Another lore filled chapter like the one that introduced Naugus but this one won't pay off for quite a while.
His earliest memories were opening his eyes and everything was a blur; his own reflection through some sort of shield door was the first thing that he ever saw. A small black coloured creature with tendrils on his hair and the shield door opened up.
Exiting some sort of pod device that was housing him. He looked around and saw the black are low lightning room that he was in. He noticed in front of him the first living being that he would ever see in his entire life; a massive orange scaled lizard with a high tech backpack on it's back.
It looked his way and attacked him and he couldn't scream before he knew no more...
He then opened his eyes again and saw himself back in his pod as before; he went out and there was the big lizard. He went up wondering if he could reason with it somehow.
The same thing happened.
Again...
And Again...
He opened his eyes and exited his pod for who knows how many time; he looked upon the giant lizard and felt rage at what happened. He decided to fight back but it didn't go so well.
Several deaths later and he began learning the creature's patterns and movement and adjusted his attack strategy but his strength was nowhere near enough.
Still he viciously fought...
And fought...
And fought...
and fought...
And fought...
And fought...
And fought...
He felt like he was ready as he opened up his eyes but was confused as his reflection staring back at him looked different; his tendrils were now quills spiked back, he had black fur at all on his body where before his skin was slime, red patches of fur on his head, a white patch of fur on his body and white gloves.
He got out to fight and found himself moving much faster than he could before with his quills glowing with dark red electricity which he could use to attack. He kept the fight going much longer than before and attacks that had previously killed him weren't as effective. After a long battle; he finally managed to prevail and kill his nemesis who had haunted him for his short life.
Now what...
In a secret GUN bunker; there was a secret off the books project from the United Federation under the President Charlemagne administration. The aim was to create the 'ultimate lifeform'; a creature for which they could mass produce clones of and be able to easily steamroll over all of the kingdoms of animals on Mobius to make their takeover much faster and much smoother due to how long it was taking in the war against the Kingdom of Acorn.
The shadow project's name?
Project: Shadow.
The project continued after the war as they were joined by GUN deflectors and UF officials who refused to accept the surrender of the United Federation and renounced President Bushnell. They were fugitives and were working to create a viable army so that they could put together a coup; free their rightful President and restart the war. They were joined by Eggman Industries scientists working on the Egg Carrier who had managed to get onto escape pods and escaped with what research they could get their hands on before Sonic had them crashed.
Their prototype was a Bio-Engineered Lizard created from the DNA of the most vicious wild animals that they could find on Mobius which included samples of long extinct Mobosaurs. The end result dubbed 'the Biolizard' was too savage to control and too unpredictable with all precautions taken to contain it as they had no way of harming them.
However they came across a long destroyed craft with corpses of a terrifying alien race that must have came to Mobius long ago; from different samples they created a smaller lifeform and tested it against the Biolizard which lasted milliseconds once the 'fight' for lack of a better term began. They collected the corpse and put further tests and enhancements; using it to clone a new body to try again and the specimen ended up gaining full memories of his previous life and his death.
The idea was to continue until the specimen was strong enough to kill the Biolizard.
It continued on until it was able to realise that it had to fight and it was able to pick up on the moves of the Biolizard even if it wasn't strong enough to harm it yet. However the Eggman Industries scientists managed to recover something from the Eggman Carrier wreckage after getting out of their escape pods and retreating before they could be taken into custody.
One of Sonic's quills.
After studying it they were able to melt the corpse of the latest failed attemtp and restart the creation project with the samples spliced with the quill; gaining the creature Sonic's powers.
It was promising and from their vantage point the main scientists and officials of Project: Shadow cheered at the success. With a grin was renegade GUN Colonel Percy Granite who was one of the first GUN officials to go renegade after the War's end taking his most loyal and trusted subordinates with him. His determination to avenge his government's loss and to take Mobius for the human race was well respected and he went from head of security to the head of the entire project.
"The success of Project: Shadow finally after so many years and we have your former employer to thank Dr Crichton." Granite grinned putting his hand on the shoulder of Dr Crichton who was the highest ranked Eggman Industries scientist who was apart of the project. "The power that handed him his defeat on the Eggman Carrier... If only he could have survived and joined us on this noble cause..." Granite spoke and Crichton gave a reluctant nod along with the rest of the former Eggman Industries scientists weren't too keen on that idea as they remembered what dealing with working under that man was like.
