Previously known as "The Derby Incident". However, I changed the title because alliteration is awesome, and Eggman said he approves.
"Ladies and gentlemen, please offer a round of applause to today's racers. We promise that they have gone through extensive training before today's festivities so as not to seriously harm themselves in the event of a crash."
Honest, Shadow, and Sonic peered around the people in front of them to watch as the prisoners from No Zone prison were walked to their vehicles by armed prison guards. However, instead of getting in their vehicles, they just seemed to be waiting by the doors. What were they waiting for? Maybe they were waiting for the announcer to say something.
"The rules for today's event are simple. One: Be respectful to your fellow racers. Two-" The microphone made a horrible whistling noise and the whole stadium began to shake.
"W-What's going on?" Honest heard someone yell over the rumbling.
"Everyone stay calm and stay in your seats! We seem to be having a minor earthquake," the announcer said through the mic, her voice as shaky as the surroundings. This is what they call a minor earthquake in No Zone?
"What the heck is that?!" someone else yelled. This person was to Honest, Shadow, and Sonic's left. They were standing and pointing across the stadium. There was something gray and metallic rising over the side of the stadium. Suddenly, a whole section of the stadium was shattered by what could only be described as a giant wrecking ball. Below them, the prisoners used the distraction to catch their guards off guard (ironic) and sprint away, straight into the cloud of dust forming where the wrecking ball had broken through the concrete. Some of them jumped into the parked vehicles and used them to get away.
Honest heard Shadow whisper something beside her, but it wasn't until he had rocketed off that she realized what it was he said. He said, "Well, heck."
"Well, heck" indeed.
Maybe I should start a little earlier.
The previous day, er, maybe it was night, the previous evening, Shadow returned from headquarters and immediately tried to avoid the other occupants of Snow's house, going straight to his room. Honest didn't try to follow him, deciding that it must've been for good reasons, and it definitely was.
This morning, he flashed three shiny rectangles of paper in Honest and Sonic's faces. They were yellow and had a picture on each of them of two cars covered in dust. They were both severely scratched up, and one of them was missing a hood.
"I need to show up to this 'destruction derby' being held in No Zone. The prison watch wants someone from GUN, me, there for added support just in case the prisoners try something."
"So... why the extra tickets?" Sonic asked, looking down at the slips of paper in Shadow's fist and then up at Shadow. Shadow "pft"ed and hid the tickets away in his spikes.
"The commander just threw some at me, so if you don't wanna go, I can just throw these extras away."
Honest laughed. "Why would we turn something like that down? Well..." She thought for a moment.
"They have a concession stand," Shadow told her, his eyes half-lidded.
"Alright, I'm going!" Honest exclaimed, throwing a fist into the air. She turned to Sonic, "How about you?"
"Hm... Okay." He moved at the speed of sound and grabbed one of the tickets from Shadow's Shadow's spikes. "Even if they don't have chili dogs, it'll be worth it to spend some quality time with my dear friend Shadster."
"We're not friends, we're rivals." Shadow passed a ticket to Honest and began walking away towards the kitchen. Sonic followed him.
"It's very endearing when you're straightforward with me about what we are," Sonic said, his eyes equal-to signs. Shadow just ignored him and got a glass of water from the sink.
Honest watched them go and remained standing in the doorway. What Shadow considered rival behavior was strange for sure, but in the end, he wasn't wrong.
Just then Dina showed herself, walking down the stairs slowly and pretending to view each miscellaneous artwork hanging on the wall as she came down. Honest watched her the whole time, her violet eyes, if Dina would dare to look her way, appearing steely and barren.
"Good morning, Honest," Dina greeted her cheerily.
Honest regarded her calmly, almost eerily so. "Hey, just to let you know, Shadow offered to take Sonic and I to a destruction derby in No Zone this afternoon."
"Yeah, I heard something like that on my way down here. I hope you have fun. I'm not sure that's my kind of thing." It wasn't necessarily Honest's "kind of thing" either, but she did quite enjoy being way out in front in Destruction Derby 2 on the PS1. Oh, and also she liked to play Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed every day. Since her PS3 she had bought back when the PS3 was first released had died, she had been playing it on 3DS. It felt identical to how it felt to play it on PS3, so Honest didn't feel too bad about it.
"Too bad," Honest told her. Dina looked at her with a confused expression. "It really is too bad." The blond-haired feline put a hand to her chin in deep thought.
"What are you... thinking about?" the pink and white hedgehog asked, tilting her head to the side.
