Gold rings (bangle)

The Inhibitor Rings are golden rings worn on the wrists of Shadow the Hedgehog. Although never stated, they were presumably created by Professor Gerald Robotnik or another scientist aboard the Space Colony ARK. They are used by Shadow to limit the amount of power he uses during combat and other situations and when he takes them off and uses his Chaos powers he becomes thoroughly drained of energy. He was first seen using this method of power enhancement during his battle against the second Enerjak. This caused his Chaos powers to increase dramatically and for a time match Enerjak's, nearly tearing the whole city of New Mobotropolis apart in the process. He later used them again when on a mission in the ruins of New Megaopolis to destroy Dr. Eggman's Doom Laser. In this mission, Shadow took off his rings to divert the shot of the laser using Chaos Control and his plan worked successfully, though he nearly fell off the observatory the Doom Laser was housed in. (StH: #182 SU: #2)


 * It was Sonic X that was the first to present the idea of Shadow using up more energy when taking off his rings, which at first made it seem to be exclusive to the anime, as during the Sonic Adventure 2 adaption, Shadow took off his rings when trying to stop the ARK from crashing to Earth and used so much power that seemed to have died somehow, possibly from using up all his power altogether or passing out from fatigue and falling to Earth ala the games. This idea eventually made its way into the game series in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) at the ending of Shadow's story and was then used in the comics. The comics, however, are the first to give the rings an official name.