SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG: A NEW WAYPOINT

written by

Zolani Stewart

© Copyright 2019 Zolani Stewart. This screenplay may not be used

or reproduced for any purpose including educational purposes
without the expressed written permission of the author.
INT. THE ARK - NIGHT

OVER BLACK

SHADOW (V.O)
(reading)
The history of all hitherto existing
society is the history of class
struggles.
Freeman and slave, patrician and
plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and
journeyman, in a word, oppressor and
oppressed, stood in constant opposition
to one another, carried on an
uninterrupted, now hidden, now open
fight, a fight that each time ended,
either in a revolutionary reconstitution
of society at large, or in the common
ruin of the contending classes.
In the earlier epochs of history, we find
almost everywhere a complicated
arrangement of society into various
orders, a manifold gradation of social
rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians,
knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle
Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-
masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs;
in almost all of these classes, again,
subordinate gradations.
The modern bourgeois society that has
sprouted from the ruins of feudal society
has not done away with class antagonisms.
It has but established new classes, new
conditions of oppression, new forms of
struggle in place of the old ones.

Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie,

possesses, however, this distinct
feature: it has simplified class
antagonisms. Society as a whole is more
and more splitting up into two great
hostile camps, into two great classes
directly facing each other — Bourgeoisie,
and... Proletariat.

MARIA stares attentively into SHADOW, as she sits on her bed and him on
a chair in front of her, staring at the book he's reading to her. A
white moonlight penetrates the large window of her room that overlooks
outer space.
MARIA
I definitely like the revolution parts
more than the math parts.

SHADOW
I think he was trying to illustrate his
points with evidence.

MARIA
Sounds boring. If it feels right then
that's what matters.
 2.

MARIA stands up, and yawns. She goes to her desk to pour a mug of milk
and tea.

MARIA (cont'd)
But what do you think it means Shadow?

SHADOW
What does what mean?

MARIA
The part about history, and struggling.

SHADOW thinks for a moment. He wants to educate MARIA but not to scare
her.

SHADOW
Well, I think that he's saying that
sometimes the world is out of balance.
And that there are some people who have
more while others have a lot less. And
throughout time, people have always tried
to make that balance right, to give those
with less what they need.

MARIA
Hmm. That sounds a bit like you.

SHADOW
Like me?

MARIA
Yeah!

Maria comes back and sits on her bed in front of Shadow, and leans
forward, with her head very close to his.

MARIA (CONT'D) (cont'd)

That sounds a lot like you. You know.
Someone who brings balance. Someone who
liberates people. A leader.

CUT TO:

2 EXT. MOBIAN FOREST - DAY 2

Shadow is brought out of his deep daydream by the buzzing whirl of an
approaching air balloon. Sitting on the front of his motorbike, he
signals behind him.

SHADOW
They're here.

He gets no response.
SHADOW (cont'd)
(louder)
Hey-

ROUGE
Yeah yeah I heard you, calm your quills.
 3.

ROUGE THE BAT is sitting on the bike behind him, finishing her wiring
of a slim RPG launcher. She loads the rocket in the back slot, and
locks it in.
ROUGE (cont'd)
Ok, do it.
SHADOW floors on the pedal of the motorcycle, and they race off on the
dirt path in the center of the jungle. The trees begin to clear and the
cliff near them emerges, and about 100 metres across are two flying
ships, with silvery metal accents. Rouge lifts the RPG onto her
shoulder and points it at the closest one.
VALDER
Who is that?
CREW MEMBER
Where?
A raccoon in a long trenchcoat and fedora looks outside the small
window of her ship.
VALDER
(points)
Right there. Get the guns, now.

