It was Monday, March 25th and Honest and Shadow were standing in front of Honest's locker talking one afternoon. They were discussing Knuckles's ridiculous family tree in comparison to Shadow's avidly and thus were completely unaware that they were currently being spied on by a mysterious, masked being from where he stood with his one eye pressed against the glass of a classroom window.
That one is the biggest threat to my plan right now. Infinite thought to himself. Honest showed Shadow a photo on her phone that she had taken of Knuckles's girlfriend Julie-su's sister remembering her nephew moments after his apparent death, a scene in the comics that occurred over the span of only a single panel. If I don't pluck the bad sprouts first, the odds of me completing my goal will undoubtedly shrink a considerable amount.
"Creating my own school club was the best idea I have come up with in a while," Honest said next, changing the subject. "What better way is there for me to gather with the main characters of my stories to discuss subjects of dire importance with them?"
That was when Infinite decided to reveal himself to them by slipping out of the door of the classroom he was hiding in which just so happened to be located just behind Shadow.
"Oh, Infinite! I was just about to ask you to join my new club! What do you say?"
"No way," he said. "You really don't think that I'd just up and join the club of my enemy like that, do you?"
She didn't seem to be discouraged at all by his response. "Huh, alright. I'll just force you to join it later." She looked halfheartedly at the wall before she suddenly thought of something.
"Hey, Inf. If your goal is to convince me to carry your revenge on Shadow out for you, why are you claiming me as your arch nemesis as well?" Infinite looked as confused as Honest was. "I mean, don't you want to do what Mephiles would do and befriend me so that you can get me to join your cause like he tried to do with Shadow in '06?"
Infinite blinked. "Uh, I..." He looked at Shadow.
The black hedgehog was still standing there, his face completely white. "Honest? Is he really plotting something against me?"
Infinite looked confused again. "You're... scared of me?"
"Absolutely not," Shadow said, crossing his arms now. Infinite pointed at his face.
"Then why do you look so pale?"
"Don't worry, Shadow. I'll make sure he doesn't harm you in any way I don't approve of," Honest attempted to assure him. However, Shadow didn't feel very assured by this.
"Can I not get harmed period?" he asked, annoyed.
"How realistic of a character you wanna be?" she asked.
"You're cheating again."
Infinite coughed, startling them. "Ahem. I didn't come here to get invited to your stupid club. I came here to condemn it."
"Condemn it'? Why?" Honest asked. "What rules could it possibly be breaking by simply existing?"
"Well, there's the fact that it doesn't have, you know, a subject."
Honest opened her mouth to say something, but quickly shut it when a thought came to her.
"What do you plan to do about it? Tell a teacher on me? Go ahead and try it." Honest pulled her phone out of Shadow's spines and opened up Google Docs. It was far more convenient to store things in her friend's quills, where they were always within reach, rather than in her backpack which she had to first take off to access.
"No, I would never waste any time with a teacher when I could just take this matter directly to the student council president."
"Oh, no. More authority figures created by the characters," Honest retorted, rolling her eyes. Infinite looked confused, but Shadow understood.
"Like Mephiles making himself principal, right?" the hedgehog asked.
"Exactly," Honest said. "Who's the council president anyway, Infinite?"
"Fiona the Fox," he told her, tilting his head. "You mean you didn't know?"
"Of course I didn't! I guess she appointed herself. I don't understand how the world inside a story can spin without the author's consent. Just like how Manic replaced Fleetway, Mephiles took over the school and made himself principal, and now Fiona has appointed herself as the president of a 'student council' that I had no part in even creating. So let me guess; you're on the council as well?"
When Infinite nodded, Honest spun around as if she were about to fall.
"Oh, no!" she exclaimed, pressing her hands to the side of her head. "My world is falling down around me!" Shadow raised his hand as if he were waiting to be called on by a teacher.
"Uh, don't you mean your world is 'thriving'? If a seed you plant starts to grow, wouldn't you say it's thriving as a result of you caring for it? You wouldn't be upset because it's growing without you telling it to. You'd be happy despite the fact."
Honest spun around yet again. "But, unlike the growth of a plant, this isn't supposed to happen," she said with a worried expression. "What if Pinocchio wandered into a lumber yard on a bad day and was thrown into a wood chipper between scenes? If the characters are able to carry out their lives outside of the times I'm writing it, what will happen? Will the Doctor attack the school on the one day that Sonic is home sick, and he'll come back the next day and all his friends will be robots? Will Rosy finally go too far and end Scourge's life like she's been threatening for 13 years?"
"That stuff can happen anytime, though. Even while you're typing," Shadow said.
"Oh, no, no, no. I will never type any of those things. Things don't just happen during the times I go to type something. Things happen as a result of me typing it." Honest turned to Infinite. "The bottom line is that you (and Fiona) do not have the authority to shut down my club!"
"Is that true?" he asked. It was a rhetorical question, and Honest knew that, but still-
"Yes! You guys will never get what I'm telling you, so I don't know why I'm even still trying," she told them. "You can try all you want, but anything that happens as a result of it will have to go through me." Honest crossed her arms, determined to stand her ground.
