Shadow the Hedgehog

**Shadow the Hedgehog** (シャドウ・ザ・ヘッジホッグ, *Shadō za Hejjihoggu*) is a fictional character and a deuteragonist from the *Sonic the Hedgehog* series series. He is an anthropomorphic black hedgehog/Black Arm hybrid lifeform, a dark doppelgänger, and the arch-rival of Sonic the Hedgehog. Shadow was created as the "**Ultimate Life Form**" (究極生命体, *Kyūkyoku Seimeitai*) by Professor Gerald, using the DNA of Black Doom, and is the end result of Project Shadow (which was created after the prototype). His purpose was to provide ways to develop cures for incurable deadly illnesses, more specifically for Gerald's granddaughter Maria Robotnik, but he was captured and put into stasis by the military when he was deemed as a threat to humanity.

Fifty years later, Shadow was released by Dr. Eggman to help him conquer the world. Initially, Shadow sought to destroy the world to avenge Maria, who had been killed by the military, but was convinced of Maria's true purpose to help save it from Gerald's doomsday plans. In the process, Shadow lost his memories and he sought to uncover his past, during which he met the Black Arms. Ultimately, Shadow thwarted Black Doom and saved the world. From there, he continued his mission to protect humanity by becoming a special agent of GUN and a member of Team Dark.

Shadow is sharp-witted, always on edge and has a strong sense of purpose, willing to accomplish his goals by any means. Essentially a dark version of Sonic, Shadow can match him in both speed and skill, and can use Chaos Control with a Chaos Emerald. While preferring to work alone, he has helped Sonic and his allies when needed.

"*I swore to the professor I would protect this world. I swore to Maria I would give the people a chance to be happy. And that means ending **you!** I am Shadow! Shadow the Hedgehog!*"

—Shadow the Hedgehog.

## Appearance

*Voice actor (4Kids):* Jason Griffith (English), Kōji Yusa (Japanese), Benoit Dupac (French), Fabrizio Vidale (Italian), Jan Panczak (German), Manuel Gimeno (Spanish), Not Known (Filipino), Victor Swaay (Dutch), Reginaldo Primo (Portuguese), Jae-Heon Jeong (Korean), Not Known (China), Not Known (Hong Kong), Grzegorz Przybył (Polish), Dmitriy Filimonov (Russian), Not Known (Swedish), Fadwa Suleiman (Arabic), Yaron Menashe (Hebrew), Not Known (Poland), Not Known (Latin Spanish), Not Known (Latin America Spanish), Not Known (Brazilian Portuguese)
*Voice actor (DuArt):* Kirk Thornton (English), Not Known (Japanese), Not Known (French), Daniele Raffaeli (Italian), Not Known (German), Not Known (Spanish), Not Known (Filipino), Not Known (Dutch), João Brás (Portuguese), Not Known (Korean), Not Known (China), Not Known (Hong Kong), Florian Silaghi (Roman), Not Known (Polish), Anton Savenkov (Russian), Not Known (Swedish), Not Known (Arabic), Eran Mor (Hebrew), Not Known (Poland), Czető Roland (Hungarian), Not Known (Latin Spanish), Not Known (Latin America Spanish), Not Known (Brazilian Portuguese)

### Biography

Created as the "Ultimate Life Form" by Professor Gerald Robotnik, Dr. Eggman's grandfather, Shadow is the splitting image of Sonic, sharing his agility and speed.

He has a strong sense of purpose and pursues his goals by any means necessary.

### Appearance

In most cases of his appearance as a hedgehog, he even looks like Sonic. Shadow is a black hedgehog with red stripes on his quill-like hairs, right above his eyes, arms and legs. He has red eyes and white fur on his chest, and the skin of his muzzle is tan. He has six quill-like hairs on his head, four of which point upwards, and two that point down, and he has two hair spines on his back and a small tail. For attire, Shadow wears white gloves with black cuffs and red tongues, and Light weight, hyper friction resistant white, black, red and yellow jet hover shoes which, like his gloves, have black cuffs and red tongues too. On each of his wrists and ankles he wears a single gold ring.

