Somewhere, in the distant past, a green flash burst into existence. It was the green flash that usually accompanied a Chaos Control, expanding from a single point like a supernova from a star. In seconds, a rift within the light had opened, and from within the rift came a being. The dark figure dropped to the metal floor of his new setting, which had now materialized as metal underneath his knees and hands. Out of the rift came two gems, one red and one yellow, two priceless emeralds gleaming in the verdant green aura. A small cylindrical device emerged as well before the glow faded, the rift closing behind the figure.

Shadow the hedgehog picked up the Emeralds, feeling them disappear into his body as he held them. Next he picked up the device, which unfortunately was not built to disappear. So he just held onto it for now, which raised the question… How the hell to disguise himself? People would recognize him here, so he needed to either make himself scarce or go in cognito.

As if some Author was sitting invisibly up in the sky, creating new worlds just from a stroke of his fingers on the keyboard, Shadow noticed a broom closet behind him. Without a second thought as to how the hell it had gotten there, why the hell it was there, and why the hell it had random dark cloaks hanging inside of it, he dove inside and threw a dark hood over himself. It was the kind of dark cloak that you'd see in shadowy members of obscure organizations from other dimensions, or dark shadows of the netherworld come to claim the happiness and souls of ordinary people, or possibly just that creeper down the street who likes to stalk you as you walk to school every morning. Shadow didn't really stop to ponder all of this; he had other things to worry about. The Author is just trying to give you a feel of what the cloak looks like. Why the hell do you have to make it so complicated?!?!

Oh, what was Shadow thinking? Right, well… He was currently contemplating what the hell he was doing. The first phase of the job was already done, staking out Eggman's base for nigh upon two months and collecting the chronoubiquitor. It was designed, Shadow surmised, to anchor to a specific place within its configuration, powered by the Chaos Emerald. Its user's only task was to pick the time and initiate the Control.

Shadow had also taken the liberty of raiding GUN's file cabinets, which the General had already left for dead in his office. In them, he had already found several papers detailing the event he had come to prevent. From them, he had been able to find the date in question and the events which had occurred therein.

GUN had noticed several troubling projects being worked on in the ARK at the time. Examining records from Robotnik's crew, they were able to determine that more than a tenth of the scientists had been killed in accidents aboard the ship in less than a year. That warranted an inspection by the agency, which was what they had wanted all along, so a unit of soldiers docked into the ship.

This was where the accounts got fuzzy and diverse. The soldiers themselves never survived, not a one made it back down to Earth. A Retrieval team found one dead body… that was it. The recording chip within the man's helmet held very informative, confusing, and chaotic data all at the same time.

The recording starts as the soldier exits the pod that connected to the ARK. The soldiers moved as a unit, a phalanx of gun-toting humans walking through the metallic hallways. As they got to one of the research wings the feed suddenly went wild. The reports mentioned some explosion-like sounds, just before the feed went dark. From then on, they had to go by sound alone, for something in the helmet had gone dead. But the audio held more than enough for the investigators…

The soldiers were frantic, shouting orders at the top of their lungs. Fully automatic machine guns could be heard in the foreground, all pointed at one thing. From the fluctuations in volume of the bullets, the reporters could infer that their target was moving, and fast. Within a minute, the shouting had stopped, and only panting filled the microphone. It was so loud, the audio was hard to hear for a few seconds, but audio manipulation programs were able to partially decipher the missing segment.

It was orders. The leader of the unit, who had happened to survive the massacre, was sending the remaining soldiers out to search the halls. Anyone who looked like a scientist was ordered to be shot dead on the spot. Specimens were ordered to be taken alive if possible, but no risks were to be taken. From there, the reports followed the journeys of the soldier as he and his two buddies executed twenty three scientists among the next few hours. And then came different noises. Footsteps. A colossal blast sounded from somewhere close to the mic, and a body fell to the ground. And then everything went silent. From then on, there was no data, so the reports mentioned that the analysists assumed the mic had gone dead as well.

