Sweet, this story has surpassed the original Sonic the Human in the number of chapters that it has. Once again, RaDaR125 has contributed an idea that`s being used over a span of a few chapters as it`s kind of big (starting with the previous chapter). You`ll know it when you see it.

Careful. This is a long one.
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"I`m...Sorry, Ivo, but...I can`t believe what you are saying."

"Ehhh? Well you should believe me, my dear. Here, I will show you the articles about it as proof."

Eggman turns to his control panel and presses a few buttons. All the monitors switch off and all work together to bring up a scan of a newspaper article. The text are big enough for Maria to read from her captive seat. Eggman then speaks,"I`m only doing this for your protection, Maria."

Eggman turns around and faces her again,"Shadow is a psycho and very dangerous for you. Why, he even deceived me when he was working on destroying the planet!"

Maria looks away from the article on the screen at looks at Eggman. She can feel her heart pound harder,"What?!"

"It`s true. A while back, I went on the Arc. I wanted to research into what great things our grandfather had done during his time. I happened upon Shadow and I had wakened him. Before I knew it, he dragged me along in this rollercoaster ride of collecting the chaos emeralds for the Eclipse Canon to be used to blast Earth to bits. I didn`t want to but Shadow had it planned all along to destroy the Earth."

Maria`s eyes change, beginning to water as if she is fighting back her tears,"How...How could that be...?"

She looks back to the article Eggman shows her on the monitors. But it seems to be true. One section reads:

[i]Project Shadow was awakened by Eggman (Ivo Robotnik) and has been running amuck on the Earth. Project Shadow has destroyed buildings, caused chaos on Radical Highway, broken into places and stealing things, even blowing up Prison Island. Before the world knew it, the Arc was being sent to Earth for a catastrophic collision.[/i]

Maria drops her mouth open with a disbelieving gasp. Eggman changes the monitor to display an article that was written about when the Black Arms aliens were invading Earth. This article talks about how many lives of humans were taken by Shadow`s own two hands. Then Eggman turns off the monitors and he turns around to face Maria once more. By this point, Maria is looking downward. She has lost the fight against her tears, they are rolling down her cheeks. How could Shadow do such terrible things? He was supposed to protect, not murder or destroy. He promised he would protect the people of Earth! Yet...he is doing the opposite. He has been putting their lives in danger, even taking their lives away. What has happened to him in her absence? What has he become?

Eggman stands up from his chair, puts his hands behind his back and walks towards Maria,"I`m sorry to be the one to tell you all of this, Maria...But, I felt that you needed to know the truth."

Maria jerks her head to the side as she continues to cry. She is still looking down towards the floor. She closes her eyes tightly,"Oh, Shadow...What have you done?"

Metal Sonic delivers a kick with his heavy, metal boot to Sonic`s face. Sonic manages to at least direct the kick elsewhere, getting kicked in the shoulder instead. Either way, Sonic is still sent flying back thanks the advantage of weight Metal Sonic has. Luckily, Sonic keeps himself from actually falling on the floor. He gathers his balance and sets himself back in a stance. Sonic bolts right back for Metal Sonic, throwing his whole body into the metal beast. This allows him to tip the robot over and cause him to fall on his back. Sonic leaps right over Metal Sonic and heads for Amy.

Things are too late for Wave at this point. The conveyor belt brings her right inside the machine. Sonic`s ears can pick up the sounds of the machine working. Amy looks absolutely mortified by what is happening, especially when a few seconds later, Wave comes back out the other side - a robot. Sonic is surprised at this. Eggman is bringing back his roboticization plans? He hasn`t done such a thing in a long time now. This new machine of his is [i]a lot[/i] faster than the old one. This just means that Sonic has to work faster to get Amy out before she becomes a robot, too. He tries to reassure Amy who is freaking out and becoming hysterical,"Don`t worry, Amy, I`ll have you out. I won`t let that happen to you."

Before he gets a chance, Metal Sonic has re-animated himself and gives a hefty swipe at Sonic, smacking him away from Amy with his metallic claws. As Sonic lands on the floor several feet away, Metal Sonic moves his claws around a bit, looking to Sonic. Sonic gets himself back on his feet,"Move it, Metal! I have to save Amy from being roboticized!"

The only response Sonic gets is robotic clicking from Metal Sonic.

