Shadow the Hedgehog

Being Sonic's polar opposite personality-wise, Shadow is, bluntly put, a brooding loner. She usually acts with a cool and businesslike indifference, only occasionally showing her vulnerable side. She is rarely seen with others for an extended period of time and usually distances herself from essentially everyone as a natural introvert. She is usually blunt and does not speak much, but she always knows exactly what to say in combat. However, Shadow never bluffs; if she makes a threat, she has every intention of carrying it out. Tying into this attitude, the Japanese script has her self-pronoun be the more humble "boku", with her pronoun for others switching between either "kimi" or "omae" depending on her mood.

As the most violent and merciless character in the series at times, Shadow's ruthlessness and aggression leads to enemies never treating her lightly. Alongside her dark and violent demeanor, Shadow can be smug and stubborn. She usually treats others in a very callous manner, throwing in her opinion no matter how cold-hearted it is and not caring for whatever the response is. Shadow is also shown to have a sharp wit; during the Space Colony ARK incident, after being called a faker by Sonic, she replied that the latter was not worth being considered his fake.

Just like how Shadow's motivations are never simple to understand, she spends as much time grappling with her own inner demons as she does with his rival, Sonic. In the past, Shadow has had a degree of mental instability, in particular post-traumatic stress disorder. This was demonstrated by her instances of post-traumatic flashbacks to Maria's face prior to and during the events of the Black Arms incident, though it could be argued that the instances of the latter game were simply an effect of her amnesia. On one occasion, at the time of the Space Colony ARK incident, seeing police sirens flashing caused him to intensely flash back to the massacre aboard Space Colony ARK and in particular Maria's death. Even prior to the events of the ARK raid, Shadow demonstrated some degree of self-doubt, most notably expressing frustration over how, despite being created as the Ultimate Lifeform specifically to act as a means to cure various maladies, she is still unable to cure her friend Maria, and also admitted to Maria when she desired living on Earth that she's uncertain whether she even has a place on the planet. Similarly, largely because of her being created with Black Arms DNA, Shadow during this time also showed signs of self-loathing, to the extent that she even went as far as to view herself as no different in overall nature to the Death Leech in containment before being reassured by Maria that she does ultimately have a heart. Shadow was soon able to overcome this in the Black Arms and the Emerl incidents, during which she chose to move on from the past yet keep Maria in hee heart. In fact, het personal journey since being awoken by Eggman has had her confront the shackles of her past, such as ties, fate, and memories. Since then, it appears as though she is reaching a point where she can "do as her heart desires" in her own way.

Shadow originally had disdain for humanity, being a misanthrope, but rarely attacked them outright, merely looking at them as a distant observer. During the events of the Space Colony ARK incident, Shadow was planning to destroy the planet both ordered by Gerald Robotnik through brainwashing, and as revenge for the death of her only friend, Maria Robotnik. Shadow eventually moves past her hatred for humanity by remembering her promise to Maria. Later on, Shadow decided to protect humanity and those on earth to honor Maria's dying wish despite their original misgivings. Now, Shadow has moved on from the past and decided to protect humanity on her own accord. She does, however, have some lingering guilt over Maria's death, to the extent that she at least once came close to having intrusive visions of a scenario where Maria didn't die before reminding herself that chance ended a long time ago.

During the many incidents that Shadow takes part in, she pursues her foes with a relentless, unwavering determination. She will usually go to any length to accomplish something he desires or feels should be a certain way, no matter what the cost. Before the War to Take Back the Planet, it is heavily implied that Shadow ruthlessly massacred an entire mercenary band known as the Jackal Squad not only in an extremely dismissive, nonchalant manner (as she did not even remember the incident a few months later), but also seemed slightly proud, mocking the mercenary defense squad by saying they themselves needed a defense squad. She also demonstrated rather coarse language during the Black Arms incident.

Shadow possesses a strong sense of identity; after falsely being told by Rouge that she was not the Ultimate Lifeform due to a lab report, she stated to her that, even if her memories were fake, she was still Shadow the Hedgehog. These qualities make her rarely susceptible to being manipulated by others.

Appearance: Shadow is a busty black-furred anthropomorphic hedgehog. She has red eyes, a patch of white fur on her tanned chest, a black nose, a tan muzzle, and small, triangular ears with tan canals. She also has six quills on her head, four of which curve upwards while the other two curve downwards, two spines on her back, and a short, pointy tail. She has red stripes on each of her head quills, around the edges of her eyes, and on her arms and legs.