After a moment of Infinite and Shadow standing there unreasonably silently, Honest went back to her earlier point, turning away from them fiercely.
"Anyway, why don't you want to earn my favor, again? It doesn't make any sense for me to be your enemy when you want me to do something for you," she asked him.
"Because I don't like you, and I definitely don't want you to be my ally. I'm upset that I even have you as an obstacle. However, I couldn't live with myself if I had to be nice to you to make you get out of the way or let down your guard."
"Wow," Honest said, her eyes wide. "You hate me that much?"
"Mm-hm," he said, closing his eyes. "I hate your guts."
"Then what are you doing?" Shadow asked. "If you hate her, go away. It doesn't make sense why you're here. Do you want to get spit on?"
"What else? I want to get my revenge. Honest just happens to always be standing nearby wherever you are, but my only target is you," the masked jackal told him.
More awkward silence followed. Shadow glanced at Honest.
"What did I do?" he asked.
A boy is in algebra and he is presented with an equation. He find that it equals 24. However, when he shows the teacher, she says it equals 43. He works the equation in many different ways, but each time he gets 24. He eventually gives up and leaves it blank.
In this way, Infinite flees the scene.
"Hey! Where are you going?" Honest called after him.
"What did I do?" Shadow asked again. Honest made an angry sound.
"I can't tell you! It's not in my position to tell you!" she exclaimed. She ran in the opposite direction from where Infinite had ran.
"I'll explain later!" she called over her shoulder.
Now he was all alone in the hallway.
"I think I get what she said," he said to, well, absolutely no one. Himself, I guess. "But someone has to tell me. Everyone knows that the games don't reference the other games. If they did, that would just be weird."
I'll tell you what's weird... the fact that you're talking to yourself.
He didn't seem to hear that, but he did seem to hear someone talking in the classroom next to him, though he had no clue as to what about.
"Hello?" he asked. When no one answered (what, did he expect an answer?), the striped rodent stretched to see into the classroom through the glass in the door.
There seemed to be a club meeting in this classroom. He suspected it was some sort of book club because this was an English classroom according to the sign above the door. Actually, the meeting seemed to have just dismissed because all the members had been sitting on the ground, but now they were all standing up and putting their books in a pile on one of the tables. One of the students he recognized as Scourge the Hedgehog. He looked towards the door and watched as Shadow left.
"I think I should start heading to the club room Honest picked out. What time is it?"
There was a clock down the hall. "It's still a little early, but it'll be fine, I'm sure." He then started skating down the hallway.
Finally. All that talking to himself was starting to get weird. He didn't do that all the time, did he?
He ran into Honest just as she was entering the building.
"Oh, hey, slow-poke!" she exclaimed when she saw him. "I didn't invite all the members today. Soon, we're going to have a club meeting in the lunchroom, where you will meet all our new members." (Future Honest: Actually, it was a while before this lunchroom club meeting occurred. It occurred in a chapter of the next book. :P)
Shadow nodded and followed her into the building. The room was upstairs.
"And here it is!" Honest said, stopping in front of a green door on the second floor. "We'll probably decorate the outside soon so it doesn't look like all the other rooms."
Shadow didn't comment on it. He often didn't. If Honest didn't approve with his opinion, it would just make her mad, so there was no point to it. Honest was pretty narrow-minded that way. Next, she pulled open the door and walked inside.
The room was big or, at least, it seemed big with how empty it was. There were two large windows. They didn't have curtains, but the room still wasn't very bright due to what time of day it was. If they had meetings at lunch, it would probably be a lot brighter. Maybe Shadow could find some cheap curtains at Eggmart later.
All the desks were piled in a corner. It reminded Honest of a music video for one of her favorite songs. Well, it wasn't her favorite favorite, but one of her favorites nonetheless, although it was kind of mainstream to like it, so she was unsure whether she should or not yet.
There were two couches lined end to end under one of the windows. They were ragged and a dark, red-brown kind of color. They looked disgusting- as if merely sitting on them would make you feel nauseous. They would probably have to be replaced. Or, at least, that's what Shadow was thinking.
"Wow, look! Those couches look so worn and weathered... they have so much vintage appeal."
"'Vintage appeal'? What's that? I call them 'dated'," he told her.
"'Dated'? Which of us is 68 years old again? Last time I checked, it wasn't me. How come you're so against things with an 'old-world charm'?"
"'Old-world charm'? Those things are trash! I can understand the 'worn and weathered' part. Yeah. They've seen better days, but notice I said 'seen'. Trust me, we're not going to see better days by keeping them here. Let's drag them into another room so our new members don't have to look at them."
Honest looked at the two couches once more. "Why don't we just restore them, like, magically?"
At first he was confused, but he then realized what she meant by "magically". It was in good timing, too, because Honest had pulled out her phone and was on the verge of using it to perform that magic she was talking about.
