II. Remembering a Life

Several months later, Shadow popped into existence above a short stretch of grass dusted with snow. He shivered automatically, although the cold was nowhere near enough to actually bother him and gazed across the airy gap at the mountain in front of him. It was far more than dusted; the usual snowcap had expanded to cover nearly the entire mountain. Turning around, he recognized the red form moving alertly down the steps of the shrine there. Knuckles the Echidna insisted that all visitors to Angel Island arrive at the shrine, so he could verify their identity. Sonic might make a point of always arriving somewhere else, just because he'd been asked not to, but Shadow considered such games childish. Besides, it seemed a reasonable request, considering the importance of Knuckles' duties. He waded through the tall, dried grass to the outermost stone ring and waited there for the Guardian to join him.

"Hello, Shadow," said Knuckles, affably enough. "What brings you up here?" In deference to the chilly weather, the echidna had added a muffler and toboggan cap to his usual gloves-and-footwear, and the gloves and socks were clearly a heavier fabric than his usual gear.

"I was wondering if I could borrow Tikal for a bit. I have a project that I need some advice on," said Shadow.

"Ah," answered the echidna. "Well, she'll probably be delighted to go with you; she doesn't like the cold much. Let me see if I can get the Master Emerald to find her."

"'Go with' me?" That wasn't what Shadow had expected; he'd only meant to discuss his ideas with the peach echidna. Surely Knuckles didn't mean . . . . "I thought she couldn't live without the Master Emerald - you're not actually going to let us take it?"

"What?" Knuckles seemed shocked at the very idea, which reassured Shadow slightly, although leaving him still confused. Clearly the Guardian did not intend for Shadow and Tikal to stroll off with his charge. But then how . . . perhaps he's got a Chaos Emerald? Understanding dawned on the Guardian's face. "Oh! Oh, no, you left before Marahuté's gift to her, I guess. She's got a Time Stone now, that makes her, well, alive. Not the spirit-light type of life she's had since she was freed from the Master Emerald, but a real life, with a real body. She went down to meet Rex and Becca a few months ago, but she's been wanting to go down again. She just doesn't like going down below by herself, and of course I can't really leave."

Shadow refrained from pointing out that Knuckles had left the island on a number of occasions, either shrinking the Master Emerald and taking it with him, or leaving Chaos and Tikal to watch over it. Taking Tikal down to see what he had for the memorial was probably better than just describing it, so this would work better for him. "I'd be pleased to escort her, if she wants to come."

He followed Knuckles up the steps of the shrine, grinning at the sight of the fire burning on the upper steps, and the thick cushion next to it. "Keeping warm, I see."

Knuckles grinned back a bit sheepishly. "Well, I like my toes and tailtip. The Master Emerald may moderate the weather a bit, but still gets cold enough up here to get frostbite, you know." He stepped over to the huge gemstone as Shadow waited on the top step. The Ultimate Life-form enjoyed the fire's heat, even if he didn't really need it; he was capable of surviving even the chill and vacuum of space itself for a short time, but that didn't mean it was very pleasant. He listened idly to the echidna's mutters as the Guardian communed with the stone. After a moment Knuckles turned around. "I think she's coming," he said. "But I don't know where she is, so I'm not sure how long it will take."

"Not too long, I think," answered Shadow, pointing to a shape that had just emerged from the Red Canyons. "Isn't that her?"

It was, and shortly the peach-furred echidna girl joined the two males at the base of the shrine. "Shadow!" she exclaimed, giving the black hedgehog an unexpected hug. "It's good to see you again!"

Somewhat embarrassed, the red-striped hedgehog returned the hug gingerly. "Uh, thanks. I was wondering if you'd like to come down to the ground with me. I need an opinion on something, and I thought you might be a good person to ask."

"Sure," agreed Tikal cheerfully. She hugged herself and shivered. "Anything to get away from this cold. What do you want to show me?"

"It's sort of a secret," temporized Shadow, glancing at Knuckles. "And it's winter down there too, so it'll still be cold."

