I Am All of Me - Novelization

This is a novelization of one of the final boss battles in Shadow the Hedgehog. I do not own Shadow, Sonic, or any of the characters mentioned below, all rights belong to SEGA, etc etc...

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Music: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kTBbT…

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    Shadow the Hedgehog padded silently up to the alien overlord, his eyes locked upon the monstrosity as it hovered silently within the heart of the Black Comet.

    “Well done, Shadow.” breathed the monster. “You’ve gone farther than I expected… I’m impressed.”

    Shadow’s feet came to a halt.

    “But you still don’t understand, do you?” rasped Black Doom. “The future we offer is the only option for these humans.”

    Shadow shook his head in disgust. The thing could repeat itself forever, it made no difference how his lies were weaved. “I’ve heard enough!” he snapped. “You’re boring me to death, Black Doom – you’re going down!”

    Black Doom’s three eyes slid shut, and that horrible laugh thundered across the room.

    “Hah-hah-hah… such bravado for a little hedgehog! I thought you were different from the rest… but maybe not. We are more alike than you think… the same blood runs through our veins.”

    “This can’t be…” whispered Shadow, and then he dropped to his knees with a yell of pain. Something had knifed into his mind with unnerving power and fury, a bolt of pure will that he’d never felt before. He struggled to keep his eyes on the monster, his eyes bulging in disbelief. “Just… who ARE you?!” he moaned.

    “Don’t you know? You were created from my blood…”

    “Wha-what?!”

    That vile laugh came again. “That’s right… you are a part of me… Do you feel that?”

    The pain came again, white-hot this time, and Shadow’s teeth ground in agony.

    “I can control you… you cannot escape me… nor can you escape your past!” Once more, the demonic alien chuckled with vile delight…

    “Damn you! NO! It’s not true!” bellowed Shadow, but he knew his words were no more than a wish against this evil from the depths of time…

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    Somewhere in the ARK’s computer room, all three members of the Chaotix were bent silently over a single computer monitor, with Vector and Charmy hunched over Espio’s back, silently watching his desperate attempts to bypass the ancient, but obstinate, security measures.

    “Espio, are you in yet?” whined the bee.

    “Quiet, Charmy!” snapped Vector, his glove going up into Charmy’s face, but missing his mouth entirely, so the young bee’s yells suddenly echoed about the room in a thunderous din.

    Vector didn’t seem to notice; his voice was in Espio’s ear now. “Espio, we need you to focus, ‘cuz if we don’t hurry, all the data we recovered will be lost!” he bellowed.

    Espio grimaced in frustration. “Easier said than done… who signed me up for this, anyway?” he snapped. A few computer classes several years ago didn’t make a hacker, not that Vector seemed to know that…

    Suddenly, Charmy zipped away from Vector’s hand, and his wings started thrumming like a mad lawnmower. “That’s it… I’ll do it… get outta the way!” he yelped.

    “GET BACK HERE, YOU IDIOT!” roared Vector, but it was already too late. The bee tore at the computer, and just as he’d seen Shadow do, delivered a swift kick to the back of the antique monitor…

    For an instant, the crocodile was ready to stuff Charmy out of the airlock, but he hadn’t known one thing: the people who’d worked on the computers here knew about Shadow’s penchant for violent maintenance on them, and the result of that experience flickered into life before them all as an ancient Quickplay file began to play on the monitor…

    “Hey, it’s working!” they yelped, glancing at one another as they realized what they’d all said as one…

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    “Shadow, my son…”

    “Professor?”

    “What is this?!”

    Black Doom’s eyes suddenly glanced about at the voice that seemed to blast out of the void after fifty years of silence.

    Without warning, three bio-organic hologram screens, specifically configured to remain compatible with the ARK’s main computer system, crackled into life all around the triumphant monster and his fallen foe. The video file was corrupted, jerky, and filled with static, but the sound was as clear as ever.

    “If you’re listening to this, then the worst has happened… you need to know the truth! The government plans to shut down this research facility…” echoed Professor Gerald’s voice as his white-haired form gazed at them both from all directions…

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    Deep in G.U.N.’s central control room, the same computer screens, hacked into the ARK’s mainframe so long ago to record the professor’s data, suddenly flared up with the wizened scientist’s face, and his tired, sad voice crackled out of the speakers.