Several ship crew members load artillery guns and start shooting out
the ship side entrance. Bullets whiz past the motorcycle. ROUGE
balances the targeting system on the weapon's HUD, then fires the
rocket. It makes a loud bang, a slow push and then an incredible
acceleration to the closest ship. The ship immediately explodes on
contact, and makes a fiery fall to into the lower jungle forest. VALDER
is seen watching the ship go down. ROUGE stumbles to load another
rocket as Shadow rides over harsh turns and bumps. She puts it on her
shoulder again, and targets the rocket towards the other ship. VALDER
is overseeing two crew members as they push the pitch of the ship over
to dodge the rocket. The missile launches, but shoots straight under
it, and flies into the horizon, exploding in the air. SHADOW
encounters a cliff dead end, with tall rocks and makes a sharp turn,
forcing him to eventually stop. ROUGE looks out at the ship, panting
and in dismay.

ROUGE
Damn!

She looks at SHADOW. Shadow looks out at the ship that is moving
further away. He looks down at the lower plains.

SHADOW
Hold on.

ROUGE
What do you mean hold on? Shadow.

Shadow pushes on the pedal, and circles the bike around the cliff edge.

SHADOW
I'll get us halfway, you do the rest!

ROUGE
Shadow wait!
 4.

But it's too late. Shadow has floored the motorbike and is now racing
towards the cliff, and when he reaches the edge, he activates the fire
under his shoes, bursting them off the cliff edge and giving them
incredible speed. In the panic, Rouge drops her RPG off over the cliff.
The bike takes them far, but eventually falls, ROUGE grabs SHADOW and
they glide towards the ship. SHADOW is released from her arms and he
falls into a lower window of the ship. Rouge flies and darts into the
higher cargo opening, where there are three militarized crewmen
waiting. She clocks two of them and stabs the other and throws him over
the ship.

ROUGE carefully moves through a thin hallway. She stands for a moment
to listen for noise, then shoots into the window of following door,
panicking the guards just as they reach it. She then kicks through the
metal door, throwing one of them across the room. She fights the other
four, and proceeds to fight through dozens more coming through the
doors with guns and knives.

Elsewhere, SHADOW is approaching the item they came on the ship to

retrieve. He comes across armed men who start to shoot at him, but
every bullet disintegrates from the chaos energy radiating from his
body. One guard tries to attack him, but a single hit sends him flying
towards the others. He busts through a metal door with an easy twist,
and finds the stored item they came for. SHADOW channels his codec.
SHADOW
Rouge.
ROUGE (O.S)
(after a small pause)
What!

SHADOW
What do you mean 'what'? I'm here! I'm at
the console. I need a password, or some
idea of what to do with this.
ROUGE (O.S)
Take the key I gave you, and put it in
the red socket. When the data aligns
it'll decode and shut down its barrier
protocol and you'll get a split second to
bust the glass without setting off a
meltdown.

SHADOW takes out a black USB key, and places it in the red socket. It
doesn't go in properly the first try, he turns it to the wrong side and
presses it, then turns it back to the first side which was the correct
one all along and so it goes in. A hologram screen appears showing the
data matrix coming apart.

SHADOW
It doesn't look like its aligning...
Rouge.
No time to talk, as ROUGE senses something behind her.

SHADOW (O.S.) (cont'd)

(mangled over radio)
Rouge.
She turns to the doorway to see VALDER with a pistol pointed at her.
VALDER pulls the trigger and blasts her down a small stairway.
 5.

ROUGE stops her fall and flies to the end of a corner, shooting in
VALDER's direction as she takes cover. Out of rounds, ROUGE takes to
the air and lands on top VALDER, forcing the revolver out of her hand.
VALDER unsheathes her two machete blades. ROUGE slides out a long knife
from her left hip, and they engage in knife fighting. Their blades
eventually lock in place, but VALDER's two blades overpowers ROUGE and
pushes the weapon out of her hands. In a neutral position, ROUGE slaps
VALDER in the head, prompting a horizontal swing of the blade, which
ROUGE quickly evades, and gets under her with a well placed sweep.
Immediately, a flash of lightning appears, knocking ROUGE back and
pushing VALDER up towards a higher perch. The static energy is creating
waves of pressure and wind keeping her back.