"But the buildings down there have inside heat," pointed out Knuckles. "Be sure to bring her back in one piece, Shadow, I've gotten rather used to the company. I'll just sit up here and hope my nose doesn't freeze off." Shadow assured him that he'd return Tikal safely, and a few minutes later they were on their way - and there.

Tikal looked around with interest. "Where are we? It isn't Station Square, is it? The buildings are a lot bigger than the ones on Thera."

"That's Central City," answered Shadow. "It's where the President of this country lives, and Rouge and I live there too, when we're not out on missions."

"Missions? You mean you're missionaries?"

The black hedgehog nearly choked. The sort of missions he'd accepted from GUN - let alone the image of Rouge the Bat as a missionary! "No," he managed. He cleared his throat and got himself under control again. "We both work part time for an agency called GUN, Guardian Units of the Nations. Our missions are the tasks they assign us. 'Missionaries' carry out tasks assigned by their gods. And whatever else GUN may or may not be, they are definitely not a god.

"Anyway, what I wanted to show you is in here. And I'm afraid this building isn't actually heated, it's just for storage." He opened the door of the warehouse they were standing in front of. "This is where Tails stores some of his stuff; he let me put a few things here temporarily. I . . . I'm trying to make a memorial for Maria, but I'm not sure what to do next, and I hoped you could help. I have these statues, that I'm about to show you, and I want to plant flowers around them - especially blue ones, but I'm not sure . . . ." His voice trailed off as he squeezed past a couple of broken robots (clearly Doctor Eggman's but 'modified' by Sonic's spindash); apparently Tails had been here recently and dropped them off. He gave Tikal a hand past them, and led her around a damaged plane to a large, black statue. The smooth stone was carved into the shape of a gryphon, lying half curled around a smaller white statue, with one half-raised wing sheltering the pale form. Tikal had seen gryphons when the two of them had gone with Knuckles to restore the Chronos Rock for the griffs, the gryphon dokan that had been guards of ancient Babylon and who carefully bred the few remaining lines of true gryphons, but for some reason the white animal seemed to perplex her. The two statues were mounted on a oval granite base, with a plaque on one of the long sides. "Maria Robotnik," she read out loud. She read the rest of the inscription silently, than looked at the smaller statue again, from several angles. "I give up," she said finally, "what is the white one?"

He gave her an odd look. "It's a lamb," he answered. What else could it possibly be?

She frowned a moment more, then brightened. "Oh! A sheep cria, you mean?"

"Do I? What's a cria?" He didn't recall ever hearing the word, before or after he'd awakened.

"A young llama." She used the same tone as he had with the lamb, then raised an eyebrow at him. "Don't get in the habit of thinking that everyone knows the same things you do. No one in the Echidnan empire ever saw a sheep, but llamas and alpacas were everyday animals. I only know what the tiny sheep on Angel Island are because I asked Knuckles. He never mentioned lambs." Shadow dropped his gaze and nodded, accepting the rebuke. She looked thoughtfully back to the sculptures. "So why a lamb and a gryphon?"

"The 'lion and the lamb' was one of her favorite images, and she used to draw the lion lying down with the lamb a lot. I don't know why, exactly, but the gryphon statues when I saw them in the Babylon's caves just seemed right to replace the lion with."

"Maybe because it suggests space? It has wings, and this statue sort of suggests the darkness of the universe surrounding the ARK, especially with the little white flecks in the stone," suggested Tikal. She reached up to touch the detailed carving of the feathers on the head. "It certainly appears to be protecting the lamb. This is a Babylonian gryphon isn't it? I remember you asked Marahuté if you could get one. Maria was your friend on board the ARK, wasn't she?"