"Everything," Honest told her, sighing and closing her eyes, the hand to her chin falling back to her side. She opened her eyes back up and regarded Dina seriously. Like with Scourge yesterday, Honest wanted to tell Dina everything, but instead she told her nothing. The thing was, Honest could do anything. The term "creative freedom" came to mind. Therefore, everything was going to be fine. At least, according to all logic, she should be able to do anything. It was impossible for an author to be controlled by her own story. That was just logic... right?
Dina just sighed before opening her magenta eyes and giving Honest a concerned look. "You shouldn't be so... serious all the time. You should just... I dunno... relax?".
Honest wiped her entire face with her hand, as if to wipe away all her facial features, and then made an even more serious expression. "You're right. I'll give myself another chapter!"
Dina laughed, one of those laughs that just went on and on. For some reason, Honest felt rewarded, like she had earned that laugh. Just then, Sonic could be heard from inside the kitchen as Shadow stomped out.
"Hey! Let me admire you some more!"
"No, it's creepy!" Shadow responded. He walked up to Honest. "We need to get out of this house, Honest. It's no longer safe here."
Honest giggled at his exaggeration. "Okay! Let's go have breakfast at the Rival Café!"
"Is that what it's called now?" Shadow asked, confused.
"Yup! Since it's appeared so many times by now, I think it's earned it." Honest then turned to Dina. "You can come, too, Dina! Don't worry, I can pay for all three of us!"
Dina looked confused again, so Shadow explained. "Honest has sort of... blown up at the café recently. She makes like ten times as much in tips as her salary."
"Wow," Dina breathed. "I never noticed."
Shadow "pft"ed and crossed his arms. "Now she's showing off."
Honest didn't deny this however, signaling it was true.
"Hey, let me know if this is crazy or not," Honest said all of a sudden as Dina and Shadow and her all started eating. They had ordered from the breakfast menu since it was still technically morning. Honest's omelet was speckled with parsley and bits of diced jalapeños. It lied there getting colder the longer Honest continued to talk.
"Last night I dreamt that I found a secret genocide ending in Shadow the Hedgehog."
Shadow began coughing as he had just choked on his orange juice. "Wha- *cough* What?!" Honest rolled her eyes. He was reacting as if it hadn't been a dream. Dina just looked slightly confused as was beginning to be the usual with her.
"I killed all of the mission characters, and instead of it being Devil Doom at the end of the game, it was Mama Robotnik." This time Shadow snorted and orange juice shot out of his nose. Honest had said it in a spooky way, but it was still silly.
"Like from the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog?" Shadow doubled over in laughter. Honest wasn't finished.
"But that's not it. There was a cutscene in which you approach her, she's as big as Devil Doom, and she says 'I'm proud of you both,' implying that there are two Shadows!"
Shadow faceplanted in his hash browns. "Yeah, that's crazy."
"If that's true, then where is this other Shadow? Is it the yellow-striped Shadow in multiplayer? Is there a reality in which one Shadow does one route and the other does another? Like the one you're controlling completes a route and goes on to fight Devil Doom, and at the same time, the other Shadow completes another route, one that ends with Shadow doing something else that prevents him from going on to the final story?" Honest then whispered, "What if my subconsciousness is onto something?"
Shadow quit laughing and instead began to make the same face Dina was making. "You're serious about that?"
"I... don't know," Honest said, putting her hand to her chin and staring deeply into nothingness. "There's this series of horror games in which the creator of the games told the followers of the games that there was something in the third game's lore that hadn't been discovered yet, even now, five years and eight or so games later. So it's possible. Even if it has been scrapped or removed from the game or even if it was accidental, it could still be worth looking into. I mean, all of the library sequences... all 326 of them... there has to be some point to programming that all into the game, to naming all of those routes. What if, by filling out your entire library of routes, you unlock something? No one has ever cared enough to embark on the quest I've embarked on, so how could we know?" Honest then stuffed her mouth full of omelet and closed her eyes, thinking deeply about it once again. "What if the reason that there are two Shadows is because time travel is involved? What if Shadow traveled through time to complete all 326 routes, and all routes are canon?"
The sound of metal forks connecting with plates erupted once again in the small cavity that was their booth. It continued until the end of the chapter.
Except, well, that wasn't the end of the chapter.
Honest and Sonic watched helplessly as the prisoners streamed from the hole in the wall and out into the city beyond, some on vehicles they had stolen, others on foot.
