Six months until the rise of Robotnik's empire.

King Max sat in the throne room, staring at the note that his daughter had left him before her departure. His eyes blazed with fury at her decision, particularly since she had not deigned to consult with him beforehand. Even more frustrating was the fact that it had occurred so unexpectedly at a completely inconvenient time. His fur was now white with grey streaks at the base of his quills. Despite his obvious age he was still physically capable of fulfilling his role as the King of Mobius. Even so right now the vibrant colours of the throne room felt dull, a consequence of his daughter's actions.

"Your Majesty," The voice was devoid of either respect or contempt. "I have something to tell you."

"Why didn't you tell me about this Oracle?" Max broke his gaze from the note, a sudden feeling of disappointment raging through him. Of all the people who could have seen this coming, the Oracle could have known.

The Oracle gave him an apologetic look, "I didn't tell you because Jules marriage to her will ultimately create the greatest warriors on this planet." King Max's anger abated for a second but returned with a vengeance. His now plain grey fur bristled causing a few white hairs to be shed.

"Oracle, what right do you have to make these decisions for MY kingdom." The Oracle flinched the volume of the outburst, "It was MY might that made it, MY vision that realised it and-"
"And," Interjected the Oracle coldly, "it was my advice that informed you that it was your destiny to rule!" Max knew that the Oracle could have said more but refrained from it. He knew all the Oracle had done was in his best interests throughout his life, but recently he had taken a blasé approach to protecting him. He started again, somewhat more collected, determined to maintain at least a façade of politeness; after all, he needed the Oracle and he was one of the few members of the council that could be trusted.

"I may be old, Oracle, but I can still plan ahead of things and I still need to be kept informed of things before they happen. What's the point of having an Oracle that doesn't tell the future?"

"Which is exactly why I've come, Your Majesty," The Oracle replied smoothly. "I came as soon as I saw it." Max gritted his teeth. An annoying trait the Oracle sometimes exhibited was the desire to milk a moment for all it was worth.

"Look, we're alone, can you dispense with the theatrics. It is as the humans have so often said, 'un-cool'." Max said shaking his head and causing his quills to fall into disarray. The Oracle looked disappointed and carried on;

"I've discovered that the Shadow creature will assassinate the royal family in the future." The ancient creature stated gravely. "This will be the precursor to a human's domination of Mobius."

"What? But, why?! What do the humans stand to gain?" King Maximillian replied, aghast. Gerald would never sanction such tactics; he is too pacifistic to even consider that. Max was certain there was something else. After all, there were other worlds uninhabited by sentients; he had heard Gerald speak of them more than once.

"Nothing! As far as I can tell." Came the Oracles reply. "The event happens in the future, but it may be safest to kill him and avert the danger." With that the strange creature disappeared, his projection fading from view.
Max paused, worrying about breaking his alliance with the humans. Although the Mobians had gained an understanding of the basic technologies humans had introduced, they still lacked many production facilities that could produce the weapons that the humans had developed. Still, with surprise his people could gain access to the wealth of advanced technology that the humans possessed. Once that occurred then it didn't matter if they retaliated, because, even though they tended to be twice the height of his people, they would never be able to look down on them again. Removing the humans would also weaken that arrogant upstart Jules Hedgehog, so it was a triple bonus, securing his bloodline, empire and humiliating a political rival.

Max rose to give his elder son Auron his orders.

Half an hour later

Auron paced past on the deck of the transport, some of the other soldiers looking up. Lieutenant Arcus didn't look at him. He had other things to think about than the ego of the heir apparent. He was standing next to his unit, most of who were sitting on a bench along the wall of the sky ship. He looked at Sergeant Wilkinson, who nodded his encouragement. The sergeant was a no questions asked kind of soldier, who would have been at a high ranking soldier were it not for his peasant heritage. Even a young lieutenant like Arcus had to recognise the skills and experience of the old cat.

Next to Wilkinson was the Grand Duke Taur, who had volunteered to assist in the attack. Arcus knew only that Taur despised humans for the death of his nephew back when they first arrived, and he hadn't expected Taur to sit next to Wilkinson without any trace of self consciousness. Taur notice his staring and raised an eyebrow.

"Something bothering you, Lieutenant?" The dark grey bull asked with the faintest hint of a challenge. Even sitting, Taur was nearly as tall as Arcus, who was standing less than a foot away. Arcus gulped and shook his head, not eager to get on the bad side of this particular member of higher nobility, his own golden back fur bristling beneath his uniform. He directed his gaze to the rest of his unit, the third regiment of the royal guard. He had gained temporary command because his captain, Sir Charles, had been kept out of this mission because of its sensitive nature. Arcus had protested that Charles was much more experienced at missions, but had been overrode by Charles himself, so he obeyed orders as his captain said.

