"Hey, Hearts?"

It felt weird to say that name again. That was her, but then again it wasn't. Not anymore. Honest sat down beside her Anti self on the wooden steps. Hearts scooted away, but Honest just sighed.

"Don't worry, I'm not gonna ask about the 900 anymore. After all, that doesn't matter now, not really. I'm more interested in the current plot- er, what's going on with you."

"The current…" her twin whispered. Hearts turned her way. She had a look of simple curiosity. "You're really my Mobius equivalent?" She smiled and laughed as if she couldn't believe it. "What's the other world like?"

"For one-" Honest pointed up to the sky. "There's this thing called a sun there. It's warm and bright. And the sky is blue."

"So some sort of utopia?"

"I mean, it's not perfect, but it's better than this place. No offense."
"None taken." Hearts looked curiously off into the distance before turning back to Honest. "What are you two doing here?"

Honest blinked. You two… was she talking about Shadow and her? How did she know Shadow was also not from her world? "Um… well, Fi- er, you probably don't know who she is… Scourge's girlfriend stole the Phantom- er, you probably don't know what that is either… Scourge's girlfriend stole a powerful gem and is using it to take over this whole dimension."

"And you're here to stop her? Are you some sort of hero where you're from?"

Honest gulped. Since when has the word "hero" become a trigger word for her? Heroes by themselves were alright, no, more than just "alright". They were great, they were a good thing. Heroes are good people. The "heroes" that Honest didn't agree with weren't heroes, they were posers.

"'Hero'," Honest said with a noise bordering on a scoff and a chuckle. "The only reason I'm going to stop her is because she's encroaching on Scourge's property. That, and she's infringing on Scourge's title of ruling monarch."

"'Ruling monarch'? That makes it sound almost official."

"It is." Honest crossed her arms with a huff. "And we're gonna defend that title until the end of time."

Hearts's eyes widened. "Oh, wow." She then looked thoughtfully at her twin. "Why are you defending someone else's title, though? Especially a Moebian's."

"Because we're allies. He's been living in our world as part of an agreement he made with No Zone police for years. During that time, I've kind of…" Honest looked troubled as she searched for a word. "Grown to like him. And before you say anything, my 'like' for him is not baseless. His whole situation is a huge…" She started looking for a word again, this time waving her arms wildly as she did so. "Conundrum. Not just where the different dimensions are concerned, but in his backstory, the very nature of his existence, everything. That makes him uber interesting." Hearts looked about to say something, probably to make some sort of assumption. So, Honest tried hard to cut her off. "Uh… What do you think of Shadow?"

Hearts looked startled by the sudden topic change. "Oh, um, he's cool… But is he always so… unpleasant?"

Honest laughed. "If you're asking if he is always a pain in the backside… no. Or yes. It kind of depends." Honest started looking all thoughtful again. "When I introduce him to people, I usually describe him as 'hard to get along with'. He almost always rubs everyone the wrong way. However, I suggest that everyone try to put in a little effort to get to know him. Friendships with abrasive people are almost always very rewarding, I think."

Hearts narrowed her eyes, looking very displeased by what Honest had just said. "That makes zero sense. What's the reward for making friends with a rotten, obnoxious guy?"

Honest smiled in what Hearts could only describe as both pleasant and mischievous at the same time. "You think he's a bad person? I think that he's so good it's annoying sometimes. He's a perfectionist but only when it comes to the most boring and tedious things like being overly thorough in his secret agent work and doing chores and preparing dishes with too little meat and too many vegetables. Bad ones too, like cauliflower and celery." Honest stuck out her tongue. "If smelling like an overhyped, foul-smelling purple weed constitutes as rotten, then yeah, I'd say you're correct about that. Or perhaps smelling like stale coffee. He's really quiet actually, so I'd say obnoxious doesn't really suit him. The most obnoxious thing about him might be the frequency of his flashbacks to his childhood and the many times he will cry about the death of his childhood friend, 'cry' as in deeply stare into a cup of coffee like his life depends on it." Honest paused to see if Hearts would say something. Instead, she heard snoring. "Hearts?"

Scourge had already finished his oatmeal and was now just watching Shadow have a full-out power nap across the table from him while he waited for Honest and maybe Hearts to return.

To be honest, Scourge really should've caught on to the fact that Honest and Hearts were counterparts a lot sooner. It's just, his memories were more than just a little bit fuzzy, him being removed from Hearts's whole situation by so many years at this point. Plus, all he knew about Hearts he learned from the rumors floating about since he had been so busy during that time with his gang and whatnot. The only thing he could remember rather clearly from the time was her appearance since her image was practically plastered on every building and at every street corner on signs and billboards. She was usually front and center, posing more in the manner a quirky main character of a kids' cartoon might pose instead of how the leader of a fearsome gang of would-be king killers would.

That was one of the main reasons her plot failed and Scourge's succeeded. Scourge didn't go around nailing printed flyers up advertising his plot to the whole kingdom. Sure, rumors of his gang might've existed, but no one knew who their leader was or if they even had one. It was almost like she didn't actually care about overthrowing the monarchy and instead just wanted to get her name out there expressly for personal reasons.

