The ARK was as cold as ever, and even more silent. Shadow felt a great fondness for this place once, perhaps even recently, but with how hollow the halls were, he felt as though it were no longer a home and simply a "house".

Tails gave Shadow a winning grin and handed him a device. "I made something for you."

"What's this?" he asked, holding it up. It honest-to-goodness looked like a USB stick, perhaps a bit longer. It had a button on it in red, and a small and clear plastic dot that he could only assume was a light.

"Sonic asked me to make it for you," she replied. "It's pretty powerful. It should scan for life aboard the vessel." She smiled. "I hope it wasn't too big of a gift."

Shadow smirked. "He didn't have to bother with something like this."

"I know," Tails replied, "but I guess whatever he promised was something he meant."

Shadow felt a flush creep across his face. Sonic wasn't known for keeping himself in one place, especially regarding emotions that weren't happy. But he was surprised to have learned how principled the hedgehog truly was. Never had he seen this side of his rival- not that he didn't believe he could make or keep promises, but rather that he did it so rarely in front of him. Perhaps that was always there, though, and he just never bothered to observe.

"Thank you," he said to Tails. He looked over at Sonic, who was shooting him a big grin. "You, too."

"Hey, I told you I wanna see that smile," Sonic replied. "I meant that."

"I know you did, I just didn't think you two would go to these lengths to make the search easy," Shadow replied. "I figured you'd… I dunno, just do a sweep of this place with me."

"That's not how we roll," Sonic said.

"Yeah," Tails agreed. "We do things efficiently. Well, at least I do."

"Hey!" Sonic said with a grin. "Don't take all the credit here!"

Tails chuckled. "I mean you did give me the idea."

Shadow glanced at the two of them- it was such a beautiful dynamic. He had hoped that one day, he could have that happiness again. Not that his current friends couldn't do that, but… well, he didn't see them as siblings. But thanks to the fox's ingenuity, he had a chance at that happiness again. He thought of saying "thank you" again, but paused, realizing how excessive it would have been. Besides, saying it the first time was more than enough to get the message across.

He looked over at Bastette and Sylphic, who were speaking to each other. Bastette had a nervous look on her face, and Sylphic, as calm as ever, was attempting to comfort her. Shadow frowned and walked towards them, unaware that Blue was following close behind as always. As he came closer, the conversation of the pair bled into earshot.

"I'm not sure," Bastette said. "I've… I've never been to space. It was already strange when we went into zero-gravity, but being this far away from my family…"

"Relax, I'm certain that they are fine," Sylphic said. "Besides, this craft acts as a massive satellite- we can still get a significantly strong signal to reach in the event of something as small as a phone call." He paused. "Didn't you text your sister to let her know where you were headed?"

"Of course I did," Bastette said. "I'm just afraid that it wasn't enough. I mean, what if Briar has another convulsion? I don't know if I could forgive myself if… if…" She started tearing up.

Blue watched intently as the hybrid pulled a handkerchief from his belt and handed it to her. The cat sniffled and thanked him before dabbing under her eyes.

Shadow came closer. "So, what's the game plan?" he asked.

"Well, Sylphic said that we're splitting up," Bastette said, coming down from her sniffling.

"It isn't the best plan, but I don't think it would be safe for you to approach things the way you are right now," Sylphic clarified. "So you and Blue should head to the observation deck. I take it you remember the control panel?"

Shadow nodded. "You want me to plug this into the control panel?" he asked.

Sylphic nodded. "Tails asked me what kind of port was needed for it, so I got her to tell me what she was making. The signal should be strong enough to cover about half the ARK, so… I got a workaround."

"Alright, lemme hear it," Shadow said.

Sylphic pulled out a notecard and held it out. "It's the information you need to type in to perform an additional scan. That one covers the entirety of the ARK."

"What sort of information is this?"

"Well," the hybrid said. "I suppose it deals specifically with clearance bracelets that everyone had. If anyone in the last fifty years with a particular bracelet code was opening doors… well, there's your workaround."

"I see. So if she's up here, her bracelet would have recorded which doors she's gone through."

"It was the only way Gerald could track her movements fifty years ago," Sylphic said. "Well, yours, too."

"Is that why he could always find us?" Shadow asked.

"Yep."

Shadow chuckled. He'd never known the secret of how the Professor was able to pinpoint them. Fifty years later and the truth finally comes out. "Thank you, this'll make things even less confusing." He squinted as he read the instructions. "You know, for a doctor, your handwriting is impeccable."

"Thanks? I'm not a doctor yet, Shadow. I still have about a month of work to do before I get my ducks in a row." Sylphic grinned. "Though I suppose doing a thesis on Project Shadow was a bit of a motivator for the committee to consider me."