"She was my sister." Shadow realized that of all of Sonic's friends, he'd picked the one who probably knew the least about his the ARK, and his own history. He wondered if his subconscious had done that on purpose, or if it was just an accident. But then, too, Tikal was really the only one of his friends who had suffered a major loss, and in her case too it had been triggered by a family member. He could see that - as with most people - she was perplexed at how a human could be sister to a dokan. But 'sister' was exactly what the black hedgehog meant; 'foster sister' or 'stepsister' didn't have quite the same meaning. He elaborated, "Professor Gerald Robotnik created me in the hopes that my immune system would be a template he could use to cure his granddaughter, Maria. She was born with a disease that would kill her gradually, and he'd already invented a treatment to beat the disease back and maintain her health but there was no cure. The President at the time . . . ." Shadow paused, debating just how much to reveal. He didn't doubt the echidna was trustworthy, but some of the past's secrets were probably better off left there. "The President at the time wanted someone to research eternal youth and health. The Professor had turned the offer down, but when Maria was diagnosed he relented, hoping that such studies would also help her. I was the culmination of years of research." He stated it simply; it was a fact, not something to be proud or ashamed of. "Professor Gerald modified me from a 'normal' dokan hedgehog embryo, making changes he'd discovered during his initial experiments."

"The Big Lizard," interjected Tikal.

"Yes, the Biolizard was the prototype of Project: Shadow. Had she been successful, I might never have existed. But her growth mechanisms were messed up somehow, and Father decided also that it would be safer to have a more intelligent brain in charge of the Chaos powers. So he selected a dokan hedgehog as his next base. I don't know why," he added reflectively, "I asked him once and he said something about an old friend that was a hedgehog, but . . . ." He shrugged.

"Anyway, I was grown from embryo to adult in a specialized stasis tube, that also taught me a lifetime's worth of knowledge directly into my brain. When I was awakened . . . I opened my eyes, and looked around for the first time, and as the blurriness cleared away, there she was. Just stepping through the door, with her arms full of flowers she'd picked to welcome me with. She was . . . ." His voice trailed off as he stared back across the years.

"The most beautiful thing you'd ever seen," said Tikal softly.

Shadow jumped - he'd actually forgotten she was there - and turned red. "Well, considering that all I'd seen at that point was Professor Gerald and a blurry lab, there wasn't much competition. It sounds dreadfully clichéd I suppose." He trailed into a mumble and looked away, still embarrassed. He hadn't intended to get so lost in his memories.

Tikal was kind enough not to laugh, although he could tell she was amused. "Clichés become clichés for a reason," she pointed out, "and logically, something you've seen has to be the most beautiful. Although sometimes the most beautiful people don't look it."

"But she was!" Shadow insisted. "I mean, she was beautiful, as humans judge appearance, and I thought she was, too, but her personality was beautiful as well. She was the sort of person that makes you smile just because she walked into the room, and she was smart, and always ready to help, and cheerful–" He hesitated, then continued, "and she affected everyone that way." He fell silent again, remembering.

"How . . . long did you know her?" asked Tikal finally.

The black hedgehog looked at her, ruby eyes meeting blue. "Three years. At first, she knew all about the ARK and the people - I had all sorts of knowledge from the flash-training, but no experience with anything - and she liked to play big sister, introducing me to people and showing me how to do things, but later – " He smiled at the memories, his gaze going distant. "Later, I got to be the one in charge, because along with that cheery nature she had a mischievous streak nearly as wide as Sonic's, and she got us into all sorts of trouble. Of course, all she had to do was smile at most people to get back out of it, but that didn't always get me off the hook and it didn't work with Father - Professor Gerald - at all. He'd decided by then that I had enough experience to be responsible for her, but, well, she could be very hard to say 'no' to."

"I can tell," said Tikal, smiling herself. "Why here, though?" She looked around the warehouse. "This seems a strange place for a memorial. Why not put it on the ARK, since she lived there?"

"Oh, it's not going to be here," he explained, "This is just a place to store the statues until I find the right spot. But I don't know where would be good. It needs to be on the planet because she was born on Earth, and she always wanted to come back. She'd spend so much time just looking at it, wishing she could be back here."

"I see," said Tikal thoughtfully. "Why did she want to return? I mean, what did she want to do when she was here?"

"Nothing that most people would find very exciting; she used to talk about just sitting under a tree, on grass, and watching the birds fly past. She wanted to travel some too, but most often she just daydreamed about sitting down here and, well, being alive, I guess."

