(YAY! We're reaching the end. ^w^ I can't wait to begin publishing the next story. We're only two away from modern times.)
It was March 27th, 2018, and Honest was walking to lunch with Dina.
"So, what did you do while I was gone?" the pink and white hedgehog asked.
Honest had worked on coloring in the hair of a person she had drawn only an outline of yesterday. She found the perfect shade of green (no, it wasn't Scourge she was drawing), and went to go sharpen it. The pencil sharpener somehow broke and wouldn't sharpen her pencil. Honest was too upset to try to fix it, so she went to go fish out an already sharpened green colored pencil from the box. She found it eventually and was able to color the girl's hair in, but she had exhausted four different pencils in order to do it.
"I broke the pencil sharpener and exercised my coloring muscle," Honest told her in summary.
Dina didn't reply and instead began to hum. Honest recognized that tune almost instantly.
"That's the cover I uploaded this morning!" she exclaimed. Dina nodded.
"Yes! I had some extra time second period, so I used that time to watch some of your videos," Dina told her, beaming. "Your songs are amazing!" she exclaimed.
Honest replied with a "thank you", and then they both focused back on the path they were walking on. This morning Dina had offered to start walking with Honest every day instead of Shadow. Since they had the same class fifth period, it was easier for Dina to just follow Honest out so that Shadow didn't have to wait for her at the door since his class let out earlier than hers. Honest was extremely grateful because she hated walking alone.
"Did you know?" Honest asked. Dina looked back up at her. "My birthday just so happens to land on Good Friday this year."
"Good Friday?" Dina asked. "What do you do on Good Friday?"
"Beats me," Honest said, shrugging. "There are a lot of weird holidays like that. The name implies that day is going to be pleasant, though!"
Dina thought a second. "Actually, I think it has something to do with the day that Je-"
"Hey, Honest! Are you going to lunch? Can I walk with you? Er, fly?"
It was Charmy the Bee. He flew out of nowhere and startled them. "Who is this?"
Honest looked over at Dina. "This is Dina the Hedgehog. She's one of my OCs."
"Aww! I thought she was a new character from Forces or something!" he said.
Honest knew why he was there. He was there because Honest now owned two games with him in them. Sort of like how Jet had shown up one day because there was a slim possibility that one of the two games she had gotten for her Wii could've been Riders, but now he was gone because the possibility is gone. Despite him being gone again, Honest didn't seem too affected by it, surprisingly. In fact, when Honest really applied herself and thought of it, she... sort of... didn't... like him anymore...?
And yet, while Honest was standing in line for lunch, there was someone standing in front of her who had the camera turned on on her phone. She aimed at some guy beside her, and Honest glanced at the screen. She could've sworn she saw Jet's face instead of that guy's face. She rubbed her eyes, and she couldn't see it anymore. Why did he have to haunt her like that? She was over him. She knew she was. Honest wasn't dumb. If she felt like she didn't like someone anymore, she didn't. Plus, there was no way Honest would "let it go". Of course not! You never have to forget your past! You just have to, you know, "never turn back"... you know? Shadow remembers his past (well, some of it). He's not trying to forget it, he just wants to turn his back and ignore it.
The next day, Honest felt something was off. When she woke up, Shadow was downstairs, and the first thing he said to her when he saw her was "you look off." The thing was, she didn't just look off. She felt off. And then, when she went to school, she was rained on, and her hair got all crazy like it tended to do in high humidity, and it just so happened to always be humid where she lived, so.. oops. When she had left her first period class and was walking down the hallway, she almost collided with Big the Cat who was currently stomping down the hall, not looking where he was going like usual. She managed to get away safely thankfully. For the rest of the day, Honest was constantly looking out to make sure there weren't any mud puddles or homework or tests due and things like that. When she got home, she aimed to make a gigantic batch of cookies to cheer herself up, but she feared that because of this being a terrible day, some unforeseen harm would come to them like speeding hedgehogs or clumsy, gigantic, cartoon feet because those were two things that Honest had to try to combat every day. When it was time for Honest to go to sleep, she didn't waste any time working on her channel or playing a game. Instead, she fell asleep as quickly as she could to avoid anything else unlucky happening to her. The luck balance of the universe wasn't currently shifted in her favor.
The day before Honest's birthday was just as bad, maybe even worse. The week leading up to her birthday this year was so terrible. The weather was nightmarish outside that day. The wind made terrifying noises like it was threatening to pull Snow's home apart. Nothing unlucky seemed to happen to Honest, but it was definitely not a normal day. The birthday before last had been the chapter where Honest was extremely self-centered (ex. forcing Jet to tell her happy birthday). The birthday after that was the chapter she had been extra grateful and gave back to people. This birthday, no one knew it was her birthday because it landed on a day they were off from school.
