It was Sunday, March 31st, 2019, coincidentally the day after Honest's eighteenth birthday, and Honest and Shadow were crouched behind a large boulder as Manic and Scourge stood beneath a flowering Eastern Redbud tree (yes, I did research to find out EXACTLY what kind of tree it was before writing this, and no, that doesn't make me a nerd) behind the school. "Redbud" was probably the worst name for this tree, however, because it wasn't red at all, but instead was a bright lavender color. Maybe it would turn red later in the spring.
"Manic," Scourge said, smiling while holding Sonic's brother's gloved hand with both of his. "I want to ask you something."
Manic was smiling from ear to ear, his cheeks a rosy pink. "What is it, dude?"
Scourge was smiling as well. "We have been together for a long time now," he said. Manic nodded.
"I wanted to ask you..."
"Now!"
A wad of gum came flying through the air and hit Scourge's sunglasses, causing them to fall off and bounce in the grass.
"Oh! I'll get them for you." Manic bent down to pick the fallen eyewear up for his lover. However, as he did so, another wad of gum came and hit Scourge in his behind. He fell forward and landed face-first on the ground. "Scourge!"
Manic tried to give Scourge his glasses, but he was busy spitting dirt out of his mouth.
It was at this moment that Honest and Shadow chose to escape.
Scourge lifted his head just quick enough to watch as Honest and Shadow dashed away. He scowled and wiped mud off of his cheek.
Honest laughed when Shadow and her had reached the edge of Snow's yard.
"Did you really buy a whole pack of gum just for that?" Shadow asked.
Honest stopped laughing long enough to breathe. "Yeah, I did. Here, let me explain something to you."
Honest then proceeded to tell Shadow all about her plan- how she wanted to stop Scourge and Manic before they did anything with their relationship as much as she could. Honest was very torn on the idea that she would be betraying her friends, but this was all for their own good. It was all completely necessary, and besides- it was a fictional relationship anyway. One of them was from an American comic series, while the other was from a French cartoon. They were from two completely different canons, and they had never and will never interact. Honest seriously doubted that Scourge would appear in the IDW comics, though she wouldn't be too surprised if she suddenly saw him appear in issue 15. Also, Honest wasn't even sure that Sega of France had any permissions at all when it came to Sonic Underground. It would probably never be brought back by the original owners either, though. After all, it was decades old. Nothing that old ever comes back.
It was now April 4th, 2019, and Honest poured Akane a bowl full of E-77 Charms at 3 AM before walking like a zombie back to her room. It was from there that she then crawled into the wooden chair in front of her desk and squinted at her computer screen.
The video she had been working on for the past two to three days had finally completed exporting its final edits and was now ready to be uploaded. However, Honest just yawned and opened a folder on her desktop inaccurately named "Junk" despite actually containing every single file on her computer... which definitely wasn't all junk. She then navigated to the folder containing every issue of the Sonic Archie comics ever released and found issue 181. Honest was only rereading them for the second time, so she needed to get a move on. Then again, there were what... 379 issues or something (I said 379 because in 2016, when I had completed reading them for the first time, that's how many there were. By the time the comics stopped, there were definitely more than that)? It was kind of difficult to read that many issues in little time. Honest had no idea how she had managed to read them all the first time. After all, she had only just recently made it to the first issues drawn by the modern, and also current artist, Tracy Yardley. On the bottom of the last page of issue 181, a tiny paragraph of text gave a hint at what the next issue was about- the origin story of some dumb villain. Great. Maybe she should wait until that afternoon to read something like that. (It's funny, but it was after reading "the origin story of some dumb villain" that I started brainstorming ideas for the next story. XD)
Instead, to wait for 5:00, the time when the rest of the residents of Snow's house woke up to start getting ready to go to school or their jobs, Honest decided to just sit back in her chair and think about what she planned her day to be like.
Should she eat lunch in the lunchroom today? After all, Thursday, today, was the day when they had the best food- no. Honest decided that the only reason she would go to lunch again, other than to host a club meeting, was if it was a raining, dreary day and she wanted to have warm food to improve her spirits...
"Honest? Honest? Where are you?"
