User Profile

Character Name: Shadow the Hedgehog
Fandom: Sonic the Hedgehog
Age: Fifteen
Date of Birth: 23/06/1950
Current Year: 2006
Gender: Male
Affiliation: N/A
Background/Description:
I shall be using his backstory from Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog, because I know those backstories, and the other ones kind of make me go “BUH?!”

Shadow the Hedgehog appears no older than his rival, Sonic, but in reality he is well over fifty years old. Though, there is much speculation on this, and Wikipedia states that:
“Created by Gerald Robotnik as "the Ultimate Life Form", Shadow is immortal and does not age, and while Sega originally stated his age as "unknown", he has been in stasis for 57 years. Since 2006, Sega now has listed his true age as 15.”
Created as the ultimate lifeform by Professor Gerald Robotnik, he lived upon the Space Colony A.R.K with the Professor and his granddaughter, Maria, a sickly girl who was in the Space Colony for her health. Soon after his creation, the Space Colony was destroyed, Maria killed and Robotnik arrested. He was frozen in the G.U.N laboratory until Gerald's grandson, Dr. Robotnik (Eggman) released him.

He promised Dr. Robotnik any wish for freeing him, and consequently became involved in Eggman’s schemes. The only way for Eggman to be able to conquer Earth (it’s always that, isn’t it?), according to Shadow, was for him to go to Space Colony A.R.K and utilize the Eclipse Cannon, which required the power of the Chaos Emeralds to activate. Without the full seven, it was still powerful enough to destroy half of the moon, as a threat to the President of the United States if he did not comply with the good doctor’s demands.
Because Shadow’s memory is very, very hazy after his release from the G.U.N facility, he spends most of his screentime having flashbacks. The person who he was most affected by, and therefore is obsessed with remembers the best, is the professor’s granddaughter, Maria. Because of the circumstances of her death (she was shot by a soldier just as she loaded him into a capsule that could travel to Earth. Later in the game, Dr. Eggman uses the same technique to attempt to destroy Sonic, by exploding the capsule after it was released. The fake Chaos Emerald Miles “Tails” Prower had created allowed Sonic to utilise the power of Chaos Control, after seeing Shadow use it, managed to save him. This ability to use Chaos power from a fake Chaos Emerald impressed Shadow, when he encountered Sonic near the end of the main game [the final part in both games before Last Story]), her final wish was shadowed from him by his memory, and for most of Sonic Adventure 2 he is convinced that her wish was for him to gain revenge on all those who attacked the A.R.K – the human race that didn’t understand her grandfather’s genius and vision.
Thanks to Amy Rose, near the end of the game, when Space Colony A.R.K is crashing towards Earth, he manages to recall that her actual wish was for him to protect Earth and give people a chance to be happy, and consequently pulls his finger out decides to join the joint effort between the heroes and villains to stop the A.R.K from crashing towards the earth by fighting off the Biolizard (the prototype of Project: Shadow) by himself, and then later (when the Biolizard attaches itself via Chaos Control to the front of the A.R.K to increase velocity) fighting the Finalhazard with Sonic in their respective Super forms.
At the end of this battle, Shadow loses one of his two wristbands, which are evidently there to neutralise his full power, and creates a stronger Chaos Control by sheer determination (though in Sonic X it is shown that he removes them to increase his power), and falls towards Earth, evidently dead, hoping that he had fulfilled Maria’s final wish.

But, of course, he can’t actually be dead, because God knows Nicole cried enough at the end of Sonic Adventure 2 without finding out that he actually is dead that would be wrong.
So! Onwards to Sonic Heroes.

In Sonic Heroes, Shadow is discovered by Rouge the Bat in a locked capsule (stasis tube) in the good doctor’s base. She releases him (and awakens the last of the E-series, E-123 Omega, in the process). It is discovered that Shadow has amnesia, and therefore no memory of events from Sonic Adventure 2, but is still haunted by Maria’s death (of course *rolls eyes*). The three consequently join forces as Team Dark in the game, and go looking for Eggman.
Shadow is told by Dr. Eggman (who is actually Metal Sonic in disguise, creating the final twist of the game) that he has no past to remember and soon after discovers a destroyed robot copy of himself, believing that this is his fate as well – that he is only a robot.
Metal Sonic copies Shadow’s D.N.A later in the game, stating that he had gained the D.N.A of the Ultimate Lifeform, and Shadow affirms that even if he is not real, he is still the Ultimate Lifeform.
At the end of Team Dark’s story, Rouge discovers an entire room of Shadow clones, which Omega sees fit to destroy. This strengthens Rouge’s (and the player’s) belief that Shadow is indeed a robot, though Omega points out that the original must exist somewhere.
It seems as though Shadow did remember more than one was led to believe, as when Rouge comments on going after the Master Emerald he replies that some things never change – indicating that he does remember her greed for jewels, something a clone wouldn’t.
After aiding the other three Teams (Rose, Chaotix, and Hero) to defeat the final boss, Metal Sonic in a hyper-powerful form known as Metal Madness (and once Team Hero are in Super form, Metal Overlord), Shadow is seen with the defeated Metal Sonic and the robot Omega, once again making the player wonder whether Shadow was the same Shadow from Sonic Adventure 2, or whether he was merely a robot copy. Shadow himself seemed to believe the latter true.

