-1Blinking back a flood of tears, Maria stepped back from the window into Shadow's hut, holding the Chaos Diamond over her racing heart like a talisman to ward off the pain she felt inside. Abruptly turning, unable to stand it anymore, she quickly ran away from the area at large, leaving Knothole behind her, trying in vain to outrun the hurt she felt deep inside. She only stopped running when she reached the pond. Unknown to her, this was actually the exact same pond where Sonic had convinced Shadow to follow Metal Sonic on that day so very long ago. It was so beautiful that it took her breath away and froze her right where she stood. The water was crystal clear and not a ripple disturbed its reflective surface. In it she could see a whole wide swath of night sky framed by lush trees. The full moon shone down upon the whole scene, illuminating everything with white light so soft and pale that it almost seemed like a liquid itself. The stars shone in their old familiar places, with Space Colony ARK the brightest of all by far. Untold multitudes of fireflies danced a silent waltz at the water's very edge, tracing delicate, looping patterns of yellow-green light in the still night air. There was no wind and the sky was clear of any and all clouds as far as could be seen. Nighttime birds sang their hauntingly sweet melodies, their chirps filling the air with a low thrumming. A fallen tree branch jutted out over the water, mere inches from the glassy surface. The branch itself was thick, the bark smooth and cool as Maria sat down on it, dabbling her feet in the cool water. She kept the Chaos Diamond in her lap and rested her left hand upon its smooth surface as she raised her right hand to absentmindedly stroke the ridge of scar tissue on her sternum. The shard of Chaos Emerald was still there inside her, its innate energy throbbing to the pulse of the heart that beat only an inch or two away. She could feel it there, since it felt quite different from the surrounding bone. The area where she could still feel it was slowly shrinking and she guessed that it was because her sternum was regenerating itself all around where she had put the Chaos Emerald shard in her body, sealing the crystal inside its hollow core. It was a part of her, and it looked like that was how it was going to stay. Nothing could take it away from her, now. Powerful as she was, she knew that her powers were still not at their peak. Once the crystal shard was fully sealed away within her, would she become even stronger? She quietly gazed up at the clear night sky, staring up at the light reflecting off of Space Colony ARK, so far away yet shining so brightly as to seem almost like a second moon. How she wished she could have at least some small part of her old life back! What she wouldn't gladly give to see her grandfather again, or to once again call Space Colony ARK home, or just to be with… Shadow… She began to sing her old song, the one that had been Shadow's most favorite lullaby; this time beginning it as a mournful dirge for all that she had lost. Her voice was still the same as it had always been, just as she remembered it, and that was a small comfort to her. She sang the song softly at first, so softly that she could barely even hear herself singing, but her voice steadily rose until she was singing at full volume. It felt extraordinarily good to be singing that old song again, even despite the fact that the circumstances she was singing it under were far different from anything that she had ever experienced before. She was barely aware of it and cared even less as the mournful dirge she had started with changed into the usual stirring melody she had sung so many times before to cheer herself up. Where before she had sung for everything she had lost, she now sang for everything she had gained, even though she could never have the one thing she wanted most of all. Her song echoed off the surrounding trees, almost giving the impression that a whole chorus was singing it with her. Closing her eyes, she silently slipped into a memory. The energy of the Chaos Diamond followed the feelings and desires in her heart, gently wrapping her in a comforting veil of remembered images. Maria opened her eyes again and found herself back in her human form, sitting in a metal chair next to a metallic cradle, holding a sleepy baby Shadow in her arms. Forgetting everything save where she thought she was, she rocked the baby back and forth and sang to him just as she always did every night at his bedtime. He held onto her finger with his tiny hand and smiled up at her sweetly with his thumb in his mouth, cooing softly and sounding like he was trying to talk. She smiled back down at him and tucked his favorite blanket over his little body, singing his favorite song to him. The baby yawned, not so much a yawn as a squeak because he was so tiny. Oh, she loved him so very much. She remembered the circumstances of his birth as if it had been only yesterday. He'd yowled like any newborn baby and no one had gone to comfort him, thinking of him as an experiment rather than a child. She'd been the first one to approach him and pick him up, hugging and cuddling him like the infant he was. From that moment on, he had loved her with the love of a child for its mother. And she had loved him right back, first as a parent, then as a sibling, and now… The thought of the present only intruded on her dreams of the past for a short moment. Her inner pain throbbed in her heart, cutting her thoughts short as she reflexively slipped back into the comfort of her dreams to avoid having to feel the pure anguish that still plagued her heart and soul.