"Oh?" Suddenly, Tikal grinned at him. "That's easy then. Bring your statues up to Angel Island. That way you can set the memorial up under one of the trees in the forest, where there are plenty of birds and animals around, and it'll not only travel the world with the island, it'll be perfectly safe as well. Knuckles won't mind, and you can plant your flowers around it and the chao can tend them when you can't visit."

Shadow blinked. Why didn't I think of that? It would be perfect, except – "Are you sure Knuckles won't mind? I know of one human, at least, who ought to be allowed to see it, and he's not usually welcoming to intruders."

"He won't object," answered Tikal firmly. She seemed very certain of that, but Shadow wasn't so sure. Picking up his doubts, she cocked her head at him with an unfamiliar glint in her eye. "I am the only other echidna on the planet you know. If I approve this, he won't have any choice. Trust me."

It occurred to him suddenly that she was not only the only other echidna, she was THE only female echidna, and he'd spent enough time with Rouge to have an inkling of just how powerful that detail could be. "Okay," he said. "Shall we give him a chance to give me permission, or just turn up with the statues?"

Tikal giggled. "Oh, one must always let the male think he's really in charge. Besides, we should find where we're putting them first. Although I think I know just the spot."

Shadow smirked, and teleported them back to the foot of the shrine. Knuckles stamped down to join them again, and Shadow made his proposal. Knuckles was fine with the concept of the memorial in the forest, until the hedgehog got to the part about other people possibly visiting.

"Whoa! No way, Shadow! I'm not having people tramping all over Angel Island and threatening the Master Emerald!" The echidna folded his arms across his chest, glaring belligerently at the black and red hedgehog.

"They won't be threatening the Master Emerald, and they won't be tramping all over the island," argued Shadow. "One of them, maybe the only one, will be the Commander of GUN and he knows how important it is for the Master Emerald to stay safe."

Knuckles scowled. "If he's military then that's all the more reason for him to want to take it! I'd have thought you, of all people, Shadow, would know how the military reacts to a potential source of power!"

"I do," replied the hedgehog calmly. "I also know that Mokie knows the risks as well as I, after all, his parents were killed aboard the ARK, and he's seen firsthand what the prior GUN Commanders have done."

Knuckles blinked. "Mokie?" he asked blankly.

Shadow mentally kicked himself. "Mokie was the nickname Maria gave to her best friend, who has grown up to become the Commander of GUN. He knew Maria and Professor Gerald well, and he will probably want to see the memorial. If you require him to ask permission first, he will, and I assure you he knows how important it is for the Master Emerald to remain where it is."

Knuckles growled, unconvinced. Before he could say anything else though, Tikal spoke up. "You needn't waste your time complaining, Knuckles. I've already told Shadow he can put the memorial up here. The chao and I can look after it when he can't, and–"

"Hey, wait!" interrupted the other echidna, turning an outraged stare on her. "What gives you the right to–"

"Being my father's daughter," Tikal interrupted him in turn. Drawing herself up regally, she announced, "As the hereditary ruler of the Echidnan Empire, I am telling you that Shadow may do this."

Knuckles opened his mouth, and closed it. Then he opened it again, and after a moment closed it. Knitting his brows, he glowered at Tikal in silence, then he finally said, "We don't have an Empire anymore."

"Of course we do," replied Tikal firmly. "The Mystic Ruins and Angel Island are still officially our land, and I'm the daughter of the most recent ruler, and you're my army. What more do we need?"

Knuckles clearly still wanted to object, but he also knew when he was outmatched. As Shadow had learned, he wasn't so much stupid as slow-thinking; growing up alone on the island he'd developed the habit of deliberating on things for extended periods, but that meant he had problems keeping up with most of his friends - or enemies. The hedgehog guessed that the red echidna would return to the argument later on, though, once he'd had a chance to marshal his arguments. Knuckles was nothing if not persistent.

"You said you had a location in mind," Shadow interjected, looking at Tikal. "May I see it?"

"Yeah," said Knuckles, still scowling. "I want to see it, too."

"Sure," said the female, "it's over in the woods. This way."

