Maria Robotnik

**Maria Robotnik** (マリア・ロボトニック, *Maria Robotonikku*), is both a fictional character and tetartagonist from the *Super Kingdom Bros.'s* *Sonic Pokémon* series created by Yuji Naka and Satoshi Tajiri. She was a young human, who was raised on the Space Colony ARK.

Suffering from a terminal illness, she was looked after by her grandfather made her unable to leave the place of being raised and go down to the planet of her birth. To save Maria, Gerald worked on the government's medical program in hopes of finding a cure for her.

Gerald's research produced Shadow the Hedgehog, who Maria became close friends with during his time onboard the ARK. When G.U.N. later shut down the ARK and Project Shadow, Maria was killed by a G.U.N. Soldier while trying to assist Shadow in his escape from the colony.

However, Maria chose to sacrifice her life to save Shadow, though not before asking him to protect the world for her sake. Her passing had a big impact on Shadow's psyche and proved to be an event that would strongly influence the fate of the world in the decades that followed.

"*Shadow... please, promise me that you'll help the people and be... friends with them. I'm sure you'll be very happy down there, Shadow. I only wish that I could go along with you. The world looks so beautiful from up here in space. But my grandfather says the people who live there, have to face many problems. That's why you were created, to help those people... and to be their friend.*"

—Maria Robotnik, her last words to Shadow before her passing.

## Appearance & Biography

*Voice Actor*: Rebecca Honig (English), Yuri Shiratori (Japanese), Not Known (Albanian), Not Known (Arabic), Not Known (Basque), Not Known (Brazilian), Not Known (Cantonese), Not Known (Catalan), Not Known (Chinese), Not Known (Croatian), Not Known (Dutch), Not Known (Finnish), Not Known (Filipino), Naïké Fauveau (French), Not Known (Galician), Not Known (German), Not Known (Greek), Not Known (Hebrew), Not Known (Hong Kong), Not Known (Hungarian), Not Known (Indonesian), Letizia Ciampa (Italian), Not Known (Korean), Not Known (Mandarin), Not Known (Norwegian), Not Known (Polish), Not Known (Portuguese), Not Known (Romanian), Not Known (Russian), Not Known (Serbian), Not Known (Spanish), Not Known (Swedish), Not Known (Tagalog), Not Known (Thai), Not Known (Valencian), Not Known (Ukrainian), Flávia Fontenelle (Brazilian Portuguese), Not Known (European Spanish), Not Known (European Portuguese), Not Known (Latin American Spanish), Ximena Marchant (Latin Spanish), Biwen Lei (Mandarin Chinese)

### Appearance

Maria was described as overall frail in appearance. She was a young slim human girl who was about two heads taller than Shadow. She had shoulder-length blonde hair, peach skin and blue eyes. Her hair was wavy and held back with a blue hairband. For attire, she wore a dark blue top with short puffy sleeves and light blue trim, a light blue long-sleeved dress and white low-heeled shoes.

* Hair Color: Blonde
* Skin Color: Peach
* Eye Color: Blue
* Age: 12 (Deceased)
* Birthday: Not Known
* Height: 140 cm (4' 7½")
* Weight: 32 kg (70 lbs.)

## Personality

While frail in appearance, Maria was eternally peaceful, cheerful, optimistic and positive young girl, and truly strong in spirit. Despite her condition, she was not dissuaded from living her life and looked forward to the future in the hopes that she would recover and experience what the world had to offer. Furthermore, Maria could see the good in almost anyone or anything. Having never been back to her birthplace herself, Maria was likewise very interested in the planet, curious about what this planet was like, wished to go visit it again, and make friends.

She was likewise a very kind, caring and thoughtful soul who always put others before herself, supported her friends, and held an unconditional love for the people of the world, even showing compassion towards her enemies when they were distressed. She was as well very encouraging as she could make others accept themselves and calm others down when in stressful situations, including Shadow. Always gentle and thinking about others before herself, Maria was one who found it easier than most to forgive and forget, not to mention trust.

