Time of Awakening

The Time of Awakening (目覚めの時, Mezame no Toki), also known as the Shattered World Crisis, is an event that appears in the Sonic the Hedgehog series. It is a major global catastrophe phenomenon that occurs on earth every few millions of years, where the planet is broken apart by Dark Gaia following the beast's return to full maturity in an attempt to destroy the world. Following this cataclysmic break-up, the world is put back together by Light Gaia, who awakens at the same time, stops and returns Dark Gaia to dormancy before going back to sleep as well.

"It's an event where Dark Gaia grows over millions of years, then rises to destroy the world. Yet it's my duty to stop him, and put it all back together again. We've been doing this over and over, again and again... since the very beginning of time."
 * —Chip/Light Gaia.

Origin
In the beginning of time, Dark Gaia and Light Gaia appeared on Sonic's World when the planet came into existence. Following their purposes, Dark Gaia sought the planet's destruction while Light Gaia would protect the planet from his dark counterpart. In the end, Dark Gaia and Light Gaia began an endless cycle of destruction and rebirth of the planet. In this cycle, Dark Gaia would sleep in the earth's core for millions of years to gather negative energy and then emerge from the core as Perfect Dark Gaia, splitting the world apart. Light Gaia would then awaken, stop and return Dark Gaia to sleep, then restoring the planet before going back to sleep as well. The time where these two deities would awaken, rising up to their full potentials, it became known as the Time of Awakening.

Occurrences over the ages
Over the eons, the time of awakening would continuously repeat itself. The second-to-latest time of awakening is said to have occurred some tens of thousands of years ago. This event became a legendary disaster that threatened the existence of the world, and the knowledge gained from it were recorded in the Gaia Manuscripts.

Premature time of awakening
In Sonic Unleashed, Skarr-Face initiated the Time of Awakening himself with Dr. Eggman's Chaos Energy Cannon which forced Dark Gaia to awaken so he could harness the beast's energies to power his means of revenge and conquest, while Eggman seeks to harness it to build Eggmanland. However, this was not a proper Time of Awakening as it happened too early. As a result, Dark Gaia dispersed around the globe due to immaturity, and Light Gaia lost his memories.

When Sonic the Hedgehog and Light Gaia confronted the fully reassembled Dark Gaia in the planet's core, Light Gaia called the Gaia Temples to form the Gaia Colossus, pronounced that the time of awakening had now truly arrived. With the help of Super Sonic, Light Gaia defeated Dark Gaia, bringing the time of awakening to an end once more and restoring the two deities' cycle.