The Red Canyons were a bit tricky for Shadow to travel through. Both Tikal and Knuckles were able to glide from ledge to ledge, and Knuckles didn't even need a ledge, since his trademark knuckle spikes were capable of digging into the rock itself. The hedgehog, on the other hand, had to use Chaos control to teleport from point to point. Shadow noted that Tikal seemed unusually tense during the glides, though. He watched her approach, as he Chaos controlled onto a ledge beside Knuckles.

"Don't watch her," said the red echidna.

"What?" The hedgehog looked at him in surprise. Surely Knuckles wasn't jealous about Tikal?

"Next ledge," the echidna muttered as she joined them. Again, he went first, then Shadow teleported over. "She doesn't like heights," he said quietly, when the hedgehog arrived, "and it's rude to stare."

"Oh. Sorry." Shadow could sympathize, after his plummet from the ARK he was not too fond of great heights himself, although the canyons weren't deep enough to bother him. He kept a more covert eye on Tikal the rest of the way. She managed well enough, but she couldn't quite conceal her relief as they reached the mushroom jungle on the other side. The males pretended not to notice, and she did glide through the jungle a lot more smoothly than she had moved in the canyons. For his part, Shadow skated along vines and leapt from branch to mushroom cap like Tarzan. He'd never really had a chance to explore Angel Island before; he'd only been to the shrine isle and the area on that side of the Red Canyons. He'd also been mobbed by chao the one time he'd visited, to Knuckles' vast amusement. No one had ever figured out why they were so fascinated with the hedgehog, unless it was because of his Chaos powers. He'd been relieved that Marahuté's chao and the ones on Thera didn't seem particularly interested in him. They were cute and all, but still. Maria would have adored them, though, he thought, smiling to himself as he pictured her laughter at the creatures clambering all over him. I wish she could have seen that. And she'd like the idea of them tending her flowers. They had left the mushrooms behind and were now walking through a drier, more typical forest. A swirl of tiny birds fluttered up, flitted around them twice, and flew on into the trees, and a miniature, stub-tailed bear stood up to look at them. A few yards farther on, Tikal turned into a clearing and Shadow instantly knew he was in the right place. A small meadow stood sere and brown under its scattering of snowflakes, but he could picture it green and in bloom. A small cluster of heavily-budded trees that his flash-memories identified as dogwoods stood at the forest's edge near a (currently frozen) stream, in a loose ring that would be the perfect setting for his statues. A herd of tiny deer gazed curiously at the dokan for a moment before returning to their browsing along the forests edge, and a half-dozen chao in multi-colored scarves were doing some sort of dance nearby. They broke off the dance and stood frozen a moment, then surged towards Shadow, babbling at the top of their shrill voices. "Hey!" he objected, but suddenly he had chao hugging his knees, clinging to his hands, and hovering around him. "Help?" he requested, turning to the echidnas, only to see Tikal giggling behind her hand and Knuckles laughing so hard he had to hang on to a tree to stay upright. Suddenly, something wrapped around the hedgehog's neck and he looked down in alarm. He was relieved to see it was only one of the chao's scarves.

Finally Tikal moved forward and started detaching chao, gently shooing the fluttering crowd away as well. The small creatures reluctantly disengaged, but they refused to take the scarf back when Shadow tried to return it. Knuckles got himself under control and took it, looking it over curiously. "Since when do chao wear scarves?" he asked Tikal.

"Oh, they've been fascinated by yours for years," she said casually. "So I asked Tails to bring some up with our last batch of supplies."

"Oh." He handed the scarf back to Shadow. "I suppose that's where you want to put this thing?" He pointed at the stand of dogwoods.

"Yes," said Tikal. She looked at him expectantly.

The crimson echidna scowled again, glaring up and down the open area. "This is Eggman's fault," he said suddenly to Shadow. "When I was growing up, all of this was forest, but when Eggman crashed his Death Egg on the Island, he burned down a lot of the trees. Do you think that's a big enough area for this human of yours to land in?"

Shadow blinked. "Oh, um, I suppose so. Does that mean you'll let him come here?"