"You're continuing where he left off," Shadow said. "Don't act like you would have chosen any other subject."

"Heh, I suppose you're right. Even when there were so many easier subjects to pick, I went with what I inherited."

"Are you two done being dorks? You still haven't explained the plan," Bastette said.

"R-Right," Sylphic said. "Well, Blue's coming with you for supervision's sake. Bastette, Tails, and I are headed to the central control room. We should be able to shut down the collision program for good as well as disable any charging progress of the Cannon."

"That seems like a tall order, don't you think?" Bastette said. "I mean, didn't you say that it wasn't supposed to be reversible?"

"It wasn't, but that's because it was supposed to actually work the first time." He pursed his lips. "I'm certain it can be disabled though, which is different from "reversible"."

"Fair enough," Bastette said. "But why can't they come with us?"

"Well, Blue's a liability, for one," Sylphic said. "She's Black Arms, so for all we know, Doom could be spying on us through her eyes."

"Ah," Shadow said. "I suppose I should keep an eye on Sonic as well, then." He paused, realizing he was going to be stuck with his rival for the excursion. "Are you sure he can't come with you?"

Bastette shook her head. "Tails said that another Black Arms member stole the Emeralds. She also mentioned that Blue was talking in her sleep about Doom meeting us up here. So if that's the case, it would be unwise to add extra threats by letting them come with us," she said.

"Wouldn't it be unsafe to leave them with me?" Shadow asked.

"Perhaps," Bastette said. "But you have the Sapphire and Sonic's speed- you should be able to incapacitate them easily. But that shouldn't matter- Doom's influence is probably weakened by distance."

Shadow nodded. "You're right, I don't know what came over me. Even so, probable doesn't mean definitely."

Sylphic opened his mouth to speak when a violent boom shook the facility. "What on Earth was that?" he shouted.

"That… that was our cue," Tails said, rushing up to him. "Come on, he just sprung the trap."

"What trap?" Sylphic asked.

"The trap I predicted would go off," Tails said. "I still can't say it in front of…" Her eyes glanced at Blue.

"Say no more," Bastette said, turning. "Sylphic, lead us to the central control room."

"R-Right…" he said. It was clear that he was nervous as he turned.

As the trio left, Shadow stood and stared at Blue. She stared back at him. "I guess it's our turn. Let's get to the observation deck." He began to walk in the opposite direction and he looked at Sonic. "You're coming with."

"I wouldn't miss it for the world," Sonic replied.

"Best not say that now," Shadow said. "After all, the world is at stake." He gripped Blue's hand.

"Observation deck?" Blue asked. "What are we going to be observing there?"

"Well, we aren't exactly going to observe, but that's where I went to look at Earth. It's beautiful from up here." He smirked. "You've never been able to take in the world from the ground or from space, have you?"

"Nuh-uh," the alien said. She scratched at the side of her face. "I hope it's worth it- this place is like a maze."

"Yes," Shadow said. "An old friend of mine would agree with you there. She was always getting herself lost in here." His eyes were sad, but not as sad as they normally would have been, given that he had new information on her whereabouts.

"You look troubled," she said. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"I'm afraid not," Shadow said. "I don't know where she is."

"Well, that handy little device you got there should tell us what we need to know, right?" Sonic asked.

"Hopefully," Shadow said.

"You don't sound as certain as you did before," Sonic said. "What changed?"

"N-nothing, it's just…" Shadow took a deep breath in. "Maria brought up some frightening alternatives. I have no idea what would happen if I found out she'd been trapped in a place where nobody could hear her… like…"

Sonic put a hand on his shoulder. "Like the ARK?"

Shadow bit his lip and looked away from him.

"We will find her, no matter how many places we look," he said. He held out his pinky. "A thousand needles."

Shadow nodded and locked pinkies with him. "I won't give up, even if it feels like an eternity."

"Good, because I wasn't planning on giving up either," Sonic said. He bounded ahead. "Come on, we still have a ways to go."

Shadow smiled. "Let's go, Blue." As he looked down, he saw that she was no longer holding his hand, but rather scratching at a nearby door. The number pad was too tall for her to reach, so her fingernails scraped against the metal surface, unleashing a ghastly wail.

Shadow frowned and walked over before grabbing her hands. "Don't make that noise, it's annoying," he said.

"But I want in!" she said.

Shadow looked at the number on the door, then looked at the number pad. "You can't go in there," he said.

"Why not?" Blue pouted, putting her hands on her hips.

Shadow grumbled. "Because that's my room."

"That only makes me wanna go in more!" she said. "I can smell something in there."