The door to Eggman`s control room slides open suddenly and Shadow steps in. Eggman, who is still standing in front of Maria, turns around to see who has entered his room. He becomes angry when he sees that it`s Shadow,"So, you found me out much faster than I anticipated."

Shadow balls his hands into fists,"I will only say this once, doctor. Let her go."

"What an unpleasant demeanor you carry. Doesn`t matter. She`s my cousin, so Maria will stay with me."

Since his demand is unmet, Shadow begins to cross the room towards Eggman, hands still in fists. One simple mission is on his mind, it`s quite obvious. But Shadow suddenly stops. The wall of monitors catch his eye in his peripheral view. Shadow slowly turns his head to the side and sees a newspaper article displayed on the monitors. It`s one of the many that talk not-so-kindly about Shadow. Shadow blinks and turns back to Eggman and Maria. It doesn`t take very long for Shadow to figure out what has been going on; Eggman has been working on trying to turn Maria against him. This just angers Shadow more.

Eggman folds his arms,"Don`t give me that look, Shadow. You`re the one who went around, killing people, destroying things, tricked me into helping you destroy Earth-"

Shadow breaks into a run, coming at Eggman. Eggman, however, won`t allow himself to be harmed, especially by Shadow. He takes off, running to the best of his ability. He runs towards another door. Shadow stops when he gets close to Maria. He raises his arm, about to launch a chaos spear at Eggman but stops when the man goes through his targetted door. Shadow lowers his arm back down and turns to Maria.

Maria sinks a little in the chair that she is still strapped down to. She still has a tear that has rolled half way down her cheek. Shadow steps up closer to her,"Whatever he has told you, Maria, disregard it."

One by one, Shadow breaks off the straps that hold Maria down to the chair. Once that is done, Shadow helps Maria up to her feet out of the chair. Maria looks at Shadow questioningly,"But...The news articles he showed me..."

Shadow looks down at Maria silently for a moment. No one can see the emotion present on him, but he has seen that the time to reveal the truth to her about what he has done has come a lot sooner than he thought. He would`ve liked to have waited longer before telling her, or even better, not have to tell her at all. But...She would`ve had to know sooner or later and he`s very nervous about the subject matter.Shadow will swallow his pride and will come clean to her,"We`ll...talk later about this."

As Shadow reaches a hand into his pants pocket, Maria becomes concerned with Shadow not wanting to discuss it now,"Why can`t we talk about it now? I`m very concerned for you, Shadow. You`re different from before..."

Shadow pulls out a flat, rectangle, mechanical object from his pocket. On it reads a timer at 10 minutes. It`s the same sort of bomb Eggman had Shadow use to blow up Prison Island. Maria knows exactly what it is. She becomes scared at knowing that Shadow plans to blow this building up. This just verifies what Eggman had told her. Without thinking, Maria quickly slaps the object out of Shadow`s hand,"No, Shadow, you can`t-!"

The small bomb flies out of Shadow`s hand and lands on the floor with a few metallic noises. Then soft beeping follows. Shadow looks down to Maria with the emotion of surprise obvious on his face. Maria realizes what she has just done. She draws her hands to her chest and lowers her head shamefully,"I-I`m sorry, Shadow. I don`t know what came over me...I can`t stand you destroying another thing on this planet-"

The beeping becomes more intense from the bomb. Shadow and Maria both look over to it and see the timer is backed to under 3 minutes. The both of them drop their mouths open. Somehow when Maria slapped it out of Shadow`s hand, the timer got bumped down to a much shorter time and began to count down. Maria`s face contorts to a very worried and regretful expression,"I-I`m sorry, Shadow! I didn`t mean to-!"

Quickly Shadow hoists Maria up in his arms and bolts out of the control room. Once out of the control room, Shadow moves Maria so that he`s holding her with just one arm. His free hand pulls out his cell phone and he activates the walkietalkie function,"Everyone get out now. You have just over 2 minutes to do so."

Hearing this through his cell phone via the walkietalkie function, Sonic`s concern grows. Great, Shadow has done something to greatly increase the emergency level of this situation. Metal Sonic still isn`t letting him get to Amy to save her from being roboticized. Sonic tries once again to just run past Metal Sonic,"Out of my way!"

Sonic does manage to get past Metal Sonic but before he actually gets to Amy, Metal Sonic grabs Sonic by the back of his vest and throws him back. Then Metal Sonic charges at Sonic. The two of them become blue and red streaks zipping and bouncing around the room at each other.

