Thank goodness there was soup to make the tragedies talked about in this chapter not hit so hard. They may seem a little like they're coming out of nowhere to you though, faithful reader. I just realized that now. Oh, well. Anyway, enjoy!
"Wh-Who are you guys?" the newcomer asked, looking back and forth between the four other characters as if trying to predict which one of them was going to attack her first.
Nobody answered. Shadow kept his eyes glued to this mysterious person while he whispered to Honest. "Are you two related?"
"Shadow, Scourge, meet Hearts, the anti-Honest," Honest introduced them, also keeping her eyes glued to the newcomer. Hearts walked past them though and approached the green hedgehog holding a box of assorted oatmeal flavors behind them.
"Prince Sonic?" she stated with some uncertainty.
Scourge looked panicked, his face flushed. "Uh, actually it's Scourge now."
Shadow looked around Honest at him. "You know this girl?"
"Not personally," Scourge said, staring at Hearts as if all the answers would come to him that way.
"I'm sorry," Hearts told him. She peered into the open box Scourge was holding. "I've kind of sort of been in exile out in the Great Desert for most of my life, so... You wanna get me caught up over breakfast?"
The anti-Vanilla came down the stairs covered in white chalk dust and made them all a large pot of mystery soup. Like, literally mystery soup. No one at the table knew what was in it, but it tasted slightly spicy, had a thick and creamy consistency, and was colored a dark cinnamon brown. However, there wasn't nearly enough oatmeal to serve them all, so Shadow and the anti-Honest decided they would be the ones to risk their own wellbeing by eating the mystery soup while Honest and Scourge sat across from them and ate the last few remaining packets of oatmeal.
Speaking of the anti-Honest, this "Hearts" hadn't said a thing since they started eating. She must've been fairly hungry when she let herself in through the broken front door to the inn earlier as she had been slurping steadily from her bowl this whole time.
Shadow cleared his throat before speaking. "So, you said you had been 'exiled? By who and what for?"
Hearts looked up, her yellow eyes shooting from down at her bowl to up at Shadow.
"The King... and heresy," Hearts told him, tilting her head to either side as she did so. Shadow wordlessly turned to Honest. However, Scourge spoke instead.
"My dad had her exiled for her quote on quote 'heretical beliefs' shortly before the coup that resulted in his death and the transfer of power over to me," Scourge explained, his eyes narrowed, communicating how annoyed he was that he even had to explain this. He turned to look at Hearts, his expression shifting to one of curiosity. "So you've been wandering the desert all this time? Where are all your followers?"
"Dead," Hearts said, her voice lacking all compassion. "Dehydration took them pretty early into the journey." Her eyes seemed to reflect some sadness, but perhaps Shadow had just imagined it.
"How did you survive?" Scourge asked, doubting Hearts's story almost instantly. When a group of hundreds enters a desert and emerges with just their leader remaining, you have to consider, just for a moment, that something might be up.
Hearts grabbed something at her chest and lifted it up. It was a cyan pendant, on a string, in the shape of a crescent moon. Light from the candle in the center of the table reflected off its glossy surface. "I will always survive," Hearts told him. She beamed. "I have been chosen by the gods." Her ochre eyes lit up like stars.
Shadow spit valuable mystery soup in surprise while Scourge stared uncomprehendingly and Honest's eyes widened. "But don't you think that's proof?" Honest asked, looking between the two disbelieving and doubtful hedgehogs. Honest then turned to her Anti. "How many people went with you into the Desert?"
Hearts thought for a second before replying. "Between nine hundred and a thousand."
"Okay," Honest said, putting her spoon back in her bowl. "Nine hundred people walk into the Great Desert, one person walks out. What other possibilities are there other than that?"
"Uh, plenty," Shadow answered, squinting. "She had access to water that the others didn't, she's lying to us and she was somehow involved in their deaths, I don't know, a million things?"
