Silence reigned in the cold, dark room. Situated underground beneath a secret government building just outside Westopolis, various experiments were kept confined in the concrete walls, far away from the public eye. The majority of these experiments were created as potential weapons of mass destruction should wars ever arise. All of them had been kept in glass cryogenic stasis tubes down here for years, some even decades.
Three tubes in particular contained the beings most important to the now deceased brilliant scientist, Gerald Robotnik--his prototype of the "Ultumate Lifeform Project" (or U.L.P.) the Biolizard; his granddaughter, Maria; and the final product of the U.L.P., "Shadow."
Looking at the alpha and the omega of the U.L.P., it would be understandable for one to not believe that the Biolizard and Shadow were related other than in size. The Biolizard was made as a female reptilian creature clad with orange and navy blue scales and armed with a large life support machine strapped to her back, tubes snaking from the center and digging into her temples and ribs, delivering some unidentifiable fluid throughout her artificial veins. Shadow, on the other hand, was modeled after a male anthropomorphic hedgehog. With black fur with large patches of red scales, his organs run on blood from the alien race known as the Black Arms. He has no need for a life support system and can manage well on his own, though he's always appreciated the company of Maria, who he sees as an older sister.
Today, a certain someone would reveal themselves as his biological sibling...
A black and red creature not unlike Shadow skittered its way over the cool tile flooring out from a dark corner of the room, a whiplike tail trailing behind. It was on a mission to retrieve its "brother" from stasis on Earth after nearly half a century.
The creature punched in the numbers it was told to earlier that day into the base of the tall cryogenic machine, and a smirk appeared on its muzzle as the glass casing clicked and began to recede upwards. This was the moment its father--Shadow's biological father--Black Doom had been waiting for after a long, long time.
A visible freezing air poured out the base of the machine and the small black and red hedgehog was left out to thaw. A thin veil of ice covered his body, and the creature standing by became disappointed at the realization it would take a while before the two could finally speak. So, it waited.
And waited.
...And waited.
After several hours, the alien entity was growing frustrated with the situation. Shadow's breath and heartbeat had grown slightly more rapid, but no sign of regained consciousness had arrived yet. He remained on the floor, eyes shut tight. No amount of nudging or whispering was of use, and the figure wasn't about to make itself known by yelling. So, it waited some more.
It was finally dusk as evidenced from the narrow windows way up near the ceiling...and Shadow finally stirred.
The alien-hedgehog wearily pulled his eyelids up and looked around the dull, unfamiliar room. He glanced to his left to see his only two friends still frozen, and he let out a sigh of relief that they were essentially in the same situation he was. Shadow then glanced to the right to see a dark figure approaching him, and jumped back in fear.
"Hey, no need to be scared of me, brother," it finally spoke. "I'm here to take you home!"
Shadow stared at this stranger with suspicion. "What do you mean, 'brother?' Where am I? Who are you? Are Maria and Bio alright?"
The stranger laughed. "Dad said it had been fifty years, so no wonder you're full of questions! But I suppose it is impolite of me to not even introduce myself. I'm Eclipse, the Darkling formed from the blood of the very alien leader you were--the mighty Black Doom!"
Raising a confused eyebrow, Shadow looked at Eclipse, and then himself. They did have similar colors at least, but he wasn't quite convinced they were related, much less knew who this "mighty Black Doom" was. He raised the question, resulting in a very offended-looking Eclipse.
"You're not even the slightest bit familiar with dad?! Wow, you're a lot more blissfully ignorant than I thought. He's only, y'know, one of the most powerful alien leaders EVER. You should feel proud he was willing to give some Black Arms blood to your creator. He doesn't exactly go around giving samples to people willy-nilly, ya know. What he does is destroy worlds and conquer armies! Enslave the powerless and roll in wealth!" Eclipse accompanied his monologue with exaggerated hand gestures, trying to implicate just how important Doom should be to Shadow. Shadow, however, was still utterly lost.
While the Darkling rambled on to his own accord, Shadow slid over and hesitantly removed a single Inhibitor Ring from his left wrist, then proceeded to punch the glass of the two tubes containing his lifelong friends until they shattered.