Honest jumped up from her chair instantly. Apparently she had fallen asleep sitting up. Looking at the clock, it was only 5:15. She would have plenty of time to get ready for school. It was no problem.
Throwing the door to her bedroom open, Honest came face to face with a little, orange cat girl wearing a red dress. Well, I said little, but I just mean to the average person. Anywho, Akane was confused.
"Are you going to make coffee?"
OH. So that was all she cared about.
"Is that all I'm good for?" Honest asked. "You can make it yourself, you know."
Akane huffed. "I know. But it's your thing. You do it every day. Sort of like the weird sub-nasal movement thing that Sonic does."
Honest imagined that blue weirdo doing his weird nose thing and nodded. "Yeah. You're right. But what a strange thing to be known for. I mean, for both of us. Especially since liking the stuff is Shadow's thing. Why should I be the one to make it?"
Akane shrugged and bounced down the hallway. By bounced, I mean walked with a little jump here and there. I'm not talking about that Tigger thing or anything. That would just be strange and unrealistic.
Once at the bottom of the staircase, well, one of them anyway (why does Snow have to be so spoiled by her parents who, due to reasons unknown much like every TV show ever, are never seen? Oh, yeah because that's her thing), Honest immediately noticed a particular ocean blue, well, it was more of a royal blue, speedster was waiting for them.
Honest was unsure what he was waiting for, though. It wasn't coffee seeing as though he claimed not to drink it. She soon found out what it was, though.
"Hey, good morning, Shadster."
Of course. Honest and Akane were completely invisible to Sonic. He could only see one person, and that was the particularly shadowy individual coming down the stairs behind them.
The feeling of resentment was well in the air now, and Honest tried to fan it away, but, much like the plague, it still lingered and was still very much contagious.
Shadow didn't reply. He just clenched his fists and stomped angrily to the kitchen, passing right by Sonic.
"Wow," Akane said simply.
Honest sighed loudly. "Why say 'wow', Akane? This happens every morning. Don't make such a big deal out of it."
Akane couldn't tell if her creator was angry or not, so she didn't reply in case she started some sort of war. You had to be ever so cautious about those sorts of things if you wanted to take up residence in Snow's house.
Honest wondered why Snow had never took the time to consider maybe renting out some of the bedrooms. She could rack up quite a lot of dough if she did. Of course, it wouldn't benefit Honest at all, so why bother... unless it did. Taking in random characters would probably work very well as a method to attract plot. It was sort of like those shows where a new character is introduced every few episodes until BOOM. Here comes the final episode where all of your favorite characters either get married or die a horrible death, and you're left to pick up the pieces and write some stupid story based after the events of the show that never receives any recognition and most definitely doesn't revive the fandom OR ANYTHING. But then again, Honest never had to worry about that happening because Sonic was eternal, much like many of the world's greatest religions.
"Let's go to school!" Honest exclaimed, forgetting for a second that she was intending to build the story up first before diving headfirst into the main plot.
And then they were at school.
Actually, what had happened was that everyone in the room stared at her as if she had grown a third arm, and then she had to somehow explain to them what that was about. Then, time skipped ahead to when Honest had got off her bus and then began to walk towards the arts building with Dina, her fan character that had only been for drawing purpose at first, but was now invading her story and causing all sorts of conflicts. The most recent was the whole deal concerning how she had literally up and created a whole other character in the story.
"She can't come here. I won't write it."
"Why not? She can just be a background character. It'll be fine."
"She doesn't have any sort of backstory or personality. The one fan character who cannot be named was in love with Shadow and was shy. Daniela was an evil sorceress who aimed to steal Shadow from me. Key is an attractive, freeloading moody porcupine. Akane is a naive, soft-spoken kitty cat with shape-shifting powers. What does this 'Triss' character have to add to the story?" Honest asked.
Dina thought for a second. "She's... blue...?"
Honest face-palmed. "Let me guess, she's a recolor of Blaze, too."
"No," Dina said. "I just have some ideas of what I want her to look like. I don't have her designed yet."
Honest thought for a moment. "Maybe she can be a cyborg... that works for the government..." She wasn't describing Shadow, by the way.
