Project Shadow

Chapter 9

In all his time aboard the ARK Gerald had never seen Maria as happy as when she was with the black hedgehog, the two quickly became inseparable making the mobian's new name even more fitting. The old man was on a new level of proud, not just of himself but with Maria more than anything. The young girl became a teacher of sorts to Shadow and he was an eager student always willing to listen and never afraid to question the things he didn't understand.

The two were in the Observation room, Maria sitting on the floor and Shadow laid across from her, several books were across the floor along with board games and blank pieces of paper. Maria was reading, or trying to, her focus was broken by Shadow breaking a pencil over the paper she had given to him. After the 2nd snap she looked up to see Shadow struggling to hold the new color pencil in his hand, he pressed the pencil gently against the paper but when he added pressure the pencil was snapped from his strength. He stared at the two halves of the pencil in one hand and after a minute of the two both staring at the hedgehog's hand he made a fist crushing the pencil into tiny pieces, "Shadow!" The hedgehog flinched from her raised voice, "Why would you do that?"

"I broke it," he said after looking away from her, his voice was low, "Why am I like this?"

The young girl put her book down and stepped towards him,"Shadow you're strong because you're meant to stand up for those weaker than you." She picked up a pencil and put her hand into his, "Be gentle," Shadow looked at the pencil in her hand then slowly pulled his away.

"I don't want to hurt you." Maria felt bad for him, her grandfather hadn't told her much about how the hedgehog came to be so she could only assume it wasn't meant to be known or talked about.

"I trust you," she let out encouraging him by holding her hand closer to him with a smile, "you should trust yourself to."

The eye contact was making him nervous, "Tell me if I hurt you." The hedgehog guided her hand over the paper and was actually drawing, a smile slowly came to his face once they had finished the piece. It was a mess of scribbles and unidentifiable shapes and lines, like something a toddler would make. He let go of Maria's hand and held the peice of paper with pride.

"Shadow listen to me," The blonde put her hand on Shadow's shoulder and picked up one of the broken pencil pieces, "just because something is broken doesn't mean you should give up." She handed him the broken piece then took his drawing, folding it and putting it into her pocket, "I don't want you to ever give up, okay? No matter what happens you'll always do the best you can." Maria held out a pinky confusing the dark hedgehog, "It's a way to make deals on earth. If we lock pinkies it's an unbreakable promise."

Shadow connected his pinky to hers after a moment of silence, "Promise."

**

With Shadow now gaurding Maria, Gerald had enough time to come up with a plan to stop Doom in 50 years. He sat alone in the observation area of the Biolizard's containment room, he poured his second cup of coffee then rubbed his temples, with all the weapons, vehicles, and robots Gerald had designed he'd thought a plan would come to him easily but nothing he'd built could stand up to an entire army of those black creatures, Shadow alone couldn't handle the entire comet. Maybe?

The professor wasn't okay with that, he'd need a decisive answer or not just the world but the whole universe would be in Doom's hands. It was after the old man took a long sip that Shadow had joined him, "Shadow, what are you doing here? Where's Maria?"

"I sensed you here," whatever that meant the hedgehog didn't elaborate, "Maria is asleep and that doctor told me it's rude to watch people sleep." Shadow crossed his arms and looked at the pot from which Gerald got his drink, "Professor?"

"What is it my boy?" Gerald took another sip then put his cup down to give the dark hedgehog his entire attention.

"Why am I-" he paused to try and find the right words, "different."

"Shadow," Gerald felt bad for the young hybrid, "what do you mean?" Gerald asked already knowing the answer but there was no way he'd be able to tell him the entire truth, it'd do more harm than good to tell him he was a dead body brought to life with alien's blood.

"Everything I touch I break," he started, "everyone other than you and Maria fear me, and everything is so slow." The hedgehog looked down the sadness in his face clear as a crystal, "I don't remember anything but I feel like I've done something wrong."

"Oh Shadow," his broke from guilt, he was barely able to get those words out. When he had first thought this through he thought the ultimate lifeform would be more of what G.U.N wanted, a weapon, but Shadow had a heart and soul, the old man forced this onto him without thinking of any concent or possible repercussions. "Shadow you aren't just powerful, you're most likely the strongest living being to exist," a thought came to the professor's head, "I can help you."

Gerald took the hedgehog to his laboratory and immediately started drawing designs for machines, it was simple, if the emeralds helped give him life, they could also limit his abilities the trick was to finding how much power was needed to hold back Shadow. The professor had sketched several different machines that would be used to measure the hedgehogs abilities and with the readings from each test he could create some sort of limiters.

The first machine would test his strength, an advanced dynamometer would be enough. Next his speed, that could be measured with a large treadmill it'd most likely have to be circular in shape similar to a hamster wheel. Lastly his capabilities with the emeralds, Gerald had hope Doom's blood would give Shadow some extension of his power. These tests would cause Gerald's greatest fear to become reality, but he wouldn't realize until it was too late.