So Shadow knew vaguely what was up. The GUN soldiers were beaten, badly, and were ordered to kill the scientists. That was why they targeted Maria, and of course, that was why Shadow was here. Shadow's job was to make sure that the little shooting incident with Maria never happened.

It occurred to the cloaked hedgehog that he had been standing in that closet for quite some time. So he promptly Chaos Controlled toward the central core of the facility, where there would be a fucking map. Amnesia did have its drawbacks… chief among them being the loss of memory of several important pieces of documentation, forgetting several key scraps of information, and the overall constant feeling of having something at the tip of your tongue, except you never suddenly remembered it half an hour later.

Workers glanced up from their workstations as the bright light appeared in their midst. Of course, such unusual things happened all the time on this ship, so at first they didn't give it a second thought. Then again, that was before they did their double take. They had never seen a person come out of one of these before, and none of these people had ever walked up to a map, studied it for a minute, then disappeared into thin air again with a similar flash.

One or two scientists up and jumped off their platform into the vacuum of space right on the spot, finally convinced that being in space for this long had driven them crazy. Others shot looks of confusion or worry between each other. Several stood up and proclaimed that it was a sign of the apocalypse, and immediately kneeled down and prayed. All of them were shocked violently as about half a million volts shuddered throughout their systems, as Robotnik's work enforcing units did their jobs: another reason for the suicides, although not the primary. Robotnik sure did know how to make people work hard…

With a flash of emerald light, Shadow reappeared in front of an elegant metal doorway. It was drab gray metal, rimmed on the side with bright yellow and crossed on the front with alternating stripes of red and yellow. Demolition charges were rigged on the four corners of the door, juuuust in case someone wanted to break in for whatever reason. The hedgehog spent a couple of seconds laughing at the stupidity of it, in which I will explain to you why nothing of real note has happened yet.

You see, in a combination of GUN stupidity and Shadow's thoughtfulness, Shadow had arrived a full day before the actual event would take place. Because of GUN's shoddy workmanship with its filing, the date was written wrong, and so was the time. Also, Shadow had wanted to come in early enough to get his bearings on the ARK as well. Coincidentally, the difference between GUN laziness and Shadow's plans had left him with one day to prepare, of which he was completely unaware of.

And son of a gun, there he went. With a violent gust of steam and a robotic feminine voice over the intercom stating that the door had been opened, the door… opened. Shadow was treated to a large rectangular room, made out of the same bright metal as the rest of the ship. Computer screens lined every wall, some spanning half the room, others merely the size of lunchboxes. In the center of this room, seated in a swivel chair surrounded by a digital keyboard, was none other than…

Doctor Gerald Robotnik, creator of Project Shadow, of FinalHazard, and of many other monsters besides… Father of Maria… and commanding scientist aboard the space shuttle ARK.

The swivel chair turned to face him, and Shadow was treated to another look at his creator, his pseudo father. He was bald, of course, which was a general characteristic of the entire male line of his family. No one knew who the mother of Maria had been, for any who had known had died in the ARK incident. It was possible that he might have cloned himself to create an offspring. The patriarch of the Robotnik line had a gray mustache, lined with bristly hairs earned with age and wisdom. The scientist favored a white labcoat that served him well to hide his chubby physique. For the first time in fifty years, Shadow could hear his voice again, in person. He had to fight back déjà vu. A blast from the past…

"Well, well. What do we have here, a visitor? Welcome, stranger, to the glorious Space Colony ARK! I may ask you what your business is, please. We have some other guests coming tomorrow, so I am afraid I must decline any pleas for domestic housing." Robotnik had cut Shadow off before he could even begin, giving a vain effort to deny attempts to stay in the ARK for a long period of time. To Shadow, the message was clear. Please kindly state your business then get the hell off my ship, or my 'guests' will kick your ass.

And then Shadow caught himself. Tomorrow? He had purposefully come earlier than this! Somehow, there must have been a mistake… Sweat began to form on Shadow's brow as he began his inquiry.