Honest poked Dina's arm as she helped color in the background of a picture of orange squids Honest had drawn in December. "Hm?" she asked, looking up.
"Did I ever tell you? My birthday's tomorrow."
"What?!" Scourge lifted his head where he had been snoozing across the table when Dina screamed.
"Today's your birthday and you haven't told anyone?" Dina exclaimed. Honest's eyes went wide.
"Yeah. Am I.. supposed to tell you?" Honest asked.
"Yes!" Dina replied almost instantly. "You're the author! We've got to throw you a party or something!"
"'We'? Why do other people have to know?" Honest asked again.
"I'm going to go tell the Doctor!" Dina got up from the table.
"No!" Honest grabbed her arm and pulled her back down. "Don't tell him!"
"Why not? Maybe he can host the party at his base," Dina said.
"'The party'? We're not going to have a party! I'm the author! I can determine exactly what's going to be happening in this story, and a birthday party isn't!" Honest exclaimed.
Scourge stood up. "I'm going to go tell him," he said, walking towards the door.
"What? You can't!" Honest got up and chased him. Honest turned a corner way too slowly, and she saw the green pineapple open the door to the Doctor's room. She gasped and ran down the hallway, disappearing into the room after him.
Doctor Eggman was having a class that period, and Honest spotted the little, emerald king speaking to the Doctor at his desk. Honest approached just in time to catch the last few words of their conversation:
"We need to throw a party!" "A party, you say?"
"No!" Honest whisper-yelled. She didn't want to disrupt the class as they dissected a Motobug on a table in the front of the classroom. "We're not going to have a party. I really don't want to do anything. If I really wanted to do something for my birthday, it would be a quiet chapter of {Limited Edition} with just me and Shadow."
Scourge gave Honest a strange look like he didn't believe she wanted that, but she did! Honest enjoyed being around Shadow. He wasn't near as crazy as the other characters. In fact, he was kind of quiet compared to some others I won't mention.
Honest thought for a while, tapping her chin. Some dumb kid disconnected a hose and got oil shot into his eye. Eggman told him that he should've been wearing goggles and sent him to the bathroom to wash his eye out.
"Or," Honest said after a while, smiling. "Shadow, Silver, and I can go on a fishing trip. You know. A family fishing trip." Both Scourge and the Doctor looked at her sideways.
"A 'family' fishing trip? Explain why you consider you three to be a family. Silver's just a side character that you include in the story only every once and a while," the viridian potentate asked.
"Simple," Honest began. "Silver is Shadow's son, whether he's adopted or biological people can argue, and Shadow and I are his not-yet-married parents!"
"'Not-yet-married'?" Scourge asked, confused somewhat.
"Yep!" Honest said, clasping her hands together. "Though, we will never get married. I know that's not very traditional, but I couldn't live with myself if this fan fiction became a 'Shadow x Reader' or something ridiculous like that. I am completely asexual in every way."
Scourge huffed, crossing his arms. "And you came up with this crazy plan just now?"
Honest suddenly looked towards the ground and pouted. "Almost every fan girl has their OCs married or otherwise to a canon character. I don't want to be that way. I want to create this story a permanent spot in the ranks of fan fictions as a very realistic and completely plausible extension to the original canon. I don't want this story to end like OHSHC did with the main characters getting outright married in the last episode." Honest pretended like that thought had tasted bad on her tongue and spit imaginary saliva all over the Doctor's tile floors.
Eggman peered over his desk at the floor to make sure Honest hadn't actually spit something there as Scourge scratched his head and adjusted his red sunglasses.
"Well, it's almost lunch time. We should head back to the art room," he said. Doctor Eggman sighed and opened the door for them to leave.
Honest remembered {w/Sonic} and all the adventures she had went on for the Doctor with Shadow. Honest hadn't felt like she was being manipulated by the giant, talking egg at all. In fact, it had almost felt like she had been manipulating him. Honest had read the comics ages ago, but the one thing she remembered from them was that all of the villains pretty much felt that way- that they were in control, up until a certain point: when Eggman came out of nowhere and claimed to have outsmarted them. Honest still wasn't sure whether he had actually been pulling the strings the whole time or if he had just taken responsibility for however which way it ended up. That whole element of the Sonic comics confused her. (We'll investigate that further once we've made it to {Comic Edition} ^^')
Twenty Questions the Novel! Though I would love to sit here and think about that all day, I think I will end it here for now. I will see you in the next chapter! :3