Maria was also a non-vindictive, very kind individual who always thought about others before herself. This is proven by the fact that even after GUN violently raided the ARK and she was shot down and was dying, she never hold any ill will towards the people living on the planet, and in her dying breath, she requested Shadow to give them a chance to live happy lives. She was also utterly selfless as she sacrificed her life for Shadow's sake, having faith he would carry on her dreams for her.

Despite her youth and frailness, Maria was also brave, determined, and had a strong sense of righteousness. When the Artificial Chaos were on a rampage, Maria wanted to stop them to save the innocent, and during the GUN's raid on the ARK she refused to leave the injured researchers behind. Noticeably, she refused to heed a GUN soldier's threat when she tried to save Shadow. Even on her deathbed, Maria remained undeterred and only wished for Shadow to fulfill his purpose.

## Relationships

### Friends/Allies

* Emerl
* Space Colony ARK researchers
* Abraham Tower
* Shadow the Hedgehog (best friend)

### Family

* Meredith Sanders (mother; deceased)
* Geraldo Robotnik (father; deceased)
* Gerald Robotnik (grandfather; deceased)
* Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik (cousin)
* Prof. Colin Robotnik (cousin)
* Irving Pavlov (second cousin; deceased)
* Jack Robotnik (first cousin once removed)
* Hope Robotnik (first cousin once removed)
* Dr. Eggman Nega (cousin's alternate counterpart)

### Enemies

* Black Arms
	+ Black Doom

## Powers and Abilities

Maria did not have any special skills, and because of her NIDS disease, she had a frail and weak body. However, she did have some abilities: she was able to run fairly quickly and had enough strength to land weak blows.

## History

### Past

#### Early life

It has been implied that Maria comes from a long line of brilliant scientists. She was born on the planet below. However, she had to be raised onboard the Space Colony ARK, because she contracted Neuro-Immune Deficiency Syndrome, an incurable and inevitably fatal disease. Due to her illness, which left her frail and weak, Maria needed constant attention, which meant she could not leave the ARK's hospital, leaving her confined in space. Despite getting medical help though, Maria only grew weaker over time.

Even so, Maria remained optimistic that she would recover. While looking down at the planet from the ARK, Maria developed an interest in it and longed to go back there. Onboard the ARK, Maria was looked after and cared for by her grandfather, who was the greatest scientific mind of his time. Maria came to mean everything to Gerald, and the two of them would work and live together onboard the ARK. Maria also befriended a young Abraham whom she would play with.

#### Living with Shadow on the ARK

In an attempt to save Maria's life, her grandfather worked on a medical government project for creating an immortal life form. His research led to the creation of an immortal creature dubbed the "ultimate lifeform". The reason for this was that Gerald believed that he could make a cure for Maria's illness with the creature they sought to make. Gerald's research eventually led to the creation of Shadow the Hedgehog, an immortal and powerful creature, who received a soul identical to Maria's.

Maria eventually befriended Shadow and they grew very close friends to each other. While living and raised together with Shadow onboard the ARK, Maria remained by his side and they would spend their time together gazing down upon the earth from the ARK's control room, wondering what the planet was like and wishing to visit it and make new friends like each other. Maria also took notice of Shadow's own interest in Earth and would hear his hopes of finding the meaning behind his existence on that planet.

When the Artificial Chaos went on a rampage onboard the Space Colony ARK, Maria sought out Shadow to help save the ARK. Shadow complied to Maria's wishes, saying that he would do anything to protect her and the ARK, and the Artificial Chaos crisis was soon after averted by the combined forces of Shadow and GUN.

When the government began growing suspicious about Project Shadow, Gerald prepared a contingency video for Shadow where he told the black hedgehog about Project Shadow's imminent shutdown and about how he was meant to defeat the Black Arms, an evil alien race who helped create Shadow, with the Eclipse Cannon when they returned in fifty years to conquer earth. During the recording, Maria joined her grandfather and promised to help Shadow protect the planet alongside him.

##### Death

Some time after the completion of Project Shadow, Maria's peaceful existence was shattered when G.U.N. attacked the ARK in order to eliminate everything and everyone related to the project, shut down Project Shadow, and take possession of Shadow himself, as the military had come to believe that Project Shadow was too dangerous. Meeting up with her grandfather during the violent raid attack, Maria was entrusted with Shadow by Gerald, who told her to escape the ARK with Shadow in some escape capsules.

