It was September 19th, 2017, and Honest was looking at a calendar near the TV. "Autumn begins on the 22nd. That's one, two, three days from now. So... this Saturday?"
Shadow was walking by. He stopped and studied the calendar. "You're waiting for fall?"
"Mm-hm." Honest nodded. "Fall is the season of new video games and food! They're two things I really enjoy," she informed him. She thought for a moment. "And when the seasons and years change, I make new playlists for my song covers! The ones I have now are cluttered and not very organized."
"I see," Shadow said, pretending to be interested.
"I like Summer because of all the beach-themed artwork that is made. And the pictures that turn up of characters in swimsuits... sigh. I'm going to miss Summer, but it'll happen again next year!" Honest exclaimed, happily thinking back to her frequent visitations of the DeviantArt #Sonic pages earlier in the Summer.
On their way to school that morning, Shadow and Honest ran into Daniela as she was walking to school as well.
"Good morning!" Honest said, greeting her. She looked up from her phone, Daniela smiling back at the blond cat girl.
"Good morning, Shadow," Daniela said a moment later, looking over to where he was skating beside Honest, a smile on her face.
"Good morning," was his delayed response. He seemed to be distracted by something... or maybe he was just trying not to acknowledge her. Daniela always seemed to be hiding something. Whether she was or not, I have no clue, but she sure did act that way sometimes.
Of course, it was hard to make assumptions of how a character acts unless you ask their creator, but this is just what Honest and Shadow had observed these few months they had known each other.
"Did you do your homework for Algebra II?" Daniela asked Honest.
"Wait..." Honest had to think for a moment. "I- I think I did! This is the first time in a week I have. Huh." Honest looked around triumphantly. Shadow rolled his eyes.
"I didn't!" Daniela complained, throwing her hands down in fists beside her. "I didn't even start on it!"
"Well," Honest said. "I guess I can help you in study hall this afternoon if I'm not helping Mephiles."
"Oh, thank you so much! I don't want to be yelled at.." Daniela's face switched from emote to emote. While Daniela stared at her feet with a ~ face, Honest looked at Shadow. He was watching her change emotion with a straight face. Honest sighed and pulled Shadow's wrist. "Let's run up ahead, Shadow. Come on." Shadow nodded and picked up speed. The two of them disappeared around a corner. Daniela kept staring downwards at her feet.
Akane was standing by the front door, her face indifferent as she watched people enter and leave the building. When she saw Honest and Shadow approach her, she beamed and waved. "Ohaiyou~!"
Honest smiled back and hurtled a handrail to reach her. "Good morning, Akane," she said. Shadow walked up the steps. "Good morning."
"Good morning," came a fourth voice. Honest turned around to become face to face with the Embodiment of Darkness himself, Mephiles the Dark. "W-w-wa-" Mephiles was way too close to Honest for her to feel comfortable.
"Mephiles," Shadow said slowly. Mephiles only looked sideways at him.
"What?" he said plainly, black smoke encircling the two.
Suddenly a white hedgehog with the doofiest-looking hair came running up to them. "Mephy-chan!" he exclaimed. The smoke disappeared just like that and Mephiles turned away from Honest and towards the hedgehog.
"Blaze said we can go to Rouge's Café after school! Are you coming?"
Mephiles nodded silently. He floated away, following Silver as he left. "Phew," Honest breathed, sighing in relief. Shadow went to stand beside her.
As soon as the bell rang, Honest dashed into the building, shielded by Shadow.
What was he trying to do? What was he planning? What was more important than those questions to Honest was: When would he try to attack again?
Of course, in Shadow's mind, Mephiles had just been being creepy, but he kept the plan of capturing him in the Scepter of Darkness in his mind the entire time.
First period, Honest tried desperately to draw in her notebook while they were taking notes, but it was extremely hard to do. Second period, she drew a picture of Princess Elise the Third, the princess of Soleanna, after she was finished with her vocabulary test. Sonic was sitting next to her. "Is that the girl who kissed me in that terrible game?" Sonic asked, narrowing his eyes at the small, shaded-in drawing in Honest's notebook.
"Yeah. You may not care for her much, but I like her. She's very pleasant when she's not saying she doesn't 'care what happens to the world'," Honest told him.
Third period, Honest was supposed to be looking up images of rice on her laptop, but instead she and Scourge entertained themselves by scrolling through pages upon pages of Sonic fan art. When Honest found a picture of Scourge and Fiona kissing, he stuck out his tongue and closed the lid.
"So, whatever happened to you and Fiona? Aren't you with Manic?" Honest asked.
"I am with Manic. Fiona still stays with me, but we're not together anymore." When Honest nodded in understanding, Scourge continued. "That doesn't mean she's any less overbearing." Honest just fell silent and kicked her feet.
"You don't like Manic and me being together, do you? You wish I were with Fiona?"
"Of course I don't want you and Fiona to get together. But then again, I don't particularly care for you and Manic either, though I can see why your personalities would work together whether it be in a good way or not."
"What do you mean by that?" Scourge asked, curious.
"I mean..." Honest now regret saying that. She didn't want to get into that right then, but she continued anyway. "I would think you and Manic would be prone to break up. Like, even more so than Fiona was."
Scourge grinned with his razor blade-like teeth. What happened when he bit his tongue? "I like it that way. It keeps things interesting."