    “The government plans to cease all of our research… and imprison all who know about you. I made a terrible mistake, Shadow. It’s all my fault, making contact with that comet…”

    The commander’s eyes narrowed in confusion from his chair behind the main control room. “Professor Gerald?” he whispered.

    “Now, listen very carefully…”

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    The same voice rolled through the halls of the Black Comet, and even the paralyzed heroes in the main hall could hear the echo from so long ago.

    “In fifty years, the Black Comet will return… they plan to harness its powers to destroy this planet! The only way to stop them… was to develop a way to use the very power they intended to use against them!”

    “That’s it! It’s brilliant!” boomed Eggman, and everyone nearly jumped in shock… then began to move as one, flexing ribs and twitching limbs as the burst of adrenaline through their systems clashed with the otherwise-invulnerable properties of the nerve gas…

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    “Shadow… it’s up to YOU, and only YOU can stop them!”

    Shadow’s eyes were locked with the near-motionless figure upon the screen, though the glare thrown upon the thick spectacles prevented him from seeing through to the profound sadness behind them.

    “I developed the Eclipse Cannon.” Gerald rasped. "It’s the only weapon that can destroy that Black Comet! Shadow… you are the only hope to save mankind as we know it! The future of this planet depends on you!”

    Suddenly, a high, soft voice cut through the grim monologue, and a pair of familiar eyes of azure shone into Shadow’s with a warmth that curdled his chest…

    “Don’t worry, grandfather, Shadow and I will protect this planet! Right, Shadow?...”

    …but the recording seemed to end there; the three screens suddenly snapped into cold slits of electric light, and then vanished into nothingness. There was no longer a barrier of memory between the black hedgehog and his past, the ripened evil bore down on his heart like a falling comet.

    “Gerald, you fool.” spat Black Doom. “Shadow is already in my control… what’s this?!” he bellowed.

    The pain in Shadow’s head seemed to lessen… for now he knew the truth. He had no choice, it was up to him. The ache seemed to intensify for an instant, but the hedgehog no longer cared. It was nothing to him anymore, for wasn’t he the one who had already proven his defiance against the dark one? It was but a memory now, and as Shadow rose to his feet, the agony dissolved like a broken dream.

    “Well, well, well… seems like you’re immune to my mind control.” rumbled the alien.

    “You have no control over me, Black Doom.” growled Shadow. “I now understand why I am here. I made a promise, and I’m here to keep it! Today, I put my past behind me!”

    Shadow lunged towards the immortal monster, and for the briefest instant, its eyes seemed to widen in shock…

    …but a sudden flare of light consumed Shadow’s vision, and when he landed on his feet, his eyes glancing about in concern, Black Doom was gone.

    “Have it your way, Shadow.” thundered the monster’s voice. It was everywhere at once, magnified by whatever monstrous energies flowed through the alien heart of the Black Comet.

    “So be it… be prepared to meet your maker!” he continued. “Your past, present, and future ends here… TODAY! Prepare to die! Say goodbye, Shadow, as you witness my true wrath!...”

    …but Shadow was no longer responding to these threats he’d heard a thousand times over. The beast’s words were nothing but the mindless, desperate bellows of a cornered animal, one that knows the only way its struggle can end.

    It was time.

    His eyes snapped shut, and he felt the power of the chaos emeralds flowing through his veins. Chaos, the power enriched by the heart, filled the room with light and his body with power that would never die…

    …and with an explosion of purest will, Super Shadow’s shining form filled the comet’s dark heart with the light of chaos.

    Shadow’s head snapped around, and without another word, he leapt into the air, tearing at the wall like a runaway missile, smashing into it, plowing through rock and energy and unknowable, horribly tissue-like alien forms…

    …he was outside now. His vision was filled with blood-red clouds of boiling poison as far as the eye could see, but the power of chaos tore them apart like the beam of a spotlight…

    …and as Super Shadow sped around the great jagged curve of the Black Comet, a hideous shape began to form in his vision.

