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—July 1957—Main laboratory, Space Colony ARK—
There was a bright light pointed right into his eye, and he could feel the itching under the bandaid on his red striped arm. This was normal, every day since his awakening about eight months ago he’d gone through experiments and examinations.
“That was all for today.” said the ARK’s chief scientist and his creator, professor Gerald Robotnik. The old man turned off the light, and took up his notepad to skribble his gathered data from the eye examination on it. “You can go visit Maria now, remember to be careful.”
‘Be careful’ could imply many things; be careful of the GUN soldiers, be careful of the poison injected into his body or be careful with Maria, either way he’d be. So the black furred hedgehog responded. ”Thank you, Professor—I will.”
The ebony hedgehog jumped off the examination table, stumbling as he reached the floor. His short stature of 2 feet 2 inches and the high examination table did not help.
The small mobian walked with careful steps, he’d always been bad at walking something the Professor was very disappointed about; but he tried his best and practiced whenever he could—to make both Maria and the Professor proud.
Reaching the automatic door he called back. “See you later, Professor.”
He heard a soft absent minded chuckle and an equally soft answer. “See you later. Shadow.”
All of the corridors aboard the ARK looked the same; gray steel walls, automatic doors and large windows.
The walk to Maria’s room didn’t take long and the striped hedgehog wanted to see his sister as soon as possible, so he soon stood in front of the door leading to her room.
The door itself looked like all the other doors but Shadow would never forget which one was hers.
He leaned with his left hand on the wall and reached for the control panel beside the door. He tapped the screen with his pointer finger and the door slid open.
“Oh, hi Shadow~” the blond haired girl said. Maria was sitting in her bed with a box of books beside her, looking for something she could read for her little brother.
“Hi, Maria.” Shadow answered. He walked into the room making his way towards the bed, the door closing behind him.
This was also part of Shadow’s routine, especially lately. When he’d shown interest in reading Maria had wanted to share and read every single book she had with him. The black furred mobian definitely didn’t mind, he loved hearing her voice. She’d always been a comfort for him—safe.
The scientists were always testing and experimenting on him in ways that made him uncomfortable. They were the ones who had injected him with some kind of poison today. They had done that every other day since two weeks ago, introducing his body to more and more fatal substances to see how much his body could take.
The G.U.N soldiers treated him much worse. Not even viewing him as a sentient being. Treating him like a pet or a tool, saying mean things and hurting or touching him at every opportunity they had. He’d overheard the Professor talking with them and he knew they wanted results out of him now.
That led to the Professor himself. He was also a source of comfort for Shadow but he wasn’t like Maria. The old man wasn’t as warm as her and the hedgehog hated when the professor was angry or worse, disappointed at him—Maria had never been, even if he feared she'd be one day.
“I’m not sure which book to choose.” the girl said after she quietly helped the other to get up in her bed—Chaos knew he wouldn’t ask for it himself.
“I haven’t seen that book before.“ Shadow said he as pointed at a little book with delicate pastel colors on the cover. ”Can we pick that one?”
“Oh yes, I loved that book when I was younger.” Maria responded as she carefully took out the book from the box. Although the girl herself was only seven, she was incredibly intelligent and ‘talked quite maturely for her age’ as her grandfather had put it.
As she was about to pick up the box and place it on the floor, Shadow slid off the bed and took it in his hands.
“Shadow, you don’t have to do that. I did lift it before you got here and see—“she gestured at herself—“I’m perfectly fine!”
“You are, but I know that you shouldn’t lift heavy things.” the younger one reminded her. He placed the box down on the floor. His balance wasn’t the best but he had incredible strength in his arms. The box who was full with books not even making any difference for his balance. His strength was something he knew the Professor and Maria were impressed with and he was really proud of it.
“Okay if that's so then, do I need to remind you who needs help now?” the young girl asked, chuckling. The younger one grumbled as she helped him to get up in the bed again.
“So, once upon a time—“
The fluorescent lights in the lab were irritating his eyes even with his dark glasses on. He’d been analysing the gathered data from Shadow’s weekly full body checkup for an hour now.
It’d been a long day, first Shadows schooling and helping Maria with her assignments from her long-distance school, Shadows weekly checkup, then the now regular poisonous injection experiment and after that the usual quick look at the immediate effects.
The young mobian, just about eight months, already had a physique and psyche of a five year old.
Everything looked good but there was minimal progress on his creations' balance.
Mostly, a physique of a five year old he supposed.
The old man had no idea how to help the young mobian make any progress on that and he couldn't understand how the little hedgehog could have such incredible strength but at the same time so poor balance.