"Forgive me, doctor, but who are these guests that are visiting tomorrow, if I may be so bold as to ask?" Shadow politely inquired, hastily concocting a sense of manners. Normally, he was never this polite to anyone – no one deserved his respect enough. Tails and Rouge only received slightly better treatment than most. But Robotnik… he held the doctor in the highest regard. Those who knew him would be shocked to find Shadow using something other than rude sarcasm in the presence of anyone. Especially a superior.

"Ah. It is common knowledge, so I see no harm. They are enquirers from the Guardian Units of Nations, come to begin a routine inspection. Now, I might ask you, who are you? What is your business here?" Gerald explained in a relaxed, almost calm manner. For as cruel as sadistic as the Robotnik line was, Gerald was peculiar in that he had a sense of leadership and honor. The qualities that would be put to the test most severely during the incident…

"My name… is of no importance compared to the news I am about to give." Shadow began ominously, his dark hood concealing the look of stress that had begun to etch itself upon his features. This was it. A chance to stop all of this right at the source, to stop the madness. The doctor leaned forward, his interest suddenly peaked. This did not happen often for matters outside of research. A good sign, perhaps? Or a terrible omen…?

"The GUN soldiers coming tomorrow, as you say… are going to be the catalyst for the end of the ARK, nay, your world as you know it, for unless you stop those soldiers from performing their inspection… Your efforts will have been wasted all these years, doctor." Shadow stopped, faltering in his speech. He didn't know what to do from here. The nervous hedgehog couldn't even tell if he had persuaded Robotnik at all… But his hopes rose as Robotnik beckoned him forward. Shadow's legs began to walk even before he knew it. He had taken a few steps before he realized his folly, a trick he had seen before. How could he be so stupid?

"Forgive me, guest, for disbelieving your claims." Robotnik calmly spoke, pressing a series of commands on his keyboard. A glass tube rose around him, summoned from the depths of a circular depression in the floor that he had failed to notice. It had gotten Sonic, it had gotten young Shadow, and now the trick had succeeded on Shadow here and now again. The hedgehog was too stunned to react for a second, too startled to believe what he was seeing and hearing.

"But unfortunately, I cannot go around believing the claims of every guest that comes into this room. So forgive me once again, but I must restore order. Sayonara… my guest." Robotnik dramatically proclaimed, pressing another button on his keyboard. With a loud hissing of steam, and a vacuum blast, Shadow was forcibly ejected inside his pod from the ARK. Gerald watched on his monitors as the pod floated out a ways into deep space, before detonating in a glorious explosion. The doctor waited until the light faded back into darkness, and he was sure that there was no debris left. Then, he promptly swiveled back around to the computer screen, and returned to work. Just another casualty in the fight for scientific achievement.

Back in the broom closet, a bright green flash erupted. For, like Sonic, he had seen the wisdom of using Chaos Control to get out of tight situations. Especially situations where the alternative was painful incineration in an explosion-esque environment. Those types of places generally led to a negative impact on a person's lifespan, drastically reducing it to the age they were currently at at the time. So Shadow survived his little date with death, for the umpteenth time in his life. Someone somewhere was probably shouting at his tv screen, yelling at the Sonic Team to get original with Shadow's plotlines. The Author was probably being sued at this very moment for plagiarism, copying events right out of a storyline. But then again, no one reading this really cares, do they? They just want to read the story. So… Onward!

Thanks to Gerald's shoddy security, Shadow was actually able to roam the hallways freely without fear of being watched on the doctor's monitor screens. What those screens were for, if they weren't for camera output, Shadow didn't want to know. Nevertheless, Shadow stepped out of the closet and chose a direction at random. If he was to stop the events of catastrophe tomorrow, he would have to know the territory better than they would. Hence, the walking instead of warping technique.

Pretty soon, Shadow found himself to be lost within the labyrinth that was the corridors lined within the ARK's interior. It all looked the same, in that the walls were all plated with metal, various metallic tubes and wires jutting off at regular, specific intervals heading to who knows where within the complex system no doubt designed by the doctor himself… Sometimes he would find a window, and know that he was in the outermost boundary of the hallways, but it didn't do him much good.

