Rouge the Bat, having returned to her own world along with Sonic and his friends, tries to piece together what she knows about the mysterious Shadow the Hedgehog and his creator, Professor Gerald Robotnik.
Spoiler Warning: This story is set AND WRITTEN shortly after Sonic and his friends return to their home planet in the 'Sonic X' timeline, and so contains spoilers for much of that series. Of course, there are also spoilers for the game 'Sonic Adventure 2', due to the similarity of some of the material.
Disclaimer: Sonic the Hedgehog, as well as related characters, situations and locations, are 100 percent the property of Sega. How does anyone not know this?
It had taken a long time of searching. She'd spent a lot of effort compiling the reams of data she'd brought back with her from that other world, not to mention the files she'd stolen from Dr Eggman's databanks not long afterwards. The good doctor had brought back a considerable amount of data, but then it was to be expected. After all, Professor Gerald Robotnik had been Dr Eggman's grandfather. And besides, Eggman was a mad scientist with a penchant for technology, so it was in his nature to accumulate information. If he only learned how to protect it, Rouge might even have considered him a worthy foe, but the bat lady's exquisite talents at stealth and thievery were easily a match for all of Eggman's defences.
Now, here at her old home, she had extracted every piece of information pertaining to Gerald Robotnik and that black, mysterious hedgehog called Shadow. Shadow himself was now dead, having died saving that other world from a falling satellite - the space colony ARK, where he had been built. Shadow had been alive, Rouge was almost certain of that. Gerald Robotnik had been a skilled scientist, and if he was trying to create the "Ultimate Life-form" then Rouge was more than willing to believe that he had succeeded. And if Shadow had claimed to be that Ultimate Life-form, then she had no reason to doubt him either… except that she did.
It was a stupid suspicion, and for a long time she had thought that it would lead her nowhere. But throughout, there had been a small tinny voice at the back of her mind, telling her over again that the speedy blue blur known as Sonic did greatly resemble the brooding Shadow. Perhaps it was a coincidence. Probably it was a coincidence. But the notion had not gone away. She had asked her human friend Topaz in the other world to help her find out whatever she could about Project Shadow, had raided the President's private files. She'd had no time to go through them then, but time was one thing she had more than enough of now. The only jewels worth stealing now that she'd come back to her own planet were the Chaos Emerald and their large brother, the Master Emerald. They were all thoroughly well guarded, though it was often fun to steal, or try to steal, the Master Emerald just to see the reaction of the handsome red echidna.
As it turned out, Gerald Robotnik had not died that fateful day on the ARK. Several escape pods had been jettisoned, and he had been in one. Presumably he believed that his granddaughter Maria had been in another - according to what was left of his own diary he had made it very clear to her what she was to do in an emergency. In any case, he had no reason to suspect that the soldiers that had invaded his orbiting space station would have any reason to hurt a child like her. But they had.
Maria had died at the hands of those soldiers with their guns, and her last act had been to make sure that her only friend had made it down to the planet alive. Her only friend, her grandfather's creation, Shadow.
Gerald Robotnik had worked quickly in that period. Information about the incident had been suppressed, and he planned to relocate himself, his family and all his creations to a parallel universe. He hadn't found Maria, but then he had not managed to recover all the escape pods. Perhaps she was in government custody, or perhaps she was somewhere on Earth, away from their interference. It didn't matter, because for that short time he convinced himself that she was safe. He continued his research, and he used the powerful Chaos Emeralds to send numerous creations - including his most recent, and most advanced - as well as his infant grandson, to another world by means of Chaos Control. He had sent them to Rouge's planet.
That was how Eggman, Maria's younger cousin, had come to be here. He had been sent by Gerald Robotnik to safeguard him from the government. How ironic that when Eggman had found a way back to the planet of his birth, it had been the government that needed protection from him.
