It was a quiet day on Moebius. It was late June, only a few days before a certain trio's 21st birthday. The sky was a solid, cloudy gray, blocking out the sun and sending a slight chill up everyone's arms. An orange portal opened in the middle of a large cemetery, on the outskirts of Mobotropolis. Two hedgehogs stepped out, one blue and one green, before the portal silently closed.

"This is the place," Scourge muttered, his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. His voice was low, and he was acting more reserved than usual. "Thanks for the lift, Z."

"No prob," the Zone Cop said, hiding his portal belt under his t-shirt. "You gonna be okay? You know you don't have to do this."

The green hedgehog shrugged. "I want to. S'bout time I paid the old man a visit." He sniffed. "Wanna come back for me later? I might be here a while."

"Yeah, just gimme a call. I'm gonna wander around a bit," Zonic said, lifting his arms up and crossing them behind his head. "I've been stuck on No Zone for a while. It's nice to be somewhere with grass every now and then," he smirked, turning away.

He walked off, leaving Scourge alone in front of an impressively large tombstone. Scourge glared at the thing, unable to glare at the person buried beneath it. He crossed his arms sourly. "I'd say happy Father's Day, but you don't deserve it," he grunted towards the stone.

The stone didn't reply. Naturally. It only said the same thing it always said: Here lies Jules Hedgehog. Governor. Husband. Father. Seeker of Peace. It had a picture of his face, which Scourge tried not to focus on, and the dates of his birth and death. Death via bullet through the skull, of course.

"I shouldn't even be here. I still hate your guts. You're still in my fuckin' know how glad I am that you're gone?" the hedgehog growled, eyes lingering on the death date. He'd done that. Just thinking about it made his stomach do loop-de-loops. He'd put the bullet through his head. Through his father's head. He orphaned himself. As much as Scourge hated his old man… His fists clenched, and his eyes fell to half mast. "I shouldn't have killed you," he gritted out, his voice so low it sounded hoarse. "I hate you with everything I got, but I shouldn't've killed you."

He sighed. A gust of wind crawled through the graveyard, rustling tall grass that needed to be cut. Looked like people on Moebius had better things to do than tend to cemeteries. They were probably still rebuilding after the calamity that was "King Scourge." It was just as well. The hedgehog didn't want to see anyone else right now, much less random landscapers.

"You know you're the only person I've ever killed? Only guy I had a direct hand in killing, and it was my dad. How shitty is that?" He almost laughed, except he felt sick to his stomach. "You were an asshole. A huge one. But... so was I, and I got better. Kinda. So… fuck."

Scourge slowly sank down to the ground, something tickling at the back of his throat. He coughed to make it go away. He sat in the tall grass, the tall, thin blades itching against his chest. He ran his thumb over the thick scars there, feeling the rough texture of the raised skin. "I changed a hell of a lot since then. And that's what sucks. Maybe you could'a changed too. Probably not. I didn't even consider tryin' the hero thing until I hit rock fuckin' bottom. You had it easy yer whole life. You were completely content being a dick to mom an' completely ignoring me. So somehow, I doubt you would've ever changed. You'd just be an asshole til' you died, bitter and alone."

He closed his eyes as the tickle in his throat came back. "I'm sorry," he choked out, almost a whisper. "I shouldn't've killed you. You were an asshole, and maybe you deserved to die, but it wasn't my choice to make. But I did it, and I can't undo it or take it back. I just have to live with it. Live with the fact that I killed you, I set myself down this shitty path that took me, like, ten years to get off of. It took me that long to get to an okay place. Fuckin' hell…"

He sat there for a while, not saying anything. He wasn't sure how long it was, probably close to an hour. He didn't know what to say. Not like anyone besides him would hear. His dad was dead, after all. But his mouth couldn't form any words. His jumbled thoughts couldn't be translated into a proper sentence. So he sat there, too uncomfortable to move, thoughts too heavy to let out into the summer air.

Scourge heard footsteps crunching through the tall grass. His ears flicked upward, and he turned his head to look behind him. Zonic was walking up the hill, a white paper bag in one hand and a six-pack of beers in the other.

"You've been out here for a while," the blue hedgehog said as he approached. He sat down next to Scourge, setting the beers down between them. "So I got snacks. Hope you like fast food." He crossed his legs as he pulled paper-wrapped cheeseburgers out of the bag.

Scourge took one, not unwrapping it yet. "Is this really the place for a picnic?"

Zonic shrugged one shoulder. "We can always move, if you want. Didn't know if you wanted to stick around here or not."

"I… I dunno. I don't feel like I've said enough." The green one pulled his knees up to his chest, resting his head on them. "But I don't know what else to say."

"Well," Zonic took a bite of his burger, "ish kinda hard, 'cush you hate 'im." He swallowed. "Usually you visit a grave because you miss someone, but…"

"Yeah. I don't miss him at all," Scourge sighed. He grabbed one of the beers and popped it open. "I just… feel… guilty, I guess." He lifted the beverage to his lips, taking just a small sip. His stomach was still in knots, his whole abdomen feeling tight. He should probably take it easy with food and drink for the time being. "No amount of apologizing or sitting at his stupid grave will make me feel better about it. I thought it might, but…"

The Zone Cop's expression fell, his shoulders drooping just a bit. "I know how you feel," he said softly, pulling his burger away from his mouth. "You made a mistake. You wish you hadn't, you wish you could just go back and make sure it never happened. No amount of 'I'm sorry' will ever make up for it."

Scourge knew him well enough to know that he wasn't just guessing here. He was talking from experience. "Yeah? What'd you do?"

Zonic was silent. Neither of them moved. Scourge realized that question might've been too personal, but Z answered. "I dragged my brother into a battle that wasn't his. It didn't end well."

Scourge's blue eyes wavered, having a hard time focusing on Zonic's face. He drifted down to the cop's hands, seeing his exposed wrist tattoo. Orange and blue stripes.

'Dammit,' Scourge thought, averting his eyes again and staring at the six-pack, currently a five-pack. After a moment's hesitation, he grabbed another one of the cans and offered it to Zonic. "A toast. To being fuckups."

The No Zoner gave a slight grin as he accepted the can, popping the top open. "To being fuckups." They clinked the two cans together, each taking a drink.

A small gap in the cloudy sky let a bit of light through, warming and casting shadows on the cemetery and its visitors. The breeze that blew slowly through didn't feel quite so chilly, and Scourge didn't feel quite so bad anymore. He took another sip.

'Then again,' he thought, 'that could just be the beer talking.'

Notes: This is going to be the last chapter of Cosmic Tech for the foreseeable future. I just have other projects that are interesting me way more right now, and there's only so many times I can write chapters without a big conflict. I dunno. Maybe when Forces comes out I'll be inspired to write a proper sequel to Time Warp? I hope so, but until then, I'm gonna take a nice long break from this story. I'm not gonna say it's dead, but Cosmic Tech is on hiatus. Thank you all for understanding!

If you liked this chapter, please leave a review! See you around! :)