Not too far away, Shadow awakened from a dream into what had to be another dream. Sitting bolt upright in his bed, he strained with all his mental and physical might to catch the strains of the ethereal tune he wasn't sure was real. He got up out of bed, his body and soul focused on the distant song. He hadn't heard this song for many, many years. Was he really hearing it now? If it was all a dream, he didn't want to ever wake up. He quietly stepped outside and slowly walked away from his hut, frantically trying to figure out which direction the melody was coming from before it could come to an end or he could wake up from this dreamlike reverie he now found himself in. It was coming from… the pond? He didn't use his speed, merely running at a regular pace as he began to wend his way through the forest. The song got stronger the further he went and beyond the trees he could see the pond glowing with an odd white light. Passing by the last tree, he saw the scene before him laid out in full. At the very center of a nimbus of radiant white light, a golden hedgehog sat on a fallen branch, cradling a glowing white gem and rocking it as one would a baby and singing the song he had heard. The Angel was sitting there right before him, but it—no, she—didn't seem to know or care that he was there. Completely oblivious to his presence, she sang in Maria's voice and seemed to be caught in some dream of a different time. Shadow walked forward, being careful not to make a sound, drawing ever closer to her step by slow, deliberate step. He abruptly stopped as reality shifted all around him. His surroundings became the old nursery on Space Colony ARK, the Angel became a much younger version of Maria and the Chaos Diamond became a tiny baby version of himself. He took a single step backward and he was back by the pond watching the Angel rock the Chaos Diamond as if it was a baby. Stepping forward, he was in the nursery watching Maria singing to baby Shadow. Stepping back, he was by the pond watching the Angel singing to the Chaos Diamond. Forward. Back. Forward. Back. The ARK. The pond. The ARK. The pond. Maria. The Angel. Maria. The Angel. Baby Shadow. The Chaos Diamond. Baby Shadow. The Chaos Diamond. As Shadow stood in the pocket of oddness that surrounded the Angel, the ghost of Maria didn't bother to look up as she said, "Oh, hello, Grandpa. I'm just putting little Shadow to bed." He didn't respond to her statement, since he didn't know how to respond to it. Wondering why he didn't reply, she looked up at him and a look of profound shock took hold on her face as her expression degenerated from a happy smile into a slack-jawed gape. "You're not Grandpa! You're… you're…" The illusion shattered all around them, the light dying, and Maria found herself back in the form of the Angel. Instead of cradling a warm, cuddly, happy baby Shadow in the arms of her human body, she was holding the cold, smooth Chaos Diamond in a hedgehog's arms. She looked up at Shadow with an expression of profoundest shock, bolting up to a standing position with the Chaos Diamond clutched tightly in both hands. Shadow had never been so close to the Angel before. If he wanted to, he could reach out and touch her. He could see a small bald streak running vertically along her slim chest, as if there was a scar there. The dark hedgehog felt the Chaos Emerald vibrating, but he didn't need to pay any attention to it because he already knew what it was trying to tell him. Staring deep into the crystal blue eyes of the gorgeous female hedgehog that was standing right there before him, he whispered, "…Maria?" The look of confused disbelief on her face was more than enough of an affirmative answer for him. Maria had only two words to say to that. "Chaos Control!" She then vanished in a bright blaze of light. Quickly pulling out the Chaos Emerald and focusing his mind on her and her alone, Shadow did the same as she had and winked out in less than an instant.