He continued to wander in this way, lost in his own home territory, when he stumbled upon a large anteroom. Somehow, he had gotten from the outer edge of the sphere to the inner core of the facility, where there were several interesting things to see. Foremost among them were a computer terminal in which one screen lingered that seemed to have its purpose rooted in calling an elevator, a digital map that had the distinctive and almost idiotic red dot saying 'YOU ARE HERE', and another huge circular depression in the floor. Shadow sidestepped around it, no longer trusting anything on this damn ship that looked like a circular hole.

Shadow walked over and took a longer and more careful survey of the map. The first time he had viewed one of these, inciting various suicides among the doctor's staff, he had merely been looking for the doctor's office, which was situated in the upper half of the ARK, in the core of the complex. Now, as he looked on the map, he noticed an underlying order which had escaped him earlier on. The ARK was divided into four quadrants, with specific purposes for each.

The upper left hand quadrant was dubbed the living quarters. On the map, the section grew to fit the entire screen, and a detailed drawing made of the inner workings. The inner portion, the part that faced the core of the sphere, was devoted entirely to the elevator. The elevator went to twelve different floors, and from there the hallways went to the very end of the sphere. These hallways branched into other hallways, with rooms built into either side until it looked like the roots of some great tree welded to the side of the ARK. But as he lost interest in the housing arrangements, the picture faded back into the previous view, and Shadow was able to look into the next quadrant.

This quadrant was on the lower left hand quadrant, and was labeled "Weapons Development". Shadow cringed as he remembered FinalHazard, the giant beast that he had fought along with Sonic as they rushed to the Eclipse Cannon. In this section, the elevator only had two floors to stop on. The bottom portion of the quadrant dealt with the Cannon, while the upper quadrant had all sorts of labels on it that Shadow was unable to decipher. Shrugging, he switched his gaze over to the lower right hand side.

This section was labeled "Medical Research", and had several elevator floors. From the elevator doors, just one long corridor reached out to the end of its boundary. An offshoot of this hallway would include a mini laboratory, fitted to experiment with various diseases. Shadow could actually read a couple of these, and was able to make out the names of various diseases. AIDS was prominently displayed in a good half of the rooms on the first floor. Others included Hepatitis, Cancer, and several other potentially fatal diseases.

The last and final quadrant of the ARK was labeled none other than Scientific Research. Shadow could actually make out the labels on this part of the map, probably because he recognized a lot of the names. Project Chaos… Project Gizoid… Project Shadow. His room was located near the very end of the hallway of his floor, and it was the only room that was actually a room. The others were actually half rooms, protected by a wall of thick protective glass behind which the actual project lived. Project Chaos' room was actually ¾ of a room, while the viewing panel was only ¼ of the room.

Shadow could have spent forever looking at that map, memorizing every nuance of the colony's corridors. But of course, the sense of urgency returned with gusto quite quickly, and Shadow wasted no time in Chaos Controlling over to the computer terminal. Somehow, without thinking about it, his fingers flew across the keyboard. It was almost as if it had been an old friend who had gone away for a while, and they had just recently met up and were able to catch up on recent events. In other words, Shadow's fingers did the thinking, while the hedgehog's mind itself took a backseat.

Within seconds, a loud dinging noise sounded as elevator doors opened to the side. Now that was what Shadow loved about technology these days. You didn't have to wait. When you shot at someone, you could expect them to be dead. When you asked for an elevator, it came down for you. When you told someone to go fuck himself, he went right home and… Whoa, got off target there. So Shadow entered the elevator, not bothered in the slightest as the doors closed right behind him. A tacky elevator music theme played in the background, but with a carefully aimed Chaos Spear, the speaker died out pretty quickly.

Shadow selected the second floor of the weapons quadrant, which just happened to be on the opposite side of him. He felt the elevator spin around, turning the doors to face the other side. And then with a sudden lurch, the elevator shot down the shaft as if in free fall on Earth. But it wasn't fooling anyone, for everyone on the ARK knew that the gravity was artificial. In a seemingly miniscule amount of time, the elevator arrived at its destination, and Shadow suddenly felt the liabilities of gravity once again as his stomach slammed onto the floor. The car had fallen so fast, Shadow had begun to lose contact with the bottom at all, and had been floating in space.

