“FORTE!!!” Shadow’s cries filled the air over the now-mute crowd, and the scream continued to echo from the empty buildings; seeming to go eternally. Shadow wept and rain began to pour down over them all, but no one really noticed it. Shadow slowly raised to his feet, seeing everything in shades of blood red. “MURDERERS!!!” Shadow exclaimed, pointing at Eggman and his cohorts.

“You are a waste of my time now, hedgehog, you’ve had your chance to run, now you die!” Eggman yelled back. He then aimed at the same cannon that decimated Forte at Shadow, and fired. Shadow merely lifted his hand and the entire blast jammed to a harsh stop and dissipated, however, in doing so, he tore the cloak he had on him to pieces. “What is this?!” Eggman cried out.

“It ends here, Eggman,” Shadow announced, “For Forte’s sake,” Shadow extended his right arm to its full length and shouted, “Chaos Blade!” and a large yellow sword emitted from his hand.

“Very unrefined, Shadow!” Eggman observed, “Your rage and distance from the chaos emeralds make it quite difficult, I see, to form a nice, sharp sword!”

Shadow looked down at his feet and saw a small ‘X’ shaped sky-blue jewel, and he took it into his hand. “Forte’s life jewel,” Shadow whispered, “Life…” And with the uttering of that word, a peculiar blue aura enveloped Shadow and the Chaos Blade turned a pale blue hue but emitted a radiant light and formed a perfect, solid sword.

“He’s insane!” Rouge the bat exclaimed, “That’s what they call the LifeSword! It crushes enemy defenses by ripping its powers from the user‘s life energies! It could kill him!”

“Fascinating!” Eggman exclaimed, “He’s so infuriated he can now tap into his life energies and form more potent weaponry! Most impressive!” the fat scientist chuckled.

Shadow aimed the blade forward, “LifeSword! Extend!” after the order, the blade rocketed toward the Atma Egg but it was suddenly stopped by a bright shield about the device. Shadow gritted his teeth and growled low, “LifeSword! Advancement! Activate the LifeSword Three!”

Rouge only needed but to gasp to get the point across as an enormous blade rocketed its away in a deadly arc towards them again. Eggman directed the machine to zoom off to the side, and avoided the powerful weapon. Shadow clearly didn’t have the strength to maintain this awesome sword, and he fell to the ground as if he were dead, with blood streaming from his eyes. Eggman then activated the Atma Egg and flew into the air, laughing, but Rouge said, “I don’t know, I feel sorta sorry for the little guy, and he was so powerful!”

“Ahh, don’t worry, he’s alive, just too tired to be a threat right now…” Eggman replied.

“But didn’t you say you wanted to kill Shadow the Hedgehog?” Rouge asked.

“It’s… not the same! He wasn’t really trying…” Eggman stuttered, “… that is, he wasn’t at full power… he was blind with rage and tapping into ultimate attacks his body wasn’t old… or powerful enough to truly grasp properly… I want to see him at full power… but for now, this city is OURS!” Eggman laughed maniacally.

Meanwhile, back with Shadow, our hero laid there on the ground, stomach-downward with thousands of people around him and a doctor. “Shadow! Shadow!” the doctor said, patting Shadow’s palm to try and see if he’d respond, but the black hedgehog was far too tired to move nor respond, so he merely curled into a ball, spikes extended.

“That means, he wants to be left alone,” Kindarspirit chimed. So, they brought Shadow to the hospital to allow him to rest and all visitors that night were chased off. The next morning, a nurse came in and saw Shadow sitting up, awake.

“Oh! Mr. Hedgehog!” the nurse exclaimed, “Lie down! Are you all right?”

“I’m just fine,” Shadow replied, stoically, “Where am I?”

“The Starmen.netville Central Hospital!” the nurse replied, shocked by the amazing recovery.

“I’m starving…” Shadow commented, and the nurse rushed off and moments later returned with some food, “Thank you very much, human,”

The nurse was indignant, “Human?!”

“That’s what you are, am I mistaken?” Shadow replied.

“How rude!” The nurse stormed out in a huff.

At the same time, in the downstairs lobby, Kindarspirit was at the receptionist’s desk and had just gotten permission to see her buddy, so she rushed up the stairs, “Hang on Shadow! Kindar’s a-coming!” At just that moment, Shadow walked right by her, “Shadow! Did they release you? Hey! I’m talking to you!”

Shadow looked up at Kindar, “Do I know you or something, human? I’m in an awful big hurry,”

“WHAAAAT?!” Kindarspirit shrieked, “You don’t even recognize your best female friend since third grade?!”