### Possible Future

Shadow, like Metal Sonic, keeps much of the same appearance as his present self, except for a few, but the most notable physical and clothing differences. He is slimmer and has longer arms and legs, and more pronounced shoulders, giving him a taller appearance, and he has cow-lick like hair spikes that sticks out from his top side quill hairs. His attire includes white gloves with red backs which have long red and black cuffs with fasteners. His shoes look much like the Hover Shoes, except his has large red tongues and longer red and black cuffs. Around his wrists and ankles he has golden ring bands.

* Hair Color: Black, Crimson Red
* Fur Color: White
* Skin Color: Tan
* Eye Color: Red
* Age: 50+
* Height: 100 cm. (3' 3")
* Weight: 35 kg. (77 lb.)

## Personality

Shadow is extremely arrogant, aggressive, brooding and very loyal to whomever he is serving and determined to whatever cause he is fighting for. He is anti-social and does not speak or smile much. However, he often smirks when being sure of himself, or if he thinks lowly of someone. But deep down, he does have a heart. He cares for those who cared for him such as Maria, Molly, Rouge and Chris Thorndyke and often follows their goals in his own fashion no matter what the cost is. He can be caring to Sonic by showing up and saving Sonic when he needs it the most and genuinely respects him as a rival. Because of his past though, Shadow rarely trusts anyone besides himself. Even when he does, he prefers not to have them get too close to him, lest tragedy should impact him again.

Shadow is easily the most self-sufficient of all the characters. However, his lonesome and arrogant attitude also puts him apart from the other characters. Nevertheless, Shadow can at times be uncaring. For example, when he learned of Cosmo's true mission, he set off to kill her. Shadow, however, did this to try to protect the universe, implying that while he has a good motive, the means used to achieve it are only acceptable to him.

Shadow firmly believes that he is the "Ultimate Life Form" and almost all other life forms are lesser beings and thinks that no one can stand a chance against him. Despite this, he respects a worthy opponent and likes to see someone give him a challenge, apart of why he respects his arch-rival, Sonic.

Shadow only talks when it is absolutely necessary and dislikes being in groups, preferring solitude. Shadow often thinks teamwork is unnecessary because he can handle everything on his own. However, he will help his allies when needed.

Shadow is often depressed about the loss of Maria which is why he keeps to himself, but his relationship with Maria is obvious as he goes to great lengths to protect the planet and keep her dream of peace and prosperity alive. He has also been seen protecting other characters, for example Sonic, Chris, Molly, and Rouge, proving that while his attitude makes him seem like a careless person, he does have some compassion.

## Relationships

### Friends/Allies

* G.U.N.
	+ Abraham Tower
	+ Hope Robotnik
	+ Team Dark
		- Rouge the Bat (Best friend)
		- E-123 Omega (Close friend)
	+ Spider Troupe
* Team Sonic
	+ Sonic the Hedgehog (Comrade and rival)
	+ Tails the Fox
	+ Knuckles the Echidna
* Christopher Thorndyke
* Team Rose
	+ Amy Rose the Hedgehog
	+ Cream the Rabbit
	+ Cheese the Chao
	+ Big the Cat
* Team Chaotix
	+ Vector the Crocodile
	+ Espio the Chameleon
	+ Charmy the Bee (Looks up to Shadow)
* Molly
* Nicole the Lynx
* Rotor the Walrus
* Silver the Hedgehog
* Blaze the Cat
* Shade the Echidna
* Freedom Fighters
	+ Sally Acorn
	+ Bunnie Roboot
	+ Antoine D'Coolette

### Family

* All Black Arms
	+ Black Doom (biological "father")
	+ Eclipse the Darkling ("brother") †
	+ Black Death †
* Gerald Robotnik (Creator, deceased)
* Maria Robotnik (surrogate sister)
* Eggman (surrogate nephew)
* Biolizard (older sibling)

### Rivals

* Sonic the Hedgehog (Arch-rival)
* Silver the Hedgehog
* Babylon Rogues
	+ Jet the Hawk

