D-006

19 hours before launch.

"Shadowwww, where are we going?"

"We are almost there, Rose, almost there."

"Ugh, you have been saying this for the last 10 minutes, I hate being blindfolded, you know…."

"I know, I know, we are almost there."

…

"We stopped-wh-what's going on?"

"We are here."

"So…can I…"

"Sure, but do you mind if I am the one who takes them off?"

"I guess if you want to, go ahead."

Amy eyes flutter as Shadow takes off the soft cyan coloured blindfold off of her, then she takes in what is in front of her.

At first, she couldn't see a thing as her eyes adjusted to the sudden entrance of sunlight. Slowly but surely, her sight becomes more and more focused.

In front of her, was a shop integrated into the side of a building. Around the width of 2 and a half cars, she thinks. Blue pillars and a squeaky-clean glass entrance caused her attention to be drawn to the enormous title, written in golden letters.

"Totally Real Bakery."

Amy playfully rolls her eyes and looks back towards Shadow.

Shadow: "So…what do you think?" His tone is almost anxious.

She is silent.

Shadow's expression reeks of worry.

Amy: "You son of a …"

And then she bursts into laughter as she gives him one of the better hugs Shadow has ever gotten, before pulling back soon after.

Amy: "I…how…when did you even…"

Shadow: "Well, I figured since Icarus inherited the whole speed thing, I thought I might as well put him to good use."

"Oh, Icarus helped with this too?! I…I should go in and thank him-"

As Amy turns around, Shadow softly places his hand on her shoulder.

Amy: "What's wrong?"

Shadow: "You will get to thank Icarus soon enough…but first…"

He looks ahead at the shop entrance. Amy notices and looks over there too.

"...there is someone I'd like you to meet."

Amy squints her eyes as she witnesses the glass door gently open and close. A tall, slender anthropomorphic sungazer lizard with orange fur and a warm, peach colour on her arms and two white gloves paired up with a dark brown metal cuff on each of her wrists. Two short eyelashes poke from her eyes, with three yellow spikes poking out of her darker-coloured forehead. A striking brown and orange zigzag-striped tail wiggles softly as she stands there shyly, wearing an innocent dark blue apron on top of her sleeveless shirt and dark tights. Her shoes are a pair of rusted metal boots with ginger-coloured toes.

The girl stands with her hands held together in a stance bursting with innocent demure, trying to avoid eye contact. However, Amy doesn't need to look at her eyes to recognize her.

Amy: "TRIP!"

Amy dashes forward and jumps into Trip's arms.

Trip: "h-hey…" An extremely soft-spoken young lady, her voice never goes any higher than a whisper.

Amy pulls back to get a good look at her.

Amy: "It really has been a 'long time no see', you have grown so much!"

Trip: "r-really?"

Amy, seemingly barring no mind Trip's shyness, takes a look at Trip from all possible angles, taking in all her changes.

Amy: "Of course you have! You look amazing!"

Trip: "th-thank you…"

Amy: "I…where have you been?! How's the island?! Did someone give you trouble while we were gone?!"

Trip: "i…well…"

Shadow walks forward and interjects.

Shadow: "Woah, woah, slow down on her, Rose. One question at a time, I barely keep up with you sometimes."

Amy: "Y-yeah, of course, sorry, I…I just missed you so much!"

Trip: "me too…i am so happy i got to…see you…" Trip almost looks like a tomato from how much she's blushing.

Amy: "AWWW ME TOO!"

She jumps into Trip's arm once more, this time Trip actually has time to hug her back. Shadow looks away from the scene and finds Icarus putting down what appears to be the last of a set of decorative flowers on the wooden tables, before giving him a "?" gesture through the glass window. Shadow gives him a thumbs up, and Icarus pumps his hand downwards in a "Yes!" He turns around to give Cosmo a high five, but she simply rolls her eyes and walks away, leaving him hanging. Icarus disappointingly drops his arms and pouts, before shrugging and walking off opposite to Cosmo, seemingly attending to another part of the preparation.

Shadow walks into the shop, smiling at the little bell signalling someone entering, before looking to his side and seeing Itadori, hiding behind a pillar and seemingly not doing anything around the shop. Shadow signals him to come with him to one of the tables, and as they walk, he does the same towards Cosmo . Icarus takes a glance at this from the other side, and takes a step forward to join them. However, he hesitates as he sees Miles come out of seemingly nowhere with photographs. He figures those must be the planets the emeralds got stuck on, and he also figures that this seems to be none of this business. Why couldn't it be? He groans and walks to the back, hoping to just ignore the subject until it forgets itself, cause at this point, pondering what he should do is going absolutely nowhere. He puts on a dark blue apron and starts working at the bakery.