Looking in front of her, Amy can see that she is about to be pulled into the machine by the conveyor belt. The door to the machine`s insides slide open. Amy screams,"SONIC!!"

Sonic quickly darts away from his battle with Metal Sonic to run to Amy again. He makes it to her this time. Sonic grabs the chair and tries to pull back, hoping that maybe he can cause the conveyor belt to either move backwards or become broken. The only thing he`s doing though is slowing it down as it continues to pull Amy into the machine. Amy becomes more hysterical and screams more, a tear begins to come out of her eye,"Sonic, get me out! I don`t want to become a robot!"

Sonic grunts as he releases the chair and begins to just work on breaking the straps that hold Amy down,"Hang in there, Amy!"

Just as the chair slips into the machine with Amy on it and Sonic as well, the machine begins to make a lot of loud noises like gears were grinding against each other and the conveyor belt slows to a stop. Using this time, Sonic finishes breaking the straps and pulls Amy out of the machine. When they emerge from the machine, they come to a surprise.

On the side of the machine where the large gears are, Metal Sonic stands there. His right arm is jammed into the gears, caught between two of them. The gears are trying to continue their programmed job but with Metal Sonic`s arm there, they can`t go anywhere. But it`s only a matter of time before his arm will be fully broken. Amy drops her mouth open. Did Metal Sonic sacrifice his arm to help save her?

Sonic grabs Amy with one hand and zips over to grab the now roboticized Wave with his other hand. He dashes out of the building with the two of them in tow, hoping the others have made it out safely. Metal Sonic`s red eyes follow and watch Sonic run out of the room with Amy. His body moves a little as the grinding noise with the gears intensify.

Sonic runs out the nearest exit he can find and starts to flee the building. Within seconds, the whole building explodes. It`s pieces and parts are scattered about, even doing some damage to other buildings that are nearby. Any trees or benches or signs that are near the building get completely blown away.

As the explosion is settling, Sonic finds everyone else has taken shelter in a tunnel that is nearby. This is a tunnel that the extreme gear races take their competitors through so it`s familiar to Sonic and Amy. Silver is the first to say anything to Sonic and Amy,"There you are. We were wondering if you found Amy."

Sonic releases both Amy and the roboticized Wave go and gives Silver a thumbs up,"Yep, found her no sweat."

Amy, however, is peeking out the tunnel opening to look where Eggman`s building once was. Metal Sonic was still in there when the bomb went off, which means he got caught up in there, too. She begins to feel bad for leaving Metal Sonic behind since he helped save her from suffering the same fate as Wave.

Tails runs up to Sonic,"Sonic!"

"Hey there, big guy."

Sonic pats Tails on the head,"I hope you weren`t too hurt."

Tails smiles and shakes his head,"I`m fine."

Sonic looks among everyone,"Did everyone get out? Looks like all the missing people are here."

Blaze looks among the people they rescued, which are Marine, Tiara, Honey, Hip and Hop,"Yes, I do believe we found all the missing persons."

Jet arrives on the scene with Storm, Shade, Bean and Bark, all riding their gear boards. Now the Sonic gang are in his territory and he isn`t happy about this,"Hey! What are all of you doing here?!"

Sonic puts his fists on his hips,"Oh yeah, Jet, we have a present for you."

Jet makes an odd face,"Present?"

Sonic grabs the roboticized Wave and pulls her forward towards Jet,"We found Wave for ya."

Jet squawks at this unexpected revelation,"Wave?!"

Jet hops off his gear board and steps up to Wave. Sonic releases Wave and takes a couple steps back. Jet grabs a hold of Wave`s shoulders,"Wave, what`d they do to you?!"

Tails speaks up to answer his question,"Eggman has his roboticizer up and running. I think all of us he captured were meant to be test subject for it."

Jet balls his hands into fists, looking at Sonic, finding him responsible,"And you let her get turned into a robot?!"

Sonic folds his arms behind his head,"You`re lucky I got her out at all. She almost got blown to bits when the bomb went off."

Sonic shifts his eyes to the side to where Shadow is, suspecting that it was Shadow`s idea to blow the building up and for making it such a short time. He would`ve liked more time so he could`ve dealt with Metal Sonic but at least no one was really hurt.

