"Here is the report of the incident, Sir," The soldier said as he placed a folder on his desk.

"Thank you, soldier; return to your post," Abraham Tower, Commander of GUN, replied as he opened the report regarding the incident that had happened at GUN Base – S.

Irene Robotnik and Kuroka the Black Cat had broken into the base and managed to enter the sealed lab of her Grandfather, freeing what had been sealed down below fifty years ago.

Abraham looked at the pictures that had been taken of them, of Irene, of Kuroka, and the other two that were with them.

Gerald Robotnik's supposedly final creation, SHADOW, the Ultimate Life-form, was what the recovered files had called it. And next to the creature was…

"Maria?" Abraham said in shock as he looked at the image of a girl seemingly unchanged from when he had last seen her over fifty years ago when Gerald had worked alongside his Father at Area 51. Though it was obvious the girl had changed going by the animal ears and tails, that matched the Mobian who stood next to Irene. "So you were the other secret that was hiding down there."

Abraham breathed a heavy sigh before he began issue ordering. "I am putting out a warrant of capture for Maria Robotnik and Shadow… the Hedgehog." As the body shape and animal features of the creature matched that of Sonic, the heroine who had saved the world from the evil Doctor Eggman and would probably do so again if they proved to be a threat.

Xxx

"So this is my place, where I live and where I do my work," Irene spoke as Maria and I followed our Niece? Well, she was that biologically, but there was such an age difference in terms of chronology, but in terms of physical age we seemed to be pretty close. We walked into what from the outside looked like an abandoned factory that Kuroka had teleported to the front of before she left, but inside was a fully functional robotics facility that also went underground for further space from the looks of it. "And if you want, you can also live here."

"Of course, why wouldn't we want to live with you?" Maria asked like Irene was stupid. We had only known the girls for less than an hour, but Maria, the kind-hearted girl she was, already saw Irene as family, as a person to trust.

That was just like her; the world did not deserve her kind heart and soul.

"If that is the case, I will have the machines set up a room for you and also prepare dinner for you, you must be hungry," Irene said.

"Well, we technically haven't eaten in fifty years," Maria said with a laugh.

"Yeah, I am gonna get right on that then," The brunette said.

"So where are we exactly?" I asked.

"We are currently in the Sahara desert," Irene informed us, meaning that we had just traveled over halfway across the world, as I was pretty sure the lab had been somewhere in the USA.

"You just said desert desert," Maria giggled, and she was clearly trying to cope with what had happened, the simulation, Gerald's death, and her own changes.

"I know," Irene said. "But to be specific, we are currently in what remains of the Great Eggman Empire, a city-state that was created by my father."

"Ivo made this?" Maria asked as a brief look of joy came on her face. "Is he here?"

"No," Irene answered with a tone of sadness. "He is gone, killed when GUN and other forces assaulted his city-state, creating the ruins you caught a brief glimpse of earlier."

"Oh," Maria said as the happiness she had felt vanished. "I am sorry for your loss."

And I felt a surge of anger go through my body; now I knew rationally that Ivo, or rather the great Dcotor Eggman, had turned into a maniacal supervillain bent on world conquest. People objected to people doing that pretty hard, but emotionally? I didn't care; GUN had taken another member of our family from us.

"It's okay; it has been over a year now," Irene said as we continued to walk through the place, bots being constructed all around us by mechanical limbs as we entered into what was the living quarters part of the place. "I've just been working on restoring his week; he had the right idea, just… went about it the wrong way."

I guess she was pretty conflicted about Ivo. Still, I knew she was not a Saint as she was friends with Kuroka. She was part of Team Vali, which was currently part of Khaos Brigade if the memories from my previous life were correct. But at the moment, that was just a theory as nothing had indicated that Irene was part of Team Valu; Kuroka had just said she was heading back to her place and that she would see us tomorrow; they could just be friends like Irene had said when she had introduced her, friend not teammate or companion.

"Is it through Ivo you learned about us?" I asked.

"No, Shadow, I was told by another, and then I found notes in his systems talking about his life, and… let's just say Father wasn't happy being basically abandoned by Grandfather in favor of you," Irene said.

"I… I see." I placed a hand on her shoulder as she was obviously hurt by the fact Ivo had come to resent her for what was obviously something not her fault.

"So, who told you about us?" I changed the question.

"The man who originally commissioned Grandfather to create a weapon for him, which ended up being you, Shadow, though going through logs I got from Grandfather's system, he had a purpose grander for you than just being a weapon," Irene said as they all took a seat in the kitchen, they had just entered just a moment.

"Grandfather's ghost did mention that at the start, but he didn't really talk about why," Maria said as the cooking bots in the kitchen poured us all drinks.

"So, who is the person that got us out of storage, as it were?" I asked as I tried to go through the list of potential people who would be in on having Gerald create the Ultimate Life-form as a suitable weapon; my first thought went to Azazel, but he went and picked up Vali, so he would not have let us stay there, so it had to be someone who wanted a weapon but was also fearful of its existence until I was needed or was forced to retrieve it…

"He is basically second in command of the organization that the team me and my friends made are a part of for the moment." Oh shit, had I been correct?

"And what is that Organization?" Maria asked.

"It's called Khaos Brigade, and the guy that hired and founded Grandfather is a Devil by the name of Rizevim Lucifer."