"It's their fault they died," Hearts claimed, frowning as she sloshed the contents of her mystery soup around in the bowl. "It was my exile, they followed me there by their own free wills."
"They believed in you. You're responsible for their deaths," Scourge pointed out. Hearts took one last gulp of her soup and stood up from the splintery wooden table.
"I don't need to explain myself to you," the anti-Honest told him. She left the kitchen.
"How exactly do you two know each other?" Shadow asked Scourge as soon as he heard the front door creak closed. Honest started eating her oatmeal again as Scourge tried his best to answer.
"Everybody had a different plan on how to end the Peace. Outside of my gang, others had rumors and whispers of plans while my family was still in power. Spoiler alert, my plan came out on top." Scourge dropping the spoilers. He leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the table, having finished his oatmeal. The anti-Vanilla and Scream had left at some point to "tend to something upstairs". Suspicious, but everything about the Antis seemed to be so far.
"Eventually word got out that Hearts and her admirers were planning a takedown, so of course that had to be quashed. It seems it might've worked. She was exiled and a lot of others went with her, wanting to go down with their idol. And go down they did." Scourge made an impressed face.
Meanwhile, Honest finished her oatmeal and went to go find Hearts. Shadow watched her go, wondering what she hoped to gain by making her twin stay. It wasn't like Antis and Primes often got along. All he had to go by was Sonic and Scourge, and they of course despised each other. Amy and Rosy, though...
"Hey, Honest," Amy said, getting her attention. She spun around. Blaze pointed.
"That girl... she looks like Amy. Is she a recolor?"
"No!" Honest told her, laughing. "This is Rosy- er, Anti-Amy. She's our friend."
"Yeah," Sonic agreed. Amy laughed a little too loudly and pet Rosy's head.
"Yeah! She's like my little sister!" Rosy narrowed her eyes, visibly annoyed by her behavior..."Isn't she cute?" Blaze looked at her sideways.
"Aren't our Moebius counterparts evil?" she asked, confused.
Suddenly something caught Rosy's attention and she slipped out of Amy's grasp.
Maybe Honest could have that sort of relationship with Hearts. Sort of like him and... Frank... Ugh, Shadow had been trying to think about that particular recolor as little as possible while they were here in Moebius. Him, and Mephiles, and Sonic. He had already let Mephiles's seed of distrust affect him last night. Now, all he needed to do to completely ruin this short vacation was to-
"Why isn't my dorky blue twin here with us?"
Speak about Sonic.
"Why are you bringing that faker up here of all places?" Shadow asked, his face heating up.
Scourge rubbed his eyes and yawned. "I don't know, I just had the thought. If he's supposed to be the hero, why isn't he here confronting Fiona instead of us?"
"I... don't know." Shadow furrowed his brow and assumed a thoughtful pose. "Last I saw him, he said he was heading back home to check and make sure everyone was safe there."
"That's way too convenient, don'tcha think? Like, I know it's important to secure home base and all, but he's the hero. Heroes don't sit at home while the multiverse around them is in peril."
"...And you know what it means to be a hero, how?"
Scourge rolled his eyes. "You know I'm right." Shadow let out a huge yawn as he came close to finishing his soup. Scourge tilted his head at him. "You're still tired?"
"Yeah," Shadow said, suddenly struggling to keep his eyes open. He laid his head down on the table. Scourge just shrugged and started scraping the bits of oatmeal off the bottom of his bowl while Shadow took a nap.
I can't believe this story is 38 chapters long now! ? I said in the beginning that I wanted this to be my longest story ever, but I was afraid I wouldn't ever get there. I surpassed {w/Rosy}... four chapters ago?
Truthfully, I could end this story any time now, but I said this was going to be a *long* story, but I see a lot of "long" stories that have sixty-something chapters, so that's what I'm aiming for. If I continue to write at the pace I am now, it should only take about two years to double the amount of chapters to 76. Can I do it? We'll just have to wait and see.