Hearts had treated her plot to overthrow the world like some sort of political campaign, like she was challenging the current king's re-election. Of course, no such democracy existed in Moebius. Scourge's father had mercy on her and, instead of sentencing her to death by public execution or anything of the like, simply exiled her to wander the Great Desert. He probably hadn't expected nine hundred or so of her followers to, well, follow her, but it was a small loss in the former king's eyes, Scourge supposed. In the end, however, Hearts survived. His father must be rolling in his grave right about now.

Or, you know, not, since Scourge had his remains burned to ash along with all the rest of his belongings.

Scourge had just been staring at Shadow's unconscious forehead this whole time as his head rested between his folded arms on the tabletop and a faint, airy snore escaped from the Ultimate Lifeform's ultimate smeller. Kind of creepy. You know, watching someone sleep. But still, the fact that Shadow felt safe or at the very least comfortable enough around the green pineapple to want to sleep around him was nice. Perhaps they could really be friends after all… And then he thought back to chapter 22 and cringed. "Ugh, why am I such an idiot?" he asked aloud. Luckily no one heard him.
"Scourge!"

It was Honest. Scourge spun around to see Honest sprinting towards him from the direction of the front door while waving her arms. He stood up. "What's up?" Lots of double punctuation just now.

"It's Hearts! I think she's terribly ill!" Honest exclaimed, looking as scared as she sounded.
The two of them went back outside and found Hearts sitting slumped over on the steps.

"She just passed out in the middle of our conversation," Honest informed him. They both sat beside Hearts, and Scourge poked her as if that would do anything. Nothing happened, no big surprise. He then grabbed her shoulder and shook it. Nothing again. Next, he lifted her head. The Honest lookalike's orange and brown bangs fell away and her tightly shut eyes were revealed. He gently shook her head. Nothing still.

"I think I know what it is," Honest told him after a while of watching him invade her new friend's personal space. Scourge looked up. Honest had a grave face. "The soup. I think there was something in that soup we ate."

"Of course," Scourge said, planting a hand on his face and sighing. "I heard that… someone… was almost sacrificed in some sort of ritual when they stayed here."

Honest's eyes went wide. "You left Shadow in there! He ate the soup!" She stood up and ran off but not before shouting, "Why did you let us stay here knowing something like that could happen to us?!"
The door was just hanging there since Scream broke the knob off in the last chapter. It was still probably lying on the floor somewhere. So, Honest just ran at the door and it swung open for her. Scourge ran after her. The two of them gasped as they saw Shadow being dragged up the stairs by his ankles by the Anti-Vanilla.

"Scream! Light the last candle!" she shouted.

"Why should I be the one to light the candle?" Scream's protest echoed down from above.

"Just light it."

Scourge and Honest raced to the top of the stairs and watched as the Anti-Vanilla struggled, dragging him to the center of a large ring of chalk drawn on the wood. Honest tilted her head. "What are you trying to do?" The rabbit lady turned around, startled when she saw them.

"Uh, we're trying to summon a demon, obviously. Don't worry, your friend shouldn't be harmed, um, unnecessarily, but I could use some help getting him into that chair." She pointed with one hand to the old wooden chair in the center of the summoning circle.

Scourge expected Honest to be outraged, but instead she just turned to him with a calm expression. "Scourge? You mind helping?"

"Oh, uh, sure," he said, walking over to the two. He scooped Shadow up, lifting him with little trouble, and placed him in the chair. The Anti-Vanilla actually smiled and clapped.

"Awesome! Now Scream, did you light that candle?"

Scream rolled her eyes. "Yes, mother. Though, I had to use five matches just to light it. The draft is strong today." She was sitting on the ground on the other side of the circle across from the stairs. "I'm ready when you are."

"Good," the Anti-Vanilla said. She got out of the center and urged Honest and Scourge to do the same. "Now, on the count of three, we need to start our chant."

"1, 2, 3!"

"Oh, esprits du vent. Amenez-nous un visiteur d'au-delà de notre royaume. Qu'il soit accompagné de ténèbres et de haine!"

"Is that French?" Honest whispered to Scourge. He nodded.

"Yeah, I think so. In this world, instead of French being the language of love, it's the language of hate."

The room was very bright. There were probably forty candles lit at once, a fire hazard for sure, and about five rectangular windows on three of the four walls. Suddenly, after the rabbits had finished their chant, all of the curtains were snatched closed by an unseen force and all of the candles were blown out. The room was shrouded in darkness. Then, slowly, the center of the circle at Shadow's feet began to glow a deep purple. He began to cast a shadow that stretched out behind him despite the source of the light being at his feet.

"Oh, no," Honest whispered. Scourge understood almost instantly what she was despairing about.
Out of the shadow came a thick black mist which slowly formed a being that looked just like the hedgehog whose shadow he had formed from.

"The ritual worked!" Scream, well, screamed.

"S-Send me back!" The candle relit themselves so everyone could now clearly see the diabolical being they had summoned.

Mephiles the Dark.