Shadow groaned. "Blue…" he said, fiddling with the lock. He punched in the number and sighed as the little girl ran into the room. "Okay, fine, we will spend a minute in here, then we need to go to the deck," he said impatiently.

"Okay!" she said. She climbed up onto the bed and rocked a bit, noticing that the mattress, though worn from existence, was a bit springy. She rocked a bit more before standing up and bouncing.

"Blue…" Shadow said with a disappointed look. He crossed his arms. "That's not yours."

"But it's fun!" she said.

"We shouldn't even be in here, we're wasting time!" he said. His voice was getting agitated as his spines flared.

"What are you so impatient about?"

"I wanna see my best friend again and you're fooling around!" Shadow paused as he realized that he was getting loud.

Blue shook a bit, but seemed to get the message as she began crouching on the bed to get down. As she turned around, her foot slipped, and she fell to the floor, where a loose panel made a slight clattering sound. She sniffled.

Shadow frowned and came closer. "Listen, I'm just sad. I couldn't find her for fifty years and I just found out she's still alive."

"What's this?" Blue asked. She seemed unfazed by any of the events as curiosity took over.

"Huh?" Shadow asked.

Blue pulled the panel off the floor and grinned. "This is where the smell was coming from!" she said. "It's more sugar."

Shadow shook his head. "Don't touch that stuff, Blue, I…" He paused. It was probably old, and he'd forgotten about it long ago. Or at least, he'd tried to forget. "I'd really like to keep that for myself. It's a collection of the last good memories I had with her."

Blue paused as her hand touched one of the cans of lemonade. "Oh," she said, retracting her hand. "I… I had no idea. I'm sorry."

"It's… fine," Shadow said.

"You're a liar," Blue replied.

"Excuse me?" Shadow said, a bit offended.

"You're lying. You're not fine. In fact, you're even worse off than when I met you!" she said.

Sonic's head peeked through the door. "Um, are you two coming, or what? I found the deck and when I turned around, you two were gone."

Shadow stood up. "Y-yeah," he said.

"Mr. Sonic?" Blue asked, looking at Shadow. "What's this?" She held a gold and cream colored conch shell in her tiny hands.

Shadow thought for a moment. "I used to hold that to my ear and listen to the ocean since I'd never been there before," he said.

Blue looked at it for a moment before holding it to the side of her head. "Like this?"

Shadow nodded.

"It sounds so pretty!" she said. "I wonder what it's like there."

"Well, maybe once we have your memories back, you'd like to go there. After all, you said you'd try to get away from Doom." Shadow felt a smirk along his face. "What's nice about Earth is that you get to live where you want, with some exceptions."

"Hmmm…"Blue thought for a moment. "Can I take this with?" she asked.

Shadow nodded. "Please don't drop it, though- it's the only one I have."

"Okay." She stood up and walked towards the door. "Are you coming?"

Shadow nodded and pulled a lemonade from the space before replacing the panel. "Yeah," he said. "Just had to get a gift."

After travelling down the halls thanks to Sonic's scouting, they made it to the observation deck. The glass panels of the floor clinked as the Air Shoes on Sonic's feet hit them, and Shadow did his best to avoid the strange feeling of dread that would occasionally wash over him as he looked down.

Getting sucked into space didn't sound like a fun time. He remembered falling to what he had expected would be death. After all, atmospheric re-entry should have burned up his body before he managed to reach the ground. Somehow he'd survived, albeit damaged enough that his memory hadn't been fully doubt he'd probably lost body mass that needed to be grown back.

Blue looked down at Earth. "Wow, you weren't kidding!" she said. "It's amazing! What's all that blue?"

"That's the ocean," Shadow said. "Well, oceans- there are a bunch of them." He paused. "The way the Sun reflects off of the water in the ocean makes it blue since water absorbs red light."

"It's so pretty," Blue said. She laid on her stomach and pressed her face into the glass floor.

Sonic snickered. "Shadow, you're gonna go to the beach?" he asked. "Mind if I join you? I'd love to catch some rays."

Shadow pursed his lips. "I'd just go because it's nice to experience Earth." He walked over to the control panel and plugged in the device Tails had made. After a few simple inputs, he ran the scan. The loading bar seemed to tick up slowly, as though the computer were stuck in the 90s. "Oh, come on…" he groaned, setting the can of lemonade down.

"Well, we still have a few minutes, why not run the other scan?" Sonic said.

Shadow nodded and began working with the inputs on the computer. Sylphic's instructions were detailed, but occasionally he would come across an executable program that was off by a single letter and would almost mistakenly click on it. As neat as the penmanship was, Syll failed to mention just how frustrating the naming conventions of the files could get. "I swear, when we get off this tin can I'm going to have a strong word with him... " he muttered.