Apparently all questions were supposed to be answered in the spinoff game Shadow the Hedgehog, let’s see if that’s true, hmm?

Again, Shadow has amnesia (are we getting used to this pattern? Guess the memory then) – but he can remember Maria’s death. He stands outside of the city of Westopolis (no, I don’t know why either, but it seems to be the focus area of this entire game, along with space) as a red cloud develops overhead, and an alien race known as Black Arms drop into the city. Shadow dismisses it, until he is first confronted with Black Doom, who instructs him to bring the Seven Chaos Emeralds to him, as was promised. He then informs Shadow that his Eye will follow him and deliver further instructions. In game, Doom’s Eye is the advisor to the player, should they choose to side with Black Arms.
As the game progresses, the player can choose to complete the first story in ten different ways, each which shed light on Shadow’s history. It is revealed that Shadow was created through the use of Black Doom’s D.N.A – making the alien leader Shadow’s biological father. The D.N.A was given to Gerald Robotnik by Black Doom in exchange for the Seven Chaos Emeralds (explaining why Black Doom told Shadow to bring them “as promised”). Gerald’s aim in creating Shadow was to create not just the Ultimate Lifeform but the Ultimate Lifeforce, i.e. immortality. Soon after the completion of Project: Shadow, Gerald discovered why Black Doom wanted the Seven Chaos Emeralds (to take over Earth and use all Earthlings as incubators for the alien larvae as well as energy sources, i.e. food). Thusly Gerald decided to create the Eclipse Cannon, to destroy the Black Arms’ comet and protect Earth, though it was twisted in its use after the distrust towards Space Colony A.R.K, causing Gerald to use it for revenge against Earth, as was stated in Sonic Adventure 2. He was planning on using Shadow to carry out his plans of destroying the comet.
In the game, the player will collect the Seven Chaos Emeralds, and be confronted by both Black Doom and the Heroes (Sonic, friends and Eggman) about them. Before Shadow can make any decision about whom to listen to, Black Doom uses a paralysing gas to freeze the room and escapes with the Emeralds, using Chaos Control to teleport the comet to Earth. Due to Shadow’s Black Arms D.N.A, he is less affected by the paralysis and manages to pursue Doom, disregarding all questions of his past.
There is a brief confrontation, however Black Doom uses his D.N.A connection to Shadow to mentally torture him with a mind control ability. Soon after, the Chaotix (Espio, Charmy and Vector) manage to hack into the A.R.K’s database and show a recording of Gerald to Shadow, where the Professor explains Shadow’s past.
Shadow pulls through the mind control and uses the Chaos Emeralds to go into his Super form, just as Doom turns into Devil Doom. While Shadow battles with this superpowered form of the alien leader, Dr. Eggman voices that Shadow is in fact the original Shadow, and that he had been rescued after Sonic Adventure 2 by one of Eggman’s robots. Shadow wins (well, naturally) and fulfils the Doctor’s expectations (that is, he uses the Eclipse Cannon to destroy the comet after taking it to space by Chaos Control to protect Earth).
At the very end of Shadow the Hedgehog, Shadow is seen to stand at a window of the Space Colony with a black and white photo of Gerald and Maria, before saying the words which are almost infamously associated with him – “Sayonara, Shadow the Hedgehog.” (Both Maria and Sonic say this in Sonic Adventure 2, and it has subsequently became the most associated phrase with the black and red hedgehog).

My brain is now completely dead. u.u; So, if you think there’s not enough in here showing his personality, I am going to be completely lazy and direct you here.

Power Changes:
His speed will remain high, though not to his usual extent. There is little noticeable difference in it, due to his Air Shoes, which allow him to skate quickly by lowering friction.
Physical abilities, such as strength and so on, are not affected too significantly, because they have no magic/Chaos based properties.
Chaos based properties (Chaos Control, Chaos Blast etc) will be completely nullified, due to lack of Chaos Emeralds. The properties of releasing his wristbands will also be significantly weakened.