VALDER
Nothing has changed, has it Rouge. You're
still too hard to kill! You've been
living on borrowed time since you were a
brat picking pockets on the street.

ROUGE
Is that why after this all this time
you're still someone's henchman? All
those expensive implants and you still
can't snuff out an alley rat?
(beat)
Isn't that sad! All of that voltage and
no power.

VALDER fires electricity at ROUGE, who leaps out of the way, but
suddenly she is whipped to the left as the room starts to rotate and
the ship's systems fail. As she recovers VALDER reaches her and grabs
her forcibly by the neck with her steel hand. VALDER brings ROUGE's
head close to hers. Her voice is soft, and closer to ROUGE than the
violent wind growing and crashing through the large hall.

VALDER
I know you think you're clever, Rouge.
Because that's the only way you can
survive. But I'm in this for the long
game, yeah? And the new world that I'm
building, won't have a place for vermin
like you in it.

VALDER throws ROUGE to the wall. Then she opens her arms and lets the
gravity and momentum throw her out of the broken window. ROUGE gets to
the window and watches her fall into the forest. She then races to the
steering control, and tries to pull the steering so stabilize the ship.
She can glean that this isn't working.

ROUGE
Come on!

As ROUGE is on her last wits, SHADOW appears from behind and grabs her,
then leaps out the massive, wide front windshield of the flying ship as
it crashes into the jungle.

[A pause]

SHADOW is brushing off his quills. He looks down on a large box

contraption next to his feet. Is this what they worked so hard for?
Then, ROUGE grabs him by the ear.
 6.

SHADOW
Ack! What is wrong with you!

ROUGE
Do you know how long it took me to build
that RPG!
SHADOW
No, and I don't care!
ROUGE
Oh look who's cranky.
SHADOW
You didn't have to waste so much time
making one yourself instead of getting it
somewhere else.

ROUGE
And where am I supposed to find a heat-
seeking missile launcher Shadow?
SHADOW
How should I know? You can find it in a
market somewhere.

ROUGE
Oh right the market how could I forget.
Let me just call the black market and see
if they have an RPG with a HUD tracker
lying around.

SHADOW winces and ROUGE makes a phone gesture to her ear.

ROUGE (cont'd)
(in character)
Hello, hi yeah is this the market where
you sell military-grade explosive
artillery? Oh no way you’re saving a
sale, I had no idea!

SHADOW
I get it.

ROUGE
Sorry, my partner is being cranky, say
that again.

ROUGE keeps up her act, as they walk the long distance to the nearest
town without the help of SHADOW’s motorcycle.

FADE TO BLACK.

3 EXT. SMALL TOWN STREET - NIGHT 3

A small village is loud bustling, with dim lights lining the long
market road. Smoke and steam flows out from the kitchen and blurs into
the colours of the lights and moisture onto the cobble streets. Inside
of the kitchen, one of the cooks finishes preparing his slices, noodles
and vegetable stir fries on the stove.
 7.

A young and slim wolf with a turquoise streak running through his bushy
dark grey fur. ROUGE and SHADOW sit in front of the soup shop with a
single row of seats facing outward.
ROUGE
What are you having?
SHADOW
I don't know.
ROUGE
(to cook)
Hey there hun, how are you?

DUMPLING COOK
Just holding it down. Preserving myself
in this heat. What about you, huh? What
brings you here tonight?
ROUGE
Oh I don't live far, I'm just here
checking out the city, checking the
people. Is that a turquoise dye?

The cook becomes flustered.

DUMPLING COOK
Oh! Yeah um, I just put that streak in.
It's my first one.

ROUGE
Mmm keep it, it looks good on you. Hmm...
I think I'll have.. a dumpling bowl, and
a pitched lemon ice. What are you having?

