Shade the Echidna

Shade the Echidna (シェイド・ザ・エキドゥナ) is a character from Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood. As a high-ranking Lieutenant with the Marauders, she's an important spy and recon agent, and her job is not easy. She has lived with others of her lost clan within the Twilight Cage for over 4000 years (from Earth's perspective).

History
Shade is first seen assisting in the capture of the final Chaos Emerald and takes Knuckles the Echidna prisoner while doing so. She's next seen in Blue Ridge Zone, trying to stop Sonic and friends from entering Metropolis by causing an avalanche, but they use an alternate route made by Doctor Eggman. After she believes to have fulfilled her duty of stopping Sonic, she goes to Angel Island and meets up with the rest of the Nocturnus Clan and Imperator Ix. While on the island, Sonic and Knuckles confront her and Ix, and Ix reveals his plan and true intentions to the heroes. After she discovers Ix's plan to conquer Sonic's world, Ix attempts to kill Shade, who is saved by Knuckles. She says that she's impressed by the courage and strength of Sonic and Knuckles, and that she's hard to impress.

Shade then becomes Sonic's ally for the rest of the game. She joins with Sonic and friends only because she wanted to bring the Nocturnus Clan back to Sonic's world - not to take over it as well (Ix's goal).

Personality
Shade is a tough, disciplined, and somewhat noble figure, the polar opposite of Rouge the Bat. She is very loyal and is not afraid to stand up for what she believes is right. Trained in the arts of stealth and the use of powerful, high-tech weaponry, Shade is a deadly force in combat.

As a former denizen of the Twilight Cage and high-ranking officer of the Nocturnus Clan, she is very knowledgeable about the races and places of that alternate dimension, and she is willing to help the team by telling them what she knows of Ix's secrets.

She is quite impressed with both Sonic and Knuckles, and she fights alongside them to redeem herself for unknowingly contributing to Ix's plans for world domination.

Physical Appearance
Shade has orange fur, a peach muzzle, and lilac eyes rimmed by a patch of much lighter (almost white) fur, each with a single, short eyelash which curves off to the side.

She has seven dreadlocks hanging from around her head, noticeably shorter than Knuckles', which may be caused by her headband, and a small, black nose and zigzag tail, akin to that sported by Knuckles and Tikal.

Knuckles the Echidna
Shade gets along well with Knuckles and he seems to care for her, for example: when he saved Shade from falling from a height due to a tremor. When she revealed herself as an echidna, she left Knuckles shocked, as he thought he was the last of his kind. She watches out for him throughout the game; an example of this is when they first land on Voxai Colony Beta. Shade and Knuckles also have many POW moves together in the game. They also work well together when in a group.

Pir'Oth Ix
Shade originally had a great deal of respect for Lord Ix, but once she found out his true motives, she betrayed him for using her people for his own benefits. Even after denouncing Ix's evil motives, she still holds some respect for his power as a leader.

Sonic the Hedgehog
Shade has a certain respect for Sonic after he stood up against Ix, and was interested in co-operating with him because she found him a loyal hero. Interestingly, when the team had to split up into multiple squads during the assault against the Nocturnes, Shade said that she wanted to be with Sonic.

Amy Rose
Amy is initially hostile towards Shade, as she objected to her joining with Sonic immediately.

Friends/Allies

 * Knuckles the Echidna
 * Sonic the Hedgehog
 * Amy Rose
 * Miles "Tails" Prower
 * Shadow the Hedgehog
 * Rouge the Bat
 * Big the Cat
 * Cream the Rabbit (Optional)
 * E-123 Omega (Optional)
 * Dr. Eggman (against Ix)

Enemies/Rivals

 * Nocturnus Clan
 * Pir'Oth Ix
 * Charyb
 * Scylla
 * Pachacamac (4000 years ago)
 * Doctor Eggman

Physical Abilities
Having been training under the Nocturnus Military, Shade is a disciplined and powerful fighter amongst the Nocturnus Clan's soldiers. Even her clan's leader, Pir'Oth Ix, holds Shade's skills in high regards and he has acknowledge her as his finest warrior. Another testament to Shade's abilities is that she has proven herself capable of completing even the toughest missions she was given to during her time with the Nocturnus Clan, and she could do so without flinching.

As both the agent and spy of the Nocturnus Clan, Shade is shown to especially excel in the art of stealth and infiltration, and is able to sneak through or behind even the toughest of enemies and their forces without bringing any attention to herself, be it through sight or sound.

When forced into direct combat, rather than using the element of stealth, Shade is capable of holding her own in a battle. Through her military training, Shade posseses agility and speed to keep up with Sonic and the cast, and has high physical strength to match it. Overall, Shade has proven herself as a powerful fighter. To best put her strengths and skills in perspective, she was able to defeat Knuckles the Echidna in combat, though her victory could be downplayed, seeing as how Knuckles could already have been worn down from fighting off some Nocturnus Clan soldiers beforehand.