His thinking about this got his wondering about the implications of the mission they were about to undertake. They were to enter the human base and kill all the inhabitants, while the few humans off base would be hunted down and killed quietly by the king's spies. He felt bitter that his own liege was stooping to genocide, particularly with explaining why, but was too afraid to speak out against it in case he was named a traitor for his opposition. Many of the soldiers who didn't stand to gain were reluctant, aside from those who despised the arrogant aliens with all their souls.

"Three minutes to landfall!" The pilot's voice interrupted Arcus thoughts, surprising him. In the year that the royal guard had these machines in abundance, Arcus still had yet to get used to the sheer speed of their travel.

"You heard the pilot, get ready to move out." Arcus roared to his troops. Some responded immediately, to them it was just another job, but the rest were reluctant to engage in the battle. It seemed easy that the 3rd and 5th royal guard regiments would have an easy time dealing with merely 70 humans, after all they outnumbered them two to one. But with humans things could get very complicated, quickly.

"Remember, we shoot to kill, Lieutenant!" Called Taur, his massive teeth bared. Arcus shuddered at the barbarism of the older Mobian. Arcus was too young to have participated in the initial rise of Maximilian's kingdom. He had never committed many of the atrocities that the Grand Duke was rumoured to have done during his service.

The transport landed clumsily on the pad outside the human base, casting most of the soldiers to the floor. Arcus managed to barely maintain his balance from the jarring impact and was able to start moving immediately after the hatches at the side and rear of the transport opened.
As Arcus leapt out of the transport he noticed the sterile white colour that humans were known to be fond of. The outside of the humans home completely the same all over, with no visible signs that it had ever been a ship before.

"What the hell do you think you are doing?" Arcus spun around to see the old human leader, the famous Gerald, striding towards them apparently unarmed. He noticed that there were hardly any other humans outside, with only a few other Mobians that had managed to extricate themselves from the transport.
Arcus barely felt his finger tighten on the trigger of his laser rifle, so he was shocked when the red beam of light burnt through the grey haired human and continued to cut even as the old man fell, causing hideous damage. Arcus released the trigger and stared at the remains of the being that had done more than any other of his race to bring Mobius out of the dark ages.

"Excellent work, Lieutenant." Came the confident voice of the Grand Duke behind him, Arcus looked around at the progress of the battle and saw that the royal guards were cleaning up the last of the humans that weren't still in the base.

"I want a heavy laser cannon team to cut though those doors, now. We must make sure that they don't have time to prepare for us inside." Roared Taur, taking the lead. The bull's face was contorted with hatred, his ears pressed back against his head and his fur bristling where it could be seen. "Perhaps now we'll be able to use the knowledge of mankind to achieve our own empire in the stars."

Arcus looked back at the corpse of Gerald, and felt that things were only going to get worse from now on.

Ivo hammered the computers keyboard with his enormous fingers, ecstatic. He knew as soon as the first tests came back but he had to be positive and it was important that the results weren't just a result of unknown variables. The lab still had the birthing tubes that had first created Shadow, although these were inactive. The other equipment, however, was all aglow with activity as he pushed the limits of the computers to perform the most thorough genetic scans that could be done.

Both his cousin and Shadow were looking at him, he could feel their gaze. He imagined Maria had a concerned expression, while he knew Shadow would simply have the same careful, attentive stare he always used to unnerve those around him. Ivo ignored them as he looked at the screen that would display the results. The system had almost completed analysis.

The sweat of excitement poured of Ivo Robotnik's bald head as the readings were displayed, soaking into his auburn handlebar moustache. He applied a handkerchief, but this was a like throwing a candle in the ocean in the hopes of evaporation. He checked the results, once, twice and a third time. There was no doubt.

"Hah! I was right!" Ivo whirled his massive bulk, almost crashing his belly into the pair behind him. Both Shadow and Maria were looked slightly startled by the volume of his triumphant cry. He continued on; "It really worked, Shadow! I'm brilliant!"

Maria, looking pleased managed to keep a somewhat calmer tone, "So he's functionally immortal, then?"

"No doubt, look." Ivo leapt aside to show them the control panels. "Of course you'll have to take it on faith that I know what I'm talking about." He said, remembering that Maria simply didn't have anywhere near the level of understanding of genetics to know if he was correct or not.

"So, I'm going to live forever." Said Shadow without a trace of emotion, the calmness in his voice bringing Ivo down from his triumphant joy. Shadow had a slightly sick expression on his face as though he didn't see the magnificence of Ivo's achievement. The young hedgehogs aging had ground to a halt in spite of the growth drugs he had been given throughout his short life, giving him the appearance of a fourteen year old hedgehog. Ivo was both alarmed and thrilled by the levels of power the hedgehog exhibited whenever he was motivated to do so. Shadow had become reticent after he found out about the growth drugs, and more so as his aging began to slow down in spite of them.

"Barring accident, yes, you will outlast everyone." Ivo said, hoping to point out the important issue, that HE had succeeded in creating an immortal life form.

