"Hailey!" Charles screeched for his fiancée.

Hailey grit her teeth at her attacker, and then she turned to Charles with a shocked and worried expression. She tossed away the Toppat and ran for the escape pod.

Yes!

The escape pod launched.

No!

Charles approached escape pod door and spread his hands onto the glass, not daring to move them away. He was sure that was the love of his life, standing in a space station that was about to explode.

Hailey's POV

Hailey heaved, the Toppat was down. She had knocked him out.

That's what you get.

Hailey looked around anxiously. There were no more escape pods.

She heard the earpiece she had received from the government buzz in. "Hailey! Are you okay!?" It was her worried fiancé's voice.

"Yeah... I'm okay..." Hailey breathed, looking around. "My chest hurts though, it's hard to breathe..."

"It's okay, Hailey. Just find a way out of there, and we can get you a medic. I promise."

Hailey looked around again. All the escape pods had been taken. "Charles, there-" She took a good look around one more time. "There isn't a way out."

"NONONO! The-There has to be! You're Hailey Stickmin, for god's sake! You can find a way outta there!" Charles protested.

Hailey sighed and sat down. The sirens were echoing in her ears. "Listen for two minutes, Charles..." She struggled to say. "Two goddamn minutes, okay?"

"Okay..."

"J-Just hear me out... I'm gonna die here..." Hailey stopped and took a struggled breath of the thin oxygen that she was surrounded by. "But I want you to know..." She heaved again, then glanced at the bright light that was emerging from the core. "I love y-"

She didn't get to finish, the space station blew up in a loud, bright, and firey explosion.

Charles' POV

"HAILEY NOOO!" Charles screeched. "HAILEY!" His voice cracked. "PLEASE, I NEED YOU! DON'T DO THIS TO ME!" He panted a few times. "HAILEY!"

No response.

"Hailey! You can't do this to me..! Why..." Charles slammed his fist onto the glass and he slid down to the escape pod floor onto his knees. "It should've been me." He breathed. "Dammit, Hailey." He then laughed. "Of course it was you, and not me, how inconvenient. Why did it have to be you!?" He slammed his fist on the glass again.

Charles managed to slump himself backwards and look up, looking at the sunset that had bled onto the landscape. He barely managed to stand, and he pressed the button to open the escape pod door.

There was Victoria Grit waiting for him to open the escape pod door. "Put your hands where I can see them!" She immediately shouted, aiming her rifle at Charles.

Charles whipped to face her and raised his hands. His eyes and throat stinging, his body sore. He just laughed.

Victoria immediately lowered her rifle. "Charles Calvin!?" She blinked in shock. "I'm sorry, I thought you were a Toppat." She stepped back to let Charles leave the escape pod.

"That's the least of my concerns right now." Charles sniffed, stepping out of the metal pod.

"Are you crying? What's wrong?"

"Well, I found out that Hailey is actually alive, first of all-"

"Oh, that's great!" Victoria had joy in her tone. "So... Where is she?"

Charles let out a laugh of sympathy for himself. "The explosion."

"Oh..."


"General!"

Galeforce glanced up.

Charles forced himself to present himself to the general, but he wasn't the one speaking.

"The Toppat station's been destroyed."

"Excellent news." Galeforce nodded. He then glanced over at Charles. "What's wrong?" He asked, his voice softening into a sympathetic.

Charles couldn't help but laugh. "How would you feel if your girlfriend died, you found out she was actually alive and met up with her again, proposed to her, went to take down the Toppats together, and then you had to watch the space station explode with her on it?"

Galeforce didn't respond.

"It should've been me who was left behind! Not her!"

"Sounds like you had a rough go at it, Charlie..."


Charles tried to keep the laughter in his throat down by seeing Hailey's grave, but it escaped his mouth. "Dammit. I love you, Hailey."

...

"Heh. I suppose I won't be needing this anymore." Charles glanced down at the ring that was on his finger, and he slid it off, placing it in front of Hailey's grave.

He stepped back, and he glanced back up at the grave again.

He sighed and shook his head, a few tears leaving his eyes and rolling down his face. He lifted his hand to salute her. She did die a hero. "Thank you, Hailey. Thank you for saving and changing my life."