D-000

7 Days before launch.

"Du du do do….do dudu do….du duuu do do duuu do do…."

"You are an imbecile, Icarus."

"Hey, you don't get to call me an imbecile at my home, you know. Besides, no one told me you can't join me."

Itadori covers his face with his left hand and whispers "Kami-sama, kore ga anata no tesuto no hitotsuda to shitara, watashi wa gōkaku shite iru to wa omoemasen"

Icarus is simply laying there on his bed, staring at the ceiling while singing god knows what, while Itadori is stuck on a cheap, creaking office chair in front of the bed, shaking his legs slowly as he soothes the sleeping Angela, making sure she doesn't fall using his right hand.

A few moments pass, and Itadori takes a deep breath and looks at Icarus' direction, every muscle of him already regretting even speaking to him.

Itadori: "Tell me, Icarus, what do you know about your family's past?"

"Their past?" Icarus stops humming for a second, pondering Itadori's question for a moment before continuing. "Well, I see these images all the time, they are next to all these world leaders that we were taught about in school, all I really know is that they liked exploring the world and I guess had a lot of charisma or whatever to get next to all these people. Rumor has it that they air quotes 'converted' Ivo Robotnik into a air quotes again 'good guy', though I don't really buy it."

Itadori's dumbfoundedness from earlier is replaced by morbid curiosity.

Itadori: "So, how many times did you hear about a…Sonic the Hedgehog?"

"Guy named Sonic? Hmm…I think they mentioned he was a air quotes again 'old friend', but aside from that, I have no clue who he is…or was or whatever. Now, with that said…I have a question for you, Kujo."

"Hm?"

"What on Earth were you on about during ' lecture? The so called-"

Icarus raises his hands to air quote-

Itadori: "If you use your hands to air quote one more time, I swear to whatever God you believe in that I will amputate your arms and use them as fuel to burn down your house."

…

"...ahem, anyway, the Sonic Heroes or whatever, what kinda name even is that?"

"That…is no longer a concern. I apologise if I offended you by bringing up your mother."

Icarus is baffled by Itadori's change in attitude, and looks at him with an expression that screams 'Yeah, I don't buy it.'

Itadori: "Look, I was making a point about them hiding the past Sonic Heroes from everyone but those that benefit them…but…considering that they also kept it from their pride and joy…it's safe to say they do not discriminate."

"Huh? Who's their pride and joy?"

"I will repeat what I stated earlier: you are an imbecile, Icarus the Hedgehog."

"Tch, you sure are pretentious…"

As the conversation dies down, the front door of Icarus' house creaks open, Icarus and Itadori stand up and go to see what they believe to be Shadow, but they instead find Amy and Tails, holding an unconscious Cosmo.

Amy: "Oh…uh…Hi…Icarus…I suppose you made a friend?"

Tails leans in to whisper, covering his mouth from the side.

Tails: "Amy, that's Kujo's kid with him."

"Hey, Kujo, I don't suppose you will kill me cause of association, right?" asks Amy without missing a beat, seemingly not feeling very threatened by Itadori.

Icarus: "I…feel like you should have other concerns right now, mother."

Amy: "Huh?" She glances sideways and sees Cosmo, still out of it.

"Oh right…" she continues. "Speaking of which, where is your father?"

Icarus: "He said he's checking for something before heading back here, but what is he supposed to do? She needs a hospital!"

Tails: "I doubt a hospital would do anything for someone like her…"

Icarus: "Who even is she?!"

Itadori: "If I may interject…I stayed silent because this was your household and I respected your rules…however ... ! I find it disgusting you are even trying to give this…devil…any sort of help!"

The three stop bantering and all look towards the Kujo, confused in their faces from his insult. The only sound in the room was deafening silence, that was then interrupted by Angela crying in Itadori's arms, almost as if she too didn't approve.

Before Itdaori can elaborate, another figure makes it through the door.

"Good, you are all here…" Shadow enters the scene. The baby Angela stops crying when she glances at Shadow and instead gets filled with awe as she lets out a small giggle.

Tails: "Shads! Long time no see!"

Shadow: "Please don't call me that, it makes me feel young..." He stops to take a deep breath, as if preparing to say the words laying most dormant in his soul…

"...and hip."