Beside physical strengths, Shade is also very intelligent, though she is far from being a genius, like Tails or Eggman. As a high-ranking military commander, Shade is a very calculating strategist and can quickly determine the best course of action during her missions. As an example, when she and her group confronted Sonic and his team in the Blue Ridge Zone, Shade's mission was to keep them away from Metropolis and her initial plan was to simply kill them there. When she realized, however, that they could not beat Sonic and his team, she had her group fall back and she triggered a rock slide that blocked the path to Metropolis, thus managing to still keep Sonic and his team from advancing forward. Shade also has vast knowledge and understanding of the Nocturne Clan's operations and machinery, as well as the races and colonies within the Twilight Cage, which proved invaluable to Sonic and his team.

Like Knuckles, Shade is a capable climber and can climb any kind of walls, no matter what material they are made of.

Weapons and Equipment
Shade is shown to be well-versed in the Nocturnus Clan's advanced technology and weaponry. As with the other soldiers in the Nocturnus Clan, Shade's equipment focuses on improving her chances on her missions, be it either for stealth or for combat. When carry out her missions, Shade has proven to use her various equipments with great efficiency and utilize their effects to the fullest.

Infiltration Equipment
Through usage of Nocturne technology such as her suit's stealth features, to improve her already impressive stealth abilities, Shade can literally pass by enemy eyes unnoticed and slip through major obstacles in order to efficiently carry out her missions.

Leech Blades
Shade's weapon of choice is the Nocturnus Clan's trademark weapons, the Leech Blades. They are a pair of blades made of pink energy that is created from Shade's wristbands and can leech off the opponent's life energy and add it to Shade's. Shade is shown to wield the Leech Blades with great proficiency and machine-like precision. In battle, Shade can use the Leech Blades to cause physical damage to her opponent by throwing precise slashes with them, and at the same time, use them to replenish her own vitality in the process.

Explosives
Though not displayed very much, Shade is shown to carry and use explosives. She is shown using a black-yellow grenade as part of her and Knuckles' Echidna Rush that not only creates a diversion, but also damages her opponent.

Warp Belt
Like all the other soldiers from the Nocturnus Clan in Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, Shade wears a warp belt. This advanced piece of technology allows Shade to briefly escape from the Twilight Cage and to teleport short distances.

Trivia

 * Until the Archie comic adaption of Sonic Chronicles, Nintendo Power magazine and Sonic fan sites addressed her as Shade the Goat, however this was probably to keep the secret that she was an echidna until the game came out. The success of the subterfuge could be in part due to her helmet in some of the illustrations, which resembles 2 horns much like a goat would have.
 * Shade has many similarities to the Archie character, Julie-Su: they're both female echidnas, both use technology to fight, both defectors of a villainous legion of the last echidnas (Dark Legion and Nocturnus Clan), etc. Perhaps in a nod to this, an enslaved version of Julie-Su from an alternate future in the comics known as Prelate-JS heavily resembled Shade in her full body armor, being black in color with glowing pink/purple highlights and eyes.
 * Shade is the first, and so far only, hero character (with the exception of Excalibur Sonic) to have officially had a full set of clothing (in both cases, they wear metallic armor). Blaze comes as a close second.
 * In the game, Shade is the only playable character who has POW moves with Life-Draining effects, which restore her Hit points when they deal damage to the enemy.
 * Shade is very similar to Shadow in a few ways: Both can teleport, they are both physically young whereas they are much older chronologically (Shadow is 50, Shade is 4000, although time flows differently in the Twilight Cage so she is technically still young) and the first four letters of their names are the same (in fact, both names are largely synonymous nouns).
 * Even though she currently hates Ix, she still refers to him as "Lord Ix". The same is true for the Kron, N'rrgal, Zoah, and Nestor.
 * When the Voxai Overmind managed to take control of most of Sonic's group, Shade's statement while brainwashed was "I betrayed Lord Ix." This may imply that, while she does realize that Ix was pure evil and needed to be stopped, she does feel some guilt for having to betray him. Fortunately, these thoughts were greatly amplified by the psychic powers of the Overmind and do not interfere with Shade anywhere else in the story.
 * The symbol on Shade's helmet/headband appears to change from left to right and vice versa when comparing her artwork.
 * In the dialogue in Sonic Chronicles, Shade's mouth is almost never seen, due to the angle of her head in her artwork.
 * The horn-like parts of her helmet are similar to the jesters on NiGHTS's head.
 * Shade, along with the other Nocturnus Echidnas appear to always have their heads facing downward while looking up, giving their faces a shrunken appearance. It is assumed the shape of her face is similar to that of Tikal.