Shade the Echidna

"Please, I wish for a chance to prove myself, my new friend."

- Shade

Shade the Echidna (シェイド) is a character in the video game Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood. As a Lieutenant with the Marauders, she is an important spy, 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). She is the brains of the group. Within her clan there have been a lot of individuals who do not harmonize with the whole group, and have interests or ideas that frequently conflict with each other. These persons are constantly striving and competing for a position of superiority or authority over others.

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 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 and Lord Ix. While on the island, Sonic and Knuckles confront her and Ix, and Ix reveals his plan to the two. After she discovers Ix's plan to conquer Sonic's world, Ix the Echidna attempts to kill her, only to be saved by Knuckles. She says that she is impressed only with Sonic and Knuckles, and that she is hard to impress.

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

Personality
Shade is a tough and business like woman, the polar opposite of Rouge the Bat. 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, she is very knowledgeable about the races and places in 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.

Shade apparently does not speak to Shadow, this may be because she is either shy or doesn't like him that much, although they have a lot in common with each other.

Physical Appearance
Shade has orange fur, a peach muzzle, lilac eyes rimmed by a patch of much lighter (almost white) fur and 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; a small black, shiny nose and zig-zag tail, akin to that sported by Knuckles and Tikal.

Attire
Shade wears a form-fitting, all-body, grey/black Nocturnus combat uniform with what may be additional armor plating on the upper chest and back. The uniform in general is probably made of some advanced Nocturnus polymer.

She wears a pair of black and light-grey armored boots. These boots sport an iridescent pink strip running down the thigh and toe, which might be decorative or serve some sort of technological function.

Shade's black gloves appear to be part of her one-piece combat uniform as opposed to separate pieces of apparel.

Around each wrist Shade sports a grey circlet, which look a bit like squat, four-spoked cogs, featuring a number of purple buttons. These are high-tech Nocturnus devices which project Shade’s ‘leech-blade’ energy knife and also allow her to activate her cloaking device and trigger explosives remotely.

Although she usually doesn’t wear it in combat, Shade’s Procurator uniform is completed by a helmet that serves to disguise her head entirely (masking the fact that she’s an echidna, too). The helmet looks much more formidable and armor-plated than the rest of Shade’s suit.

The faceplate displays a prominent Nocturnus sigil in iridescent pink (like the strips on her boots) on the forehead. Shade sees out of the helmet through glowing purple-white eye visors; these ‘eye sockets’ are set in somewhat extravagant, outward-sweeping pieces of the light-grey material seen on her boots.

The lower portion of the faceplate has a pair of glowing pink lights that resemble nostrils. Shade’s dreadlocks fit inside two branching, backwards ‘horns’ that curl downwards from the back of the helmet. Oddly enough, these horns seem to be the most heavily-armored part of the Procurator’s entire ensemble, the outer curve being composed of large, segmented plating.

The inner surface of the curves is the same light-grey stuff as features on Shade’s boots and visor-trim. When not wearing the full helmet, Shade still sports a wide headband-like strip of Nocturnus fabric that covers most of her forehead and crown. It’s decorated with the same glowing pink vigil as her armored helmet, which had led a few to believe that it may actually be the helmet itself minimized to a headband via the Nocturnus' technology.

Knuckles the Echidna
Shade gets along well with Knuckles and he seems to care for her like when he saved Shade from falling from a height due to a tremor. She watches out for him throughout the game, an example of this is when they first land on Voxai Colony Beta.

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.

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, like when Shade was joining Sonic and his friends against the Nocturnes, and they had to split up, she said that she wanted to be with Sonic.

Amy Rose
Amy doesn't seem to like Shade, as she objected to her joining with Sonic immediately: "Oh no you don't, you stay away from him witch!" However, this may only be because Amy believes Shade has a crush on Sonic.

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)
 * Eggman (against Ix)

Enemies/Rivals

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

Abilities
Training under the Nocturne Military has given her agility and speed to keep up with Sonic and the cast as well as knowledge of the Twilight Cage. Like Knuckles, she can scale rough terrain. Her main abilities lie in her knowledge of machinery. Examples are a cloaking field for stealth missions, a warp belt for teleportation, and various weapons for leeching and stunning.

The following is a list of POW moves Shade has in Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood:


 * Cloak (クローク): Shade activates her cloaking field, making her faster and harder to hit.
 * Blade Rush (ブレードラッシュ): Shade slashes her target twice with her leech blades, then performs a vertical strike with them, replenishing her Hit Points in the process.
 * Grenade Rush (エキドゥナラッシュ): Shade throws a grenade at her target that explodes on contact, then she and Knuckles punch the foe, causing them to be distracted.
 * Blade Drop (ブレードドロップ): Sonic spinballs into Shade and her target, sending Shade in the air. As she comes down, she does a downward slash with her blades, ignoring the foe's armor and restoring her Hit Points.

Trivia

 * Until the Archie comic adaption of Sonic Chronicles, Nintendo Power magazine and Sonic fan sites addressed her as Shade the Goat, but it 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 some of the illustrations' battle helmets looking as if they have 2 horns as a goat would.
 * It seems Shade was based on Archie character Julie-Su, them having many similarities: they're both female echidnas, both use technology to fight, both defectors of a legion of the last echidnas (Dark Legion and Nocturnus Tribe), etc.
 * 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. Blaze comes as a close second.
 * Many people believe that she's the daughter of Ix, due to the fact that the prefect gizoid Charyb called her the "princess of the traitors". However, this could be just an insult.
 * According to Nestor the Echidna, after giving him the Precursor Tablets, time travels at a different speed inside the Twilight Cage than it does without. He also mentions that this is the reason that 4000 years have passed on Sonic's world, while it seems like only a few years from the perspective of the Nocturnus Tribe. This means that Shade is not biologically any older than other main characters in the series, such as Sonic or Knuckles.
 * Shade is one of the characters who does not have a voice actor yet along with Marine the Raccoon.
 * Shade is also one of the only characters without a theme song.
 * In the game, Shade is the only playable character who has POW moves with Life-Draining effects.
 * Shade and Shadow are the only two characters in Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood who can teleport (probably because of her Warp Belt).
 * 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 are the same.
 * Even though she currently hates Ix, she still refers to him as "Lord Ix". Same goes for the Kron, N'rrgal, Zoah, and Nestor
 * Shade is the only current as well new Sonic character with out a Sonic Channel profile
 * The only 3D model of Shade is shown in the trailer of "Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood".
 * When the Overmind managed to take control of most of Sonic's group, Shade's statement while brainwashed was "I've betrayed Lord Ix." This may imply that, while she does realize that Ix was pure evil and needed to be stopped, she did feel some guilt for having to betray him.
 * The symbol on Shade's helment/headband appears to change from left to right and vice versa when comparing her artwork.
 * Shades mouth is almost never seen due to the angle of her head.