"I don't seem to have much choice," Knuckles grumbled, glaring at Tikal. She stared back inscrutably. The male echidna hmmphed and looked back at the hedgehog. "Ask him to call up here first, rather than just turning up. Or anyone else you decide to haul up here," he commented sourly. "I do have a treasure to guard, you know."

"I know, and I will." Shadow was surprised at the Guardian's giving in, but he wasn't going to argue. "I promise, no one will come up here without alerting you first."

Knuckles hmmphed again. "They'd better not."

It was late spring before Shadow actually told Mokie about the memorial. Even with the help of Tikal and the chao - and Knuckles, to his surprise - it had taken a while to get things set up properly. The island seemed to be helping out as well, presumably the Master Emerald's doing, though whether that was Tikal's or Knuckle's influence Shadow didn't know. Regardless, the dogwoods were still blooming, and the array of flowers he'd planted were mostly blooming as well, even though a number of them were doing so out of season. He rode up in the helicopter with the Commander (after notifying Knuckles), and showed him the frothy green-white trees, with a lone, contrasting pink dogwood, standing guard around the statues. The dark gryphon seemed even more dramatic against that backdrop, shielding its snow-white charge beneath the arched wing. A clear space at the front of the pedestal allowed the Commander to walk forward to read the inscription, but to either side and behind waved blue flowers carefully arranged by height and season. Additional flowers, in a rainbow of colors, had been planted beneath the trees, further delineating the space. A swimming chao - Shadow had learned the types during the planting process, and they had finally ceased to flock around him every time he visited - was filling a watering can from the stream, and using it to water the outer ring of blooms. The Commander looked at the long-eared green and yellow creature in amazement.

"How did you teach it to do that?" he asked finally.

"I didn't," answered Shadow. "Chao like gardening, and they volunteered. And I thought Maria would be pleased; she always liked stories with chao in them."

"True," agreed the human. He seemed a bit skeptical about the chao's 'volunteering', but Shadow wasn't surprised. Although there were a scattering of chao gardens and pet chao down below, most people thought of the creatures as animals, like cats and dogs, rather than as creatures capable of thought and reason. Shadow couldn't fault them; he'd been in the same group, encounters with Cream's chao Cheese notwithstanding, until he'd actually gotten up here and worked with them. He didn't think they had dokan-level (or human-level) intelligence, but they were certainly smarter than monkeys. He didn't bother to argue the point, though; this wasn't a place for arguing, but for remembering.

"This is truly wonderful, Shadow," said the Commander, looking around again. He removed a roll of white tissue paper from inside his jacket and unwrapped it. Inside lay two roses, one yellow, one crimson. He offered the flowers to the hedgehog, who looked at them blankly. "I realize that the red rose is supposed to be 'romantic' love," he explained, "but there's not one for 'family', and 'friendship' doesn't seem to do justice to your relationship with Maria." He drew the yellow rose out of the paper as he spoke and laid the long stem across one of the gryphon's avian feet, tucking the end under the other foot to keep it in place. Then he offered the red rose to Shadow again.

This time Shadow took it, sliding the smooth stem through his fingers. "Maria was always disappointed that she couldn't grow roses on the ARK," he remembered. He extended an arm suddenly. "It's the same color as my stripes," he noted. The petals were nearly an exact match.

Mokie nodded. "I was trying to match them," he said. Shadow stepped forward, looking at the yellow flower lying across the statue's front foot. Then he looked up, at the black head gazing watchfully at the lamb. The sculptor had actually carved the beak so that the upper and lower jaws were separate. On a whim, he raised the red rose and threaded the stem into the creature's mouth, near the jaw hinge. Hmm, not quite. He slid the flower down about halfway, and nodded. Now the gryphon appeared to be offering the flower to the lamb. A flash of memory arose: the carefully drawn image of a lion, in yellow and brown pencil, sitting in front of a lamb, holding a crimson rose for the grey and white creature to sniff. And Maria's voice, complaining about having gotten in trouble for drawing the scene during English class, even though she already knew how to spell 'aristocrat' and 'bureaucrat'. Dear Maria, I miss you still. I hope you're happy where ever you are. And I won't forget, not ever, even when the stars do turn cold.