Disclaimer: Don't own anything but my OC.
Shadow easily navigated the castle with the help of Dr. Eggman's instructions, but had to quickly maneuver the maze leading to the dungeon since there were booby-traps almost everywhere. The ebony hedgehog was able to dodge the traps before they were triggered since Eggman scanned the castle before he sent Shadow there to retrieve the artifact. After what seemed like an hour and 103 miles later, the anthro finally found the Scepter of Darkness.
Just before Shadow could get a hold of the artifact, a dark-colored hand quickly snatched the scepter and floated back to it's owner. The ebony hedgehog turned around to face the thief and was surprised to see who it was. It was none other than Black Doom. "Thank you for leading me to the Scepter of Darkness, Shadow. I'm not here to kill you yet!" he said before bidding the anthro a farewell and floating upwards through the ceiling.
"Shadow reporting; mission is a failure. Black Doom is back, and he stole the scepter right when I found it." Eggman heard over his computer. The fat man then grabbed the microphone for his dome and commanded, "Ozone, forget Metal Sonic for now, we have a bigger problem: Black Doom is back, and he stole the Scepter of Darkness. Your mission right now is to retrieve it however way you can, I'll deal with Metal Sonic." When Ozone heard that, he told the metal doppelganger, "Change in plans: I hope we can have a fair fight some other day. For now, I've gotta attend to business." With that, the alien unlocked the door and left the building.
Before Ozone could take off, he heard someone calling for him somewhere nearby. When he went to investigate, he found out that it was Team Chaotix. "Boy, am I glad we found you. Tails wants your help back at the workshop; he said something about materials to make a prototype of your space vehicle" said the leader of the team after meeting up with the anthro. Ozone simply replied, "Tell him to wait, I've got business to deal with. Be sure to let him know that I've got word that Black Doom has been spotted near Soleanna. I'm headed there right now to intercept the evil alien, but I've also learned that he's got the Scepter of Darkness." The croc got out a little notebook and jotted down the things to remember to tell Tails. "One more thing: I've also heard from Shadow that Black Doom has one of the Chaos Emeralds that Knuckles is after. Speaking of which, I found one of them and I plan on holding onto it until I retrieve the one Black Doom has. I've got a feeling that I won't be able to get his emerald without an emerald of my own to counter his skills." With those things written down, the Chaotix Team leader thanked Ozone for the information and ran off in search of his team.
Once the Chaotix Team regrouped at the Station Square Park, Vector told them everything he learned from the alien anthro from the sighting of Black Doom to the location of the two Chaos Emeralds. "Whoah! This is really bad. We'd better hurry back to Tails and brief him on the situation pronto. This sounds more important than our current assignment." Exclaimed Espio.
"WHAT!?" Tails yelled when he heard the news. "I'm afraid that Ozone is rather busy at the moment. He told me that himself. When I asked why, he told me the news on this Black Doom business and the Scepter of Darkness" Vector concluded. Tails had a face that meant he's in a real had case of panic, then darted for the X-Tornado. "Just find the last two chaos emeralds, leave Black Doom and that scepter to us." The young mechanic said before revving up the plane's engines. "One more thing: Tell Knuckles everything you learned about this crisis once he gets back." Tails said before taking to the skies in search of Sonic.
Ozone arrived at the 'castle' just in time to see Black Doom floating out of the highest tower towards the sky. "So that's Black Doom. I expected him to be more menacing, but he looks like a mutated hippie with an oversized head!" the anthro muttered to himself before flying off in pursuit. Before long, his communication device started beeping with Shadow asking for support. "I've got good news and bad news, Ozone" the ebony hedgehog started over the walkie-talkie. He then said, "The bad news is that Black Doom took the Scepter of Darkness; the good news is that he stole the fake Flames of Iblis that I carried. I'll explain later, but I need you to meet me outside this 'castle'."
Shadow met the yellow alien outside the castle as agreed, then was surprised to see that Ozone had a chaos emerald of his own. "I've got an idea, Shadow. Let's combine our Chaos Emerald's powers to open a rift in time to prevent Black Doom's theft of the Scepter of Darkness." Ozone said with confidence. It didn't take long for Shadow to catch on Ozone's intentions, then concluded, "I get ya, go back in time a little ways before Black Doom stole it and steal it before it gets stolen." "I wonder if the stealing is from you stealing what I have in mind, but let's continue this nonsense later" Ozone finished. Both anthros held their chaos emeralds close to each other, then shouted simultaneously, "CHAOS CONTROL!" A little while later, a white surge of chaos energy popped out of the two chaos emeralds, merged into one, floated above the gems, then enlarged itself and turned into a light shade of blue. Before long, there was a feeling in the atmosphere that felt like the air was being sucked into the rift. "Let's go, Shadow." Ozone called out to the ebony anthro before jumping into the rift. Shadow remained silent for the moment, then jumped in after his comrade.