He reached out and swiped the cellphone away from her.
"Hey! What'd you do that for?"
Suddenly he had a flashback to 60 years ago.
"I hate all this stupid medicine!"
He had barely any time to react before the thirteen year old sitting across the metal table from him had risen from her seat with a loud grunt and ran off with a turquoise pill case in hand.
"Maria, don't!"
Shadow ran after her, careful not to slip and fall on the slick, metal flooring with his socks as he did so.
He caught up with her just as she was about to drop the expressly-dire-to-her-well-being plastic container in a garbage can. The kind that incinerated whatever you dropped into it in a matter of seconds. Most of the Ark's trash cans were like that.
"Give me that case."
"No!"
"If you do that, you'll be in no better position than if you were to take those pills," he reminded her. Maria looked up and revealed her tear-stained blue eyes. She ran to him with the case now tucked underneath her arm. He caught her in a hug before she could do the same to him.
"I'm so sorry, Shadow! I just-" she said between sobs. "How would you like it if you were born with a disease like this? I don't understand why I couldn't have just been born normal!"
He chuckled despite everything.
"Just be glad you weren't born a biological experiment like me."
Maria laughed at this then said using a voice still laced with sobs, "Yeah, I guess you're right."
When he eventually snapped back to the present, Honest was staring at him.
"You okay?" she asked. He blinked.
"Uh, yeah... um, did you... see any of that?" Did flashbacks belong in the category of thoughts?
"I typed that, but I was trying to pretend that I didn't in an effort to create drama," she said, sighing as if she were put up with him.
"Okay, then you can explain it to me, right?" he asked.
Honest rolled her eyes. "I thought for sure you could catch onto something that simple, but alright. You had to take my phone away from me, and that reminded you of taking something away from Maria. It plays on the idea that what your precious has-been-dead-for-sixty-something-years-now childhood friend and I have in common is that we're both extremely childish and can't be expected to make rational, sensible decisions. I don't feel like people will ever get something like that on their own unless they're using my story for some sort of school project and need to find a theme, which people will never do. It's just the curse of this being a derivative work... and also, maybe, a result of the world being opposed to creating new legends."
"'New legends'?" Shadow asked. Honest smiled.
"You know how works from the turn of the century are highly read and distributed, studied in classrooms and the like all over the world. And also, you know how if a book becomes 'liked' by the whole world next week, it'll be forgotten in a year and never be... legendized."
"Is that a word?"
"Yes, it is, actually!" Honest exclaimed, her tail swishing behind her in a pleased manner.
ww w .merriam-webster dictionary/legen dize
"Boom! Link drop! Although, since FF doesn't allow links, I had to put spaces in the address in order for it to show up. Now, let me text Mighty so he can help us out."
A flurry of taps later and a voice was heard from outside the club room.
"Honest? Is this the room?"
"It is! Come in, Mighty!"
The crimson armadillo opened the door and stepped into the room. At first he didn't see the couches, but something else. He rubbed his nose as if it were irritated.
"Oh my goodness, it's dusty in here," Mighty said. He looked to Honest. "Do you want me to go get you some brooms, too?"
Honest sighed. "Just get these couches out of here and into the next room over. We'll be cleaning the room as a club soon, but it will be a lot easier with these couches out of the way." (Future Honest: I never got around to writing about the cleaning scene in this series, but I wrote about it in IWGSR.)
Mighty shrugged as if to say "whatever" as he walked across the room to go get the couches. He lifted one above his head and walked out. Whoa... Shadow mouthed as he passed, though it wasn't like he hadn't seen him demonstrate his super strength who knows how many countless times before at many points in the comics where they happened to cross paths.
Honest smiled again. "I was afraid at first that I had ended up making an enemy out of him in chapter 5, but nope! I guess his overlying sense of justice helped to, at least partially, make up for our mutual lack of respect for each other."
"You seem to make enemies of people more often than you do friends," Shadow commented.
Honest nodded. "Yeah, I do. I wish it wasn't like that. That's not exactly a recipe for success."
Mighty moved the other couch and then they all parted ways at the entrance to the building.
"Thanks for helping us out, Mighty," Honest said, thanking him.
The armadillo smiled. "No problem!" he said as he left, waving as he went.
Honest and Shadow started walking down the sidewalk in the opposite direction.
"Remember," she said when they were just a little ways away. "We'll be having our first, official meeting in the lunchroom soon! It'll be at the usual table- third from the front on the left."
He nodded. "Okay. Who all has said they're gonna be there?" he asked.
"It's going to be a surprise!" she told him. "Didn't I already tell you that?"
"Yeah, you did," he said, rolling his whole head instead of just his eyes. "I thought that I would try to trick you into telling me, but I guess you don't forget that easily."
Thanks for reading! Phew, that was a long chapter. It didn't take very long to type; it was just very, very wordy. Well, it's more like I was wordy rather than the story. Anyway, please leave a review to let me know you enjoyed this chapter, and I'll see you in the next one.