his composure finally cracked. That moment of agony was all it took for him to snap.

He launched himself upward with a demonic burst of strength and sheer anger, shattering Shadow's grip before punching him clean in the throat in the sky. He then seized Shadow by the neck and slammed him back into the ground with bone-shattering force, creating an entire shockwave, completely consumed by flames of his hellfire. The blast incinerated Eggman's remaining forces, melted the ground into molten slag, and even literally tore most of the skin clean off Surge's body, completely incinerating nearly half of her body as she fell flat onto the ground.

Shadow endured a relentless barrage, punch after punch after punch. The pool of blood beneath him thickened as his face grew almost unrecognizable under the onslaught. Mania grabbed Shadow once more and attempted to crush his skull. The only thing sparing Shadow from instant death was the sheer durability of his enhanced physiology; Even so, Mania managed to severely dent and crack the skull before hurling him aside like garbage, launching him off the platform and into the ocean below.

Mania turned slowly to what remained. Surge, burned, trembling, struggling to stay conscious. And Eggman, pale and shaking behind her. Mania smiled again. Above them, rain began to fall in violent sheets as thunder crashed through the sky, as though the world itself recoiled from him. He lifted his arms toward the heavens, laughing with a wild, triumphant madness that echoed through the ruins.

His hands began to radiate pure, overwhelming demonic energy. The air warped around him as he pressed his palms together, forming a massive, devastating blast aimed directly at the two. But before the beam could strike, it was abruptly stopped, frozen in midair by a crimson distortion that shattered the ground beneath it. Standing before the blast was Infinite, the Phantom Ruby pulsing with unstable power in his grasp. He was Eggman's final trump card, and he had arrived at the last possible second.

Infinite stood firm in the middle of the ruined casino floor between them all, the crimson glow of the Phantom Ruby casting jagged, shifting shadows across the devastation. Surge lay collapsed behind Eggman, unconscious, burned, and barely clinging to life. He stumbled backward several steps, trembling, afraid to even breathe too loudly in the presence of the two monsters facing each other. Mania lowered his hands slowly, his hellish blast unraveling into nothing as a swirling cloud of red cubes dissolved it.

"You are powerful, But power without purpose is meaningless." Infinite said.

Their clash ignited with enough force to tear open the floor beneath them. Mania's claws carved through the air, each strike releasing shockwaves that split what remained of the support beams. Infinite countered with rippling waves of phantom distortion, each blast twisting reality, warping gravity, rewriting physics in real time. Mania pounced forward, obliterating what little was left of the casino floor as he tackled Infinite into a wall. The impact left a crater of warped metal, but Infinite vanished in a flash of red cubes, reappearing behind him with a blast of phantom force that sent the archdemon skidding across the battlefield.

"You fight like a child throwing tantrums." Infinite taunted, his voice echoing from multiple directions at once as illusory clones split away from him.

Mania snarled, spinning and shredding the phantoms. Each clone burst into shards of ruby-red light, but none were meant to harm him. They were crafted to disorient, to overwhelm, to tear apart his sense of space. Infinite raised his hand, and a tidal wave of phantom energy roared forward.

The world around Mania convulsed. The sky fractured like shattered glass, the ground bent inward like crushed metal. Reality itself twisted into a nightmarish, hostile maze. Any ordinary fighter would have had their mind destroyed instantly. Mania stood firm. Demonic fire erupted from his body like a volcanic blast, and his roar shattered the illusion, ripping the false world apart.

Infinite hesitated, just for a moment.

Meanwhile, gathering what little courage he had left, Eggman retreated into the shadows, dragging Surge's ravaged body to safety as the duel raged on.

The battle raged on for several more grueling hours until eventually Mania quite literally had Infinite by the throat. Infinite, now exhausted and cornered, struggled against the demon's ever so crushing grip as the ruined battlefield trembled beneath their feet.

Infinite, finally out of tricks and illusions, knew he was defeated. His breathing was ragged, but his resolve did not falter. He managed a soft, almost peaceful smile beneath his cracked mask as he summoned what remained of the Phantom Ruby's power, just enough to send it far, far away from Mania's reach. The air distorted violently as the gemstone vanished into a distant ripple of crimson light. Mania snarled at Infinite, realizing too late that the jackal had denied him his prize.

