The first few moments in the elevator were filled with silence. However, Honest felt it creaking and in seconds it broke and fell through.

"Metal Sonic?" Shadow asked, completely at a loss as to why he, of all characters, was here in No Zone, and in that form specifically.

Honest shrugged. "Yeah, I know. Pretty random, right? But I don't think he's involved in this, so you shouldn't dwell on that." She then smiled a cat smile and turned towards Shadow. "What do you think of Infinite being here, though? Huh~?"

Shadow glared at the shut door in front of them. "I don't really care why he's here, actually. A moment of respite from that idiot is worth not knowing."

Honest tapped on her chin, still smiling. Shadow wasn't her or Mephiles or Finitevus, that was for sure. The possibilities Infinite could provide her story were endless, much like his name, but Shadow would probably never see that. Not like it was important that he did. Shadow was her control for most every experiment in this series. She didn't get excited to see his reactions like she did other characters, but that was probably more due to how long they've been so close than anything else. Sometimes it felt like they were sharing a brain, at least to Honest. Shadow felt differently.

"Is he really not involved? How do you know?" he asked, sounding somewhat angry. He was thinking about something else, though. Honest wondered why he wasn't bringing it up.

"Scrapped plot," she answered simply. "Three years ago, I wanted this No Zone arc to go in a completely different direction than it's going now. I thought I told you."

"You never tell me anything," he argued, looking solemnly at the porcelain floor. "I think you underestimate my ability to understand what it's like to write fanfiction."

Honest put a finger to her mouth in thought. Sometimes she forgot what she was writing. She liked to tell others that she was a writer, and she was, but it was hard for her to consider herself a fanfiction writer specifically.

"Yeah, you're right, I do," Honest responded. She closed her eyes and shrugged. "But I also don't like to spoil the readers. Plus, don't you think breaking the fourth wall too much lessens its effect?"

When the elevator dinged and the doors slid open, the two left and started looking for Zonest's room. The hallways were awfully wide and empty. Each door had a plaque next to it on the wall with a name engraved there, each beginning with a Z of course. Just as Scourge said, they found the room fairly quickly. The plaque beside the door said "Zonest Cat" and then what Honest guessed was once her title engraved beneath it. It looked as if it had been scratched off by something sharp.

The hallways were bare and pristine, a sharp contrast from the interior of Zonest's office. When Honest turned the knob and the door swung open, Honest had to stand agape for a moment. It was like a writer's paradise. Strings of index cards held together by rope hung like party decorations from every wall. Every wall had a corkboard chock full of notes. A line of filing cabinets with paper poking out of every drawer stood as a room divider, dividing an extremely messy desk from the rest of the room. There, at the desk, sat Zonest. She had a laptop sitting in front of her that she was typing away on even after they came in. After a while, she lifted her head and beamed. "Hey, come have a seat, you two."

Honest and Shadow picked their way across the room and waded through the sea of multicolored sheets of paper to get to the big, cushy pink armchairs in front of Zonest. It reminded Honest of stepping through tentacles on the way to Mephiles's desk. Zonest's chairs looked similar to Mephiles's except that they were much fluffier and a brighter color than his, but they were nearly identical in shape.

"So, what brings you two to the world of the multiverse's one-and-only Bookkeeper of All Realities?"

Honest couldn't stop looking around her at Zonest's "world." Bookkeeper of all realities, huh? It sure looked like a whole multiverse worth of records was stored here. "What kind of records do you… keep?" Honest asked.

"Take a look," Zonest told her, spinning the silver laptop around so they could see what was displayed there. "It's still a work-in-progress, but I'm in the process of designing a website to make public everything I've gathered so far, and then what I gather indefinitely into the future." Both Honest and Shadow marveled at the amount of information stored on the screen before them. There was a humanoid Honest on the main page and a list of characters and stories displayed on the right. Zonest tapped the edge of the screen and grinned. "Everything on here is cold, hard facts. I simply state everything that happens in every chapter. I call it: the Honesty is the Best Policy! Wiki!" Zonest held the laptop out and Shadow grabbed it, set it in his lap, stared hard at the screen, and began to type furiously, his hands a blur.