30 minutes ago, in the dungeon where the Scepter of Darkness was hidden, a surge of chaos energy suddenly showed up near the artifact and the two hedgehogs fell out of the rift. "Here's the plan: you stay out of sight because any interference with you and the Shadow in this time may cause a time paradox. Since I wasn't here at the time, the same rule applies to me. I will create a barrier with my powers to shield the scepter from Black Doom while you confront the alien. One more thing: Don't be seen by your self at all! If you do, the consequences will be fatal!" Shadow acknowledged Ozone's plan and ran straight for the spot where he first felt Black Doom's presence at the castle. Ozone, on the other hand, turned himself invisible and stretched out his hand for the Scepter of Darkness. He focused his powers into his hand to create a barrier that repels anyone except Shadow. His part of the plan is done.
Shadow, however, didn't have a hard time trailing himself without being seen. He already knew where he would turn and when, so that gave him a little advantage to knowing when to hide. He kept following himself for what seemed like a half-hour before feeling that same presence again when he was given the mission by Eggman. This time, he saw Black Doom's ghostly form on the floor slowly trailing the Shadow of the past.
Shadow took aim at the ghostly form, charged up some chaos energy in his palm, and fired it at Black Doom with precision aim. The chaos energy struck the alien with additional damage dealt since the attack hit the eyes. Black Doom turned around and saw Shadow staring the alien down with murderous intent. "What!? How can you be there and here at the same time?" he muttered in shock. Shadow simply replied, "Skip the talk and get out of here." Black Doom didn't reply, but held up his right arm to summon some comets, then positioned them in a circle behind his back. Shadow saw this coming and started running in circles around Black Doom in attempt to confuse him. The alien did keep an eye on Shadow, but adjusted the comets above his head in a halo-like fashion. Shadow noticed this, and put the rest of his chaos energy into his left hand, compressed it into a small orb, and shot it at the alien. Black Doom saw this, and the moment he saw the orb of chaos energy, he thrusted his hands downward as if to slam his hand on something, and the comets crashed down counter-clockwise. When the attack was over, Shadow was pinned to the ground under one of the comets. "I'll deal with you some other time. Just wait until I'm finished with business here" he said in triumph over his victory this time, but was heavily damaged from the Shadow's last attack.
Shadow used whatever strength he had to lift the comet off of him and get the chaos emerald in his hand. He muttered "Chaos Control" and vanished into thin air. He reappeared next to the Scepter of Darkness and told Ozone of his failure. "There's more… I didn't intend to kill him… I only planned… to weaken Black Doom… so that you can finish him off" Shadow concluded with heavy panting between each important detail. Ozone told Shadow to rest for the duration of this mission while he handles Black Doom. Shadow nodded his head and took shelter behind one of the pillars so he can stay out of sight from his past self.
Black Doom tried to find the past Shadow and resume his stalking so that he can get his hands on the Scepter of Darkness, until he felt a blast of chaos energy hit his back. The alien turned around to see Ozone with orbs of chaos energy lined up in a circular pattern behind him. "I'll give you two choices: get out of here, or I'll decimate you. The choice is yours" The anthro threatened. "I'll comply this time, but don't think I won't forget to kill you next time we meet!" Black Doom vowed before floating upwards towards the ceiling and the sky.
Ozone suddenly remembered his 'barrier' and raced back towards the chamber with the scepter. Once there, stretched out his hand to cancel his force field surrounding the scepter. The moment the shield went down, Black Doom appeared out of the ceiling and summoned a comet down to shatter the scepter. Ozone didn't notice the comet until it was too late; the impact shattered the scepter and it's contents were floating around the room. Shadow came out from his hiding place to see what was happening, and the darkness that was contained inside the Scepter of Darkness flowed into Shadow's shadow. A little while later, the shadow 'separated' itself from Shadow and started to take on Shadow's form until it looked like an exact replica of Shadow the Hedgehog, but instead of a red stripe on his head, it was grey. "About time I get out of that accursed object" it spoke before floating up to face Black Doom. "I was watching the ordeal from inside my 'prison'. I shall be your faithful servant for releasing me" it continued before kneeling down in respect towards Black Doom. It then finished, "You may call me Mephiles the Dark" Black Doom gave a sinister laugh at an unexpected success in his mission, then took Mephiles with him upwards to the sky.
Ozone and Shadow looked at each other for a moment to assess what happened, then Shadow said, "Looks like the danger just got worse" Ozone got out a piece of parchment, wrote down something, and left it where the scepter once rested. Afterwards, the two anthros used their chaos emeralds to teleport themselves somewhere else to avoid the past Shadow's arrival. In the past Shadow's eyes, he was shocked to see what was there. He got out his communicator and told Eggman, "Doctor Eggman, we have a problem. The Scepter of Darkness is already destroyed… hang on a moment. There's a note here." Once he read it, his face showed a look that meant armageddon is coming.
Uh, Oh! Mephiles has been released, and has joined Black Doom. What did Ozone write on the note? Where is Tails going? There is only one answer to those questions: Stay tuned for the next chapter.
(P.S. Wow! This is the longest chapter I've done so far!)
(P.S.S. Didn't get enough reviews for me to consider the Chapter 15 spoilers, sorry to those of you who reviewed in hopes of some spoilers... i needed 5 reviews in order for me to put up spoilers for the next chapter.)