They were glad that he was dead and possibly buried or else his corpse eaten by the birds or sinking to the bottom of the water. Depending on where his body landed.
The lead scientist of the entire project from the beginning Dr Shelley shed a tear and said "the first major breakthrough and finally... We were able to take care of that abomination against nature... When we first go the Biolizard alive; I remember my shock and horror wondering what I had done... Before going to bed; I prayed to God for forgiveness for bringing such a horrible creature to existence, even for a noble cause..." Dr Shelley wiped away her tears.
"Worth it as it is done... Once this specimen is cloned; this freak shall lead us to victory! We will continue the fight that never should have ended in the first place... I barely recognise my former home now; the human hero Hugo Brass from what I hear is now hated by his people and children in schools are fed propaganda designed to brainwash them into thinking we were the villains of this story and how we should be living in peace with these animals." Granite spoke and his voice turned into a snarl near the end.
"It broke my heart when I got news fo the impeachment and surrender declaration..." Dr Shelley muttered looking like it was the most horrible news of her life (as if her entire family & friends were killed in horrific ways) but Granite helped her up.
"There, there Doctor... Thanks to your dedication, it shall all be avenged and we shall take this planet and make it the new Earth..." cheered Granite but then the doors opened up and entered frantic guards. "What is the meaning of this..." Granite ranted but then they heard blasts, why weren't the alarms going off if they had been breached?
"Colonel Granite sir... We have moles who have led them to us... They spilled details and our location and got the alarms turned off..." one of the guards said and they looked alarmed as Granite & soldiers as well as guards grabbed their weapons but the area was stormed with armed GUN soldiers wearing the dark blue uniforms of GUN adopted after the end of the War.
They were all cuffed and forced to their knees with all attempts to shoot themselves or take their cyanide pills prevented. Leading them was a smirking aged short blonde haired woman in a GUN uniform; Commander M. Angeline the current head of all of GUN. During the War she went on the run when it was discovered that she was secretly helping civilians & prisoners escape and went rogue as a fugitive vigilante working to save innocent lives. After the war ended; she had all charges against her stopped and reinstated into GUN with a full medal ceremony for her efforts.
"I want everything documented from important files to sticky notes tossed into the trash; I want every evidence to present at their trials so they could all be sent to the darkest cells to rot for the rest of their miserable lives." Commander Angeline ordered her troops and smirked at the glaring Granite. "Colonel Granite the number 1 dirtbag out at large; the universe at large must have known that today would be my birthday so they put in the dominos to make this bust and arrest right now!" grinned Commander Angeline as most of them were ready to spit at her direction.
"The traitor... Welcomed back as a hero while true heroes were tossed aside and told to just deal with it..." snapped Granite but found one of his most loyal soldiers standing behind Angeline looking guilty and he was ready to snap and lunge at Commander Angeline and the traitor.
They all opened the hatch to the testing area of the Project: Shadow specimen and looked sick at the corpse of the Biolizard. There was the specimen looking confused there and Commander Angeline had her forces hold their fire and gave the specimen a smile and offered a kind hand.
The poor creature was confused as it only knew to fight this one other specimen that he knew existed; he allowed himself to take the chance and was given a fruit to eat which he enjoyed. He was taken up and ended up hugged to show compassion to the creature; the creature was confused by the hug that Commander Angeline gave him but it felt nice and returned it.
Commander Angeline pretty much took it in thinking that he deserved a life of his own; his secret a closely guarded secret because they knew how people would react to his existence and there were still anti-Mobian people out there. He was able to practice his powers in GUN training sessions and was pretty much an adopted son to the Commander.
Angeline was starting to teach him the alphabet and showing him words like her full name; 'Shadow' as he ended up being named looked close at his adopted mother's first name closely. "Ma-Ri-A." spoke Shadow and Commander Maria Angeline was touched and stunned seeing his first word was her name and smiled warmly at him.
Yeah; this Shadow certainly didn't spend 50 years in cryogenic sleep. Shadow's story here is inspired by the comics origin of Doomsday in DC only with a happier ending. For timeline this takes place before the 2nd chapter so as far as everyone knows Robotnik is considered possibly dead.
Dr Shelley was named after Mary Shelley & Dr Crichton was named after Michael Crichton. The authors of respectively Frankenstein & Jurassic Park; both stories about the horrors of man meddling with nature. Commander Angeline's name came from Moriah Angeline who was the English voice actress for Maria in Sonic Adventure 2.