Still, it was the creatures that had accompanied Eggman on his trip that concerned Rouge more. Most of them had been early prototypes, like the hideous biolizard that had lain dormant on the ARK. One at least, had been made after Shadow. And if Shadow had not been the last creation of Professor Robotnik, then how could he be called an "Ultimate Life-form". This new creation was complete, according to certain notes she'd recovered, though he had not been programmed as Shadow had. Perhaps that was intentional - had Shadow's brooding nature been the result of giving him too much knowledge of human affairs? Then again, perhaps it was an oversight, and one that Robotnik would have corrected given a chance to perfect his work? There was no way of knowing, but without that downloaded information and intelligence, the creature had been completely innocent, able to learn and live and grow and love away from the legacy of its creator. Before his death, that was what Shadow had wanted for himself… or so Rouge believed. It must have been a subconscious desire, anyway.
Eventually, after months or even years of searching, Gerald Robotnik had discovered what had happened to his granddaughter.
No survivors aboard the Ark.
The news had been devastating to him. The only creation he'd had left was Shadow, and Rouge was convinced that Shadow was, in Robotnik's mind if nowhere else, an inferior creation to the one he had sent to accompany his other grandchild into alien territory. He took Shadow's stasis pod and tore the poor hedgehog's memories to shreds, mentally raped the creature to give it a burning desire for vengeance as strong as his own. To Rouge, it was the worst crime that it had been possible for the professor to commit - worse even than his plans to destroy the Earth by sending the ARK barrelling into the planet's surface. That plan, at least, had been foiled (in no small part to Shadow himself), but Shadow had never had such a chance. Who knew what kind of life he might have lived had Robotnik not tampered with his essence like that - who knew what kind of person he had once been? What had Maria's only friend really been like before he was turned into a weapon?
Shadow had been left in stasis, and Robotnik had remotely reprogrammed the ARK, his former home, to enact his revenge even decades after he was gone. The authorities had detected the signal, as Robotnik knew they would, and though they could not determine what, if anything, he had done, they had traced the signal back to him and taken him into custody.
Robotnik spent his last days in a highly-secured cell - a cage surrounded by water on Prison Island. Lost to his madness, he covered the walls in his mathematical doodles, and was eventually executed for treason. Moments before his death, he gave a cryptic warning of imminent doom to his firing squad. Then he said no more.
But in death, his vengeance had been assured. Shadow still slept, the ARK waited in orbit, and in another world, his grandson was growing to manhood and becoming every bit as twisted and evil as Robotnik himself had been in his last days. The self-titled Dr Eggman sought power and the mechanical ingenuity he had inherited from Gerald Robotnik was just the thing to get it.
The schemes and plans had been executed to perfection - fifty years after the fact, Eggman had returned to his home planet. He had awoken Shadow - for his own purposes, of course, but his own purposes had been Professor Robotnik's purposes too - and Shadow had led them to the ARK as he had been programmed to do. Every last detail had been anticipated and prepared for, so why was the Earth still there. Why were its inhabitants still alive?
Rouge knew why.
Because Robotnik had not been evil, not really. He had grieved, terribly, but a part of him had known that his actions were wrong. He had left a chance… one slim hope that his own plans would be foiled… and that was his finest creation, the one he had transported to the alternate world along with Eggman. If that creation had grown to be good, then there was a chance that he would defeat Eggman, convince Shadow that revenge was unjust and prevent the Earth's destruction. Had the pure and innocent creation grown to be evil, then there truly was no hope for humanity anyway, and they deserved to be wiped out.
There was hope, because Gerald Robotnik had not been able to predict his own Ultimate Life-form… or had chosen not to. After all, mused Rouge as she saved her information to an archive and deactivated her computer, who on this world or any other could predict the spiky speedster that was Sonic the Hedgehog?
I have always believed that Sonic was the true "Ultimate Life-form", rather than Shadow. It's an idea supported by circumstantial evidence from the games, but Sega otherwise seems to have no interest in pursuing. This story is my belief given flesh. This may be contradicted events from the third (or second, if you're Japanese) season of 'Sonic X', but I'm happy with it as it is.