Honest's ears stood up though when she thought of something. "Oh! But there's no way they can go anywhere once they're free. They're trapped in No Zone."
Suddenly the announcer's voice resounded around the stadium once more. "We are getting reports that indicate several hundred portals have just been opened all over the city."
Honest's ears fell back down again. "Oh..."
Sonic was standing up and twitching all over, itching to run off and try to contain the prisoners. However, he knew that they were probably already gone. It all happened in the span of about twenty seconds. It was as if the prisoners had been planning this for months. However... Where had they gone?
"I'm... gonna go check something," Sonic said, rocketing off a second later in a blur of blue. Just then, Shadow teleported back beside Honest. He looked and sounded incredibly grave as he spoke to her.
"Honest, why in the world did we let Eggman teach at the school all these years? Why did we not... watch him closer?"
Honest tapped her chin as she thought. "Um, let's see... There was chapter 23 of {w/Rosy} where I made a deal with Eggman to help me defeat, er, scare Mephiles. Then in the finale, he did that. Then, in Scrambled, I worked with him to create Frank. And then we went on a guided tour and you accidentally released Shadow- Oh, no. Wait. I haven't finished typing that chapter yet. Anyway, I felt like I could trust him. Didn't you feel the same way?"
Shadow frowned and thought. "Uh..." But that wasn't it. That wasn't the end to Honest's dealings with Dr. Eggman. He had seen it himself...
*Cue the Flashback...*
"How did you get your hands on a Chaos emerald?" Eggman blurted, caught completely off guard by the red emerald he now saw resting in Doctor Finitevus's palms.
"Honest! Someone's stolen the emerald!"
"Oh, no," Honest groaned, stretching her arms out in front of her in a sign of utter despair.
When Shadow entered the room, his eyes grew to the size of basketballs. Though, perhaps that was a normal size for a Sonic character's eyes to grow. "E-Eggman?" he asked, his eyes shooting to Eggman sitting at a desk. "Doctor Finitevus?" he said next, his head turning abruptly to look at Doctor Finitevus. "Cha-Chaos emerald?" Shadow then turned to look at Honest.
"Should I alert Sonic?" he whispered very loudly so that Honest could hear him across the room.
"No, please don't! You can have it back after the lesson," she told him.
"Honest, you can't just outright hand over one of the most powerful weapons in the world over to our adversaries whenever you want to," Shadow informed her. A cough made both of them jump.
"Ahem? What 'adversary' are you talking about here? I'm just a humble teacher who wishes to give a lesson on Chaotic energy," Doctor Finitevus told them.
"Yes," Eggman chimed in. "And I'm just a teacher who wishes to sit in on this lesson and receive a few pointers from my newest coworker."
Shadow turned to Eggman and pointed fiercely at him. "I don't care who you say you are. This is a plot to steal the Chaos emeralds. Your previous encounters with Chaos emeralds are evidence enough."
"A-Actually, I stumbled upon this one purely by accident. You see, Doctor Finitevus here promised me an explanation as to what psychaotology is. Apparently this is just part of that explanation," Eggman explained.
Shadow listened to him silently and tapped his chin in thought once the doctor had finished. "So what does he mean to do with it?"
Shadow, Honest, and Eggman all three turned to face Doctor Finitevus who had been standing in the same place, still holding the emerald, this whole time while possessing a look of simple curiosity.
"Aheeeem, I said 'Today we'll be learning about Chaos emeralds and how they can be used to administer Chaos energy to their users'," he reminded them, narrowing his creepy-as-heck eyes.
"No you didn't," Shadow contradicted him.
"Uh, yeah, I did. You probably just didn't hear me because you were too busy interrupting my class." He pronounced the last three words very deliberately and while staring directly at Shadow.
"Oh, I'm so sorry, sir. I didn't mean to, I, uh." Shadow shot backwards out of the classroom and disappeared.
Finitevus sighed pleasantly and the Chaos emerald went dim. Apparently it had lit up at some point, but no one noticed as they had all been preoccupied at the moment. "He's such a great student. Anyways-" He stood up and turned around, moving to the whiteboard behind him and beginning to write something at the top of it in large, black letters. How Chaos Emeralds Work
Honest silently went back to scribbling something in the notebook on her desk with a smile, no less. Meanwhile, Eggman was still reacting to the fact that Doctor Finitevus had just intimidated the Ultimate Lifeform into giving up his whole quest and leaving. Yes, I definitely need to take some pointers...