### Enemies

* Eggman Empire
	+ Dr. Eggman
	+ Bocoe
	+ Decoe
	+ Bokkun
	+ Jack Robotnik
	+ Orbot
	+ Cubot
* Metal Series
	+ Metal Sonic
* Metarex
	+ Dark Oak
	+ Black Narcissus
	+ Pale Bayleaf
	+ Yellow Zelkova
* Black Arms
	+ Black Doom (Arch-enemy)
	+ Black Death
	+ Eclipse the Darkling
* Solaris
	+ Mephiles the Dark (second arch-enemy)
	+ Iblis
* Nocturnus Clan
	+ Imperator Ix
* Dr. Eggman Nega
* Lyric the Last Ancient
* Jackal Squad
	+ Infinite
* Walter Naugus

## Powers and Abilities

Shadow is a very powerful individual. He can move and run at high speeds that rivals Sonic's speed can perform many of his moves and tricks like the Spin Attack and has extreme combat skills that enables him to fight against multiple opponents at the same time.

Shadow has several attacks to defeat enemies like an attack he envelops himself in a light black aura and accelerates to high speeds to attack his enemies and to move in space at incredible speed which is similar to Light Speed Attack and Sonic Boost.

Shadow has displayed fearsome combat skills, as he was able to fight his way through Sonic, Knuckles (though Shadow is shown to struggle when he fought against Knuckles) and Tails (destroyed the X-Cyclone and escaped traps with Chaos Control). He was also shown fighting his way through a large fleet of soldiers, destroying them all.

Shadow shows over-average intelligence, such as he realized when fighting in a head-on attack wouldn't work. He then switched for some advanced tactics and instead decided to shake the ship apart from the inside by striking its body at incredible speed.

### Abilities

#### Physical Abilities

Shadow is a very powerful individual. Basic physical traits and abilities between Shadow and Sonic are virtually identical. As such, Shadow possesses many of the same skills and abilities as Sonic has, along with greater raw power than Sonic, making Shadow one of the most powerful characters.

Although he is not nearly as strong as Power characters like Knuckles the Echidna, Shadow possesses superhuman strength and is quite physically strong. With effort, he is capable of overturning large objects, such as trucks, buses and large slabs of concrete.

Like most other characters in the series, Shadow is able to move and run at super, supersonic, even nearing that of hypersonic speeds, and is fast enough that rivals the speeds that Sonic can run at, making him one of the fastest characters in the series. When shadow is non-solid ground or platforms, like water, Shadow uses his Hover Shoes to hover-skate on/over them at the same speeds he always runs on foot. He can also use his hover shoes while airborne, giving him some kind of ability to fly.

Shadow is highly acrobatic, agile and an experienced athlete, capable of gracefully leaping over many obstacles that comes in his way and performing various forms of nimble movements. He has as well radical reaction time to match his movements, being able to react to danger within a split second.

Shadow possesses incredibly high physical durability and is capable of surviving things that would normally be fatal to others, even by the standards of other superhuman creatures, making him nearly indestructible. His body is also able to resist incredible punishment, such as being slammed into solid surfaces and even being struck by powerful laser cannons and still survive. As seen, Shadow is completely bulletproof, as he brushed off all the gun shots from G.U.N. Soldiers as if they were not even there. His body is also able to resist and take a lot of major and incredible punishment, mostly in battle before he starts to wear down, such as being slammed into solid surfaces and even being struck by powerful laser cannons and still survive. The most prominent testament to Shadow's durability was, during where Shadow fell down to the planet and through re-entry in the atmosphere and still survived long enough for Jack or Dr. Eggman to rescue him. However, he did still receive some injury, as evidenced by the amnesia he got from his fall towards the world. Even after receiving major damage, Shadow displays a remarkably fast recovery rate, allowing him to quickly re-enter a battle after just a few moments.

Shadow is able to release tremendous amounts of energy and dramatically increases his destructive power when he takes off the limiter rings that are on both his wrists and ankles. This gives Shadow a drastic increase in overall power, reaching the point where he uses Chaos Control with Sonic to save the ARK from crashing to Mobius, subsequently single-handedly destroying an entire enemy fleet and can plow through what appears to be hundreds of perfect copies of Mephiles the Dark, who can be regarded as one of the more powerful foes in the series.

Being the end-product of Project Shadow, which was meant to create an immortal life-form, Shadow is immortal and does not physically age. Also, given that Project Shadow was partially to develop cures for various kinds of illnesses, Shadow may be completely immune to disease. Because he also possesses Black Doom's blood, Shadow is able to sense the presence of Black Arms and is immune to the paralysis nerve/Black Arms' poison gases that was being leaked upon the Black Comet's descent.