Shadow stepped out of the elevator to find a giant warehouse of weapons. It was as if someone had taken the most dangerous tools of war known to society, added a few of their own devising, and stored them all in one convenient place to be used if someone pissed them off enough. Wait a second… that sounded familiar…

Shadow shrugged it off and looked at all of the wonderfully deadly things that were stored here. He could go on a killing spree for years with these beautiful toys. One particular weapon caught his eye, and forced him to saunter over and check it out. It looked like a tiny crossbow, except that instead of shooting arrows, it shot what looked to be shurikens. Shadow also had a funny feeling that the antenna sticking out of the barrel of the weapon was used for something painful as well, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it…

Oh well. Shadow moved on. He saw antiques of old nuclear warheads, long barreled rifles, laser guns, homing missiles, parasite warfare, even some primitive replicas of ancient spears and swords. Some weapons looked like they had been modeled upon these, however. One particularly sharp long sword held his gaze for longer than the rest, for he could recognize it for what it was: Black Arms weaponry. It reminded him of his past, something he didn't want to think about right now. He passed by it in disgust, not sparing it a second glance.

The room was fascinating, and he could have spent hours there. So he did. On Earth, the sun would have lowered by a large degree already, but on the colony Shadow hardly noticed as the hours went by. He spent an extra long time studying the various Black Arms weaponry, screwing the feelings of nostalgia. Shadow recognized weapons that he himself had wielded, putting them to good use slaughtering aliens and soldiers alike in his mad frenzy to learn more about his past.

Finally, several hours after he had entered the room, he left in a hurry… in a hurry to escape his past once again, now that he had learned what he was. Ignorance was bliss in this area. Some things were better left unsaid, and Shadow wished fervently that things had turned out differently. But there was no going back… Not unless this mission turned out to be a success. If he finished this mission… all debts would be paid in full.

Shadow stepped into the elevator once again with this in mind, rekindling his resolve. He knew what his purpose here was. And tomorrow, he would make a difference. He spent the ride up the elevator reminding himself of this, telling himself in his own little way that everything was going to be okay in the end, even when he knew that it probably wouldn't be. Stories in the real world rarely had happy endings, and the Author of this tale was probably sitting there, just waiting for a chance to smite him for the hell of it.

Shadow had pressed a button at random, his mind wandering to other subjects. So as the car began to slow and the doors opened, Shadow was surprised to find himself in the Medical wing of the ARK. Not surprised in a 'Wow I didn't think that would happen' sort of surprise, surprised in a 'so that's what happened…' sort of way.

Shadow stepped out into a long corridor lined with doorways, filled with medical scientists scurrying about one way or another. Almost as soon as he had taken a step, a detoxifying agent was introduced into the air around him, sterilizing him in a good way. So he was clean, and didn't infect any of the research going on here.

In this corridor, the names on the doorways represented fatal diseases known to humankind. In fact, more than half of the wing was devoted to HIV alone. Shadow had heard whispers of this pathogen among the GUN researchers in the future. Apparently, the virus was not deadly in and of itself, but in and of the condition it caused in the body. It could negate the immune system, render the infected vulnerable to even the common cold. Shadow found himself glad that he had had no desire to stay with Rouge for longer than was necessary.

There were other diseases being researched here as well. There were a few doors devoted to Influenza, which had a nasty habit of resurfacing despite numerous attempts to stop it. No matter how many vaccinations they had created, a new strain always popped up. Shadow had overheard Tails giving a lecture on the disease earlier, on how the virus changed constantly to new strains, adapting itself to its host or to new conditions sporadically. Ergo, it was nearly impossible to vaccinate against it.

Shadow saw many more diseases, most of which were completely harmless in his time. Tetanus, Small Pox, others such as these. Some were even futilely trying to prevent Chicken Pox by vaccination, which Shadow vaguely remembered in the future. But it was silly to vaccinate children when they could just easily get the disease and get it over with right away. What was the point? It wasn't as if it was harmful.

