Dark Gaia

thumb|300px|right|The Dark Gaia battle in the 360/PS3 version.

Dark Gaia (ダーク・ガイア) is the main antagonist and final boss of Sonic Unleashed. A gargantuan monster (referred to by Professor Pickle as a hyper energy organism), the representation of darkness, night and destruction, who was released from the center of the Earth by Dr. Eggman's Chaos Energy Cannon at the start of Sonic Unleashed. Eggman plans to use the power of the great beast in order to conquer the world and establish his Eggman Empire. It is what spawns the monsters that plague the world during the night stages of the game.

History
Dark Gaia, alongside Light Gaia, was born in the begining of time. Dark Gaia's purpose is to gather energy while sleeping and chipping at the planet's core over millions of years, then destroy the world upon awakening for it to be rebuilt by Light Gaia, a process repeated since time began. Because Dark Gaia awoke prematurely when Eggman fired his beam, its pieces scattered throughout the world, and its influence affected people negatively. The only exceptions were Sonic the Hedgehog because his will was too strong, even in his Werehog form and Light Gaia because he is Dark Gaia's opposite. The other four unaffected are Amy Rose, Professor Pickle, Dr. Eggman, and Tails for unknown reasons.

Over the course of the game, Dr. Eggman devises a way to gather the pieces of Dark Gaia and reassemble them, giving him the power needed to finally build Eggman Land. After Sonic (in his Werehog form) defeats Dr. Eggman's Egg Dragoon, the reassembled Dark Gaia appears. Eggman orders it to attack Sonic, but Dark Gaia, not intending to follow his orders, swats him away. Dark Gaia then re-absorbs its lost power from Sonic, costing him his Werehog form (which appears to injure Sonic in the process), and completes itself, gaining three extra eyes. Chip battles Dark Gaia in a giant stone robot formed by the Gaia temples known as the Gaia Colossus while Sonic attacks his eyes. While they are doing this, Dark Gaia completely regains it's lost power and matures, growing seven eyes, and four extra arms (although in the transformation sequence it is only shown growing two arms), becoming Perfect Dark Gaia. In the end, Super Sonic and Light Gaia defeat Dark Gaia's final form, and both Light and Dark Gaia are resealed within the still-regenerating planet.

Powers and abilities
Dark Gaia is shown to be one of the strongest creatures ever to appear in the Sonic series. It was able to fight Super Sonic to the point where he ended up fainting from exhaustion, something no foe so far has been capable of, and at the same time, take on Light Gaia, a being who supposedly should be on the same level of strength as Dark Gaia itself. Additionally, Dark Gaia (as shown in his perfect form) is one of the few enemies that is able to hurt Sonic while he is in his super form.

As the sole reason for it's existence, Dark Gaia has the natural ability to break an entire planet into pieces, which will eventually lead to the destruction of the planet itself. As a hyper energy organism, it is capable of shooting large beams of energy, where the strongest ones needs time to charge up, and unleash a well of dark energy that can envelop a entire planet. In its perfect form he can create a large force field with its snake-like tentacles, that no even Super Sonic can break through, and the only way to bring the shield down it is to destroy the tentacles. It is also shown being able to use its large claws in hand-to-hand combat, and pick up large blocks of lava with either its hands or by levitation and throw them like meteors.

As a physical manifistation of darkness, Dark Gaia can draw power from the negative energy in the world, allowing it's power to grow stronger, which is necessary for it to reach maturity. Combined with its status as a energy being, the fragments of Dark Gaia is capable of creating varrious dark and destructive monsters that are capable of possessing people, causing negative and erratic behaivour. It's energy can even cause transformations into corrupted creatures, such as the Dark Gaia Phoenix, or to a lesser degree, Sonic the Werehog. As shown by Eggman, Dark Gaia's energy is capable of powering machinery, such as the Egg Dragoon and Eggmanland.

Dark Gaia's only known weak spots are its various eyes, which seems to be highly sensitive to damage, since Sonic, in his normal form, could inflict significant damage on Dark Gaia by attacking them.

