"Alright, class! Get off the bus. We're taking a plane from here!"
Honest opened her eyes. She had fallen asleep on the ride there. Honest looked out the window and discovered an airport outside.
"Shadow, look! An actual airport." Shadow yawned and opened his eyes as well.
"So what?" he asked, still half asleep.
"I've never been on an airplane before! Much less at an airport!" Honest's eyes lit up with stars, and Shadow rolled his own eyes before standing up.
He helped Honest to her feet. "Grab your bag and let's go then," Shadow said.
Honest nodded happily and put her backpack on. "Let's go!"
Honest sped ahead of him, knocking down Tails and Amy on her way to the door of the bus. Shadow warped out, wanting to avoid upsetting anyone in order to follow her.
"All the pretty lights!" Honest exclaimed, commenting on the many lights that lit up the airport, probably so a plane could see them when they went to land. The sky was considerably dark now. Shadow guessed they had been asleep for at least two hours if they had left at 1, sat up wide awake for an hour or so, napped for an hour, played Puyo Puyo Versus for an hour, and stopped somewhere to eat for an hour. When they had finished eating, Honest fell asleep (of course because she always passed out after eating).
"All the pretty planes!" Tails exclaimed, tumbling out of the bus.
"All the pretty girls!" Scourge exclaimed, jumping out of the bus after them.
"All the pretty... I mean... it's just an airport, isn't it?" Shadow asked.
A couple human girls walked by, dressed like they had just flown in from Adabat.
Scourge tried running after them, but was pulled back by the collar of his jacket by Shadow.
"Aw, what gives, Stripes?" the spiny, green pineapple whined, his sunglasses looking to be about to fall off his head.
"Remember. We're here to board a plane to take us to Eggman Land," Shadow explained to him. He let go of the collar of Scourge's jacket, and Scourge stayed in place, watching the flower-decorated Adabat girls walk off. A moment later, Sonic zipped out of the bus and ran up to the girls, offering a bouquet of flowers he had probably collected in a supersonic second. Despite already having flowers in their hair, the girls accepted the flowers and visibly thanked Sonic. He gave them a thumbs up.
Dr. Eggman was marching towards the front doors. Silver was marching behind him while Rouge flew ahead of them.
"Come on, Shadow!" Honest said, turning to him and pulling his arm.
Shadow was watching Sonic. Honest didn't notice and just proceeded to pull Shadow down the hill after the Doctor.
Once inside, Honest gasped once again. "Woah! It's just like that music video for the song Tricolore Airline where the dancers are dancing at an airport!" Honest absorbed all of her surroundings, carefully noting every detail so she could draw them later. "The colors.. and the angry people at counters.. and is that a very shady man hiding a bomb under his jacket about to board a plane headed for Empire City?" Honest pointed towards a man standing in line for one of the planes, her mouth agape in happiness. The security guards nearby heard her and immediately went to deal with it.
Shadow pulled Honest by her sleeve. "We're leaving to board the plane," he told her.
The plane they were waiting in line for had a giant Eggman Industries logo on the side of it. "Ah, the old logo!" Honest said cheerfully. Shadow just "hmph"ed and boarded the plane. Honest followed after, looking back at the man getting apprehended in thought.
They found a seat near the middle of the plane behind Amy and Tails and in front of Scourge and Rouge. Across the aisle sat Sonic. He kept his face glued to the window the whole time. Obviously, he wanted the plane to land and let him off so he could run.
It wasn't very long until the plane landed in Eggman Land. The planet wasn't actually in one piece after Sonic had saved the world in Sonic Unleashed because even though the planet was theoretically put back together since Sonic beat Eggman Land's hour-long level, the game just continues to the final boss fight, making it to where when you press "continue", it takes you back to before you beat the level despite it saying you did and before the planet was fully put back together, thus making it canon that Eggman Land was permanently on a floating island in the sky with a fiery abyss in its shadow... That was how that worked, right?
An Egg Fighter greeted them at the gate. "Man, I haven't seen one of these in ages!" Honest exclaimed. She tapped her knuckles against the metal belly of the robot, making a "bong, bong, bong" noise.
"PLEASE STATE YOUR REASON FOR ENTER," said the robot.
"This is your creator, Dr. Eggman. ... Didn't I program you to recognize the person who created you?" The robot just shot his gun at him, but nothing but smoke came out.
"Aren't you glad I disabled your weapons?" The robot sweat dropped... somehow.
The Doctor just walked right past him. The students followed him.
"This has gotta be some kind of trap," Sonic said, noting the wall-mounted guns that lined the hallway and how they turned to look at him whenever the group passed them. Dr. Eggman must've heard him because he answered without turning around.
"They're programmed to track their first priority.. you. They won't shoot unless I give them the command. Just don't destroy any of the robots and you'll be fine."
The group passed a row of Egg Fighters in standby mode. Sonic watched them carefully. If any of these robots move an inch, I will be forced to attack, though.
Honest invaded his thoughts. "Don't do anything you might regret."
"I won't!" he told her. Shadow was five or six feet away, but he heard him and "pft"ed. Honest wished she knew how to speak Shadow. It would be a pretty useful skill seeing as though no one else had that ability.
They passed a building that looked like a metal courthouse from the destroyed future. "See? Eggman Land has a strong judicial system- very important for a developed country."
"Well, even Guatamenyada has one courthouse..." said Scourge.
"I heard that! No talking unless I ask you a question, got it?" ordered the Doctor.
Their tour of the metal city continued. They passed what looked like businesses and food stands manned by Egg Fighters and other Eggman's robots. There was even a bank and a gas station, which Shadow and Honest guessed was the robots' equivalent of a restaurant. A couple robots covered in rust sat on the metal sidewalk and played cards.
"What's the average income of Eggman Land?" Shadow asked, curious.
"Roughly 1,600 Egg Dollars a year," said Eggman confidently.
"Egg Dollars? How much is that in rings?" Honest asked, curious as well.
Doctor Eggman pulled out a calculator from nowhere. "Let me see... 530 rings."
"530 rings? Sonic can collect that many by playing Casinopolis in less than two minutes!" Honest exclaimed.
"W-Well.. you see.. There are a ton of taxes that robots have to pay in order to prevent themselves from being melted into scrap metal at the first of the month. That's where most of their money goes..."
They shrugged. Honest and Shadow could believe that. Still, 500 rings a year wasn't even near the amount of average income that a country would need in order to be considered developed. Eggman had taught them that himself in class.
They passed a garage where one robot was welding an arm from a scrapped Egg Fighter onto another one who needed one. "Woah.." Shadow breathed. Who knew that Egg Fighters could be programmed to care for others of their own kind? Honest yawned and kept walking.
I'm ending this here. It's going to be in two parts. I hope you enjoyed this short story so far. See you soon! ... Also, there might be a gap between chapters. I hope you won't mind. A gap could mean a gap between when parts are published, or it could mean a chapter or two that are completely unrelated to this short story within the whole, big story of Honesty is the Best Policy! {w/Snow}. We'll see.