"Everyone I know will die." Shadow concluded his ears drooping, apparently sad that he never had to worry about growing old. His response confused Ivo, who personally found the idea of watching his enemies slowly age and die to be a satisfying concept. As Robotnik was about to respond his thoughts were interrupted by the emergency alarms.

"ALERT- Hostiles have penetrated through the ships docking airlocks –ALERT!" The message repeated, finally reminding Ivo that he should have altered the ships emergency alarm sequence four years ago, after the ship had become a research base.

"What?! Ivo, is this a drill?" Maria yelled over the alarm, bringing Ivo back to the present. He turned to Maria and shook his head, then headed over to the computer and activated total computer memory deletion, the standard procedure in the event of an attack.

"We need to get out, and I need to get to the main archives in the core." He didn't need to tell Maria or Shadow that the ships information couldn't fall into the hands of their mystery assailants. Shadow had already opened the door and stood waiting by the door. The Black hedgehogs ears were now perked up and the hedgehog looked alert keeping his gaze on the empty (for now) corridor outside.

"Shadow, you go and run for exit hatch E-6, Maria will go with you and make sure you're safe." The hedgehog nodded, apparently understanding the need to obey orders rather than recklessly endanger himself. Both Maria and Shadow ran out into the corridor and headed right, the most direct course away from the docking pad. That is one of the virtues of Shadow; Robotnik thought gladly, he never disobeyed orders without good reasons, even if he didn't explain afterwards. The reasons for his disobediences became apparent later, however, and he tended to be right.

Robotnik then went down the corridor to the left, towards the archives and the fighting. Whoever was attacking was probably trying to get to the knowledge of the most advanced species in this sector of the galaxy. He ran at an impressive pace, pausing only briefly to raid one of the emergency armouries on his way to the archives. He was now equipped with two fragmentation grenades and a plasma pistol.

He stopped as he saw who was attacking, however. It was Mobians, royal guard, no less. Five soldiers in the crossroads pointing their weapons down the corridor going left and firing wildly.

Robotnik felt a massive surge of anger bubbling up within his as he aimed and fired all in one motion, incinerating two with his plasma pistol before the others noticed him. As they turned and began to fire Ivo flung himself to the side, his bulk accidently smashing through the door to his left. He was on his feet instantly, priming a grenade as he went back to the door, lobbing it in the direction of the soldiers and taking cover. He was rewarded with an explosion and the screams of the soldiers.

As Ivo strode out he checked the remains for any useable equipment, and he was disappointed to find one of the Mobian soldiers still alive, although crippled and disarmed. The cat looked up at Ivo, reaching out an arm, either to attempt to stop him or as a silent plea for mercy Robotnik didn't know, he was too furious by their betrayal to care. The creature couldn't cry out, his lungs had been pierced in too many places and there was no way he would survive, but he didn't deserve to die painlessly.

Ivo placed his foot gently on the grey cats head and began to gradually lean his weight on the Mobians skull, keeping a watchful eye out for any other soldiers. The cat clutched at the massive foot, but to no avail, gradually Ivo's weight causing the royal guards skull to crumple in. Hopefully, Ivo thought vindictively, that hurt a lot!

"Find them before they escape!" Shadow heard the cry from the hiding place both he and Maria occupied. As they heard the footfalls thunder into the distance, Maria opened the door a crack and checked to make sure they weren't being followed. She nodded to Shadow and led the way down the corridor. They were just a couple of bulkheads away from one of the airlocks, a few more minutes and they could easily escape.
"There they are! Two of ...What is that?" A Mobian soldier was looking directly at Shadow with a shocked expression. Shadow knew that black furred Mobians were rare, and no other mobian creature had the red streaks like he did. It didn't take the Soldier long to recover and open fire, but Maria and Shadow hadn't broken their run, taking a right turn towards the E-7 exit hatch instead. The Soldiers gave chase, and Shadow turned to glimpse the leader of the soldiers, recognising the purple fur and brown eyes of Auron, first born of Max.

Shadow didn't have time to ponder as Maria yanked him left towards the airlock. The ship had been designed with a very thick hull, so Shadow broke free of Maria's grasp and opened the airlock for her. He then hopped through the door stood ready to close the door.

Maria screamed "Close it!" as she got through the airlock inner door, Shadow immediately complying.

As the door slid shut a laser bolt seared through Maria's back and out her chest. Suddenly the world seemed to stop for a few seconds as the door continued to close, its heat resistant form blocking off the laser before Maria could fall. He watched as she began to fall seemingly in slow motion, more than enough time for him to catch her.

Shadow shook his head disbelievingly as he cradled her head in his knees, watched as the life died in her eyes, felt it as her emotions faded from his ability to detect. He felt his world end as Maria was no more and the inner airlock hatch began to heat from continuous laser fire.