    It was gigantic, the same black-and-crimson shade as all of Black Doom’s spawn, but more than that… somehow, it looked simply, terribly wrong, an abomination that could never have been born upon this world.

    It grew from a single vile orb, sealed to it by several thick, hideous tendrils that writhed and pulsed hideously, as though with a mind of their own. Two long, powerful arms extended from the monster’s sides, each tipped with a terrible clawed, gnarled hand that flexed and twisted in the crimson sky. Two immense, leathery wings flapped at the monster’s sides, and a hideous, one-eyed face turned to gaze at Shadow with a terrible expression of numb, vicious hatred…

    It could be seen by the paralyzed populace below, a nightmarish evil half-obscured by the blood-colored clouds that choked the sunlight, a hideous devil that sent more than one poor soul below into the depths of madness as they lay helpless upon the ground…

    “I gave you life, and yet you defy me?” howled the abomination, its scream barely coherent as intelligent speech. “Very well then. I shall repay your ingratitude with relentless pain!”

    In the next instant, one terrible hand raised itself, bringing with it an avalanche of rubble, torn concrete and twisted steel that spun about its form in an unnatural maelstrom of destruction.

    Suddenly, the cobbled-together two-way radio that Shadow had accepted from Tails so long ago – had it only been a few days? It felt like years – crackled into life in his ear, and Dr. Eggman’s voice blared into his mind.

    “Shadow, can you hear me?” he snapped. “We’ve managed to escape from that comet! There’s no need to hold back! Cause as much havoc as you need to!”

    “Go for it, Shadow!” Tails chimed in.

    Sonic’s voice came next, though it sounded surprisingly calm. “With the power of the Chaos Emeralds, you can use the Chaos Spear you attacked me with a while back – use it to impale that thing!”

    The black hedgehog almost smiled.

    Havoc would be caused, indeed.

    “Behold, the ultimate power!” roared Shadow, and he sped towards Devil Doom, his teeth clenched as a dozen Chaos Spears blasted apart the rubble the monster had gouged from the streets below…

    “Burn.”

    The horror’s maw opened wide, and a massive stream of flame launched itself out of Doom’s mouth. Super Shadow jigged to the side just in time, and the fire roared past him… and as Devil Doom’s immense bulk smoothly thundered about to face his foe, the Super Hedgehog dove towards him… but now one of the beast’s great wings rose up, blocking Super Shadow’s path…

    “Chaos… SPEAR!”

    A bolt of raw chaos lanced form his hands, and it stuck into the abomination’s leathery wing like a knife through warm butter. The beast’s flesh crackled and burned, the revolting stench of burning alien tissue filled Shadow’s nostrils, and he wrinkled his muzzle in disgust. Devil Doom howled in furious agony, and flung one great twisted claw out towards his foe. Shadow jigged backwards, frowning in concern.

    Eggman’s voice crackled over the radio, echoing his thoughts.

    “Gah! Is that thing invincible? No, he’s got to have SOME sort of weak spot…”

    Rouge’s voice slid over Eggman’s. “That’s it! The eye! His weak point has to be the eye that’s been following you!” she gasped.

    “All right, then!” growled Knuckles. “Shadow, his eye keeps moving. You’ve got to track it down!”

    Shadow nodded. It made perfect sense; the horror’s heart and soul was now contained within the terrible eye that tracked his every movement like a lurking snake. The monster made a single brusque gesture with his massive arm, and streams of a sickly yellow alien energy poured out of the possessed rubble that surrounded him…

    …but the golden hedgehog was still focusing…

    “Chaos…

    And as the abomination twisted around to gaze at him, Shadow’s hand flew at the hideous orb that had dogged him since the invasion in Westopolis so long ago…

    “SPEAR!”

    The spear buried itself in the eye, and Devil Doom’s deep, roaring voice filled his ears again as Doom’s Eye arose from the thing’s face, pulsing like a hideous octopus… turned… and whipped around the to other side of the demonic horror’s body, soaring across the skies like a nightmare.

    “I see. I seem to have underestimated the true power of the emeralds.” rasped the evil alien. For an instant, a twinge of doubt seemed to creep into his voice, but it was shattered with his next words: “No matter! I will destroy you all the same!”