"A-Anyway," Honest stuttered. She swallowed hard and planted her hands on the desk between her and her No Zone equivalent. "We believe we've found the culprit of the Derby Incident."

"Wow, in the same afternoon that it happened? That's impressive," Zonest remarked.

"Yeah," Honest said, beginning to rush as if something was going to happen to cut her off. "We spoke with Scourge and he says that Fiona took over his castle with the Phantom Ruby."
Shadow's eyes went wide and he looked up from Zonest's laptop. "She has the Ruby?!" Honest cringed at the volume of his exclamation. "He didn't tell us that! How do you know?!"

"Remember the Confrontation?" Honest asked. Zonest pulled a file from the cabinet behind her and tossed it to Shadow. He opened it up and the first page showed a picture of Honest being attacked by a swarm of sheets of paper with a backdrop of sand. "Uh, nevermind that." Honest reached out and flipped that page over, revealing the page underneath. This one showed Shadow and Sonic standing in Snow's kitchen as a cloud of steam from the coffee mug in Shadow's right hand swirled around his head. "Er, nevermind that either." Honest flipped this page over to reveal a picture of Infinite in his terrible robot disguise. She jammed her index finger onto this page, creasing it in the middle. "This one. Infinite used up all the energy in the Phantom Ruby and went to charge it at the Master Emerald. However, once there…" Honest flipped this page over to reveal a page of notes. "It was a setup. Once there, he was met with a group of Zone cops who arrested him and brought him here. This is why he disappeared and wasn't there to help Mephiles contain Sonic, and why we were able to rescue him so easily."

"How come he didn't escape with the rest of the prisoners at the Derby?" Shadow asked her. However, Zonest was the one to answer.

"He's being kept under 24/7 surveillance and not allowed to go to prison events. We were pointed towards his location by an anonymous source. Once we had him apprehended and put the Phantom Ruby away for safekeeping, Warden Zobotnik ordered that we keep him separate from the rest of the prisoners until we could find out what he was trying to do."
"He was trying to kill me," Shadow told her rather straightforwardly.

Zonest didn't seem to hear him at all as she realized something. "Wait, Fiona the Fox has the Phantom Ruby? Then what is currently being stored in our vaults?"

"A fake, of course. A fake of a prototype. You'd understand if you read Chapter 18 of {w/Rosy}... Or just played Forces." Zonest began reaching for another filing cabinet, but Honest glared at her, causing her to freeze. "There's no need. I basically just wrote the ending of the main story of Forces through the perspective of Infinite."

Suddenly, knocking was heard at the door and then it opened, revealing the hedgehog they were actually there to meet, Zonic the Zone Cop. He didn't even glance at Honest and Shadow and instead inserted himself between them and Zonest and roughly planted his hands on the surface of the desk. He then proceeded to berate her like an angry father scolds his delinquent daughter.

"Where's Scourge? Didn't I ask you to meet with him and get his account? And why haven't you cleaned this pigsty yet? We had a prison break earlier, or have you forgotten?"

Honest's eyes wandered the room again. She blocked out Zonic's rambling for a second as she looked around. Above the desk was a single monitor suspended from the ceiling. On it was displayed a small figure in the center walking through a raging sandstorm. Honest could only barely make them out. Their head was low and their thin, flowing top was flying out behind them as they trudged forward. Suddenly, though, the storm stopped and they looked up, their face filled with wonder. An amulet in the shape of a moon glowed blue around their neck. Gazing into their face, Honest could have sworn she recognized them.

Shadow seemed to notice where Honest was looking and tapped her on her shoulder. "Who do you think that is?" Honest shrugged.

"Beats me."