Infuriated beyond reason, Mania unleashed his full wrath. He proceeded to tear Infinite apart, ripping through flesh, bone, and armor until there was nothing left but a mangled pool of blood and shattered remains. The demon's rage echoed through the hollowed zone as he threw his head back and bellowed into the storm-choked air.

When the fury finally subsided, Mania stood alone. The rest had fled or been obliterated entirely, and the entire zone had been reduced to a bleak, barren nothingness. A void of silence and ash. Yet within that nothing, there was, something. Something ancient. Something wrong. Something that, to be blunt, was never meant to be uncovered by anyone, least of all by Mania himself.

It was only going to get worse for Mobius.

Within this alternate dimension of Mobius, there exists ancient and enigmatic artifacts known as the Rings of Chaos. These rings pulsed with a power that defied all conventional understanding. Their energy felt older than the universe itself, older than any recorded myth, and each of the seven rings embodied a distinct aspect of unrestrained cosmic force. Every ring granted its wielder heightened abilities, unfathomable strength, and influence over forces capable of bending the very laws of existence. These were no longer meant for mortal hands to wield, and definitely not for the hands of a hungry demon.

What made the Rings of Chaos even more intriguing was their mysterious and terrifying origin. They had not been created within this dimension. Instead, they were reforged from a Celestial Killer; An ancient class of deity-slaying weapon wielded during the Celestial Wars, fought long before this universe had taken shape. These weapons were said to be capable of cleaving through the bodies of deities and Celestials as though they were made of dust. When the Mobians uncovered a hidden, dormant Celestial Killer deep within their world, they reforged its remnants into the seven Rings of Chaos. Even dispersed, their power remained so boundless that the Mobians unanimously agreed the rings must never be reunited. To ensure this, they scattered the rings across the universe, hiding them away so they could never fall into a single being's grasp.

The danger of the rings lay not only in their inherent power, but in their terrifying potential. Anyone who collected all seven Rings of Chaos would become something wholly beyond comprehension, something surpassing even most deities whom still roamed. To wield all seven meant to manipulate reality effortlessly, reshape creation according to one's whims, and unleash attacks capable of unmaking entire timelines.

One such artifact, the Ring of Astral, held dominion over the fabric of reality itself. Its wielder could manipulate astral channels, traverse the astral plane, tear through dimensional barriers, teleport freely, and command potent strains of cosmic energy. The ring had slumbered for ages beneath the depths of Casino Night Zone, buried within ancient ruins forgotten by time. Only the massive crater left by Mania after his fight finally managed to expose the long-hidden chamber, its faint, shimmering glow finally returning to the surface.

Mania wasted no time claiming it. The instant his fingers closed around the ring, a violent surge of raw energy ripped through him. He staggered, clutching his head as agonizing visions flooded his mind; Visions of countless realities layered atop one another, infinite timelines branching endlessly into the unknown. He screamed as the cosmic knowledge threatened to split his thoughts apart, yet even in the throes of pain he refused to release the ring. It forced upon him an understanding of the Multiverse: alternate dimensions, parallel histories, and the precise locations of the remaining Rings of Chaos. Mania collapsed to one knee, overwhelmed and trembling, but smiling.

His insatiable hunger for power escalated into something monstrous. The acquisition of all seven rings became not merely a goal, but an all-consuming fixation, and an obsession that now drowned out every other thought. With each ring he claimed, he believed he would come one step closer to his ultimate destiny: ascension into godhood. Nothing on Mobius, nor anywhere in existence, could deter him. He could take back his throne in Hell with no one to hold him back.

He knew where to go next: the planet of Earth, home to the second ring, the Ring of Frost. With the Ring of Astral amplifying his power, Mania rose high above Mobius and cast his necromancy across the land. Dozens of the heroes he had slain... Ray, Mighty, Tails, Amy, and more, twitched back to life in twisted forms. Their bodies, cold and stiff, stood as zombified echoes of the champions they once were. These abominations would serve as his loyal sentries.

He commanded them to stand guard, to maintain his dominion over Mobius, and to annihilate anything that dared to move in defiance. Without hesitation, Mania tore open a dimensional portal, the air crackling with warping astral energy. With his smile widening and his hunger for divinity burning brighter than ever, he stepped through the portal, ready to face Earth head on.