And that was when Shadow found his way to the end of the corridor, which had devoted itself to cancer. He smirked, knowing that if the scientists of the future hadn't found it by now, these scientists had no hope. Some were already banging their heads against the wall in frustration. More than one scientist was being restrained by two or three others each, raving mad and trying to kill themselves.

Shadow entered one of these rooms for kicks, thinking that watching a couple of scientists kill themselves would be a fun exercise. He hadn't laughed in quite a while. Upon entering the room the scientists looked up for but a second, just to ensure that it wasn't Robotnik or anyone higher up like that. They seemed to work harder anyway, not wanting to take any chances. Shadow perused the aisles of workers, trying to make heads or tails of what they were doing. None of it made any sense.

Suddenly, one of the scientists got up and began shouting. Shadow strained his ears to catch what he was saying. There was complete silence in the room as the man made his announcement.

"I've done it! I've found the cure to cancer! Eureka!" The man shouted, and Shadow became slack-jawed in an instant. It wasn't possible. The future didn't have the cure yet, how could they have found it in the past? Suddenly, everything became clear to him. Gasps flew throughout the room as the man fell to the ground, breaking the beaker containing his life's work. The glass shattered, and somehow the contents vaporized upon contact with the air.

The medical students rushed to help the man, tried to get his heart steady… But it was futile. They just didn't know enough back then. Their fellow scientist died in their arms, unable to tell them with his last breath the secret that he now took with him to his grave. Shadow bowed his head respectfully to the one man who had done the impossible, and had paid the price.

Of course, that didn't stop him from laughing as soon as he left the room. The sounds of his hysteria echoed all along the hallways, continuing even after he had walked down them and into the elevator again. He nearly went into convulsions on the floor his chest was heaving so much. To think that they were so close, and they had lost it! Ironically, the first one to advance the medical field died because the medical field wasn't advanced enough yet. That was the kind of irony that comedians exploited, the funny anecdotes getting the crowd going. The reader is most likely wondering where the hell the Author is coming up with these ideas. And they'll never know.

About half an hour into his laughing session, he realized that the doors had closed in the elevator a long time ago, and he hadn't pressed a button. Smacking himself in the forehead, he got up and pressed a random button. Gone were the days where he could know exactly where he was going. Right now, he was just killing time. So the elevator started up, and he began to recover from his throbbing chest. With a sudden lurch, the car stopped, and the doors opened. Shadow stepped out into one of the hallways of the research division. He didn't even bother to check which floor he had ended up on, it didn't really matter.

The hallway was wide as well as long. A tank or two could have easily had space to drive down to the end and back without being cramped overmuch. Various scientists were walking by, some clustered around windows that were beside each door. There were plaques set into the wall next to each door, stating the name of the specimen and the lead scientist of that project. The glass was all two-way, Shadow could see, so that the scientists could observe the creature. A name stood out on one of the plaques, which had several scientists clustered about the window. Shadow walked over to see what the big deal was.

The room was more of a cage than a room. A giant blue monster that resembled a jellyfish was restrained by giant machines with large chains that looked to be made out of glowing plasma attached to the creature's appendages. Shadow remembered this creature all too clearly. He remembered that night, fifty years ago from the present, when he had followed Maria to destroy the Chaos clones. The clear blue tentacles that wrapped around him, threatening to swallow him whole… It was truly a hell in and of itself.

Shadow shook his head, snapping him out of the trance. The scientists were all muttering softly, pointing to this thing and that from their side of the glass. Shadow had been shunted to the outside of the crowd at this point, so he fought his way back to the front of the pack to see what was up. The creature looked to have escaped its shackles, and was now about to break loose altogether. The scientists were doing all they could to keep up the force fields and repair the machinery keeping the monster chained within. Shadow scoffed. If they couldn't keep it in its cage, why keep it at all?

A scientist pressed a button located on a panel below the window. The air inside the cage-like room filled with high voltage electricity, lighting the air with sparks. The creature fell to the ground, exhausted for but a moment. But that moment was enough for the scientists, as one of the people next to Shadow pressed a big red button. Shadow half expected a synthetic male's voice to say "That was easy…" but it didn't happen. Instead, the glowing chains reappeared, binding the creature back into its place. A lot of the scientists wiped their brows, and several sighed in relief. Shadow just laughed. These scientists were dumbasses.