### Combat Skills

In combat, Shadow is a fierce, dangerous, and extremely powerful force that few can defeat directly. Shadow also has extreme combat skills that enables him to fight against multiple opponents at the same time. He also never holds back on his immense strength, making him a powerful, brutal and deadly fighter with a distinct killer instinct. Shadow's skills are more than a match for even the strongest characters in the series, and has been able to take down some of the most fearsome foes seen in the *Sonic the Hedgehog* series on his own, such as Black Doom and Diablon, one of GUN's strongest robots. To best put his skills in perspective, as seen in most of the series, Shadow is the only person so far who has been able to utterly defeat Sonic in combat, while Metal Sonic was the robot defeated him 15 years ago in the past upon their first meeting.

#### Fighting Style

Shadow's fighting style focuses on direct, brutal, unrestrained and powerful hand-to-hand combat. In line with his nature and potent abilities, Shadow has adopted a fighting style where he fights his opponents using powerful blows, such as karate chops, swift punches and roundhouse kicks, to which of his attacks have a significant amount of force behind them. With the speeds Shadow can move at, he can disable the opponent through the force of his blows alone, while leaving them at the mercy at his incoming attacks.

Shadow's fighting style revolves around making heavy use of his Chaos Powers, especially Chaos Control and Chaos Spear. Using Chaos Control, Shadow can teleport up in front or behind his opponents in battle to launch surprise attacks. Also, Shadow can use Chaos Control to increase the damage he deals to his opponent when striking them, often resulting in significant forces being released and blowing the opponent a certain distance away. To give himself the advantage over his opponents, Shadow will use powerful Chaos attacks involving Chaos Energy, such as energy bolts or even intense explosions.

#### Techniques and Moves

Like Sonic, Shadow's basic combat moves revolves around the various forms of the Spin Attack, which is a variation on the tendency for hedgehogs to roll into tight balls for protection, and he shares many of them with Sonic. The Homing Attack allows Shadow to jump and home in on an enemy to get over large gaps he cannot normally reach, the Spin Jump lets him curl into a ball attack opponent by landing on them, and the Spin Dash lets him shoot himself forward as an acceleration roll at high speeds to break barriers or mow down enemies, the Light Speed Dash and Light Speed Attack allows Shadow to achieve light speed movements by dashing through Rings and/or enemies. He is also able perform Sonic's Sonic Boost, a move where he turn himself into a highly destructive projectile by moving and running at high speed.

Another technique, Shadow has is the Black Tornado witch is exactly the same as Sonic's Blue Tornado in witch Shadow jumps into the air, and creates a black whirlwind by circling a particular spot at high speeds which can throw his opponents into the air or blow away armor and weapons. For more direct combat, Shadow can use his Chaos Attack to deal a barrage of Chaos Energy-fueled strikes to his opponents, and his Spin Kick lets him create a small tornado that can suck enemies in and damage them.

Many of Shadow's signature techniques are Chaos Powers. Shadow's trademark move is Chaos Control, which allows him to manipulate time and space to either warp across space or slow down time, and distort space to form other types of Chaos Powers. His second most used Chaos Power is his Chaos Spear technique, where he throws bolts of Chaos Energy at his opponent. His most powerful and potent technique, however, is the Chaos Blast, which is literally a shockwave of Chaos Energy that eliminates anything and everything in a circular radius range. Shadow can, however, only use this attack when he is immersed in Chaos Energy.

Another special Chaos Power Shadow uses is his Chaos Boost technique. When using the Chaos Boost, Shadow covers himself in Chaos Energy. While in his Chaos Boost form, Shadow gains more destructive power and is immune to some enemy attacks. It also enables Shadow to utilize more Chaos Powers, such as Chaos Blast, Chaos Snap, and Chaos Lance.