Amy giggles at the irony of the interaction, Icarus is simply baffled as to how all these people know each other without him having the slightest clue.

Itadori: "Why have you gathered us all here, Shadow the Hedgehog?"

Shadow: "Right, might as well skip the formalities…Rose, Tails, take a seat."

The two look behind them and find three wooden chairs lined up for them that weren't there before. Amy gives Shadow a nod of approval as they lay Cosmo on the middle seat, while Icarus smirks at the sight. He really wasn't the only one. Still smiling brightly, Icarus sits on the ground.

Shadow: "As you all saw a few moments ago, Central City was hit by a series of attacks. We thought it was-"

Shadow stops as he notices Amy giving him nods in Icarus' direction. Icarus notices and speaks up.

"You don't have to hide it from me anymore, Father already told me everything."

Amy then looks at Shadow and mouths off "Everything?"

Subtly, Shadow shakes his head.

Amy looks relieved, while Tails actually looks more worried.

Shadow: "As I was saying, we thought it was a natural, unexpected meteor shower that nobody detected for whatever reason, but it was actually a series of attacks orchestrated by someone from the outside."

Icarus: "Outside the city?"

Itadori rolls his eyes.

Shadow: "No, outside the world. Similar attacks were found in other places, such as the North pole and the Land of the Sun. Seven locations, in fact, and what they all have in common is…"

Tails: "Those were the spots where we held the seven chaos emeralds…"

Icarus recalls hearing about those emeralds. 7 Powerful gems, divided into each major continent of the planet, power the entire world without any pollution. According to history books written by Miles, their use became widespread at the brink of the planet's ecosystem collapsing due to something dubbed 'Climate Change', which was a byproduct of the fossil fuels era. Strangely, the book never mentioned how they were discovered or who made them, but they go into great detail into how they use its 'Chaos Energy' and convert it into all sorts of uses, including practically infinite electricity. The only real weakness of these emeralds is that they can only output so much energy at a time, so they cannot simply use a single emerald to power the world. There was a rumour back in middle school, about that if one were to obtain all 7 emeralds and gather them in one place, a miracle would occur. Considering everything Icarus has heard up to that point, he is inclined to believe it.

Shadow: "Precisely, Miles. Now, we have contingency plans in place to combat malicious entities from obtaining the emeralds. It has been historically noted that the emeralds when under extreme distress disperse across the planet at random as some sort of defence mechanism, so the contingency plan involved intentionally causing this distress, making them spread far away from the wrong hands and giving us a window to re-secure…however…it seems that they were overcharged beyond reasonable measures…and as a consequence, they have spread across the entire galaxy."

Tails: "Well, we have reserves that will last us around 5 years, so I will get started on finding and contacting those planets and will negotiate a return offer. Shouldn't be too much of a problem. What about those that attacked us?"

"Are they nuts?!" Icarus screams in his subconscious. All Shadow told him was that the Sonic Heroes had extraordinary powers and used it to bring peace to the world, not that they already figured out intergalactic communication!

Shadow: "We still have no idea who they were, we will try to get a picture from…" Shadow pauses as he realises he doesn't know the unconscious girl's name.

Amy: "She said her name's Cosmo."

"Right, we will try to get a clear picture from Cosmo over here. Camera footage was useless, they were in and out far too fast and only left behind mere blurs, so they seem to either have advanced tech on their hands or posses incredible speed. Adding to that, the pods that appeared to us as Meteors, they are already long gone. GUN has done us the late favour of sealing off the atmosphere from anything on the outside. Tails, you mentioned we have 5 years to spare, yeah? Make them 2, we aren't running the risk of them beating us to the punch."

"Not…fast…enough…" Cosmo begins to come to, her eyes fluttering back to life. Itadori gives her a disgusting glare.

Shadow: "Hm?"

"Those…those bastards…they move fast…2 years is 2 years too slow. Knowing them, they…they are already heading towards the first planet."

Shadow: "And we are supposed to believe that…why?"

Cosmo begins to stand up straight as she gains more and more of her senses.

"The people that attacked you…they are the same ones I was running away from. They enslaved my home planet in moments, leaving no witnesses, and extracted its life energy to fuel their tyrannical schemes, keeping me alive almost…almost like a souvenir. The Metarix is what they call themselves."

Itadori becomes intrigued, and his look of hostility fades a bit. "Life energy, you say?"

