Shadow still wasn't quite sure what had happened.
He sat, leaning on one arm with the other slung in front of him, and he stared idly at one corner of the room. The lights above flickered, temporarily illuminating the horrors of the room with each weak flash. He didn't look. He already knew what was there.
His right shoulder throbbed dully, and he could feel several slightly burning sensations over much of his upper body. He couldn't really have said what caused them. He did recall that the throbbing in his shoulder had started first. Shifting his weight, he raised his left hand, the one he had been leaning on, and touched his right upper arm. He then slowly slid his fingers upward until they brushed over a spot where his fur was more heavily matted with blood than it was elsewhere.
Instantly a jolt of pain shot through his right arm, making him jerk backward involuntarily. He straightened up again quickly. He didn't want to lean against Maria, didn't want anything that covered him nearly from head to foot rubbing off onto her.
That's right, Maria...
Images flashed through his mind. The armed GUN soldiers, just minutes before, spilling into the room. Maria, alone at the control panel and in the soldiers' line of fire. Himself, trapped in the escape pod, desperately trying to find a way out. The crack of a rifle. Maria yanking the lever down before collapsing. The stars, suddenly, all around him, and the blue Earth below.
In that moment, before he fell too far, Shadow had forced all of his emotions away and willed himself back into the room. The soldiers were still in an uproar and didn't notice him at first, crouched beside the control panel next to Maria's prone form. He had seen the crimson stain on the bodice of her dress, seen it coloring her hand and wrist where she had tried in vain to staunch the flow, seen the way her eyes were closed and her chest unmoving. Seen it all and understood at some instinctual level exactly what it all meant, but his mind had remained blank.
That was when the soldiers finally saw him. Incoherent shouting, gunfire. A white burst of pain in his shoulder. Then everything dissolved into flashes of light, explosions, screams, a whirling kaleidescope of mindless action and reaction which he could no longer remember. When Shadow had next become aware of his surroundings, the GUN soldiers were no more.
The rest of the escape pods had shattered, he noticed. Shards of their glass walls littered the floor, lethally sharp despite their thickness. Perhaps that was where the shallow lacerations over his arms and body had come from; it was hard to tell which of the fragments were marked with his own blood and which were by the soldiers'. He felt dizzy, disoriented. Perhaps he should do something about his injuries before he lost consciousness. Absently he wondered if he deserved to.
Reaching up to his shoulder again, he carefully felt around the wound. He had probably been shot, at close range, because it was simply a hole, the bullet having drilled all the way through. He clasped his hand over it and concentrated, remembering it the way it was before, whole and undamaged. A gentle blue glow briefly lit the area around him. When he moved his hand away, the hole had disappeared.
He returned his gaze to his corner. During the chaos, he had somehow deflected everything from Maria's body, keeping her from becoming besmirched by the room's gruesome new decor. A small part of him knew it wouldn't make a difference; she was gone, gone and never coming back. The rest of him wanted to wait, wait for the Professor. He would know what to do. He would tell Shadow what to do. He would provide answers to all the questions Shadow couldn't even think up yet. So he would stay here, guarding Maria, and wait.
Footsteps. Heavy, echoing, many booted feet approaching. With his peripherial vision, Shadow spotted more GUN soldiers filing by, leading the other residents of the ARK. One soldier paused before the entrance to the darkened room and squinted, peering in. His eyes grew huge, his mouth dropped open, and he fled, yelling words at the others. Words that meant preparing for battle. Words that promised a new invasion of the room. Words that didn't matter anymore.
As more footsteps thudded toward him, accompanied by the clacking of weapons, Shadow got slowly to his feet. He faced the doorway, watching for the soldiers that would come rushing in, hoping to take him by surprise, perhaps, and trying to kill him. As the first soldier turned the corner, he raised his hand.
He wasn't the Ultimate Life Form for nothing.