Supposed To Be Me (Shadow x Reader)

Author's Note: So, who's ready for a climax? I sure am!! I worked very hard to make sure this chapter lived up to what I've been promising throughout the story. So sorry for not updating in FOREVERRRRRR... Life is really something sometimes. I'm sure you guys are not here to see me ramble, so we're going to get right to it. Enjoy the new chapter, everyone!

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Traveling to the past through a time portal created via chaos energy is nothing like the rainbow teleportation vortex. It's cold, and it feels like forcing yourself to crush through the stone of time. Maybe that's what was actually happening. There was a caveat to time travel that Shadow forgot to explain. In order to prevent a paradox from occurring and tearing apart the universe, the chaos emeralds send you back to the version of yourself already at that moment in the past. This resulted in three things. One, Shadow was unconscious and trapped inside a hibernation capsule. Two, Gilbert and Barrett were being confronted by G.U.N. agents. Three, you were all alone on the Space Colony Ark during the invasion.

Like before, you found yourself in your room with ghostly white skin and scribbled pictures of Shadow on the walls. Scientists were scurrying through the hallways like startled mice with research papers flying out of their hands. In all of the hustle and bustle, you suddenly remembered what you were there to do. Snagging a picture of Shadow from the wall for luck, you took off in the same direction you did last time.

Hallways upon hallways flooded past your vision and they all seemed longer than you remembered them to be. A red glimmer caught your eye and you turned to face it: the Phantom Ruby. It was lying abandoned on a lab desk within a password-protected capsule. As you slowly recall the Phantom Ruby's importance in the future, you realize that you had a power never before given to anyone in the past. If you could destroy the ruby, then Shadow would never get tortured! He wouldn't need to search an active volcano for some trace of the Ark. It would change something.

There wasn't much time to think about it. In fact, you didn't think. You latched yourself to the sealed capsule and began frantically typing in the password. Every password on the Ark was the same. M-A-R-I-A. Thankfully, that made it very easy for you to snatch the Ruby. The capsule whooshed open and revealed the Phantom Ruby completely and utterly defenseless. Now came the hard part: smashing it.

Unlike Gilbert, you wouldn't be able to smash the ruby with just your fists. Instead, you would have to find something stronger than that to deal the devastating blow. Frantically, your eyes darted around the room looking for something heavy enough to smash it. That's when you saw the meowing lizard.

It was still small and in its early stages of development, but it was given enough black blood to be able to smash the ruby. Mouth lasers, jaw crushing, or pink balls of goo, it didn't matter to you as long as the Phantom Ruby was left out of commission. You snatched up the ruby and flung it with as much force as you could muster toward the meowing lizard's containment capsule. According to plan, the glass cracked, shook for a moment, and then collapsed onto the floor. Black alien blood spewed out of the container and the Biolizard lept happily into its newly found freedom. In its mighty leap, it happened to come crashing down onto the Phantom Ruby. That did the trick.

It was barely two seconds into its new life in freedom when the Biolizard started convulsing violently on the floor and gasping for some sort of life force to sustain it. It yowled in desperation when its heart gave way and clawed at the floor in a terrified cry for help. You watched the spectacle with pity in your eyes, but you could still remember what it would do to Shadow if you let it live. The lizard belted out a final wail before flopping over onto the floor to rest for eternity.

"One prototype down...," you mumbled to yourself as you glanced at the long line of containment capsules after the Biolizard. "Plenty more to go."

On most days, the scientists would likely have tossed you out into the vacuum of space for destroying their life's work; but today, they had bigger things to worry about. If they did happen to catch you shattering the containers and letting the Ultimate Creature prototypes die, they didn't bother to stop you. For all they knew, you were helping GUN. In a strange way, you were.