The number was in the six hundreds, so Honest knew the locker she was looking for was somewhere near Scourge and Infinite's lunch spot. Honest wondered, though, if that was on purpose. Who did this locker belong to? It wasn't Infinite's; his was beside Honest's. It wasn't Scourge's or else it would be discovered for sure.

614, 615, 616. There it was. None of the other students bothered putting a lock on their lockers since they had to retrieve things from them quickly, too quickly for the student to have to mess with a lock every time. However, this locker held something very important, so a heavy steel combination lock hung from the door, its large, round dial outlined by blue plastic, keeping the locker's contents secure.

Honest flipped the scrap of paper Scourge had written the locker number on over so that she could read the combination on the back. 4-12-5. Click.

Honest glanced around before she entered. The hallway was dark and empty. Of course it was. Everyone was eating lunch in the cafeteria. Still, she couldn't risk a stranger wandering into Scourge's castle. Or… worse… Honest took a deep breath and entered the metal locker, closing the door behind her and securing the secondary sliding lock on the inside of the locker which Scourge had stolen from one of the bathroom stalls.

This transporter was built for them by none other than Doctor Finitevus. It was a round, silver platform, about a foot in diameter, the perfect fit in this tall but thin locker. It had an internal warp ring leading to Scourge's castle in Moebius. You need only press the glow-in-the-dark button on the side, and you would be instantly transported to the other zone in the blink of an eye. Honest let out the breath she had been keeping and crouched down to press the button.

Once in the other zone, the difference in temperature and air quality was the first thing she noticed. The second was the blurry, green shape across from her. "Honest."

The room she appeared in was small and resembled a closet. Except, instead of containing racks of clothes, this room contained a mix of strange tech and clutter including a set of inactive star posts, a cluttered workbench, and a stack of wooden crates. A mess of metal pipes hung above their heads. The one thing she didn't encounter, however, was dust.

"Hey," Honest greeted cheerfully. "See? Now, isn't it nice not to choke on dust every time you enter this place?"

Scourge looked oddly serious as he approached her, his hands in his jacket pockets. "Yeah, about that. I think I now know why this castle's previous occupants never bothered to clean the place."

Honest stepped off the transporter and to the door, not yet opening it. "They were lazy? You know, no one's ever going to take care of this place like you do. Other people would see the state this castle was in and shake their heads. No one wants to try to keep up a place this big just by themselves." Honest reached for the doorknob.

"Actually, no, I don't think the size was the problem. You see, I've spent a couple of nights here now, and this castle has some sort of…" Scourge shook his head and laughed. "I feel silly for saying this."

Honest felt silly for him. She stared at him with the most straight face she could muster, trying to reassure him enough to make him tell her. "Go ahead and tell me, and if what you're going to say is silly, I'll tell you."

"Okay," Scourge said, sighing. "Ghost."

Honest didn't say anything. Perhaps she had just become mute right then and there. Scourge was afraid she didn't believe him.

"They only come out at night, and I haven't been able to identify any of them yet, but-"

"Yeah, ghosts are real. I'm not sure about the real world, but they're known to be real in the Honesty is the Best Policy universe at least." Scourge just kind of blinked. Honest opened the door behind her finally, and a large gust of wind blew her off her feet.

A loud whisper seemed to fly around the tiny room and then back out the door: "You bet!" Honest leapt back to her feet.

"There's no way you can tell me that was a draft! For one, there's no wind in Moebius. Secondly- well… The first point is pretty much proof. Scourge?" The blond feline spun around. The green hedgy was just standing there with eyes the size of basketballs.

"That voice," he said. "Infinite was telling the truth."

"Telling the truth about what?" Honest asked.

Scourge shook his head and walked quickly back into the room and over to the transporter. "I'll catch you up to speed over lunch." He crouched in front of the small, silver platform and observed the small window on the front, checking to see if the warp ring had reset yet. The small image of the inside of the metal locker back on Mobius let him know that the internal teleporting mechanism, the warp ring, had indeed reset. "Okay, let's go back, now. Where did Sonic go after leaving Eggmart earlier?" He stood atop the metal platform and waited for Honest.

"We went straight to school," Honest answered, squeezing onto the one foot in diameter circle with him. She crouched down and pressed the glowing blue button on the side, and they were teleported.

