SONIC REVOLUTION: PROJECT SHADOW
Prologue
There was a beep from the alert behind Shane Steel. His last name wasn't really Steel, but no one he was familiar with his real last name, so he came up with Steel. It sounded cool, and a lot of people had a last name similar to that. Plus, he was a big man, and some people said he was as strong as steel. He turned to face his alert panel. This one was an intruder alert. Someone was approaching the base without verification. "Hansley," he muttered into his PA microphone, "what the hell is that?"
"I see it, sir," responded Hansley. "It's just O'Dell and Franklin coming back. They've got something with them, too."
"Let 'em in." Samson O'Dell and Bert Franklin had been sent out earlier to scout out a falling object he had seen just a week or two ago. He hoped it was something good, like some kind of energy source. Anyway, if they had it, the government didn't. He twiddled his thumbs as he waited. A guy who got bored easily, he soon stopped and began flipping a coin for no apparent reason. After a good twenty seconds of that, he buzzed Neil Hansley again. "Where are those two?" he growled. "Just got in. I sent them up to you, they should be there in a minute or two," Hansley responded slightly cheerfully. "Mmm. Good." He opened his desk and pulled out a CD sleeve. Let's see, what to listen to now... Not enough time to pick one, because there was a beeping outside the door. Those two knuckleheads must be verifying themselves with the security system. It was a retina and fingerprint scan. A few seconds later, the large Samson and gangly Bert walked in. Samson was holding a large sack. "What the hell is that??" Shane asked, almost joyfully. What was it? "Some kind of weapon? An energy source?"
Samson smiled. "Nope. But I can assure you we won't be doing any more grunt work once you see this."
The moment Samson had shown Shane the black hedgehog Shadow, the boss called the best medical and biological team available. This was big. Bigger than big. This was a landmark in Affinity history. The European terrorist group had caused some minor damage in the past few years, but had yet to launch a grand-scale attack. The ultimate life form could change that. The first thing was to specify the cause of death and whatever other damages he had suffered.. It actually wasn't the burning, or the pressure of space, because he had just passed through the atmosphere before he lost his Super form. It was definetly the impact. Almost every bone in Shadow's body was broken. Also, there was significant brain and spinal damage. But that was where they came in. Over the course of a year, the two teams used new skin-like material to replace any skin damage and wiped his mind so that there weren't any broken memories that could cause trauma. The only problem with that was if he saw something he recognized, it could bring any memory similar to that back. Not just what they had wiped, but things he remembered before the Space Colony incident. The odds of that were very slim, though, so they progressed without bringing that point up to Shane Steel. They also used many strength and speed enhancing drugs on Shadow. The idea was to make him absolutely invincible. They also examined his retina and fixed his eyesight-he had been slightly nearsighted. Finally, after examining the spine and brain, they concluded they could improve his reflexes through surgery. And last, but not least, they upgraded his Air Shoes to hold more energy. That, coupled with the neurological wipe made the ultimate life form the ultimate slave. After all the drugs, surgery, and other medical treatments had taken place, the medical team put Shadow in a pod and filled it with a healing acid. This would finalize all their enhancements and heal any other wounds they couldn't close up with surgery. They left him in for one month to completely heal him. One day, Shane Steel decided to survey the scientists, who were monitoring Shadow's progress. "What's taking so long?" he shouted. "The healing and enhancement process is taking longer than expected," the lead scientist insisted. "We'll need another few weeks."
Expecting a torrent of insults, the scientist was surprised when Shane smiled. He stroked his tiny beard for a second, then pulled something out of his back pocket. Something big. Something green. Something shiny. "Could this help?"
The lead scientist's eyes lit up when he saw the Chaos Emerald. "Recon team found one of these near the Silver Mountains. Nice, eh?"
"I think we could find a use for it," laughed the lead scientist.