Dina heard her mumbles and a vein appeared on her forehead. "What?! No! Triss has to be on our side! I want her to be my friend! n"
Honest was still thinking about stuff. "You know, my hair was kind of shaped like Blaze's fur at one point." Honest smiled and looked somewhere in the sky above them. "Man, back in the day..."
Dina was giving her a wacked-out expression, but Honest didn't seem to notice. "The first drawing of me ever is the cover image for {Cafe Edition} (on Wattpad)! Actually, I'm thinking of changing it to something more... you know... maid-y."
"That's not a word," Dina told her.
"I know that," Honest said crossly. "What I mean to say is that the cover image should reflect the actual contents of the book. It shouldn't just be some random concept art for an early design of one of the characters. I'm thinking it can be of Shadow and Manic looking super uncomfortable. It can be in a pin-up portrait sort of style. Ooh! And maybe it can change every few months or something to be of different characters. So one day it can be Honey and Rouge, then Cosmo and Key, then Blaze and Rosy, then you and Infinite. It can even be characters who don't work there dressing up just for fun like Silver and Mephiles or maybe a special cover of Sonic and Shadow or Manic and Scourge, or Knuckles and Rouge! It would take forever to make all of those, but it would totally be worth it in the end. The actual drawing of them will be easy, though."
Honest had completely up and forgot that cool idea for the covers over the weekend, but she had remembered once Monday had rolled around, so she was now drooling over the idea once again.
"The Tuesday before last," Honest said as her and Shadow were walking down the hallway towards their third period classes that day. "I brought my thin-as-a-gram-cracker laptop to school with me, thinking that I could get work done while at school. Well, I didn't. Even though it weighed nothing in my backpack, it was incredibly bulky and hard to hold, so I couldn't draw or anything because I didn't have any room to rest my mouse and mouse pad. Plus, I couldn't get it connected to the school's internet for whatever reason. Instead I decided that I would never bring my laptop to school again." Honest checked to make sure that Shadow hadn't fallen asleep. He hadn't... yet... so she continued. "But now I'm wishing I did have it so that I could work on the cover ideas I have for CE, which is what I'm shortening {Cafe Edition} to now. I know I won't be able to use it if I do bring it, but I can't tell my brain to give it up." When Honest clutched the sides of her heads as if she were going insane, which she might actually be doing, it was as if a bright red flag had been raised. The dark pineapple, who had been listening very attentively to her for the longest time, suddenly stopped and pushed her all the way across the hallway to the little alcove where the water fountains were.
"Are you hungry or something? Sick? Cold? What's going on?" he asked.
Honest was a little... spooked to say the least. "Uh, nothing. Are you okay?"
"Of course I'm okay. What about you?"
Honest sighed. His eyes were getting all jittery as if they could shake themselves loose of his eye balls. That was creepy just to think about, much less witness. "I'm cool."
"How can you say you're 'cool'? There is obviously something horribly wrong with you."
"Uh, hello?" They both turned around to see who had spoke to them. Scourge was standing there with an empty water bottle. He looked between them.
"Look, I have no idea what sort of strange breakdown you two are having right now, but can it happen somewhere other than in front of the water fountain?" he asked.
Once they had moved and the king of air and empty space could successfully reach the fountain, Honest crossed her arms, well, crossly. "What's your problem all of a sudden? Can't you just let me vent to you about my problems without freaking out yourself?" Also, what was Scourge's deal with water fountains?
"No," he replied. Honest looked at him as if he had just said something preposterous. "I mean, if your whole entire life depended on which side of the bed someone else woke up on, wouldn't you worry, too?"
"Huh?" Honest said, continuing to look severely confused. "But you don't depend on how I feel. You have your own opinions, don't you? Like if a game came out and I didn't like it, but you did."
"I think you're just being too sensitive," Scourge said, his back to them as he filled his bottle with water. "I don't depend on anyone else except myself. Honest doesn't tell me what to do." He turned his head. "No offense, Kitteh."
Honest smiled. "None taken! I don't control anyone. I'm just along for the ride like everyone else," she told them.
"That's a lie," Shadow said said. "You're scripting everything we do."
"No," Honest said. "I've created too many barriers for myself. Too many limits to what I'm willing to do. I can write that you each grow wings and fly through the roof, but I won't. Plus-" Honest yawned. "I just write what happens and add my bits here and there. You control all of your own actions. Just ask Scourge or better yet Sonic. They'll tell you all about how they control themselves. You are just being too sensitive, Shadow."