It was always impossible to prepare for teleporting back to the locker, whether there was one passenger or two. In this case, there were two, which made the transfer between zones all the more painful.

Honest winced as her head collided with metal. Scourge backed up when he realized he hadn't given her quite enough room on the platform and now, also, in the locker. She couldn't stand up, though, until he left, so that's what he did. Scourge grabbed the combination lock up off the bottom and slid the sliding lock to the left. The door swung open, and he carefully stepped over the crouching cat. Once he was safely outside, Honest just sort of tumbled out and onto the tile floor, rubbing her head. "Ow." Scourge secured the combination lock onto the front of the locker and helped Honest up.

"I bought something at Eggmart that I think you'll love," Scourge told her, smiling. "Tuna fish sandwich kits!" he exclaimed.

The sparkles and hearts appeared. "Really?! Uh…" Honest went from overly excited to hesitant much too quickly. The hearts and sparkles couldn't catch up. They quit circling her and instead just hung in the air like a cloud. "You're much too kind to me. No one goes out of their way to get things especially for me except Shadow, and uh… He might have one or two reasons for it, but I don't know about you."

Scourge put his hands back in his pockets. Perhaps that had become a nervous habit of his. "You fight for me for no obvious reason. Shouldn't I be able to fight for you without being questioned?"

Honest squinted at him. "Mmmm… Good point. Let's go eat those sandwiches." They took off down the hallway.

A furry creature weaved its way between Honest's legs as she sank her teeth into an overloaded tuna fish sandwich and purred.

"Are you suuuurrrreee Princess isn't a shapeshifter?" Honest asked the hedgehog sitting across the rectangular, wooden table. Fiona the Fox was making herself a sandwich in the kitchen. She turned around at that strange question.

"No, I'm pretty sure she isn't," Scourge replied after taking some time to chew and swallow his food. "I've had her for years. You'd think I would know by now."

Honest picked the little gray fluff ball off the wooden floor and nuzzled her all the while staring intently into the cat's face. "I'll bet that you can understand everything we're saying. Go ahead and transform!" However, Princess just closed her eyes and started purring.

Fiona finished making her sandwich and sat down in the empty seat next to Honest. She peered at her in confusion. "Are shape-shifting cats a… thing?"

"Yup," Honest confirmed. She put down the cat and picked her sandwich back up after wiping any gray cat hair she might've acquired on her dress. "Akane's one."

"You mean that little orange cat girl?!" Fiona asked, stunned. Honest nodded and let out a food-muffled "yeah".

Scourge tapped his chin in thought. "Earlier at the Eggmart, when you said Akane sleeps in your bed… Is that as a cat or as a… girl?" His cheeks seemed to redden, or maybe that was just Honest's imagination.

Honest laughed. "Oh, you heard that? As a cat… well, usually." She shrugged and silently noted Scourge's reaction out of the corner of her eye. However, she didn't see Fiona's reaction. She just assumed it must've been great, whatever it was.

Honest considered Akane her little sister, much akin to how Sonic viewed Tails. All heroes needed a sidekick, right? Not like Honest considered herself a hero, though, but you knew what she meant.

Zoom out a bit. Honest was currently sitting at Scourge and Fiona's dining table, in their government-issued house, paid for by GUN at the behest of No Zone police, and eating tuna fish sandwiches made from sandwich kits bought at the Station Square Eggmart, Dr Eggman's discount store chain. Scourge, a previously-wanted zone-hopping criminal turned awkward high schooler, was across the table from her, blushing at the thought of her sharing a bed with her best girl friend. Fiona could probably be described the same way as Scourge: wanted criminal turned awkward high schooler.

Honest wanted to be able to say that she crushed on Fiona in the comics, but she didn't really crush on anyone. She wanted to be Sonic, she wanted to be friends with Shadow and Silver, and Fiona was cool, she guessed. And then there was Scourge. He made her think. A lot. She was still thinking about him and Sonic and what all of that meant. What did it mean? Honest sank her teeth into her sandwich and just sat there as she thought.

"Um, Honest. Why'd you stop purring?" Fiona asked. She laughed. "I was kind of enjoying hearing it."

"Sorry!" Honest apologized, taking her front teeth out of the bread and leaning back in her chair. "I was just thinking about what to do."

"Well, do you know any ghost hunters?" Scourge asked. If she knew a shape-shifting cat, perhaps she also knew a paranormal investigator. Investi-gator…