### Attacks

* Atomic Strike (requires Sonic)
* Air Chaos Burst
* Air Chaos Magic
* Air Dash
* Air Roaming Chaos
* Black Tornado
* Back Kick
* Chaos Attack
* Chaos Blast
* Chaos Boost
* Chaos Burst
* Chaos Control
* Chaos Inferno (Team Blast attack that requires Rouge and Omega)
* Chaos Lance
* Chaos Magic
* Chaos Nightmare
* Chaos Upper
* Chaos Punishment
* Chaos Rift
* Chaos Snap
* Chaos Spear
* Energy Ball
* Fire Somersault
* Focus Field (requires Omega)
* Gravity Control
* Gravity Dive
* Grind Step
* Guard
* Homing Attack
* Jump Dash
* Kick
* Light Speed Attack
* Light Speed Dash
* Mid-Air Attack
* Overturn
* Punch
* Roaming Chaos
* Rocket Accel
* Shadow Back Kick
* Shadow Chop
* Shadow Dash
* Shadow Eagle
* Shadow Guard
* Shadow Heal
* Shadow Jump
* Shadow Kick
* Shadow Rocket
* Shadow Run
* Shadow Slider
* Shadow Style
* Shadow Teleport
* Slide
* Somersault
* Sonic Boost
* Speed Up
* Spin Attack
* Spin Dash
* Spin Jump
* Spin Kick
	+ Tornado
* Triangle Jump
* Wall Jump

### Skills

* Immortality
* Supersonic running speed
* High Enhanced durability
* Extreme acrobatic skills and reflexes
* Super strength
* Incredible jumping ability
* Hand-to-hand combat skills
* Weapon and firearms combat skills
* Excellent driving skills
* G.U.N. military training and experience
* Capable Extreme Gear rider
* Grinding
* Proficient Enerbeam wielder
* Chaos Powers
* Harnessing chaos energy
	+ Super transformation
* Dark Chaos Shadow and Hero Chaos Shadow transformation

### Miscellaneous Skills

Shadow has proven himself to be an expert Extreme Gear rider, as seen in the tournament where he was able to put up quite a fight and even defeat some of the world's best Extreme Gear riders. When riding on an Extreme Gear, Shadow is skillful enough to ride on rails, execute complex tricks while in midair, and even perform his Chaos Powers and combat moves with ease.

### Transformations

#### Super Shadow

*Main article:* *Super Shadow*
Like Sonic and Silver, by harnessing the power of the seven Chaos Emeralds, Shadow is able to use super transformation to transform into Super Shadow. In this form, he is bestowed with the new abilities of flight and near invulnerability. Also, like other super transformations, his normal abilities regarding speed, strength and power are greatly enhanced as well on an incalculable scale, and his skills with Chaos Powers are increased to their full limit.

#### Dark Chaos Shadow

*Main article:* *Dark Chaos Shadow*
Shadow is able to transform into Dark Shadow with the use of negative chaos energy, whenever his mind is fueled by thoughts of anger, rage, and hatred. In this state, Shadow is can perform Chaos Blast. This form, however, only lasts for a limited time.

#### Hero Chaos Shadow

*Main article:* *Hero Chaos Shadow*
Shadow is able to transform into Hero Shadow with the use of positive chaos energy, whenever his mind is fueled by positive thoughts. In this state, Shadow can perform a large scale use of Chaos Control. Like Dark Chaos Shadow, however, this form also only lasts for a limited time.

#### Chaos Boost

*Main article:* *Chaos Boost*
In *Sonic the Hedgehog* (2006), Shadow can access an enhanced state dubbed the Chaos Boost. In this state, his powers are boosted significantly, granting him of warp-like speeds, near invulnerability and bolstered Chaos Powers.

#### Color Power

*Main article:* *Color Powers*
By harnessing different variants of Hyper-go-on from Wisps, Shadow can use specific Color Powers to transform into a certain form, such as a drill, a laser or even a planet, each one possessing its own unique abilities. So far, Shadow has been able to transform into the Cyan Laser, Yellow Drill and Indigo Asteroid. However, these transformations require a steady supply of Hyper-go-on to be maintained.

### Weaknesses

When Shadow releases energy after he takes off his rings, Shadow's increase in power through the overuse of it comes at the expense of reducing his stamina, causing him to become exhausted after its use, Shadow has shown no sign of fatigue when restoring to this method.