SHADOW
I’m not hungry.

ROUGE
Just give him a glass of water and that
plate of pork buns.
SHADOW
I said I wasn’t hungry.
ROUGE
Mhm.
Rouge takes her plate.

ROUGE (cont'd)
(to cook)
Thank you~
SHADOW rolls his eyes. She starts to eat.

ROUGE (cont'd)
It was pretty smart you know, using the
bike like that.
SHADOW takes his food.
 8.

SHADOW
Yeah well maybe it'll feel worth it once
you explain what all this was for.
ROUGE
That contraption, the box. It might be
the only piece of robotech made by the
big G that has the same magnetic pull as
Omega's neural core. It was probably one
of his components that was scrapped and
put onto something else.

SHADOW
What do we do with it?

ROUGE
Well we bring it back, we take it apart,
channel it into the signal filter, and we
should be able to find where his core is.

SHADOW
You've been spending too much time with
TAILS.

ROUGE
Oh you're the one to talk. How long did
it take you to figure out how to insert a
flash drive?

SHADOW
As long as it took you to tell me how to
do it.
(pause)
By the way, the woman who lead that
airship. It sounded like you had a pretty
long conversation with her.
ROUGE is silent.

SHADOW (cont'd)
Something about making a new world. Not
sure why she'd tell you that.
ROUGE
It wasn't that long. And it was about
nothing. Really. Just a bunch of fascist
drivel.

SHADOW
If you say so.

ROUGE
What does that mean?

SHADOW leans back in his tall stool.

SHADOW
Oh I don't know, it just seems to me like
everywhere we go there's always one
person who knows who you are. And then,
for some reason or another they start
shooting, as if you've done something
wrong to them.
 9.

ROUGE makes a weighted expression. She stares into her unfinished

dumplings.

ROUGE
How am I supposed to know? I've done a
lot of things, alright? I've been around.
SHADOW
Yeah it's clear you have.
ROUGE
Hey screw you!
SHADOW
Hey I'm not judging you.
ROUGE
Yes, you are!
SHADOW
Rouge.
ROUGE quiets down.

SHADOW (cont'd)
I'm not judging you.

ROUGE deflates.

SHADOW (cont'd)
We all have something we're not ready to
talk about.

SHADOW gets off of the stool.

SHADOW (cont'd)
Whenever you want to tell me what's
really going on, then you know where to
find me.
ROUGE
Where are you going?
SHADOW
Back home.
ROUGE
Well then take the box with you. Don't
leave me with it, I'm too drunk.

ROUGE finishes the cocktail. The music played on the street gets
louder, and people start to fill the road dancing and partying. ROUGE
watches SHADOW walk off, when the COOK approaches her.

DUMPLING COOK
Hey there.

ROUGE
(sullen)
Hey.
DUMPLING COOK
Just wondering if, maybe you'd like to
take a dance with me?
 10.

ROUGE's face glows up.

ROUGE
Yes. Yes I would love that.

The DUMPLING COOK takes her hand, and they both run out into the
street, in the growing crowd of dancers, whining and spinning with
their drinks in hand under the colorful lights and the festive calypso
music.

4 INT. HOME BASE - NIGHT 4

SHADOW is alseep on their small couch with a copy of a small book in
his hand. He awakes in the middle of the night, from the giant, glaring
white screen across from him. In front of the screen on the workbench,
ROUGE sleeps next to the signal box, with a tool in one hand and
several others scattered around her. SHADOW gets up and comes towards
her. He quietly touches some of the papers; schematics, documents and
instruction notes from TAILS. On the end of the desk, is an old photo
of the old trio: himself, Rouge, and the disappeared E-123 Omega. He
doesn't recall where this one came from. Did she always have this on
her desk? He takes it in hand and studies it. Then, he leaves the room
for a long moment, and returns with a small pillow cushion, carefully
places it under her head, and leaves to close the door with the screen
shut off.

THE END