There was a loud beep before the list came up, and carefully he scanned through the list of names before he found Maria's. "Alright, let's see…" he said, clicking on the name. "The last scan of her bracelet was…"

Sonic watched as the light left Shadow's eyes. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"It says the last tracked scan was fifty years ago, in this room," he said. "So either she's been finding a way to get around without ever scanning to open a room, or…" He turned and began frantically typing. "There has to be some way she's gotten through. Maybe she has a bracelet from someone else, or…"

As he reset the search parameters, he found that nobody with a bracelet had scanned in over fifty years. As his heart began to sink, the sound of the life scan pierced his thoughts, and he looked at the results.

There were two blotches- one down near the central control room, and one in the room they were in. There were no other traces.

Sonic walked up to him. "Easy, Shadow, you-"

"No," he said.

"What?"

"Don't tell me to take it easy, don't tell me to calm down. I'm trying to find my friend. I lost her for what felt like forever, and the moment I thought I had her location pinned down she-"

"I made a promise, Shadow," Sonic said sternly. His voice lost all traces of joy and was replaced with a stern and steady resolve. "I don't know what's goin' through your head right now, but all I do know is that I'm going to help you find her. If she means that much to you, then that means it's my respons-"

"It's not your responsibility, it's mine!" Shadow replied. "You don't have to involve yourself but you do. Why? So you can be satisfied with helping?"

"Because you're my friend, Shadow. Friends don't let friends down," Sonic said. His voice grew colder. "You better remember that well."

Shadow felt a shudder run down his spine. For the first time, Shadow could hear Sonic sound like something other than Sonic. It wasn't Shadow's tone, and it wasn't Sonic either- it was more than just his rival. It was something behind him, something that drove the both of them- the sound of willpower.

Shadow wiped his eyes. "Do you mean that?" he said, trying to match his tone. "Don't say it unless you mean it."

"I wouldn't say it if I didn't mean it," Sonic replied.

Shadow was about to speak, when he felt Blue tugging at his arm. He looked down and sighed. "What's up, kid?" he asked.

"Here," she said, holding up the seashell. "The ocean will make you feel better."

Shadow took it for a moment before handing it back and moving away from the control panel. "You're sweet, but… I'm afraid it isn't always enough to-"

"Then what would make you happy?" she asked.

Shadow paused. "I'm not sure, but looking out of this window is nice," he said.

Blue scampered over to the window and pulled herself up onto the rail. "Look, isn't it wonderful?"

"I suppose so," he said, leaning on the rail next to her. "It's a great place to start with a clean slate," he said.

"What do you mean?" Blue asked.

"Well, when I first went down there, fifty years ago," he paused. "Well, more when I finally became my own person about a year ago, I guess you could say that I got a fresh start and I was allowed to do what I wanted, within reason," he said.

"I'd like to do that, too," she said. "Look over there," she said, pointing to a big storm hovering above the western side of Spagonia. "What's happening there?"

"It's raining again, from the looks of it," Shadow said.

Blue held the conch shell to her ear. "Listen, I can hear the rain from here!" she said.

"Blue that's-" he paused as she held the conch out to him. He gently took it and smiled. Maria used to do that- she'd see a storm and tell Shadow to listen for it. Then he'd say something about what he heard back to her, usually from the people of the country whose name they'd made up that week.

For a moment, he swore he could hear the rain. There was no way it was really rain, but his mind seemed to make it as real as ever. "It sounds so calm," he quietly replied.

"Yeah," Blue replied, caught in a trance as she watched the clouds pass over. " It rains and snows there. Kamarkia has some lovely weather, doesn't it?"

"Yes, it…" he trailed off.

"Huh?" Blue asked. "What's wrong?"

"What did… what did you say?" Shadow asked.

"I… I don't know," Blue replied. "I was just daydreaming."

Shadow nodded. It seemed like the ARK was a treasure trove, a place filled to the brim with a strange and curious color of mundane magic. He stood up and lifted Blue from the rail before carrying her over to a spot by the control panel.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Please," he asked. "Stay there. I'm… I'm fulfilling my end of the promise."

As he walked towards the center of the room, his fingers caressed the shell. He wasn't completely certain of his hunch but his gut feeling was almost never wrong. He pulled out the Sapphire and the handkerchief around it seemed to unravel in his one free hand. He turned around and faced her.

"Don't be scared, Blue, okay?" Shadow said. He looked at Sonic, who only smiled and nodded.

"O-Okay," Blue said. Her tail was tucked between her legs.

Shadow breathed in and held the stone up so they both could see. "Seven chimes…"