It was midday when the sandy ruins of the Gaza Strip in what had once been Israel received two very strange visitors. A golden hedgehog appeared in a bright blaze of light, running through the deserted wasteland at a terrific speed unmatched by anything ever seen in the world before. A black hedgehog, running at the same speed, followed it closely. A second blaze of light, and they were both gone as if they had never been there. They next appeared in the dense rainforests of Brazil, tracing the length of the Amazon River in a matter of minutes. Then they traversed the length of the Great Wall of China. They ran eight laps around the perimeter of Antarctica, and then traversed the Sahara Desert in its entirety, crossing their own paths again and again. The Australian outback was their playground as they ran all around it at a furious pace. They leaped and teleported among the peaks of the Adirondacks in what could almost be considered a colossal game of hopscotch and caused a huge stir among the local wildlife as they tore across the Great Plains. The Arctic tundra was their next stop and they scared off vast herds of caribou as they ran. Hopping along the volcanic floes of Hawaii, Maria tripped. The Chaos Diamond fell from her hands and clattered on the hot rock as she went sprawling onto a fresh deposit of lava. There was an immediate crackling, sizzling sound and the warm, tropical air was filled with the ugly, foul stench of burning hair and flesh. Shadow was frozen momentarily, paralyzed by sheer horror. The paralysis was broken when the fallen hedgehog convulsed, muscles straining against each other and themselves. Her golden coloration swiftly blackened and a veil of thick smoke rose from her shuddering body. A hideous sound issued from her throat, resolving into an agonized shriek like nothing he'd ever heard before in his life. Bravely daring the heat of the lava and quite frankly not noticing it in his panicked haste, he scooped her up. In doing so, he burned his hands and arms badly right up to his elbows, along with his feet and legs up to his knees, but all he noticed was that great chunks of Maria's flesh and hair were left behind on the lava. Great swaths of raw, red flesh were exposed on her body, and the heat had sealed her eyes shut. She writhed in his arms as he held on to her and tried to think of what to do. He reached out and grabbed the Chaos Emerald, noticing that his own color had changed below his elbows. Cracks were showing along his forearms, under which he could see flesh just as red and raw as Maria's was now. Concentrating on ignoring the pain, he reached out and drew the Chaos Diamond to him as well, placing it on the female hedgehog's heaving chest. She was barely conscious now, and that was probably a good thing, but so was he. Holding the Chaos Emerald high, he called out, "Chaos Control!"
It was approaching midday in Knothole, and everybody was out looking for Shadow, who had mysteriously vanished without a trace in the middle of the night. Everyone assembled at the center of town to organize into search parties. Sally was assigning partners to different people based on their abilities. "Sonic, you're with Metal Sonic. You're both fast so you're partners. Tails, both you and Knuckles have aerial skills, so you two are together. I'm going with Amy. Bunny, you're in charge of watching over the home front while we're gone on our search. I know you probably want to help out too, but we can't afford to leave Knothole deserted for even the shortest amount of time, okay?" She was just about to dismiss everyone to start looking when a bright flash of light drew her attention from the situation at hand. Pointing over to the side, she cried, "Look!" They all turned to see an injured Shadow carrying a female hedgehog that was so badly burned as to be unrecognizable. The dark hedgehog appeared to be in massive shock as he staggered weakly toward them, his ruby eyes glazed. Sonic charged up to him, as did Metal Sonic and everyone else, no one wasting any time. The blue hedgehog asked, "Good grief, Shadow, what happened?" The dark hedgehog held out the girl he carried and muttered softly, "Maria… Help her…" He met his counterpart's gaze, but his ruby eyes stared right through Sonic as if he wasn't even there at all. "Help her," he begged again, his voice barely audible. He wavered slightly as his eyes slowly drifted closed. Then both Sonic and his robotic double had to catch him as he crumpled to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, not dropping the girl he carried. It took quite a bit of effort for Sonic and Metal Sonic to finally pry the burned girl from Shadow's arms. Even though he was unconscious and injured, he still had an iron grip. But why did he care so much for her?