After a few moments, the welcome bell rings once more. Icarus walks out of the back and sees Amy and Trip enter.

Amy: "Oh, Icarus!"

She sprints over and jumps in his arms the same way she did for Trip, giving him a muffled embrace and causing her yells of "thank you!" to be barely audible.

After what feels like an eternity, she finally lets go of Icarus and quickly notices Trip awkwardly standing there.

Amy: " Oh! Where are my manners? Trip, meet Icarus. Icarus, meet Trip!"

Icarus: "Yo, Trip!" He raises his hand in a "hello!" gesture "Glad to meet you!"

Despite Trip being around the Sonic Heroes for decades at this point, their energetic greetings somehow never get any easier to deal with.

Trip: "p-pleasure to meet you, too…"

She looks up for just a moment as a sign of respect, but then her look becomes…puzzled.

Icarus: "Is there something on my face or…"

Trip: "no no…it's just…you remind me of someone."

Icarus: "Well, I have no idea who you are referring to, but I will take it as a compliment."

Trip: "it is a compliment…that someone was…he was nice. I…miss him sometimes."

Icarus isn't really sure how to continue the conversation from that point, so he looks at his mother for any sign as to how to proceed. However…Amy looks uncharacteristically sad. A far cry from her cheerful appearance mere seconds ago.

Amy: "Trip, Icarus is hard at work, let's take a seat and not interrupt him any further, okay?"

Trip: "Oh…okay, yeah. It was nice meeting you…Icarus."

They walk off and take a seat…Icarus wonders about the interaction and wonders "what the hell was that about", and then wonders why a lot of conversations lately end with him thinking "what the hell was that about?"

For the rest of the shift, not a single customer came, and so Icarus spent the entire time practically twirling his thumbs in the back, leaning his back on one of the closed ovens.

Then, near the end of the shift, loud cranking of metallic footsteps approached him.

Trip: "hey…"

Icarus turns around to see the source of what sounds like a whisper, only to find Trip shyly standing at the kitchen entrance.

Icarus: "Oh, what's up?"

Trip: "i…didn't mean to make you uncomfortable earlier…i'm sorry."

Icarus' very soul sinks at her apology, before giving her a reassuring smile.

Icarus: "No worries, Trip. I barely noticed it anyway. I hope you had fun!"

Trip: "I…I did! The food…it was…really…good!"

Icarus: "Really?"

Trip: "Yes!"

Realizing how 'loud' she was, she covers her mouth and looks away, her shoulders slumping in the process. Icarus chuckles at the innocent sight.

Icarus: "I am glad you liked it; you are welcome anytime."

Trip: "l-looking forward to it…!" She practically forces herself to lift her head up, but she gives Icarus a beautiful, kind-hearted and genuine flash of a smile before quickly walking out.

Icarus is left with what can only be described as a shit-eating grin by the end of the interaction. He stops leaning and sighs as he begins the clean-up process.

Meanwhile, Amy waves goodbye to Trip one final time as she gets out of the store. Then, she walks over to Shadow's table.

Amy: "Yo!"

Shadow: "Hey, took ya long enough. We were just about to wrap up, we need plenty of rest-"

Amy: "B-but…well…I kinda wanted us to…"

Amy gets weirdly shy and looks away from Shadow.

Shadow: "Man, you still have it in you to talk?"

Amy smiles but doesn't look up at him.

Shadow: "Alright everyone, go to your homes or whatever, and see you at the launch site."

Miles, Itadori and Cosmo all stand up and walk out of the store and then spread in different directions.

Amy, still smiling, sits down on the chair opposite to Shadow.

Shadow: "So…why did she leave so soon?"

Amy: "Oh, you know how our guardian friends are…always wayyy too paranoid even with Tails' tech monitoring the place…"

Shadow does a slight eye roll: he was being sarcastic, but decides to roll with it.

Shadow: "Those sure have gotten less and less over the years…"

Amy: "I know, right? It's kinda odd to think about how Trip really is the only person still on that whole guarding duty. I wonder if she can just do what Knuckles did and just…dissolve it or whatever."

"Eh, I doubt it. The Master Emerald always had some level of sentience to it, which I doubt the egg or whatever she is guarding has."

"Yeah…I guess you are right…I gotta tell you though, I really miss Angel Island. I only got to visit it a couple of times in my entire life, can you believe that?"

"I mean…it's still there if you want to go to it."