    Super Shadow whipped back around the colossal torso, and froze in horror as he saw the disgusting thing melt into the back of the monster. There was a second face back there, a hideous, one-horned mishmash of gnashing teeth and that hideously familiar eye, gazing at him with that monstrous hatred once more…

    “Chaos… CONTROL!” boomed Devil Doom…

    …and the monster vanished.

    Super Shadow gazed around the red horizon, his eyes searching for that telltale glimmer of chaos energy…

    …there!

    Devil Doom’s vile form reappeared far off in the distance, that evil gaze piercing through the thick clouds like a bolt of lightning.

    “Now, come, Shadow!” he bellowed.

    The hedgehog tore across the sky like a golden comet, his eyes locked on Devil Doom, hoping for a quick end to the years of pain and suffering…

    CRUNCH!

    A swarm of rubble was suddenly all around him, and before he could move, it thundered into him like a furious stampede. Shadow flailed in confusion, his vision was blocked by concrete and steel, and though his body was invincible, he could not see, he could not fight…

    …no.

    This was not the end.

    His mind dove into the ocean of chaos surrounding them all, and the currents flowed through him like a glorious waterfall of power. Chaos in all its power, positive and negative, circled his form, swirling about him in his mind, soul, and spirit…

    He was who he was.

    Brave-hearted hero…

    “Chaos Control!” he roared, and in the next instant, he was directly in front of Devil Doom’s face. The horror’s eyelids retreated in disbelief…

    ..and Black-hearted evil.

    “Chaos Blast!”

    The bloom of raw, destructive chaos energy tore into the monster’s visage. The vile flesh absorbed most of the blast, but the terrible eye felt the power chewing into it… and screamed in pain as the blast dissipated. It ascended into the air like a hideous bat, and shot around to the horror’s other end once more.

    Super Shadow whipped about to the other side of the monster, dodging rays of alien energy, flying debris, and the nightmare’s thunderous wing-beats and flailing claws…

    …and once again, he approached the thing’s face… and was met with an expression of inconceivable rage…

    …and then the earpiece crackled into life again.

    Eggman’s voice pierced into his head; it sounded labored and exhausted. “Shadow...can you hear me? The gas from that comet has made its way to our shelter!” he coughed.

    Amy’s voice came in from what sounded like several feet away. “I can’t move…” she coughed.

    There was a loud crackling, and then Knuckles’s voice pounded the earpiece. “Shadow! Don't worry about us! You gotta destroy that thing!” he thundered.

    …and then everything went flying as Devil Doom swatted Super Shadow away with a single blow.

    Super Shadow turned back, but his eyes widened as he felt his overtaxed chaos energy beginning to seep away… slowly, but perceptively, and he wondered how much time he had left…

    For the first time, Super Shadow felt a twinge of doubt. He knew this power could not last forever… he knew that if he fell, he would… he would…

    “Why?!” roared Devil Doom. “Why can't you understand that the humans are the parasites of this world? All they have ever done is corrode and choke it! Shadow! Open your eyes and see your foolishness! This is the fate for all the humans!”

    …but Super Shadow was no longer listening…

    (… he could see the ARK far in the distance, back in orbit, but now he felt the iciness of space consuming his body as he plunged to Earth at last… falling… fading… dying…)

    “Shadow…”

    Shadow’s head snapped around, but he knew that voice perfectly… the one who had tried to mislead him before… the one who might just hold the one last secret of his past…

    “this might be the last time I ever speak to you… but you should know… my telling you that you were an android… it was all a lie.”

    Super Shadow felt his body growing numb.

    “everyone aboard the ARK had thought you’d died… after that horrible accident …but I rescued you with one of my robots! You really are Shadow, the ultimate lifeform!”

    He was…

    It didn’t matter.

    Now, and forever, he was who he was: a brave and heroic hedgehog.

    And he’d do what he always had… and give it his all.

    Super Shadow glanced up just in time to see Devil Doom’s grasping claw reaching for him.

    He shot off to the right, evading it like he always had.

    A storm of rubble tore at him, but his indestructible form pounded through concrete and steel as though it were nothing.

    Like he always had.