“You’re psychotic, I shall pray tonight for you to regain sanity, woman,” Shadow replied, unenthusiastically.

“Who do you think you are, anyway?!” Kindar growled.

“I am Bio-Unit Shadow, guardian of the Space Colony, ARK. My mission is to defend the colony from invasion… am I on Earth?” Shadow replied.

This came as an overwhelming shock to poor Kindarspirit, “Wh--what?!” she stuttered.

“I was created to become a body guard for Maria. That is my mission. My master, Professor Gerald created me, and was Maria’s grandfather, and a world-renowned scientist… perhaps you’ve heard of him… or…?!” Shadow then looked down at himself, “This is not the body I remember… was my old unit terminated?”

Kindar was now on the brink of tears, “Who are you? And what have you done with my buddy?” Kindar then reeled back and slapped Shadow so hard across his face he fell onto his back. “Gimmie back my friend!”

Shadow recoiled and grabbed at the place where he had been struck, “PAIN?! I’m-- but I’m a bionic unit! I can’t feel pain… nor emotions… nor remorse!… what… what has happened to me?!” Shadow looked then, at his gloved hands.

Kindar sniffled, “I want my friend back, give him back… imposter…” She then fell to her knees, sobbing, “Give him back… give Shadow back to me…”

“You… cry…” Shadow whispered, “Why do I feel sad too? Like I should know who you are… I’m… missing something,”

Kindar looked up at whispered at Shadow, “The jewel, in your pouch,”

Shadow blinked and reached into the pouch still tied about his waste, “What… is this item?” Shadow examined Forte’s Life Jewel.

“It’s the gem embedded into the helmet of your best friend, Forte,” Kindarspirit sniffled, “Come with me, there’s a visitor in this city who’ll snap you back to normal,”

After a while of walking, and many blank stairs at our short, black amnesiac hero, they came to Kindar’s apartment and they stepped inside. There, was a brown, girl hedgehog wearing a pink dress who had deep blue eyes, who was about the same height as Shadow! Albeit, she was tremendously fatter than Shadow to a reasonable degree. In short, Shadow could barely get his arms about her. “Remember, Fiona?” Kindar grinned.

Shadow didn’t have time to respond, because Fiona tackled him and embraced him warmly, “Oh! I missed you! I’m sorry my trip went over-time, but I just had to stop my round-the-world trip to go see Japan! Sorry, honey!”

Shadow blinked, stunned, surprised and above all else, confused, “You must be mistaken, I don’t know you…” Fiona looked into Shadow’s eyes and kissed him deeply.

“Certainly you remember your girl friend, right, Shadow?” Kindarspirit winked.

“Do you remember me now, love?” Fiona smiled.

“No,” Shadow replied, flatly. Shadow assisted Fiona to her feet as Kindar explained that she thought Shadow went insane after the battle last night. “I am not insane!” Shadow protested, “I’m quite sane! But now, I must find Professor Gerald and Maria and get back to work with the other Bio-Units. I’m sure they’ve noticed my absences.” Fiona and Kindarspirit then grabbed their black friend, and promptly tied him to a chair, “This,” Shadow the Hedgehog began, “Is humiliating!”

“Now, spill it! What’s all this about? What is this colony? Maria? Gerald? Tell us EVERYTHING!” Kindar ordered.

“Fine,” Shadow growled, “I was born in 1940 AD, created by the bionic researches of Professor Gerald Robotnik aboard the first space colony, ARK. Maria was his twelve-year-old granddaughter who was mischievous and often got into trouble, so he created me as her personal body guard. He infused hedgehog DNA, chaos energies and a metal known for its conductive properties with some Latin name I could never repeat.

I was designed to be able to use my life energies with my organic parts to make energy weapons while sustaining my mind with my robotic half, and the chaos energies enhanced my speed, strength, mental ability and stamina. I became the favorite of the professor, which upset the other Bio-Units. Several went berserk and attempted to terminate me and my program. Using my own Purification.exe initialization mode, I used my right as a guardian deity bio-unit to delete them.

Albeit, I sound more like a robot when you hear it… but I seem to be having problems activating any robotics commands. And I seem to be lacking the burden of the Shadow.Bat restriction of emotion program. I can now think freely, I guess.” Shadow rested his eyes and sighed, “I don’t know what happened.”

Kindarspirit leaned forward and examined Shadow’s eyes, “It’s okay, I promise, you’ll understand everything very soon.”

q