Shadow took his leave of them. Walking down the hallways, he read some of the plaques on either side of the room. Some were just idiotic names, like Bessie or Wyllis. One was named Project X, and there was no window, it was just a picture of Chuck Norris. The scientists avoided this one like the plague, as if Chuck could actually come out and round house kick them. This elicited another chuckle from the now easily amused Shadow.

Shadow didn't even notice until he was five feet away, but he suddenly found himself right in front of his birthplace. The plaque in front of him read… "Project Shadow". He just stood there, lost in memory for a few seconds, before he checked his own mirror. It was surprisingly free of scientists, so he could get a clear view of his room's contents.

He saw just one thing in the room: a cylindrical hollow tube that took up the entirety of the available space made of opaque greenish glass. A metal door was fixed plainly to the front of the glass, and at the top of the cylinder there were a bunch of tubes and computer readouts reaching into the ceiling. A single tube dangled down in the center of the cylinder, with a breathing apparatus attached to the business end. Inside of the tube lay… nothing. There was no greenish liquid, no specimen, no nothing.

"Excuse me…" Shadow felt a hand tapping his shoulder. He turned around slowly, confused as to why someone would bother coming over and talking to him. And this was the point where Shadow could have easily died of a heart attack because he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

He was faced with none other than the daughter of Gerald Robotnik… Maria. Behind her, he saw himself as well, minus the height, the cold furious red eyes, the feeling of dread and doom, the arrogance, and the homicidal mania that he saw in himself. He was just an innocent child… Both him, and Maria… He was speechless.

"Um… Who are you?" Maria said, or rather, seemed to say. Shadow wasn't thinking straight at this point, as memory after memory flashed through his mind. He remembered the first time he saw Maria, waking up to find her right in front of his tube, watching him. He remembered the time they pranked the medical labs, mixing up all of the chemicals and running away. Nostalgia took its toll, and he didn't snap out of it until a new voice entered the cacophony of murmurs and Maria talking.

"… We're talking to you." Shadow snapped to attention upon hearing the familiar sound of his own voice, using the kind of commanding tone that he usually employed against others himself. It cleared his mind better than a drill sergeant with a cattle prod ever could. Now was the time to think up a diversionary tactic…

"… It wouldn't matter to either to you anyway. You'll likely learn soon enough…" Shadow cryptically muttered. The younger version of himself seemed to get really pissed off at this, and would have likely said something else, had Shadow not beaten him to it.

"Maria… I'm sorry." He said, turning his head away in shame. This shocked both of them, and Maria took a second to respond.

"What? Why? I don't even know you." She said, while the young Shadow raised his eyebrow in suspicion. If Shadow knew anything about himself, things would likely get ugly if he stayed for much longer.

"You do know me… I'm just sorry… I didn't come sooner." That last part really wouldn't have made much sense to them had they even known who said it. Turning toward his alter ego, he added, "Shadow… Keep her safe. Never let her go." Which probably wasn't the best choice of words. Shadow stepped in front of Maria, and he recognized the spark of anger in his eye that said that things were going to go down the hard way.

Of course, he hadn't brought those damn Chaos Emeralds for nothing. And in an instant, he was gone. Nothing flashy happened as he Controlled. No blinding emerald light, no time space temporal portal, nothing. Shadow merely faded away, an outline of his body lingering for mere seconds after he was gone, leaving Maria and his younger self behind.

Shadow reappeared back into the closet, which was pretty much his safe house right about now. He had pretty much had enough of exploring the ARK after that. Now… it was time to sleep. Fishing around the closet, he conveniently found an alarm clock. Midnight already… The report had said it had happened in the morning… so he set the clock for eight. Then he passed out on the floor. He was exhausted for the first time in a long time. He just leaned back against the wall and drifted off. The last thought that went through his mind haunted his ironically dreamless sleep. I really am sorry, Maria… I don't know if I can save you, but I'm just sorry I didn't think of it sooner…