Chapter 15: Shadow The Hedgehog Returns
With Shadow on Eggman's side in the Metarex free-for-all battle. It seemed the doctor had the advantage. Shadow had no memory at all of anything before, just minor blips here and there, one name specifically kept popping up; Maria.
On an almost barren planet inhabited by a small human population holding up against the Metarex, Eggman found a chaos emerald reading. Eggman got on their good side by lying and promising to help protect them from the Metarex. There Shadow befriended a girl who made him think of what vague memories he had of Maria. Her name was Molly and she thought Shadow could be her planet's legendary hero. Shadow, Rouge and Molly search for the white chaos emerald the doctor had detected. While they were away, the humans turned on Eggman and turned him into the Metarex but were in the end betrayed by them. In an attempt to save Molly and the others, Shadow uses his power rings and the emerald to destroy the entire Metarex fleet above. Molly then flew off in a ship and was never seen again. After that Shadow took a bit of time ti himself.
Shadow and Sonic met up multiple times when fighting the Metarex and hunting down the chaos emeralds. They had worked together and fought each other at times. They even fought each other in their Super Forms, destroying an entire Metarex stronghold in the process. Sonic tried to convince Shadow he was on the wrong side but in the end Shadow chose to help the doctor.
Shadow and Rouge soon find themselves tracking down a chaos emerald on a forest planet. They find it high atop a tree. Shadow easily shattered it, revealing it to be a mere fake, they soon hear something from the bottoms of the trees, the go down only to find the human soldiers from before having the life sucked out of them by the trees. This was what the Metarex were planning... Galactic forestation...
Shadow soon attacked Sonic's ship, the Blue Typhoon. Shadow seemed fixed on Cosmo, removing all those in his way. Sonic didn't last very long and ended up needing medical attention. Knuckles was able to hold off Shadow at times but wasn't good enough. Knuckles did happen to bump into Rouge and asked exactly what was going on. Apparently Cosmo wasn't who she said she was. Shadow still in pursuit of Cosmo who was being escorted by Tails through the ship seemed unstoppable. Tails' last hope was to fire Shadow out of the main weapon; the Sonic Power Canon. It was a success but shortly after Shadow used chaos control using a fake emerald to teleport back. Tails tried his best but he was no match for Shadow. By the time Shadow got to Cosmo it was too late, a Metarex ship arrived. It was then revealed that Cosmo was a Metarex spy, even she herself did not know. The last of her clan were attacked by the Metarex a long time ago, they had captured Cosmo and put devices on the parts of her brain that control sight and hearing. She was so traumatized, she had completely forgot. It was impossible to get rid of the devices without blinding her and making her deaf. They only had one option, go straight to the Metarex and finish the fight.