"Ladies and gentlemen," announced Shane one day to an assembled group of nearly every Affinity member, "what you are about to witness is the weapon that will change the way we look at terrorism. We will be the strongest force in the world!" With this announcement, the crowd cheered and hollered so loudly that they didn't notice Shane Steel leave the podium. When they regained focus, the lead scientist was on stage. "My name is Harold Whiteford. Over the past year, we have been working on this project. After all this time, we figured it was ready for unveiling. We could go into excruciating scientific detail, but we know how much fun that is." The crowd laughed. "Here we go." He motioned to something offstage. Slowly, the curtain behind him rose to reveal the pod. A gasp from the crowd. A couple people shouted, "Good God!" and "Hot damn!" "Let's get this started!" he yelled over the crowd. Harold walked over to the pod and pressed a couple buttons on a keypad. The green acid slowly drained out of the pod. A cloud of steam rushed out of the opening hatch. Once the steam cleared, all that was left was the black hedgehog, standing in an unconscious position. After a few minutes of this, the crowd got frustrated. "He's not doing a freakin' thing!" shouted one man. The crowd began booing. As if that was the right sound, the hedgehog shot its eyes open. The crowd didn't notice it immediately, but soon, that same man yelled, "Awesome!" Shadow examined his surroundings. What was this odd place? There were many people here, all staring at him. Over there was some weird room with a lot of tubes and tools on the tables, as well as an odd gem. Gem=Chaos Emerald. A rush of memory. Space Colony. Maria. Gerald Robotnik. Chaos Control. Eclipse Cannon. He was this close to destroying the world, to fulfill Maria's goal. What had happened in between? It was a blur. In fact, he didn't even remember, so there was nothing to blur. Just a hole. He was getting a little freaked out. Wait-these people must have taken him away! These people were trying to keep him from his goal, from Maria's goal, from the Professor's goal! He must eradicate these people who insisted on getting in his way! He tensed and clenched his fists. "Hey, it's moving!" someone shouted. Then, that same person yelled, "Oh my God!!" as Shadow sped right past him. The crowd couldn't make out the hedgehog anymore, just a blurry black ray. The ray sped throughout the huge base, knocking people and huge objects over. He was trying to find a gasoline tank or pipe. Finally, he found one. He snapped in two like nothing, then found a loose Bunsen burner, turned it on, and threw it near the pipe and sped away. This whole scene happened in the span of three seconds. An explosion rocked the lab and set fires everywhere. Shadow continued to look for methods of destruction and found them in the thousands of bombs and weapons throughout the large base. After setting almost all of them off, he escaped by ramming himself through a wall and running as far away from the exploding base. Within one minute, nearly every member of the Affinity perished in the crumbling base. Anyone within a hundred miles could see the ball of fire that encompassed the base. Slowly walking away from the destruction he had caused was Shadow, new and improved. He had a mission, and he was sticking to it.
Prologue
There was a beep from the alert behind Shane Steel. His last name wasn't really Steel, but no one he was familiar with his real last name, so he came up with Steel. It sounded cool, and a lot of people had a last name similar to that. Plus, he was a big man, and some people said he was as strong as steel. He turned to face his alert panel. This one was an intruder alert. Someone was approaching the base without verification. "Hansley," he muttered into his PA microphone, "what the hell is that?"
"I see it, sir," responded Hansley. "It's just O'Dell and Franklin coming back. They've got something with them, too."
"Let 'em in." Samson O'Dell and Bert Franklin had been sent out earlier to scout out a falling object he had seen just a week or two ago. He hoped it was something good, like some kind of energy source. Anyway, if they had it, the government didn't. He twiddled his thumbs as he waited. A guy who got bored easily, he soon stopped and began flipping a coin for no apparent reason. After a good twenty seconds of that, he buzzed Neil Hansley again. "Where are those two?" he growled. "Just got in. I sent them up to you, they should be there in a minute or two," Hansley responded slightly cheerfully. "Mmm. Good." He opened his desk and pulled out a CD sleeve. Let's see, what to listen to now... Not enough time to pick one, because there was a beeping outside the door. Those two knuckleheads must be verifying themselves with the security system. It was a retina and fingerprint scan. A few seconds later, the large Samson and gangly Bert walked in. Samson was holding a large sack. "What the hell is that??" Shane asked, almost joyfully. What was it? "Some kind of weapon? An energy source?"
Samson smiled. "Nope. But I can assure you we won't be doing any more grunt work once you see this."