Battle
How Dark Gaia fights varies between the versions of Sonic Unleashed. In the Wii & PS2 versions, when fighting the Gaia Colossus, it simply attacks with its claws while Chip dodges and counter-attacks with punches. This fight is generally considered akin to playing the Punch-Out! series of games. In its final form, Perfect Dark Gaia, it will attack by swinging its claws and laser fire from its central mouth/eye. Its eyes are again its weak points and when Sonic tries to attack them Dark Gaia, calls up a number of large molten rocks to try and slow him down.

In the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game, the fight with the Gaia Colossus occurs a different way. As opposed to a simple fist fight, Chip has the Gaia Colossus flying towards Dark Gaia from a distance and attack it with a quick-time event. During this time, Dark Gaia tries stop him by throwing massive molten rocks, and firing a laser from its mouth when the Gaia Colossus starts to get closer. When Sonic tries to attack Dark Gaia's eyes, he has a time limit before Dark Gaia blasts the Gaia Colossus away. As Perfect Dark Gaia, it starts the battle by using his tentacles to create a force field that not even Super Sonic can break through. The force field can only be broken when all of Dark Gaia's tentacles, the tips of which extend outside the force field, are destroyed. Dark Gaia can still attack through the force field and does so despite Chip attempts to divert its attention. After the force field is broken, the battle is simply turned into a button pressing mini game where Super Sonic has to land hits on each of Dark Gaia's arms when it attacks Chip and then land a hit on its central eye.

In both versions, Dark Gaia's attacks can deplete rings from Super Sonic.

Trivia

 * Dark Gaia resembles the second form of the final boss in the game Terranigma. In fact, the final boss in Terranigma is also called "Dark Gaia."
 * Sonic in his normal form actually inflicted a significant amount of damage on Dark Gaia before he became Perfect Dark Gaia.
 * Dark Gaia is the third boss in the series whose attacks can physically damage Super Sonic and cost him rings (the first being Dr. Eggman in his final mech in Sonic Rush and the second being Solaris). Alf-Layla-wa-Layla could also cost Darkspine Sonic rings, but Darkspine was an incomplete form due to the fact that Sonic only used three of the seven World Rings to transform.
 * Dark Gaia also appears to be able to change the composition of its skin. In the cutscene when it transforms from Dark Gaia to Perfect Dark Gaia, its skin appears to be stretchy but firm, while the skin on the opposite side of its body appears to be brittle.
 * The name Gaia is derived from an ancient Greek goddess, who was the personification of the Earth. (A previous Sonic villain, Chaos, was also named after a Greek god.) Although named after a goddess, Dark Gaia is referred to as male.
 * Dark Gaia seems to change size throughout the course of Sonic Unleashed. When he is first awakened, he is large enough to put one hand on either side of the Earth, yet during the final fight, he is noticeably smaller and fits inside the Earth with plenty of extra space in the Earth's core. This is probably due to Dark Gaia's mass being spread out and incomplete, as Orbot states later on.
 * Perfect Dark Gaia is the largest final boss in the series to date, being the size of a large continent.
 * Dark Gaia is the only boss in Sonic Unleashed with "Dark" as a prefix that is fought with normal Sonic. Also, the Egg Dragoon is the only Boss with "Egg" as a prefix that is fought with Sonic the Werehog.
 * Dark Gaia is the reason that Sonic Unleashed was given the ESRB rating of E10+, as he leaks green blood during his transformation into Perfect Dark Gaia. This blood is also seen in his "death" scene.
 * Other than Sonic, the only other beings Dark Gaia could not affect were Chip, Dr. Eggman, Tails and Amy.
 * Dark Gaia's power, as explained by Professor Pickle, is drawn from hatred and sadness manifested by the people on the planet.
 * In Sonic Adventure 2, Tikal's earthquake attack was called "Wrath of Gaia". This is most likely a coincidence.
 * Dark Gaia could arguably be considered neutral since it's natural role is to destroy the world.
 * All of the bosses in the game with a Dark prefix appear to elemental:
 * Dark Gaia Phoenix- Fire
 * Dark Moray- Ice
 * Dark Guardian- Wind and/or Thunder
 * Dark Gaia- Earth
 * It's possible that Light and Dark Gaia are not natives as Eggman said that Dark Gaia had been sealed inside the planet. Suggesting that an outside source may be responsible for Light and Dark Gaia.
 * Dark Gaia would be one of the returning villains in Sonic Generations.