His ears burned red. Scourge laughed. "See, I told you."
It was a cool morning in April before school, and Honest was talking with Silver and totally missed when Shadow had up and left them in the middle of an important conversation concerning the future of their son... well... his present, their future.
"Where did he go?" she asked, looking around frantically.
Silver cocked his head. "Shadow? He got called by someone."
Honest spotted a flash of crimson at the stairs. "Hey, uh, excuse me," Honest said, running away.
Silver watched silently.
Once at the stairs, Honest heard talking. Coming closer, she could tell who it was.
"Shadow, no!" Both of them looked up.
Infinite, upon seeing her, lowered his head. "Sorry."
"Huh? What's going on?" Shadow asked. Honest was upset.
"Don't just go off by yourself like that! I have to protect you from Infinite!"
The striped rodent watched the jackal leave. "He wasn't trying to attack me," he told her. "I think he just wanted to talk with me."
"Infinite!" The masked mongrel turned around and walked back to them.
"You're correct, Honest. I did wish to harm him." Honest's face remained twisted into a frown. "I want to make a promise to you right now." Shadow got closer to hear. Infinite looked up at him, acknowledging his presence. "I won't attempt to end Shadow's life with you around. I will wait until he is alone to make my move so as not to interfere with your friendship."
Suddenly all the hairs on Honest's tail stood up. "That's not how friendship works! Just because I'm not right by him doesn't mean our friendship isn't 'active'. It doesn't have down time. It's a 24/7 thing!"
Infinite looked away nervously. "But if you're not there to see it, you won't be upset by it."
"Yeah, I will be!" Honest's eyes were white disks as she exclaimed this whilst waving her arms. Shadow butted in, sighing loudly.
"You have a very messed-up view of reality," he said, summing up everything he's ever known about him. Infinite began to laugh. "What did I say?"
Honest would've been laughing too if she hadn't of been so serious right then. "Think about what you just said," she told him. "'Reality'? Naw, duh. That's what the Phantom Ruby and its prototypes do- distort reality." Infinite stopped laughing once he saw the determined look Honest shot him next. "If you attack Shadow, I'll delete you from the planet."
Infinite narrowed his single eye. "I will try to remember that."
Honest immediately brightened up. "Good! Now let me buy you a Chaos Cola!" She grabbed his hand and pointed, attempting to tug him in the direction of the closest soda machine. Surprisingly, he must have accepted her offer as he allowed her to drag him all the way down the hallway. Shadow followed begrudgingly.
Apparently they had abandoned Silver, or at least that's what he assumed, so he noticed them leaving and promptly teleport dashed to the machine. "Hey!"
Honest jumped. She had just been about to insert her rings when Silver was suddenly between her and the machine. "Did you totally forget about me?"
"Oh, sorry!" Honest said, smiling. "Did you want something, too?"
Silver jumped next although he was spooked more by her words than by someone's actions. "No! I just didn't like how you ran off like that!."
She says she could delete me from the planet, Infinite was thinking. Honest patted Silver on the head. "I'm sorry, Silver." But I can delete her from reality.
"What was that, Infinite?" The masked mongrel's eye went wide.
"Nothing! (n)" he exclaimed. Honest laughed.
"That's what I thought," she said. Shadow looked around.
"He said something?"
Honest sighed and stuck in her rings. "He thought."
Oh, yeah. Scourge told me she could read minds, he thought again. I've got to be real careful, huh?
Honest bought one for herself. "Yeah, you do."
"What did I tell you about that mind reading business?" Shadow asked her.
Right. Honest never found a way to put that into {Cafe Edition} effectively, so she'll put it here as a flashback:
No matter what Honest thought of Mephiles, none of it showed once more customers started showing up. In a matter of minutes, Honest was back to radiating beams of pure joy as she zipped from table to table. Shadow was just standing there next to the pass through to the kitchen because she was doing all the work. He didn't mind though. The more hyper she was, the less work he had to do.