Though the experiments on Shadow’s cells look good, he still wasn’t sure how to use them to cure his beloved granddaughter.
As he was about to put away his notes and statistics papers he heard heavy steps on the steel floor outside the lab.
The mechanical door slipped open revealing an angry looking Commander with two soldiers by his side.
“Professor Robotnik, I need progress on the project now.” the booming voice of the Commander echoed through the lab.
“I have his weekly checkup papers here if-“
“What’s its physical status?” the taller man interrupted.
“About the same as last time you demanded answers.” the old man was tired and this wasn’t anything new. He just wanted to be done for the day, so he could go and spend some time with his children—his granddaughter and creation—as he’d planned.
“We can not continue like this.” the Commander said. “We will start training it today.”
Gerald was shocked, this was new and couldn’t happen now, not after the experiments that were made on Shadow today. The hedgehog seemed fine after the quick look of his status afterwards but you'd never know if or when the effects would kick in. “What, you can’t-”
“I can—where is it?” the grey haired man asked.
“He, is currently not here.” Gerald answered, deciding to be calm and hope this could be sorted out.
“Where is the project?!” the Commander was fuming now not liking the Professors tone. When the scientist didn’t answer he turned his head to order his soldiers to find it instead. “Soldiers search the area and find the project, NOW!”
The two young soldiers turned around after a quick salute and ran out of the room as abruptly as they came in.
“What, I need him!” the Professor was starting to feel desperate, he needed Shadow to cure Maria, they couldn’t just take him.
“It has nearly been a year and your project has not improved, we need to train him. That is final.” the Commander turned around walking out of the room leaving a stunned Professor behind.
Her little brother was nearly asleep, he was curled up on her right side, his head leaning on her arm.
He looked so cute like this. Shadow her little brother, he’d been a blessing. Even if he couldn’t cure her he’d made her life bearable, wonderful even.
He developed so fast and everyday they’d learned something new.
Her grandfather hadn’t visited yet, to come and take Shadow back to the lab, so maybe he could sleep in her room tonight. So she carefully moved to lay down beside him.
She heard steps outside the door, they sounded like they were in a hurry so it likely wasn't her grandfather. Was it G.U.N, what were they doing here?
Her door was opened and suddenly a gun was pointed at her little brother.
“Project come with me now!” the soldier demanded.
“Wah, Maria?” Shadow sat up, he felt groggy and tired. He opened his eyes and was met with a gun pointed at his face, his demeanor changed immediately. He stood up holding out his arms. “Maria hide!”
“Project do I need to repeat myself, come with me now!” the soldier took the little mobians arm roughly and easily lifted the light hedgehog off the bed.
Shadow wasn’t having it so he punched the other in the face.
“Shadow no, don’t hurt him!” Maria said in a desperate voice. She didn’t want anyone hurt, even people working for G.U.N.
“No María, I need to protect you.” the striped hedgehog cried out. Shadow now standing on the floor, crunched in a battle stance, the soldier was bent over holding his face in his hands as he groaned.
“Shadow, just follow him no one needs to get hurt.” Maria said.
“That’s smart of you, young girl, hand over the project.” the soldier said standing up to his full height. He pushed a button on his huge walkie-talkie and started to speak.“Commander sir, I’ve found the project.”
“Bring it to the practice room and we will start its training now.” the static voice of the commander sounded through the device.
“Yes, sir.” the G.U.N member said. He pointed his gun at Shadow again as a quick warning before he started to walk out of the room. ”Follow me project.”
“No, I need to stay here.” Shadow said his stance looked strong but his voice sounded terrified.
Maria caught Shadow's gaze. “Shadow, please just do as he says.”
“No, María I need to stay.” the black furred mobian responded.
“You will not stay here project.” the soldier grabbed him again, this time taking advantage of the mobians small stature as he held his arm around Shadow making the child unable to move his arms, additionally he held the hedgehog's legs together with one of his big hands.
Shadow squirmed and struggled trying his best to break free, which he was about to do before the soldier put handcuffs around his ankles still holding his arm around the other. The man swiftly took forth his gun pointing it towards Maria.
“You will follow me, won’t you?” the soldier's voice was full with smugness as he knew he’d won, everyone knew how much the girl meant to the Professor, the hedgehog likely wouldn't want his creator angry. The man walked out of the room without further detail.
As the door was about to close Shadow gave the shocked young girl a glance as he was carried out of the room.
“Maria find the Professor.” he whispered and the look in the small mobians eyes spoke volumes of how he felt about this situation.
