May 28th, 2022
"I can tell. This is the spot where we're going to get the most activity!"
Honest and Scourge hung out near the door to the room as the Chaotix Detecti- um, I mean the Chaotix Ghost Hunters, began to set up their equipment in the small room. It was in the very back of the castle on the second level. The temperature continued to drop, Honest noticed, as they drew closer to this room. According to Vector, this meant that the room was the source of their ghost problem.
Charmy was setting a camera up on a tripod in the back left corner of the room, facing back towards the door. Honest was unsure why the ghost or ghosts would want to hang out here. There was nothing in this room. Scourge said it used to be a storage room, but its contents had long been removed, leaving the wooden floor bare except for the faint marks where crates and boxes had been dragged in the distant past.
Espio was holding a small device with a screen and waving it around the room. Scourge pointed to the purple chameleon. "What's your friend got there?"
"Oh, that? That little thing will let us see the outline of the ghost when it appears. At least, that's what it's supposed to do," Vector told him, scratching his head.
"What do you mean?" Scourge asked confusedly.
"Well, we haven't actually gotten to use this stuff yet on account of we haven't actually seen a ghost yet. But we'll know if it works this time, I'm sure of it!" Vector then went to help Charmy get the camera set up on the tripod.
"I- I thought these guys were professionals," Scourge breathed.
"When did I ever say that?" Honest asked, giggling. "Now, if you repeat your dad's name aloud, it might summon him, and we can get this show on the road."
How did you know the ghost is my dad?" the green king asked, anger evident in his tone of voice.
"Oh, oops. Um, my Author Powers," Honest answered. Scourge narrowed his eyes, his fur bristling.
"So you had a hand in this?"
"Okay, I read a fanfiction," Honest confessed begrudgingly. "Not this one, but somebody else's. I think their username was humansaretherealmonsters, but anyway. They wrote a story in which you kidnapped Sonic, and Shadow had to infiltrate the castle to rescue him. However, the castle was haunted. So, I liked the idea and it squirmed its way into this story. Sorry."
"Honest, these ghosts have been torturing me day and night!" the moss-covered monarch shouted, clenching his hand just to show how full of rage he was.
"'Ghosts'?" Honest echoed, unaffected by his display of anger. "Like… more than one? Do you know who they are?" Scourge knew Honest was feigning ignorance now, but he hadn't the energy required to argue with her right now.
Scourge went from seething to creeped out as he thought back to the other night. "I don't know who they all are, but the other night, I heard a woman's voice. It was whispering fragments of sentences all down this hallway." He rubbed his arms as if brushing away the bad feelings. "It sounded familiar. It sounded like… me, a little bit. You know, my mother died giving birth to me. Do you think-? Do you think that was her?"
Honest got chills just hearing it from him. "Maybe," was all Honest could say. "If she died in the castle. How do you know the other spirit's your dad's?"
Scourge shrugged. "He visited Infinite the other night in the library. He won't appear for me, but that's no mystery. What self-respecting ghost would want to hang out around the person who killed them? Anyway, that voice we heard this morning? That was my dad. That's the only trace of him I've seen. Must be because of you." He looked down at the floor and drug the tip of his shoe along the seam in the boards. "I-I thought that since I burned his stuff, he wouldn't have any sort of tie to this place anymore. I guess I was wrong."
Honest offered a sympathetic smile. That's all she could do for now. Okay, so technically it was all her fault, but it was a tradeoff. She was trading Scourge's emotional well-being for a fun plot point. It deepened his character, as well, so it was a tradeoff for him as well. The upsides outweighed the downsides, see? It was fine.
Honest was violently torn from her thoughts by a shout from Espio… okay, not really a shout. He was a ninja after all, so what alerted the group the most was him waving his arms frantically as if trying to swat an invisible mosquito. "Charmy, was that you?"
"Uh… what do you mean?" Charmy asked, peeking out around his camera.
"I felt someone touch my shoulder just now," he reported. The chameleon had dropped his strange handheld ghost detector on the floor in his fright. Suddenly, the light on it lit up red and the device started to make a horrendous buzzing noise.