I think Honest may be seriously bipolar, he thought to himself. Well, probably not medically, but that's just a pattern I've observed. Shadow wondered just for a second if Honest could read his thoughts. He quickly dismissed it. Thinking too deeply about that will only worry me to death.
Honest finally broke away from her frantic dash around the tables just to run for him. It startled him because he had been staring at a wall the whole time and now he was looking into the face of a seemingly brainless cat. Notice I said seemingly. Honest is actually pretty smart. Seeing as though she writes in third-person omniscient sometimes, I can assume-
"You're thoughts are so poetic!" Honest exclaimed suddenly.
He jumped. "You were reading my thoughts?!" He acted as if he had just uncovered the culprit of a crime.
"I wouldn't have read your thoughts if I thought that would be invading your privacy," Honest said truthfully.
"But why should you be the judge of that? They're my thoughts!" he exclaimed.
"You're in my story though. By letting me write about you back in {w/Sonic}, you were agreeing to let me write your thoughts, too. Thoughts of the characters are very important in fan fictions, you know."
"Alright, but from now on, ask me before reading my mind, okay?"
Honest nodded. "No problem." She closed her eyes and smiled, but then suddenly opened them again. "Wait- no! But I don't want you to be super cautious of what you think all the time! You have permission to think anything dirty at any time!" She lurched forward and grabbed his arm.
"Okay.. Hey, what?! Why would you want me to think anything like that unless you were planning to read my mind without asking anyway?" He pulled away.
"No, that's not what I was saying! I was saying that you should still think things that are... not dirty... secretive! Because that stuff moves the.. Plot, you know?"
"No," he said finally, scowling. A thick cloud of steam was encircling them now, but they split ways and went to work anyway. Honest sighed once she had reached the back wall of the kitchen. Neither Amy nor Key had shown up yet, and Rosy was helping Silver brainstorm ideas for advertising the cafe's specials in the front of the building.
She sat back there against the wall. It was so quiet in there that it felt like nobody was in the cafe at all.
I don't have anyone to read my thoughts, so I'm good, Honest thought. Well, except for the couple hundreds of people reading this story online... but Shadow has no privacy. I'm sorry, but it's for the sake of the story! She stomped out of the kitchen, not preparing to be nice to anybody today.
"Hey! Silver can read minds, too, you know!" Honest pointed fiercely at the white fluff ball standing beside them.
"I can?" he asked, looking at his hands as if he had never seen them before.
"I read it in a Sonourge story. Sonic got you to read Scourge's mind, and you saw something so hideous that you couldn't bring yourself to tell what it was." Honest opened her eyes wide as if what she had just told Silver was news to her as well, which it wasn't.
"Wait... you read Sonourge?" Shadow asked, screwing up his face.
"Yeah," Honest told him. "I've read every kind of story. That's why this story is the ultimate example of supreme unbiasedness."
"Uh-huh," he said, still not sure if he understood. "But why those two together? What's the appeal?"
"They're opposites. Opposites attract. Duh," Honest said, shrugging. "But in all seriousness, I read them because Scourge's whole existence depends on Sonic, so whenever they interact, that is when Scourge's true nature shines through the most."
"Makes sense," Shadow said, thinking. "So not every character works like that?"
"No," Honest said as she gave what was left of her Chaos Cola to Silver. "Pretty much every character has a specific trigger like that. Scourge's is just the most pronounced and dramatic, and the only... one I almost completely understand."
"If I can, it probably requires a lot of energy. I mean, I require an Emerald to use Chronos Control, so I probably need just as much energy to read minds," Silver said.
"But you don't need to as long as I'm here," Honest told him. "Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure it took you a lot of energy in that story as well. I just barely remember anything about that story, though. Time to read it again." Honest swiftly pulled her phone out of her pocket and unlocked it-
BRINNGG!
Before Honest could even pull up the app, the bell had rung. "Dang," she said.
Silver and Infinite were sitting beside the machine drinking their Colas. They both stood up when the bell rang and went their separate ways. Honest and Shadow quickly sprinted down the hallway. They hadn't expected to get so distracted. Now they had to rush to get to their first period class. Of course.
Luckily, they made it just in time.
Another long chapter! What is up with these lately?! Thanks for reading, though, and I guess I'll see you in the next chapter (which hopefully won't be so dreadfully long).