Well, they were going to continue listening to Zonic, that was, if he hadn't been interrupted as soon as he tried to begin reading again.
Suddenly, without so much as a knock, a familiar-looking pink hedgehog burst into the room.
"Officer Zonic! I found out who was behind the prison break!"
Zonic just looked at her confusedly. "Who?"
"The Doctor Eggman from the Prime-verse!"
Zonic sighed loudly. "That's old news, Officer Zamy." Zamy looked completely dejected, resembling an unhappy kid who just had his kite ripped away from him by a strong wind and then blown into next Tuesday. Zonic's eyes then shot to the door behind her. It was only being held to the doorframe by one hinge and looked like it might snap and fall at any moment. "I thought I told you to knock first before barging into my room."
Zamy looked behind her and her eyes widened. "Oh! I'm so sorry! Look, I'll fix your door. Just give me some nails. I'll do it!"
Zonic sighed again and covered the side of his face with his hand before pointing to a cabinet against the wall beside the door. "They're in the top drawer, where you put them last week." He picked up the sheet of paper again and cleared his throat. However, when the Sonic lookalike turned to Honest and Shadow, he found that they were gone, their seats now empty. He turned his head quickly from side to side. "Where did they go?"
Meanwhile, Honest and Shadow were down the hall heading back towards Zonest's office. However, Shadow had no idea where they were going and was instead just letting Honest pull him along.
"So, where are we heading?"
"Back to Zonest," Honest explained, not even turning towards him as she rushed back down the other hall. There were four or five different hallways that kind of met or converged in the middle where the elevators were. "Operation: Liberate Scourge, commence!"
"Zonest!"
Said blond cat looked up from her laptop to watch as Honest and Shadow pushed their way back into her room. "Hey, you're back. What's up?" Shadow noticed that she wasn't at all upset about them bursting into her room without knocking.
"We need to leave for Moebius pronto, and we need Scourge to come with us." Honest didn't bother with sitting down and instead stood beside her doppelganger who was sitting in her chair. Zonest's eyes widened.
"Oh! Well, okay." She stood up and left her laptop open. "Let's go ask for the warden's permission." She walked past Honest and Shadow and went straight out the door. Shadow looked at Honest in surprise, but he wasn't sure she noticed as she was already sprinting after Zonest.
On the way, the trio walked across a narrow walkway, perpendicular to which lie an abandoned courtyard of sorts, however it was turned ninety degrees due to the difference in orientation. Honest silently thanked the reliability of her spatial stabilizer because without it, she would surely plummet to her death. Well, not her so much as Shadow would. Cats always fall on their feet. Shadows always seemed to fall on their heads.
Speaking of Shadow, the Ultimate Nitwit was busy thinking beside Honest as they walked. It was so loud Honest couldn't help but hear it even as they entered an elevator larger than the one in the main building and headed up towards what they guessed was Warden Zobotnik's room. When they stepped out of the elevator, there was a long hallway. On their left was a horizontal elevator. If they were standing in the elevator, this hallway would look more like a spacious elevator shaft.
There is no way the Warden is going to let Scourge go free. This isn't the first time he's been arrested. There's no way they're going to let him go free this time.
However, Warden Zobotnik was silent and listened to Zonest with his eyebrows raised, carefully considering everything she said.
They let Zonest go in ahead of them. The strategy behind it was that the mustachioed warden might not take her seriously if Honest and Shadow accompanied her. They entered seconds later once Zonest had almost fully explained the situation to him. They were surprised yet again when Zobotnik jumped upon seeing them. Sweat came to the corners of his face like a character from a comic, (oh. Oh, yeah, he is) and he appeared to almost fall out of his chair. "D-Did I forget I was meeting with you? No, wait, I never meet with the Primes. That's Zonic's job."
Shadow looked over at Honest. Even she seemed confused.
The view outside the warden's circular room was pretty serene and nice, a sharp contrast with the room's interior which was gray and lifeless.
"That's the point I'm trying to make for letting Scourge go free. If Honest and Shadow Prime are ever going to stop Fiona, they'll need Scourge's assistance. She's probably turned the Castle into a secure fortress, and Scourge is the only person who knows its layout," Zonest stressed.
Well, not technically. I've been to the Castle a good amount of times now, and even Shadow has been there once. Still, they've only seen a few of the rooms upstairs and just the kitchen, throne room, and old lab on the first floor.
Then, Honest thought about what Zonest had said about the Castle being a fortress now. Was it really? The Castle didn't even have a front door the last time she'd checked, just an empty, ruined doorway where it used to be.