"W-What does that light mean?" Scourge asked, his grass-colored fur standing on end.
"It means it's detecting a ghost presence," Espio said, picking it up and inspecting the device's screen. "It says the ghost is active and angry."
"Oh, great," Scourge said sarcastically. "We've made it mad." He then cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, "Hey! I've killed you once, I'll do it again!"
"You cannot kill the undead!"

"Th-That wasn't anyone I know," Scourge stammered, backing up towards the open door. However, when he was almost out, the door slammed shut behind him and caused him to jump five feet into the air.
"You would if only I had been given a chance to get to know you." The ghostly transparent figure of a hedgehog appeared in the center of the room. Vector pulled the camera off the tripod and began snapping pictures. The hedgehog was green like Scourge.
"Are you sure you don't know them?" Honest asked, not receiving an answer as Scourge was completely frozen beside her. "They're green like you."
"I wasn't born green, you idiot," he reminded her, breaking out of his stupor for a moment. He took a step towards the apparition. "Why are you in this place?"
"I was born and died here," the spirit answered, tilting his head as if he were confused how the king could be so stupid after calling Honest an idiot. "The same could be said of you if you're not careful." The ghost saw that Scourge was trying to think of something witty to respond with, so he tried to hurry it along.
"Look, I don't have much time, and I'd hate to be stealing yours. There are some things you ought to know." The ghostly hedgy held up one finger. The room's occupants could now make out a spiked bracelet around this ghost's wrist. "First of all, there are many spirits in this house, but they've been hiding out while you've been away. Second, us ghosts are mad. Like, real mad. We've all claimed rooms up here on the second floor, and we're gonna defend them if we see you in or around them. Any questions?"
"Y-Yeah…" Scourge said breathlessly. "Who are you?"
The ghost looked down his nose at him. "Your first victim." He vanished in a red flame.
"Did you catch any of that?" Espio asked Vector.
"Dude, I took like forty pictures," he told the purple lizard, looking up from his camera. He looked to Scourge. "We need to stay the night."
-

It was later that night and Honest had told Shadow about the situation at the castle. It was a school night, but Honest had already skipped most of her classes that day, so it was fine. What, was Mephiles going to track her down and punish her? This was Honest's story. Anyway, they made a party out of it. Plus, Honest used this as an excuse to buy something for Scourge since he bought her stuff for lunch. They bought a tea kettle for the castle kitchen which Shadow was putting to good use right now. Scourge already had some chairs the previous occupants had left, so they moved them upstairs so they could sit while the Chaotix messed with their ghost equipment for hours on end in the now not-so-empty storage room.
Honest contemplated bringing Dina along, but Dina and Scourge weren't a good combination in her opinion… she guessed. She was afraid Scourge was going to reveal something to the reader by thinking about her. Scourge was rather dangerous in that way. Instead, she brought Akane, who was currently curled up in her lap, fast asleep. Every once and awhile, Scourge would glance over at the orange cat with a confused expression, trying to figure out how she worked, Honest supposed. She sort of wished he wouldn't think so hard about that anymore. The joke had been told already, so now it was just annoying.
Shadow came and gave each of them, excluding Charmy and Akane, a cup of hot tea. Vector took a large gulp and gave Shadow a thumbs up. "Your tea is impeccable!"
Shadow said "whatever" and left again. Scourge laughed, apparently getting the reference. Honest smiled when she noticed that Shadow had put some milk in her tea, just enough to affect the flavor. She forgot to tell him, but apparently he knew her well enough to add it. That also meant Scourge had some somewhere, so that was something.
"Shadow knows you well, doesn't he?"
Honest almost spit out her tea. Scourge, did you just read my mind? Since there wasn't an answer, Honest guessed it was no. The green king just stared at her with those curious blue eyes which looked like they belonged to someone else. Tails perhaps. Honest thought back to Sonic's eyes which she saw staring back at her in her mind whenever she felt guilty hanging out with his anti. Yup. They were definitely different in that regard.