"Yeah, but, I don't know…it's just not the same after it stopped being a floating island, you know? Now it's just…an island. Sure, cool ruins and all…but…"

"Yeah yeah, I get it. I am not sure if I would like to visit the space colony so much if it was just…on Earth."

"Yes! You get it! Tails always goes on about 'Well, it's 'technically' the same thing-' like NO, obviously it's NOT!"

"You know, I have been meaning to ask, where did that nickname even come from?"

"What? You mean the name 'Tails'? From…his two tails, obviously."

"No no, I meant…who was the first person to call him that?"

"I…huh, I guess I never thought of that. All I remember was Sonic being all like 'Amy, meet Tails. Tails, meet Amy' and I only knew his name was Miles like…YEARS later, ha!"

"That guy sure was something…"

"He really was…"

They both go silent for a moment.

…

Amy claps her hands to snap the mood back in.

Amy: "So! The trip is tomorrow, how do you feel?"

Shadow: "No strong feeling in particular, honestly. I just want it over with…"

"Well…if you don't want to go…"

"For the last time Rose: no. I am not sending Icarus up there. Come on, we talked about this."

"Okay, but…look, can't you just…fit him in somehow and you keep an eye on him and teach him and…all that stuff…?"

"Then he would just get in the way."

"Alright…but…"

"Oh my-"

"Hear me out on this:...Fusion."

"No."

"Come on! It's perfect!"

"Absolutely not."

"Why not? It multiplies your strength, he literally cannot get in the way at that point, you get to teach him all you want, he can fit in the 3 persons design that Tails is making-"

"It is also incredibly unrefined, we have no idea what happens to the people inside if the fusion gets critically wounded and it can very easily be countered by an enemy who knows it's coming. Till this day, I have no idea what would happen if me and that hedgehog got to attempt fusion again. I am not putting Icarus through that risk."

"Yeah…makes sense."

…

Icarus thinks to himself that he really should stop listening to these without context, because seriously, that was mostly gibberish with very odd buzz words thrown around.

He walks out of the perfectly clean kitchen and goes towards his parents.

Icarus: "Yo!"

Amy: "Oh, hey Icarus. Sorry, did we take a while or-"

Icarus: "Not at all, I was just about done."

Shadow: "So were we, right Rose?"

Amy: "Yep, thank you guys again for today…seriously."

Icarus: "It was all dad's idea, no need to thank me."

Amy smiles in gratitude before standing up with Shadow.

Amy: "Well, we are going home, your father needs plenty of rest for tomorrow."

Shadow: "You got that right…"

Amy and Shadow turn to leave, waving goodbye to their son.

Icarus: "Wait! I…"

They turn right back around.

Amy: "What is it, Icarus?"

Icarus blushes slightly, not really making full eye contact anymore.

Icarus: "Can I…can I come tomorrow to the launch…so I…can say goodbye?"

Though he would never admit it, Shadow's heart skips a beat.

Shadow: "Yeah, sure thing I guess."

They both turn away again, leaving the shop behind. Icarus doesn't stay very long inside either. He closes the store under lock and key for the day, before heading home himself, practically dropping himself on his bed the second he enters.

Icarus, once again, finds himself staring at the ceiling. At this point, he questions if it will begin staring back at him. He immediately thinks that thought is nothing short of stupid, so he turns his attention away to the sunset. It's the last sunset his father will see for a while. Or, well, the last Earth sunset he will ever see. What do other planets' sunsets look like? Do they even have sunsets? Pondering all the possibilities his mind can muster; the time evaporates away and the shining sun is replaced by the glowing white moon.

Today was a "full moon" day in the lunar month cycle, meaning that the entire shape is seen as is for the world to see. However, Icarus never understood why it was called a "full moon" phase if it only showed the same half of the moon it always did. The only difference was that the ring of rocks seemed to fully cover the moon around this time. Maybe there was an ancient time period out there where the moon was simply a whole sphere, and the name just stuck even after whatever environmental shenanigans caused it to only be a half-sphere. He knows other planets in the solar system have whole moons, but he wonders about these other civilisations out there. What does it feel like to look up in the sky and see an actual full sphere for a moon? But perhaps this is for the better. After all, it gives a better view of the stars.

What are the odds that one of these stars acts as the sun to one of the planets the Chaos Emeralds currently reside in?

…

Those stars give life to countless planets…

How many of them used that life, but no longer can because of the Metarix?

…

How many of them are using that life, but will no longer be able to because of the Metarix?

…

Maybe he should go up there and find out.