"Ah, yes. The Anti-Sonic," Warden Zobotnik said, running his fingers through his mustache in thought. Man, his mannerisms were identical to the Doctor Eggman of Honest and Shadow's zone, although his mustache was much shorter than Eggman's. Next he grinned and crossed his arms. It felt like he was boasting some sort of victory. "I don't think it'll be a problem at all to let him go. Frees up one of the temporary cells." He reached under his desk and unhooked one of the keys he had hanging there. He tossed it to Honest.
"We spoke with Zonic, and he says he'll send a large group of Zone cops to Moebius to help us after a week," Honest told him after forcing down the urge to frown at his use of Scourge's old name. "They'll round up all of the prisoners and get them back here." She added that last bit, thinking that getting all of the escaped prisoners back would be the Warden's biggest priority.
"Sounds like a plan," Zobotnik said, spinning in his chair to face Zonest who was now standing at one end of his crescent-shaped metal desk. He looked at her as if asking what she thought.
"I'm confident Honest knows what she's saying and will be able to get the prisoners back within a week," Zonest told him. He shrugged and turned back to Honest and Shadow.
"Alright, then. If you need transportation to Moebius, feel free to use the portal room back in the main building." The Warden thought for a second and sighed. "I guess you'll need the key from Zonic. He feels obligated to claim all of that as his domain nowadays."
Well, according to Zonic, it was his responsibility to visit all the zones, but, then again, that was according to him. Obviously Honest didn't know what Zonic's and Warden Zobotnik's relationship was exactly, but from her experience with her world's Sonic and Eggman, what Eggman said about Sonic was usually right. Usually. That scene in Sonic X where Eggman lied to Knuckles about how Sonic was actually a monster to get Knuckles to fight him came to mind. Except, well, Eggman's "lie" didn't seem nearly as absurd now as it had seemed to Honest at the moment. (See chapter 28) So actually... yeah. What Eggman said about Sonic was definitely mostly always the truth. It was because, as archnemeses, over the years, they had both come to know each other inside and out. Zonest shrugged, communicating that she agreed but was unsure what to do or if there was anything to do about that. Afterwards, Zonest, Honest, and Shadow turned to leave but Zobotnik stopped them.
"Wait," he said. "Zonest. Go get the list of prisoners and return here. I want to go over them just in case there's some hint as to why this Fiona character wanted to set them free." Said Honest lookalike nodded her head and the trio left to return to Zonic.
-
"That worked out pretty well, huh?" Honest asked Shadow, laughing as if what the group had just returned from was some kind of comedic performance rather than a simple face-to-face meeting with the warden of the No Zone prison. Zonest had waved good-bye moments earlier and returned to her room.
"I- Guess," Shadow said, crossing his arms. They were back in the center of all the hallways on the third floor of the Zone Cops' headquarters. Honest stood in front of the elevator, and Shadow stood with his back to the wall beside it. "We succeeded in freeing Scourge, but he's not instrumental in getting to Fiona or anything. Should I really be that excited?"
"I never expect the Ultimate Pain in the Backside to be anything but tiresome," Honest responded. It felt wrong to be upset with Shadow, so Honest tried to sound like she was only pretending to be cross with him. She sighed and pressed the button to head back up to the ninth floor. Once there, Honest and Shadow made a beeline for Scourge's cell, and Honest unlocked the door.
"Get up! It's time to go to Moebius," Honest announced. The green king was asleep when they entered and bolted straight upright as soon as she had spoken.
"How'd you get the key?" Scourge asked, severely confused. It was obvious that he hadn't expected to be released anytime soon.
"Warden Zobotnik graciously lent it to us," Honest told him. She set it on the wooden stool and offered Scourge a hand in standing up.
He hesitated before taking it. "You mean you stole it?"
"No, actually," Honest told him, smiling proudly at her achievement although it had really been no trouble at all to do what she did. "I realized that Zonest, as an equivalent to myself, had the ability to influence the Warden. So, I just got them to talk, and now you're free!"
Scourge still didn't take Honest's hand and instead looked down at it as if he doubted its authenticity. "You didn't have to do this."
Oh, no. Now Scourge was being a nitwit. "Do you have short-term memory loss?" Honest asked. He just blinked at her. "Both you and Shadow must have some form of memory loss because I shouldn't have to explain this simple concept to you every time I mention something about it. We're. Friends. Get it?" Scourge nodded, but Honest doubted he still got it. However, they were running out of time, so Honest grabbed Scourge's hand herself and yanked and pulled on his arm to try to get him up.
She wasn't quick enough, though.
From the cage next to them, they heard a voice. "Hey, Scourge." Said green pineapple suddenly stood up and looked to his right. Infinite's outline could be seen between the bars.
Honest and Shadow both narrowed their eyes at the masked nuisance while Scourge just stared at him blankly.
"Why did you betray me?"