"I guess so. You know me better than Sonic," Honest pointed out. Perhaps that would make him feel nice. Instead, it just seemed to annoy him. He scoffed.
"Like I care. But why is that? Don't you spend a lot of time together?" Scourge asked, rubbing the sides of his tea cup to warm his hands.
Honest pet Akane's back as she thought. "He knows how I feel about certain people and what video games I like to play, but there's tons more to me than that, you know, and Sonic has never really expressed an interest in listening to my ramblings in the whole time I've known him. When it's about Shadow he'll hear me out, but I think that's all he thinks I'm good for."
"So you're saying he's a butthole to everyone, not just me," Scourge said, sipping from his cup.
"Precisely." Honest thought for a moment. "Isn't it fun to talk about Sonic freely like this?"
Scourge didn't have to think at all. "No. I'd rather not think about him. It would spoil my good mood." He thought back to IWGSR. Okay, so not "not at all". He did think some. Sonic was just bad news all around. However, he couldn't possibly remember a couple chapters back when Amy got us up to speed, but Honest could. Amy knew of Sonic's nature, but she still couldn't keep herself from falling in love all over again every time she saw him. Honest guessed it was the same with her, though not as drastically and not as… well, you know. Maybe it was the same with all Sonic fans, and maybe it was why Sonic was unstoppable, why it just didn't make sense to start a war with him. Honest couldn't tell Scourge about that, though. The impact Sonic had on Scourge was serious. It was like telling someone that the person who had burned down their house that morning was good at baseball and that they should consider going to one of their games. Yeah, no.
One of Akane's ears, the one with the stripe, twitched, and with a popping sound, she transformed into a Mobian cat girl and grabbed Scourge's jacket, licking it all over. Scourge almost fell out of his chair. "What the heck are you doing?"
The ginger-haired feline looked up at him, her tongue still out. "You had tuna salad on your jacket."
"How come I didn't smell it first?!" Honest asked, sounding disappointed.
"Maybe it's because, as a cat, I can smell better," Akane told her, still holding onto Scourge's jacket.
"Hey, can you let go of me, now?"
"Oh, sorry." She let go and he fell backwards onto the floor.
Honest looked away and set her teacup down on the arm of her chair before crossing her arms and staring out the barred window to her left. It was always a murky gray outside here. Like a dense fog was surrounding the building at nearly every time of day. Why even have windows?
Espio was silently staring at the camera's screen while Vector scratched his head trying to figure out how some of the gadgets they brought with them worked. He turned on some sort of box with an antenna and it made a hideous static sound.
"This thing says it can help us talk to spirits," Vector told the others.
"Okay, then. Ask it what its favorite food is. Maybe if we make it for them, they'll be appeased!" Charmy exclaimed.
"Espio?" Vector asked. "What do you think?"
"I think Charmy may have a point. Even though ghosts can't eat, it might be enough to fool them into leaving," the purple chameleon answered.
"I think it's stupid," Scourge said, crawling back into his chair and crossing his legs. "We already talked with one of the ghosts, and he didn't seem like he wanted to leave anytime soon. I doubt cooking them a meal will solve anything."
"Maybe the ghost talked to Scourge because he had tuna salad on him," Akane suggested, standing in the space between Scourge's and Honest's seats.
"So you're saying the ghosts like tuna salad?" Vector asked, entirely seriously sadly. Scourge smacked his face with his hand. Shadow took this moment to walk into the room and stand propped up against the wooden door frame.
"What in Chaos's name are you guys talking about?" asked the shadowy hedgehog. "Are you hungry or something? It's after eight, you know."
"No, but the ghosts might be," Vector said.
Shadow chose to ignore them and walked over to Honest where she was sitting in one of the wood chairs. He looked down at her empty cup. "Tea like that should keep you up for a while."
"Just one cup won't," Honest claimed.
"Well, do you want another?"
Honest yawned and curled up in a ball. "Nah, I think I'll take a nap. Wake me up when something interesting happens."
And with that, she nodded off.