Eclipse stared in awe as Shadow clamped the Inhibitor Ring back around his wrist, breathing heavily as he watched the young girl and android lizard collapsed to the bases of their tubes, frosted over. "Wh...what was that?!"
"Inhibitor Rings...they greatly limit my power so I won't...go berserk..." Shadow muttered. "If I remove even one, my strength increases tenfold..."
"Whaaaaaaaat! Get outta town, that's awesome!" Eclipse's eyes sparkled with a childlike wonder as he jumped up and down around the hedgehog. "I wanna see you remove all four! You'd be amazing if you were back with the Arms!"
"Don't...get so cocky. After what happened only once, I...never wanna let myself get like that again." Shadow sat on the stone floor, a curious Eclipse sitting down next to him. "Like what?" the latter inquired.
Shadow sighed, knowing this creature wouldn't shut up unless he told him the story, and thus began to reflect on his final memory before having been shoved into stasis. He had a hard time believing it had already been fifty years since the incident.
"Well...I want to start by saying Maria is the most important person in my life. To me, at least. She taught me everything I know and gave me the name that even you know me by. I have never known life without her. Or Professor Gerald, for that matter, but after what happened, I'm glad to be away from him. I doubt he's still alive, anyway."
"He was executed, I heard," Eclipse remarked. "He's been dead since a few months after you were put in stasis, I think."
"...Good. Thanks for telling me." Shadow continued. "Anyway, shortly before this happened, Maria was sent down the hall to her room. Immediately I knew something was off, as the professor never made her leave for any experiments he did on me. Maria was always kept around to walk me through the steps of whatever task I had to perform. But this time...no. This was so, so radically different from anything the Prof ever did to me before. He had me sit down and he commented how he was disappointed in the "goody-two-shoes" I had become from being around Maria all the time, and that I was supposed to be a military-grade weapon with no sympathy for the enemy. He then injected me with...something, I'm not sure what...and immediately I felt nothing but pain all over. I felt myself grow larger and develop claws and fangs and a long tail...I felt like I had a huge amount of stored power I needed to unleash as soon as possible. Apparently I had cried out, as Maria came rushing in with these Inhibitor Rings in her hands, and closed them around my wrists and ankles before I could figure out what to do with myself. These things were originally made for Bio in case her power grew unstable, really, but I think Maria did the right thing in giving them to me. After a few seconds I started shrinking back to my normal size, and I just felt super exhausted. Everything was hurting, and here Gerald was screaming at Maria telling her what she did was wrong, that she wasn't supposed to know...next thing either of us were aware of, he was pushing us into cold glass cases saying it would be better if he worked by himself. And then, I woke up here."
Eclipse blinked, processing everything. "Wow. That's...intense, really. Even one as ruthless as Black Doom ensures his underlings are comfortable. I'm...sorry to hear that."
"Honestly, it's none of your concern. This was half a century ago." Shadow gazed down at the stone tile floor. "What was done was done. And if it hadn't been done, I probably would have destroyed everything on the ARK myself...including Maria. That's not a possibility I want to think about."
"The ARK?" Eclipse gave Shadow a puzzled look.
"Yes. The Space Colony ARK. That's where Bio's life and my own life were spent. It was essentially Gerald's secret laboratory. This room is the first time I've experienced someplace else, actually...are we on Earth?"
"Neat, and indeed we are! It's nice here, buuut...I was kinda sent to bring you back into space with dad," replied Eclipse, laughing nervously.
Shadow jumped a little at that last statement. He just woke up on Earth a few minutes ago, and now he's going to be dragged back into space? He wasn't having any of that. Not after all the wonderful stories Maria told him about Earth. "Uh, no. I don't think so. I'd rather stay down here with Maria. Besides, why should I trust you when we've only known each other for less than ten minutes?"
The hedgehog had a point. This was going to be tougher than expected. "Tell ya what," Eclipse sighed, "I'll let you stay here for...one week. I can join you, but first I'll have to go back and tell dad. I know he's gonna be angry with the delay as is, but if I don't tell him about staying here a while beforehand, I'll be toast."
Crossing his arms, Shadow grimaced at his alien relative. "Fine. No funny business, though."
The room returned to silence as the two assessed their situation, waiting for Maria and Biolizard to thaw.