Shadow, on the other hand, is preoccupied with a discussion with Maria to really take notice of the Babylon Rogues` presence. He and Maria are off to the side for a little added extra privacy. This entire bit, Maria has been explaining to Shadow what Eggman has told her and about the news articles he showed her. Shadow has put his jacket on Maria, covering her up more than what his button shirt was doing as his jacket is longer than the shirt, leaving him to wear just his current button shirt for a top for the moment. When she finishes explaining what Eggman had told her, Shadow finally speaks,"He never showed you what the articles said after the incidents, did he?"

Maria pauses. That is true, Eggman did not show the aftermath news articles. Shadow speaks again,"He also probably never showed you any articles that were written on him and what he`s done."

Maria shakes her head. Shadow closes his eyes and sighs. Unknown that everyone else is listening in on their conversation, Shadow speaks again,"I...have done some bad things, Maria..."

He opens his eyes and looks down to Maria,"What the articles said were true. I did try to destroy Earth, I did deceive your cousin, I have destroyed things, I did steal the chaos emerald from that museum..."

There is a long pause before Shadow says this last bit, even hushing his voice a little at feeling guilty doing these things,"...And I did kill people..."

Feeling rather helpless, Maria softens her voice and cautiously asks him,"Why...?"

Condensing it to as short as he can, leaving out the gorey details, Shadow does his best to explain everything, from the beginning. He tells her of how she didn`t survive the Ark incident, or so he thought, to how Gerald warped his mind to believing one thing instead of the actual truth, the Black Arms alien attack, everything. The people that he did kill were GUN soldiers and even out of them, it was usually the ones that shot at him first. At least the murder thing wasn`t just a random act. But all of this is still a little hard for Maria to swallow. She tries to make sure that she has everything understood,"But my cousin, Ivo..."

Shadow gives his head a single, slow shake,"Don`t believe what he tells you. He`s selfish and just wants to take over this planet."

Amy feels a little bad for Maria. She`s such an innocent girl and yet she has been through a lot. Having this revelation of the truth of how everyone was killed by GUN because of the project (Project Shadow), Shadow going through so much due to her loss and both Shadow and Gerald going a little crazy because of her "death." But she knows that Maria needs to understand what is happening; if she continues to have trust in Eggman, she could be seriously hurt. Amy decides to speak up and give Shadow a little support in his argument,"Shadow`s right, Maria. Eggman is a creep. Look what he`s done to Wave - he doesn`t care about anyone but himself. We`ve been fighting him for a long time now, trust me. Nobody likes Eggman because of his tyrannous ways. You can even ask Jet."

Jet hadn`t been listening to the conversation. But when he hears his name, he turns away from his comrades and suspiciously asks,"What about Jet?"

"You hate Eggman, too, don`t you?"

"Pbbt! That`s obvious! The guy`s a liar and cheater! Anyone who believes what that fat man says is an idiot!"

Jet hadn`t meant to direct his message to anyone in particular but Shadow feels that it`s an insult towards Maria. He decides, though, to not do anything about it since something more important is going on. Maria turns away from looking to Jet when he spoke and looks down to the ground,"And then...Grandfather...Everyone..."

Shadow looks down at Maria, knowing full well of what is coming,"The professor and everyone else were executed...over 50 years ago..."

Maria buries her face into her hands and begins to cry. What terrible things have befallen everyone. Many innocent people paid dearly, all because one GUN official misunderstood what was happening on the Ark and thought Project Shadow was meant to be something dangerous. If they didn`t loose their lives, they were mentally wrecked. Her grandfather was imprisoned for some time and went mad before he was finally executed and then Shadow...He was changed into a tool of revenge and easily went with the idea because of his own trauma from the ordeal. Even after finding out what happened, he still never recovered. He went throughout his life being submerged in emptiness and wandering aimlessly, now working for GUN but things were still meaningless to him. He`s lived his life as a living weapon...

Seeing that Maria is doing what he was trying to avoid have happen, Shadow can`t help but give in to the compassion he feels for her. Shadow wraps his arms around her and pulls Maria into him, lending her support while she soaks in everything and cries it out. When he does this, Maria removes her hands from her face and instead grasps his shirt with both of her hands. She buries her face into his chest, crying into his shirt. She`s pretty quiet with her sobs as they can hardly be heard. A little into it, Maria grasps Shadow`s shirt a little tighter in her delicate hands.

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