*Flashback ends...*
"Honest, what did Finitevus do with the Chaos emerald after I left that day?" he asked. He had to admit he was apprehensive about trusting her despite her very nature being to be completely Honest with everyone.
"What day?" Honest asked, tilting her head. Very suspicious. What other day had Finitevus done anything with a Chaos emerald? That sort of thing didn't just happen every other day.
Argh! Why did Mephiles's powers have to be so effective?! Not only that, but Mephiles's arguments had been so... coherent! It felt so reasonable and logical to doubt Honest in this event. Still, under the surface, Shadow was battling with his own arguments for not trusting Mephiles. The biggest being that Shadow knew, from his experience in Sonic '06, that Mephiles had gotten away with flat-out lying to him and Silver on multiple occasions. Has he ever said one truthful thing?
"Oh, yeah," Honest said, straightening back up with a bounce. "He taught us what they were and how they could be used to administer Chaos energy to their users."
Ignore your gut, Shadow, ignore your gut. It has been hexed by Mephiles!
"Okay, so he's not behind this. Who is?" he asked, sounding far more calm than he was currently feeling internally. Honest pointed to the wrecked stadium wall. The large steel shape on the other side was slowly moving away. Through the gap in the dust, a faint Eggman logo could be seen. Shadow's eyes widened and as he turned back to Honest, she began beaming triumphantly.
"Mind Chaos Controlling us inside?" she asked, closing her eyes. Shadow stared at her with slate voids in place of eyes.
"Uh, Finitevus has my Chaos emerald," he reminded her. Honest blinked, immediately realizing her mistake.
"Oh... then maybe he gave it to Eggman," she said. Her eyes became blank and white. "I've made a terrifying mistake."
Shadow rolled his eyes and sat back down in his seat. Pandemonium was still ongoing across the stadium from them and above as fellow spectators were gathering their things and leaving as quickly as they could. However, Honest and Shadow were using this time to think about their next steps, which weren't to run away.
"We don't know if he does yet. All we know is that he used that thing to free all the prisoners in No Zone prison. What powers that thing could be an emerald, but it could also be any number of other things." Shadow stood back up. "By the way, maybe we should try to catch up with that thing and have a conversation with its driver before it escapes."
"Yeah, you're right," Honest said with a sigh, standing up and hanging her arms like a zombie. "Let's start walking."
(A/N:) So, can I be Honest with you guys? You guys that are totally there and I'm not just talking to myself? I'm a little nervous about what's coming up, but I'm just gonna ease into it, you know? Take my time getting to all the major points and plot twists and stuff. I mean, I haven't personally planned anything like that, but I know it's coming. I've just laid the groundwork. I come up with logical outlines and they fill up on their own.
That's just how this story works. I've talked about it enough times that it shouldn't be a shock to anyone. I dream up the ideas for specific elements like Eggmart and Scourge's Castle and the Play and then all the intricacies pop up over time. Then there are the things that I don't dream up like Frank and Dark Silver and the student council and Mephiles being the principal and apparently now Doctor Finitevus obtaining a Chaos emerald, but once they're implemented, they work just like other things. They're filled out naturally the more words I type and the more I think about them.
Like one element coming up that I've talked about on my DeviantArt. I looked intelligently at the data I had, which in that case was my own experiences, and she began to naturally build up into a physical thing. Or, not physical. Are characters in a story considered physical? I came to logical conclusions about her design and backstory rather than dreaming it up, AKA creating her character from scratch. I can do that too, of course, but I think creating characters in that way is more Honest. I don't know if I'm the only one who can do that, but I assume I'm not. I probably just don't know how to describe it correctly.
Other authors can just jump into a new story arc and everything is completely different all of a sudden and the readers have to worry about catching up themselves. I can't seem to do that. No matter how radically different my plans for where the story is heading are to what is currently happening in the story, it always ends up just naturally... transitioning. I guess that's a good thing, but it's a test on my patience for sure. I don't think it'll be a test on your patience though, faithful reader. As the Author, I'm waiting on my ideas to take shape, but what are you waiting on? This story to blossom and grow into a beautiful, intricate, and infinitely deep realm of impossible feats of literature? Perhaps. Or perhaps you are just waiting for me to finish my rambling so you can go on to read the next chapter. Hey, you could've easily just skipped this, you know. That (A/N:) at the beginning? That stands for Author's Note, as in, this isn't part of the story and thus you don't have to read it. Unless... you wanted to read my rambling... Naw.
See you in the next chapter!
