Note: I'm not very knowledgeable of the Sonic world, i saw a few walkthroughs on YouTube, i hope i'm good enough for you guys though.
Also, Mephiles wont come in for a few chapters, he'll try trickery first
It was a nice spring day. The air was cool but slightly humid giving the illusion of warmth. The sky itself was a fine shade of blue with cotton clouds scattered over the area. The grass was full grown and curved up to the sun, its life source.
Shadow was sitting on top of a rock, just on the bank of a small lake. Its surface was clear as glass and he could spot every little minnow or crawfish that lived on the bottom. The rock he sat on was a nice large marble hunk. Perfects smooth but with enough of a flat surface to sit on.
Shadow looked up, he spotted a blue blur racing over the grass, but not bending a single one.
"Hey Faker!" Sonic shouted skidding to a stop with a large grin on his face. Shadow rose to fill height and jumped down the two meters he was above Sonic on the rock.
"Sonic." Shadow said, giving him a slight jerk of the head. Sonic rolled his eyes and shifted his weight, obviously aching to escape and run.
"Tails said that he needs your help for something. He says that he found some sort of artifact but he's clueless on what it is."
Shadow sighed but nodded anyways, activating his hover shoes with habit. Sonic gave a cheesy grin and sped off. Shadow followed.
Without realizing it, soon the two were racing; Sonic was in full speed as well as Shadow. It was involuntary as the counterparts took on any attempt of a challenge.
The trees blew the one way, almost reaching to the area that the two hedgehogs were beforehand.
Shadow jumped through a cut in a tree landing quickly on the other side, Sonic ran around it but caught up easily.
"It's up here on the left!" Sonic shouted, jumping over a log and into a tiny clearing. Shadow followed swiftly after. They slowed to a stop and Shadow silently noted the house, more like mansion.
It was around three stories, a nice white siding with at least three chimneys on the top. A little step up led to the front door, but a brick path around the side led to a small slope that showed a work studio underneath the base.
They walked around the house and down the little slope. Tails was underneath on a rolling plank working on his most prized possession, the Tornado. He smiled and rolled out from under it, whipping away some sweat on his brow.
"Hey Guys! Glad you're here!" Shadow internally winced at the 'peppy' voice. He and Sonic followed Tails into a small room with many scanners on the left side.
"Two things actually. I'm thinking on making a teleportation device kinda like your 'Chaos Control' but I don't know the main powers or science behind it."
Shadow nodded and Tails smiled, Shadow couldn't stand Tails' puppy dog face.
"Okay, this is the other. A few weeks ago Knuckles found it in some old ruins. He doesn't know what it is, so he brought it to me to scan….I kinda touched it and-"
"Thought immediately of me?" Shadow presumed looking at the strange artifact. Tails blushed and rubbed the back of his neck as Sonic chuckled. Shadow looked at the artifact, his ears buzzing and some invisible force almost forcing him to grab it. He craved it.
"Let me see it." Shadow commanded. Tails did so without question, a mechanical arm grabbing the smooth surface and bringing it down to Shadow's height.
It had a metal work that looked almost like wings made of a strange cool gem Shadow did not know. The wings connected to what looked like the hilt to a sword, with a large purple gem in the center, blank and empty. The hilt spread into a vine like line which twisted down and around a clear hollow tube in a spiral. It was about a foot long.
"What is it?" Sonic asked him, Shadow did not respond but took it gently in his hand, a cold chill ran through his body, it seemed like Déjà- vou. Shadow had seen this before….somewhere….
He looked at it, eyes focused on the single gem in the center, the cuts, the depth, and the…faints spark of light. Of the red light that seemed to pulse through the gem as he made contact. A faint whisper of a name sparked inside his mind. …..Mephiles…Shadow blinked, reaching with his mind to the dark and haunting voice, but instead a searing and burning voice took its place…….Iblis….Solaris…..Project Solari…ssssss.
Shadow blinked, looking down at the scepter, it was blank again. Nothing in it, the two other people in the room were looking at Shadow intently.
"Tails look up Project Solaris." Shadow commanded, Tails was slightly surprised, but quickly typed that in, looking up reports. Shadow wanted to know what the burning hissing voice meant. The haunting on could wait.
Tails gasped, looking wide at the screen and the rough pictures of a large fire in a tube.
"What is it little buddy?" Sonic asked walking over. Shadow still had his eyes focused on the scepter.
"Project Solaris….named after the sun god. Project Solaris was created to control the basic fields of Time and space using a flame named the 'flame of hope' otherwise known as-"Tails left off. He was reading off of an old journal entry. It was a picture, but at that point the book was burned, faint words were seen but nothing readable.
"A flame of hope?" Sonic asked, looking intently at the screen.
"No." Shadow said, as a faint spark of annoyance seemed to radiate from the….burning voice…
Tails and Sonic looked over, slightly confused at Shadow's boldness of his wording. Shadow knew it wasn't a flame, it couldn't be.
"It's Iblis, the fire of Destruction." Shadow said bitterly, clenching his fist against the cool metal. It fit the burning voice, Destruction. Sonic looked surprised but Tails was searching more databases, finding nothing.
"A fire of Destruction?" Sonic echoed, the faint beeping of machinery was the only sound.
…..I come…for….you Shadow…. Shadow's eyes widened a fraction as a chill ran through him. The cold haunting voice was back, the faint red flared and Shadow exhaled looking up. Tails and Sonic were still looking at the computer. This time looking for Iblis.
"Hey Tails, can I take this home? Scan it or look in my records?" Shadow asked, a slight dark tone in his voice. It was his 'persuading' voice.
He could easily see a faint shiver on Tails, he hid it well however.
"Y-Yeah, sure." He stuttered and Shadow gave a curt nod before turning away.
"For the teleporting pad, Chaos Control speeds you up; it moves you through the air or any surface. It speeds up your molecular build up." He stated, before turning and running back towards his home.
He chuckled slightly after being clear of the house. He wouldn't forget the look on Tails face.