The first thing she did after the door closed behind Shadow was to take a deep breath. That had been weird and really scary—and Shadow, she was so worried about him.
She was still on the bed so she slipped off of it and stood up.
Walking to her grandfather's lab didn’t take long at all and soon she stood right outside of the door leading to he’s lab.
The door slid open and her grandfather was right on the other side.
“Maria, did G.U.N take Shadow?” he asked, wanting to get directly to the point.
“They did grandfather.” the blond girl responded. “I heard the commander say that Shadow should be taken to ‘the practice room’.”
“Okay Maria thank you, I’ll take care of this so go back to your room and don’t worry.” he tried to be calm for her sake and he didn’t want her to see what they would probably do to Shadow.
“Please grandfather, he’s my brother I need to know that he’s okay.” she put on her most pleading face conveying all of her emotions.
The old man couldn’t say no to that face. “Okay, follow me.”
The practice room was big and round. It had several doors leading into it, a high ceiling and high up an observation window who curved along half of the room.
Shadow stood alone in the round room, the soldier had left him there and he could see the commander through the observation window.
He seemed to be discussing something with a soldier of some sort. When he listened carefully he could make out what they were saying. His superior hearing made him able to, despite the glass and the distance.
“–yes that sounds like the best course of action” he heard the mysterious man say.
“Of course it is, we will test him first with our newest robot and then see how good Geralds little experiment fares.” the Commander answered.
The gray haired man took hold of a microphone and spoke into it, “Project, you will fight the robot we send in!”
Shadow nodded he wasn’t sure what else to do, and the punch to that soldier's face felt great so maybe fighting some robots would be a good way to release his anger, and Maria wouldn't be disappointed if it was just robots.
After Shadow nodded the commander clicked a button and a huge gray robot was released from one of the many doors.
It wasn't fast, making the inexperienced hedgehog think he could just punch the thing—unfortunately the robot was strong, too strong. The small mobian ran away as fast as he could after the realization.
He stumbled but managed to stay up. The striped hedgehog had no advantage over it, seemingly no strength and no speed because of his balance.
An idea popped up in his head, it was from yesterday when he played out an action fight with Maria.
As quickly as he could make his way behind the robot he jumped up to kick it in the back.
It created a small dent and he felt weirdly satisfied.
He stumbled across the floor trying to catch his balance.
Though his triumph was short-lived, one of the machine's arms shot out towards him, It managed to slashed the black furred hedgehog across his small face.
It was deep enough to break the skin making him bleed. He touched his face, as he looked at his hand he could see his strange blood. The deep red both humans and mobians had was speckled with neon green, ‘unusual’ as the Professor had muttered or ‘whoa, Shadow that’s so odd but so cool’ as Maria had said.
Regaining his focus he wanted to try again but his balance betrayed him and he fell.
The robot moved one of its arms and punched him into the wall. It hurt and he would've had a big bruise on his right shoulder if he were any ordinary human or mobian.
He tried to scramble up as fast as he could, but the big machine had already taken hold of his little arm. He couldn't get away, his normally strong kicks and punches didn't do anything. He suddenly felt very weak, every little movement felt shaky and uncontrolled.
He looked up to see the smirk on the Commanders face. He couldn't understand, the black furred hedgehog thought G.U.N. wanted him to be strong? Why was the commander happy to see him weak?
He screamed out as he suddenly felt immense pain in his right arm, he snapped his gaze back to the robot and could both see and feel the slow movements it made slowly tearing his arm off.
He looked up again as he heard a very familiar voice.
“SHADOW!”
He couldn’t believe his eyes, there stood Maria face pressed to the glass, her desperation could be both heard and seen.
He could also see the Professor heatedly talking with the commander, he'd never seen the old man so angry.
His vision began to blur, he felt incredibly dizzy. He wanted to call back to his sister but he just couldn't.
He tried to struggle some more, and with Maria and the Professor here he had to be stronger than the weakness taking over his body. He managed to focus his vision for just a second. He saw a cable between the machine's body and head area. If the smarts he inherited as a Robotnik was correct, that loose cable could be his winning point.
He tried to smile up at Maria for now he had a set goal—he would destroy the cable and then he'd win.
His dizziness started to come back but he tried to focus all his energy to his hand, suddenly a loud explosion sound was heard and extreme pain shot through the mobian.
The loss of feeling in his right arm was the last feeling he felt, but the last thing he saw was something much worse; the Professor's shocked, disappointed face and Maria on her knees desperate eyes filled with tears.
The world turned a bright yellow and he was swallowed by blinding light, filled with energy he’d later know was his own.