    And as Super Shadow rose up before Devil Doom for the last time, his crimson eyes locked on the monster’s single, blood-red one, he felt something probing into his mind, into his very soul – and he knew the mind of the evil one was reaching out in one last, desperate attempt to appeal to him…

    …nobody but those two ever heard exactly what passed between them. Their voices slid across each other’s minds, their thoughts mingled as one, as only they were capable of doing…

    “Shadow… whatever else you might have been, I thought you were a being of honor…”

    “I still am.”

    “The same blood runs through our veins, no matter how hard you wish to deny it. You are a part of me… and are, now and forever, mine… and despite every wish you might have, you remain closer to me than a son.”

    For an instant, Super Shadow considered simply ending it here and now… but he himself needed to hear the words far more than the evil monster before him.

    “I was never a son to you!”

    “You dare?!...”

    “Yes, I dare. I was never more than an investment to you, a bond to be cashed upon reaching maturity. You may be my blood relation, but you know nothing of the love for one another that drives those you feed upon! You dismiss them as pathetic weaklings, and I once made that same mistake… but that contempt is not what drove me to save them all before, and that isn’t what drives me now!

    “Even I have had moments of weakness, moments where I was unable to save the ones I loved, the ones who had taught me everything! You vanished when you were truly needed! You abandoned us all for fifty years, and then returned with the nerve – the unmitigated GALL! – to call me your son, to expect me to obey you?! Out of what?! Loyalty, which you never showed those you dealt with?! Fear?! Fear of what?! I already lost everything, even my memories – and less than a year after you left, I had NOTHING left to lose! Everything I had gained since then was torn from fate’s grasp by my own hands! You have drastically misjudged me, you monster, just as you have misjudged the world I now defend!”

    “Do you not hear yourself?” thundered the abomination. “Your words betray weakness, your heart is a flaw in your iron constitution! You are not worthy to be called the ‘Ultimate Life Form’! You defend the weak, cowardly, greedy fools who have overrun this planet like a plague, and claim yourself to be an agent of justice? You’re still that idiotic lab experiment I abandoned on the ARK fifty years ago.”

    Shadow’s mind was surprisingly calm and clear as he responded: “I can’t explain myself to you any further, you won’t – maybe you can’t – even understand it. I’ll leave it at this: you’re an asshole, and I’m ending this now.”

    Devil Doom’s hideous voice echoed in Super Shadow’s head once more, that vicious, hateful obstinacy driving itself into his mind one last time:

    “You have still betrayed me – and you owe your very existence to my decisions! No matter what these humans have led you to believe, I am your father – and you, every scrap of tissue within your body, was born from my flesh! You remain a part of me!”

    Super Shadow simply gazed up at Devil Doom, and in a heartbeat, Super Shadow’s mind responded to Devil Doom with simplicity itself, answering his own doubts before the monster’s stubborn hate:

    “My father was the man who raised me, and taught me everything I knew. My father was driven mad – by events you could have prevented – after you left. His love for his granddaughter, not your lust for power, was what drove him to not only the creation of my body, but the birth of my spirit.

    “My father was Gerald Robotnik.

    “And I… I am all of me.”

    And in the next instant, Shadow’s hands shot forward, the Chaos energy in his body reaching a flash point, and his voice belted out a last cry of desperation to the power that held him aloft…

    “Chaos… SPEAR!”

    The chaos energy shot out of his hand, and into Doom’s Eye with a crack of thunder.

    The monster arched its back in agony, its ruined frame falling back in on itself, the chaos energy within its frame running wild, and Doom’s howls of disbelief tore the blood-red skies apart…

    “Im-impossible! I am the supreme being that rules this universe!... I am the immortal life-form… I am the ultimate power!...”

    And with a last mad, growling scream of hatred and fury, the dark one’s wings crumpled, and Devil Doom’s vile corpse fell a thousand feet to the ruined streets below.

    Super Shadow swooped out over the comet, watched as the monster’s hideous form was lost in the clouds forever, and shook his head in disgust.

    “This is the end for you… and the end to my cursed past!” he hissed, alighting quietly on the immense comet.

    An instant later, he lunged into the air, and sped around the tremendous rock, his form slamming into the thing from below.