The moment Samson had shown Shane the black hedgehog Shadow, the boss called the best medical and biological team available. This was big. Bigger than big. This was a landmark in Affinity history. The European terrorist group had caused some minor damage in the past few years, but had yet to launch a grand-scale attack. The ultimate life form could change that. The first thing was to specify the cause of death and whatever other damages he had suffered.. It actually wasn't the burning, or the pressure of space, because he had just passed through the atmosphere before he lost his Super form. It was definetly the impact. Almost every bone in Shadow's body was broken. Also, there was significant brain and spinal damage. But that was where they came in. Over the course of a year, the two teams used new skin-like material to replace any skin damage and wiped his mind so that there weren't any broken memories that could cause trauma. The only problem with that was if he saw something he recognized, it could bring any memory similar to that back. Not just what they had wiped, but things he remembered before the Space Colony incident. The odds of that were very slim, though, so they progressed without bringing that point up to Shane Steel. They also used many strength and speed enhancing drugs on Shadow. The idea was to make him absolutely invincible. They also examined his retina and fixed his eyesight-he had been slightly nearsighted. Finally, after examining the spine and brain, they concluded they could improve his reflexes through surgery. And last, but not least, they upgraded his Air Shoes to hold more energy. That, coupled with the neurological wipe made the ultimate life form the ultimate slave. After all the drugs, surgery, and other medical treatments had taken place, the medical team put Shadow in a pod and filled it with a healing acid. This would finalize all their enhancements and heal any other wounds they couldn't close up with surgery. They left him in for one month to completely heal him. One day, Shane Steel decided to survey the scientists, who were monitoring Shadow's progress. "What's taking so long?" he shouted. "The healing and enhancement process is taking longer than expected," the lead scientist insisted. "We'll need another few weeks."
Expecting a torrent of insults, the scientist was surprised when Shane smiled. He stroked his tiny beard for a second, then pulled something out of his back pocket. Something big. Something green. Something shiny. "Could this help?"
The lead scientist's eyes lit up when he saw the Chaos Emerald. "Recon team found one of these near the Silver Mountains. Nice, eh?"
"I think we could find a use for it," laughed the lead scientist.
"Ladies and gentlemen," announced Shane one day to an assembled group of nearly every Affinity member, "what you are about to witness is the weapon that will change the way we look at terrorism. We will be the strongest force in the world!" With this announcement, the crowd cheered and hollered so loudly that they didn't notice Shane Steel leave the podium. When they regained focus, the lead scientist was on stage. "My name is Harold Whiteford. Over the past year, we have been working on this project. After all this time, we figured it was ready for unveiling. We could go into excruciating scientific detail, but we know how much fun that is." The crowd laughed. "Here we go." He motioned to something offstage. Slowly, the curtain behind him rose to reveal the pod. A gasp from the crowd. A couple people shouted, "Good God!" and "Hot damn!" "Let's get this started!" he yelled over the crowd. Harold walked over to the pod and pressed a couple buttons on a keypad. The green acid slowly drained out of the pod. A cloud of steam rushed out of the opening hatch. Once the steam cleared, all that was left was the black hedgehog, standing in an unconscious position. After a few minutes of this, the crowd got frustrated. "He's not doing a freakin' thing!" shouted one man. The crowd began booing. As if that was the right sound, the hedgehog shot its eyes open. The crowd didn't notice it immediately, but soon, that same man yelled, "Awesome!" Shadow examined his surroundings. What was this odd place? There were many people here, all staring at him. Over there was some weird room with a lot of tubes and tools on the tables, as well as an odd gem. Gem=Chaos Emerald. A rush of memory. Space Colony. Maria. Gerald Robotnik. Chaos Control. Eclipse Cannon. He was this close to destroying the world, to fulfill Maria's goal. What had happened in between? It was a blur. In fact, he didn't even remember, so there was nothing to blur. Just a hole. He was getting a little freaked out. Wait-these people must have taken him away! These people were trying to keep him from his goal, from Maria's goal, from the Professor's goal! He must eradicate these people who insisted on getting in his way! He tensed and clenched his fists. "Hey, it's moving!" someone shouted. Then, that same person yelled, "Oh my God!!" as Shadow sped right past him. The crowd couldn't make out the hedgehog anymore, just a blurry black ray. The ray sped throughout the huge base, knocking people and huge objects over. He was trying to find a gasoline tank or pipe. Finally, he found one. He snapped in two like nothing, then found a loose Bunsen burner, turned it on, and threw it near the pipe and sped away. This whole scene happened in the span of three seconds. An explosion rocked the lab and set fires everywhere. Shadow continued to look for methods of destruction and found them in the thousands of bombs and weapons throughout the large base. After setting almost all of them off, he escaped by ramming himself through a wall and running as far away from the exploding base. Within one minute, nearly every member of the Affinity perished in the crumbling base. Anyone within a hundred miles could see the ball of fire that encompassed the base. Slowly walking away from the destruction he had caused was Shadow, new and improved. He had a mission, and he was sticking to it.