While Gerald distracted GUN, Maria and Shadow tried to escape the raid, but Maria was unwilling to leave the other researchers in the captivity of GUN and pleaded Shadow to help them. After Shadow had made his decision, he and Maria continued onward, but were attacked by a Heavy Dog on their way to the escape capsules. Fortunately, Shadow defeated the Heavy Dog, allowing him and Maria to resume their escape. Eventually, Maria and Shadow escape the GUN soldiers pursuing them and made it to the ARK's escape pods.

There, Maria saved Shadow by sealing him inside one of the escape pods. While Maria was separated from Shadow however, she was spotted by GUN soldier, Mr. Schmitz. In an attempt to escape Schmitz, Maria ran back to the escape pods, where she prepared to initiating Shadow's escape pod deployment launch with him in it. However, Schmitz caught up to her and warned her not to pull a lever. Maria ignored his warnings however, prompting a desperate Schmitz to shoot her, and Maria ended by being mortally wounded by the GUN Soldier's gunshot.

Maria, with her last strength, before saying goodbye, Maria asked Shadow to protect the world for her sake and give everyone a chance to be happy, just as the black hedgehog was jettisoned from the ARK. Afterwards, as Maria Maria herself succumbed to her wound perished, her parting words were "Bring hope to humanity."

## Legacy

Maria's death was a jarring event that had a huge impact on the friends and family of the young girl deeply, and would strongly influence several conflicts that would determine the fate of the world. Shadow himself, who witnessed Maria's death first-handed, was likewise traumatized by Maria's death and came to loathe humanity for what they did. The young Abraham also suffered a deep loss, as Maria was the only family he had, which made him develop a life-long grudge at both Gerald and Shadow for inadvertently killing her.

However, none was more affected by Maria's death than her grandfather, Gerald, went mad with grief and decided to take revenge on all of mankind by destroying the planet with the ARK collide with it once all seven Chaos Emeralds were inserted into the Eclipse Cannon. In order to ensure his doomsday plan's a success, Gerald had brainwashed Shadow, twisting his memory of Maria's last request so that Shadow would be motivated to seek revenge at the human race.

Before he went insane though, Gerald made Maria's last words the keywords that would activate Emerl's free-willed emotion-based AI. Maria's last request for Shadow to protect the world and its people had a big driving force impact on the hedgehog's future motivations, which Shadow made the promise to keep despite his loathing of humanity. When Shadow was reawaken nearly fifty years later though, he sought to avenge Maria's death (due to Gerald manipulating his memories) by destroying the human race.

It was not until thanks to Chris' persuasion later that Shadow remembered Maria's dying wish, and prompting him to aid Sonic the Hedgehog and his allies in stopping the very plan he had set into motion, seemingly sacrificing his life in the process. After surviving his ordeal, Shadow forgot about Maria due to losing his memories, with the exception of a disturbing image of Maria being shot. However during the Black Arms-Metarex wars and when Shadow set out to rediscover his purpose, Black Doom would use the girl's demise at the hands of the humans to sway Shadow to his side.

Fortunately, Shadow learned of his true purpose from a final video message from Maria and Gerald and Molly's selfless actions was compared to Maria's act for him, which gave him the motivation needed to obliterate the Black Arms. Currently, Shadow strives to keep his promise to Maria, which has made him save the world multiple times.

## Theme songs

The video games have featured several theme songs for the character. Shadow's themes consisted primarily of the techno and industrial genres often with synched vocals that are barely audible, but have shown an increasing preference towards the hard rock genre in more recent games.

## External links

* Maria Robotnik *Heroes Wiki*
* Maria Robotnik *Sonic News Network*

## Notes & Trivia

* Her appearance and outfit are reminiscent of Alice, the heroine of Lewis Carroll's novels *Alice in Wonderland* and *Through the Looking-Glass*.
* Chris and Molly both remind Shadow of Maria because of their similar selfless natures and the kind, loving look in their eyes.
* Maria's name is the password for both activating Shadow the Hedgehog and accessing the ARK's files about Project Shadow. Also, the reason why the password is utilized as "Ma-Ri-A" is because of Japanese phonetics.