"How did I know you'd say that? XD" When the teacher looked their direction, Honest opened up her laptop and logged back into DeviantArt to pretend like she was doing something.
Fourth period, Honest was by herself. Because of this, nothing really happened.
Fifth period, Honest continued to work on her painting of a race car. She had always had trouble getting the paint to come out of the jugs. She was worried she wouldn't be able to get any purple for the background. Akane walked into the classroom.
"Akane? What are you doing here?" Akane smiled and showed her what looked like the thing in a soap bottle that you use to pump it out. She firmly secured it in the top of the jug of purple paint.
"Woah," Honest exclaimed. It worked super well! She was able to finish her painting completely thanks to this beautiful invention.
Honest arrived to lunch super early that day, so she had plenty of time to eat. Because of this, she actually left the cafeteria fuller than she was coming in! So far her day had been pretty wonderful. When she went outside to sit in the sun, she sat on the steps, leaning onto the railing. Shadow sat on the other side. Shadow didn't very much care for burning up in the heat, but since Honest did, he was okay with sitting with her.
Sixth period, Honest regretted eating the yucky school food, but she persevered as well as she could, typing her fan fiction with the remaining time left after she was done helping Daniela with her homework.
Seventh period, although the class had just finished giving their first speeches, they were already starting on preparing their next ones. They were going to be persuasive. Honest decided to do hers on persuading the class to try new things. That might as well be her life motto. Honest was always trying new things. She could draw, write, sing, mix music- and she was constantly learning new words in Japanese whether she wanted to or not. That was something she could easily persuade the class to do.
The next day, Honest starved because she couldn't eat lunch. Her club had a meeting during lunch that day, so she chose not to trek over to the cafeteria and return in barely any time before the bell rang. Instead, she starved.
On the bright side, the next day, Honest found out that they would be eating popcorn chicken for lunch. If you're not familiar with popcorn chicken, it is the vital life source of all students. It's the only food that's truly edible at school. Popcorn chicken came already pre-cooked, so it didn't have any possibility of giving anyone food poisoning even if the lunch ladies didn't cook it until it was completely done so they could feed more students in less time.
Shadow saw Honest in front of a vending machine, looking downtrodden.
"Hey," Shadow said, walking over. He looked at the machine then back at Honest. "You okay?"
"They are out of apple juice," Honest mumbled. She kicked the machine.
Shadow jumped. "Y-You don't have to kick the machine. It's not his fault."
Honest frowned. She walked to the machine next to it and put in all 10 of her dimes. She pressed a button and a can of diet Chaos Cola came out.
"Ew. Diet? Don't they have regular Chaos Cola?" Shadow asked.
"Nope." Honest stooped to grab the can before swinging her backpack over her arm and disappearing into the Art room.
Honest pulled her painting of a race car off of the drying rack to show the teacher. "So," she said, holding the painting up to show her over the desk. "Is there anything I should add, or can I move on to my next project?"
"You need to add more paint to cover up all those pencil lines."
Honest frowned, sighed, then walked over to the shelves to get more yellow, orange, and red paint. The other characters in AP- Amy Rose and Perci- talked about life, death, and art while she worked. For some reason, the things they spoke of were interesting Honest. Well, not so much the death part, but the life part, Honest felt, was interesting. She felt more world-wise just by listening to them. Perci talked about all the dreams she had, and how they were all being squashed by her unwillingness to get off of her butt and act upon them. Amy would say "exactly" or "tru dat" or "I know" every once and awhile. Honest now understood how other people thought. It was... relatively close to how she felt. Especially when they talked about art supplies that they wanted or couldn't afford. She felt like... she could talk to them. But of course she didn't. Honest never talked to anyone, however much she wanted to.
(Literally I only thought to put Amy in AP Art on the basis that she had painted something in Sonic Boom. [Episode 15 of Season 1 "Aim Low"])
"Shadow!" Honest saw Shadow in the hallway on her way to lunch. She launched herself at him, pulling him into a hug. "Let's walk to lunch together!"
A puff of steam shot from Shadow's head. "Let go of me and be quiet before someone thinks we're dating," he said under his breath.
Honest laughed. "Of course! We don't want that!"
Shadow turned to exit out of the side doors. Honest reached for and grabbed his hand. "But this is okay, right?" Shadow "pft"ed.
"Not really, but I suppose it doesn't matter," Shadow replied. He pushed out the doors. Sunlight poured down from the sky onto them.
"It doesn't matter now what happens I will-" Shadow plugged his ears.
"NEVER GIVE UP THE FI-IGHT!" Fan characters looked at them, mad.
Shadow clamped a hand over her mouth. "Shut. Up."
"Mm-mph-mh-m-m! Muph-mu-ma-m-mph-m-m-" Honest pulled away from him finally. "RIGHT!"
"Why the Chaos do you have to be so ****ing loud?!"
"Woah, Shadow. Language."
"I'm Shadow the Hedgehog!"
And I think I will leave you on that note. xD He cracks me up sometimes. CX See? I had to make up a new smiley just to represent how cracked up I feel! Please (leave a review), and I'll see you again soon!
Published (on Wattpad): 10:55 PM, Friday the 13th, October 2017
(Published on FanFiction: I can't put the time because I don't know when exactly that will be, but Tuesday the 1st, September 2020)