"Yes, they extract a planet's resources and use it to power up their army. Purely mechanical servants, they have no soul and no motive. If they were perhaps people beneath all the metal armour, they are long dead."

Icarus is baffled. This doesn't make any sense, who are these people? Why are they acting like this is no big deal? They have means of intergalactic communication and all these special abilities that they hid for so long, but they are letting people like those 'Metarix' run amuck? Surely there is some sort of 'space police' to keep people them in check, right?! Do these 'Metarix' even count as people? There is an alien in his living room!

Miles: "They must have gotten tired of extracting a whole planet everytime they needed energy, so they came for the emeralds."

Cosmo: "Truth be told, I do not know what they demand from your planet, but if you are saying what they are after is out there, then you mustn't let them have it. I do not know what sort of destruction they might cause if they obtain something as fierce as an infinite energy resource, but it cannot be taken lightly."

Shadow: "Well, to be frank, I find what you say hard to believe considering what we faced before…but, the consequences of you being right are too high. Change of plans, then. Miles, I need you to contact the good Doctor, work together on a ship to enable us to travel to these planets as soon as possible."

Miles: "I will get it done, but something that advanced…it would take months, maybe years. We don't have that type of time!"

Cosmo: "Can't you use my pod as a basis? It's still in place, and I doubt their tech would be damaged with something as insignificant as a planet landing."

Miles: "I…yeah, actually! That works. Simply expanding the base design would take a day, maybe 2 at the most…"

Shadow: "Take a week, we can't risk something going wrong. Besides, we need an energy detector strong enough to not lose signal of the emeralds across planets. Oh, and…make it big enough to fit three."

Miles: "On it." Tails gets up, waves goodbye and rushes out of the house before spinning his tails and flying away.

Shadow: "Now, as you saw me say earlier, 3 people will go on this trip, and it will last a while. A year, maybe more. We do not know what sort of firepower they have, so keeping that in mind, I will be going as the oldest veteran here."

Itadori steps forward.

Itadori: "If I may…While it is true that the Sonic Heroes and the Kujo clan have not been on the best of terms, a threat of this size is too important for grudges to remain. We are to assume that they know everything about your previous…endeavours, and the Kujo family has remained out of sight for decades. Due to these reasons, as well as the fact that they are unlikely to predict my powers and abilities, I believe myself to be a prime candidate to go on this trip."

Shadow nods in approval.

Icarus can barely keep up with any of this. Aliens, world ending threats, his professor from college suddenly agreeing to make a ship capable of galactic travel in a week, all happening within an hour at most from when he discovered he wasn't the only one with supernatural abilities.

Despite this…

…

Icarus stands up.

Shadow: "Son, what are you-"

"I want to go too."

"This isn't something you want to go on-"

"No. please, Father. All this time, I thought I was practically alone in this, but now you tell me that there are so many others like me, and you just…expect me to turn around and go back to pretending the most unique part about me doesn't exist? I desperately want to help people, you can't just give me a chance to do the thing I want the most and tell me I can't have it!"

"Icarus, please, you have no stake in something this grand. You aren't ready…look, I know all of this is a lot to take in, however I-"

"Oh yeah?! You think?!"

Amy: "Well, Icarus-"

"I'll be going, too." stood up Cosmo, completely ignoring Icarus. "I am the one most familiar with them and their tactics, besides, I doubt you would trust me to be left alone on your planet anyhow."

The room falls silent. Icarus looks down on the ground, feeling like an ant getting stepped on as he sits down in Tails' seat in defeat. Amy tries to reach out and grab Icarus' shoulder, but he pulls it away from her the second he feels her touch. Shadow sighs at the sight of his ashamed son, but then turns to Cosmo and says "Very well."

Itadori, Shadow and Cosmo all walk out of the house, closing the door behind them and leaving Amy and Icarus alone.

Immediately, Icarus stands up and begins to walk towards his room.

Amy: "Icarus, wait-"

SLAM!

The door of Icarus' door is slammed shut, soon after, the sounds of the room locking are heard echoing through the house.

Amy: "Geez, those middle-eastern moms really weren't kidding about teenagers…"

Icarus is not heard from for the rest of the day.

And so, the countdown to the galactic adventure begins…

6 Days to go.