    “Only one thing left to do…”

    His eyes closed, and his teeth clenched as he felt the great rock in his mind, felt every one of its contours and curves within his psyche, felt the chaos energy swirling about it as only he could…

    “Time to put the past behind me!”

    Super Shadow’s eyes closed, and his simple plan unfolded very quickly over the next ten seconds.

    “Chaos… CONTROL!”

    With the single greatest effort of concentrated will he had ever known, Super Shadow and the Black Comet glowed a deep, radiant gold for an instant…

    …and then both vanished, leaving nothing but crimson clouds, and crushed and ruined buildings to suggest the alien presence had ever been there.

    High in orbit over the Earth, the Black Comet slowly floated aimlessly past the gigantic, decaying space station that had housed humanity’s last hope so long ago…

    …a space station that was thrumming with newfound life and power. An emerald glow silently hummed into life at the tip of the great cannon as the entire station twisted around, guided by thousands of rockets, and as the charging Eclipse Cannon aimed itself at the Black Comet…

    …a white-gloved hand silently pressed a single switch.

    A great bottle-green lance erupted from the tip of the massive gun, and slammed directly into the side of the Black Comet.

    The explosion could be seen by millions. As the vile gases began to dissipate from the planet’s surface, as the blood-red clouds retreated from the choking skies, the new gleam in the sky marked a beacon recognizable to all who lived on Earth.

    Hope…

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    Down on the streets of Central City, six pairs of eyes saw the gleam, and knew exactly what it meant.

    “YEAH! He did it! The Black Comet is destroyed!” yelled Tails.

    Sonic grinned. “Shadow… that was sweet!”

    “I hope he’s OK…” murmured Rouge, her head cocked in concern.

    Amy chuckled. “I’m sure he’s fine, Rouge. After all, he is Shadow…”

    Eggman silently began to turn away from the rest, his boots silently padding away over the concrete. “How about giving me back those Chaos Emeralds now?...” he whispered to himself…

    “HEY! Get back here you creep!” roared Knuckles’s voice from behind him.

    Without looking back, Eggman shot away over the street, the red echidna tearing along behind him as the other four laughed in that wondrous feeling of relief…

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    Far away, in the heart of the GUN fortress, two men gazed pensively across a small field of blaring screens and cheering technicians, the image of the exploding Black Comet repeating itself on every visible screen in the world.

    “How ironic…” murmured the president. “After the way we all treated him, he saved us all in the end… We were all wrong about the professor.”

    His hand lay itself on the commander’s shoulder. “Let us pay homage to Professor Gerald.” He boomed. “Let’s work to ensure peace and prosperity for a brighter future! What do you say, Commander?”

    The aging soldier turned to gaze silently at the politician. How he could turn this around to his benefit… how anybody could simply leap out of the darkness the world had descended into without injury or madness…

    …it was a positive development, he knew, as only he could. His own fifty-year vendetta had vanished in a cloud of crimson venom.

    “Excellent idea, Mr. President.” he murmured.

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            High aboard the Earth, within the bridge of the ARK, Shadow silently gazed upon the last scrap of his fallen Eden.

            The photograph in his hand had been retrieved from the main computer of the ARK; it showed a smiling young woman with her hand on the shoulder of a mustached, bald man with spectacles. Both were grinning at the cameraman, Maria with a laugh, Gerald with a wry grin, at the artificial hedgehog who’d just asked Gerald how to work the camera…

            …he remembered everything now.

            But it didn’t matter after all.

            He had wondered who he was, why he had been brought into this world. He had fulfilled everything he was meant to do – saved his world from the dying professor’s madness on his granddaughter’s wish, gathered the chaos emeralds for the demon responsible for his life, destroyed the monster and all his forces…

            His life had not ended with his success. He had shaken off the trappings of his birth, and the paradise he had once known was but a distant memory, one that would never return.

            His life was his own now… and nothing would ever change that. Maria, the professor, Black Doom… all were dead and gone forever. He owed them nothing. The chain of events that had begun fifty years ago had come full circle at last.

            His life was finally beginning.

    “Goodbye forever, Shadow the Hedgehog.”

    And without another word, Shadow dropped the photo on the floor, and padded out of the room, leaving the space colony to silence and darkness.