While not having any physical weakness, Shadow was initially a somewhat easy target for manipulation during the time he had amnesia due to his confusion about who he was. Dr. Eggman could fool him with his lies about his past, and Black Doom could subtlety manipulate him using visions of his own dark past. However, after learning of his true purpose, Shadow is now not as easily deceived as he was before.

Being part Black Arms, Shadow is partially an extension of Black Doom, making him vulnerable to mind control exerted by Black Doom himself. However, Shadow can fight this influence through sheer resolve and willpower.

## History

### Past

Fifty years before the events of *Sonic Adventure 2*, a top-secret government project known as "Project Shadow" had begun on aboard the Space Colony ARK. Led by Professor Gerald Robotnik, it was a government-sanctioned initiative to create "The Ultimate Lifeform," an immortal being that could be used for the benefit of the nation, likely in a militaristic fashion. While Gerald had initial misgivings to the purpose of the research he was assigned to, he realized that his results might be able to save his granddaughter, Maria. Suffering from the incurable disease Neuro-Immune Deficiency Syndrome, Maria only had a short time left to live, and Gerald was willing to do whatever it took to save her life. Going against his worries of stepping into territory man had no business playing with, the professor immediately began work, hoping that he could apply any newly-gained knowledge to find a cure to N.I.D.S. .

Even with the resources at his disposal, Professor Gerald was unable to make significant progress. Without alerting anyone, Gerald decided to plea to the stars for help, contacting the Black Arms race, an alien civilization that lived upon the Black Comet, a celestial object that passed near the planet every fifty years. Its leader, Black Doom, offered to assist Gerald in his quest. He offered his blood - which ended up being the key to perfect the ultimate lifeform - in exchange for the seven Chaos Emeralds, which he would collect the next time he passed through. Knowing that the Black Arms' intentions were less than desirable, Gerald made the deal regardless, albeit with preparations to defeat the Black Arms with the cannon built into the ARK, and was able to successfully create Shadow the Hedgehog.

Once brought to life, Shadow immediately befriended Maria, and they became close during their short time together. Gerald, meanwhile, made precautions for the return of the Black Arms, ensuring that the Eclipse Cannon - an extremely powerful beam weapon built into the ARK - was compatible with the seven Chaos Emeralds, so that when they did return with the Black Comet, humanity would be able to defend itself instead of bowing to their whims.

However, Gerald's progress of work was been completely ruined when it was leaked to G.U.N. how he was able to create the successful prototype. During the meeting between Gerald and the Black Arms, one of the other children aboard the ARK had accidentally seen what transpired, and reported back to those in charge. As ties between the ARK and the United Federation had already been strained, hearing the news of the dealings with an alien race scared those in charge. Afraid of the implications, it was decided to launch an invasion and put a stop to the work being done there.

What happened next was nothing short of madness, as G.U.N. troops descended onto the ARK, causing chaos and confusion wherever they went. Immediately they went after the Biolizard, which they thought was the successful "Project Shadow" prototype, and in the process of putting the creature into stasis, lost quite a few soldiers. From there they went about doing damage control, shutting down everything, getting everyone off the ARK, and killing those who resisted if need be. Knowing that the G.U.N. forces would be there at any moment, Maria convinced Shadow to enter an escape pod, her final wish to him that he give the people on the planet a chance to be happy. Wishing him goodbye, Shadow could do nothing as he watched the G.U.N. soldiers storm into the lab, firing a shot which would forever change the hedgehog's life as it ended the life of Maria Robotnik.

Learning of his granddaughter's death, Professor Gerald soon went mad with grief, swearing vengeance on humanity for taking away the only thing that ever meant anything to him. Though just what exactly transpired is cloudy, what is known is that both Gerald and the escape pod that held Shadow were gathered by G.U.N., Shadow having to be put to sleep in a stasis capsule within Prison Island, and Gerald being incarcerated and charged with the crimes that happened aboard the ARK.

## External links

* Shadow the Hedgehog *Wikipedia*
* Shadow the Hedgehog *Sonic News Network*

## Notes & Trivia

* Shadow appears to be able to sense chaos energy: in "Trick Sand", an image of the purple Chaos Emerald appears in Shadow's mind after he awoke from his capsule, and he teleported himself to the location where Sonic and his friends were fighting a Metarex over it.