Service animal au 🫶🖤❤️💙

Source: https://dilfsonic.tumblr.com/post/705187680988938240

A Maria lives au where the raid to the ark never happened, and Shadow never became a weapon for GUN.

Maria and Shadow successfully return to earth under the careful guide of Gerald Robotnik. Here, Shadow and Maria grow up together with Maria as his charge, and Shadow as a glorified service animal/guard hog. Rather than destruction, his chaos abilities have been honed toward healing. He can transfer chaos energy into Maria via touch, usually when she’s fatigued, in pain, anxious, or her energy levels are low, among other things. All the while, his dna is used continually in various tests to create experimental medicine specifically for Maria. Until a cure is found, Shadow is the failsafe for keeping her alive and (mostly) healthy.

Their dynamic is a bit complicated here, however. Gerald of course cherishes Shadow for what he can do, and what he is for Maria, but that doesn’t translate into him viewing Shadow as his own autonomous person. He’s meticulously trained Shadow and conditioned him from a baby to be in service to his granddaughter, so while Maria remains Shadow’s only friend, and even somewhat sisterly to him, using these terms to describe their bond is not 100% accurate. Without the burning resentment toward humanity fueled by a loss, Shadow’s core personality remains mostly the same. There’s still a thin barrier between himself and her, the undercurrent of service never letting up, even when they’re alone together.

Mobians and humans live together in this world, but Mobians are still fighting a general stigma that they’re ‘basically animals.’ Someone like Shadow, doing what he does, sets them back in many opinions. Humans on the other hand tend to be very condescending toward him, cooing and awwing, and generally misunderstanding Shadow’s purpose and behaviors as that of a glorified pet. Shadow unintentionally does affectionate things, though in reality he’s just doing his job. He’ll reach out to hold Maria’s hand, or press himself against her, in order to exchange energy, and doesn’t quite get why people find it ‘cute.’ Even when he lets Maria pet him idly, or purrs to alleviate stress, it’s all hard wired, trained behaviors in order to best care for her. This isn’t to say he’s entirely cold; Maria IS still his entire world. It’s just difficult to discern why he does what he does at times, or how he views himself.

He really doesn’t care how others view his service, relying on his signals to ward strangers off. Until of course, Sonic shows up. Irritating and fascinating and headstrong, Sonic is equally fascinated by him. Unlike others, though, Sonic’s not really ‘normal’ either. Shadow’s lab-experiment otherness is something perceived but not outwardly apparent, and Shadow is astonished to find Sonic too has been gifted with strange abilities. Sonic also doesn’t look down on him for his duty to Maria, rather expressing how meaningful he finds that, and is eager to befriend Maria just as readily. Through her, Sonic discovers quickly how to get Shadow to open up— even if it’s like cracking open a crab shell with a rock.

Through this fateful meeting, Shadow will learn from Sonic not only how to view himself as a whole individual, worthy of his own fate, but how to accept the bonds of friendship from others. Not only from Sonic; but from Maria, too. Until now, it’s always been Maria’s health first and happiness second. But he’ll figure out how he can balance these two, and form a tighter bond to her than ever before.

Source: https://dilfsonic.tumblr.com/post/705188822434070528