(Oh, no! I drew a picture for this chapter that I'm really proud of, and I can't show it! I'll link to it instead:)

story_

It was Thursday, the 8th of March, 2018, and Rouge led the maids she had selected to come clean into Snow's house. Snow was standing in the middle of the main room next to Sonic.

"Now, before you get started, I just want to warn you all. This house hasn't been cleaned in a good... four years. And some of the rooms in this house have escaped cleaning for longer than that," she was saying.

Honest turned to Shadow to translate. "Basically, if you find a giant spider that wants to eat you, give him Sonic to chew on while you vacate the room."

"Yeah, why is the faker here anyway?" Shadow asked her. Sonic heard him and walked over.

"Because I live here. What planet do you live on, Shadster?" he asked him, wearing that dorky grin he usually wore, but this time it stretched almost literally from ear to ear except, well, his ears were a little far from his mouth area for that to be possible.

A car horn could be heard outside and Honest's ears jumped up into the air. "Oh! Be back in a moment, Shadster!"

"You, too?" Shadow turned around to be met face to face with Sonic. He rested his hand on his hip and made a face that Shadow just knew had some sort of meaning, but he chose to ignore it and turned back around to face the door.

Honest came in with Dina and Infinite, whom both wore cafe uniforms. "Uh..." was the sort of sound that Shadow made as she led them both inside.

"I thought that we might need some extra help, so I asked Dina and Infinite to come join us!" Honest exclaimed. Infinite stared at the back of Honest's head with a fervent determination while Dina just looked around the house as if sizing up just what kind of magical work she would have to perform in order to clean an area this large. Plus, Dina could only imagine just how many small rooms and dead ends this house contained that weren't visible to her from where she was standing.

Shadow wondered how Honest had accomplished getting a powerful enemy such as Infinite to crossdress, but he imagined that Honest had the capacity to be just as powerful if she so desired. Honest turned around and told Infinite that he could start in the kitchen, and that her, Shadow, and Dina could start with tidying the closet nearby and make their way over to him after a while. Infinite nodded and took a broom that was resting against a wall, walking towards the ancient-looking kitchen close by where they had breakfast every morning. Honest smiled at Shadow, and she began to lead the way, not wasting any time.

"The quicker we can get started, the sooner we can get done," she explained. Dina was already fast on her heels, so Shadow ran to catch up. Whoever thought that Shadow would have to run to catch up with a cat? Of course, Blaze was pretty fast, but... you know what I mean.

As they entered the closet, Shadow could tell, even in the dim light, that the small room was a mess. There were shelves on either wall, but all the clothes and things that were supposed to be on them were on the floor instead.

"These clothes look like they're from the twenty-first century," Shadow remarked.

Honest and Dina immediately began picking up the things on the floor and putting them back on the shelves, but they stopped just as soon as they began when they realised that the shelf was covered in dust.

"Where's Akane?" he asked next. Honest looked up from where she was bent over stacking clothes Dina had folded.

"I saw her follow Rouge upstairs," Honest told him. Honest stood up and sighed. "I'm going to go find a duster or something." She looked up at the rows of clothes hanging up. "You two can pick out all of the empty hangers and put them in a stack."

Shadow and Dina began to scan the rows as Honest left the room, shutting the door softly behind her. She went to go find Snow, so she could ask her for a duster.

Dina had a bundle of hangers in her arms as she picked them off of the metal bar they were hanging on when Shadow noticed something on a shelf above the clothes. He pulled an old stool out of the corner of the closet and used it to stand up on as he found out what it was.

"Hey, Dina! Look what I found!" he exclaimed. It was an old life monitor from the first Sonic games. It still displayed the image of an extra life on its screen. Dina gasped and pointed at the stool.

"The leg's about to break!" she yelled. Sure enough, the leg was making an awful noise and splintering.

"What?" It broke and he fell. The monitor busted and the jingle from getting an extra life played. Suddenly Honest opened the closet door and poked her head into the room.

"Hey! Luckily you had an extra life!" Honest exclaimed, laughing. Shadow huffed and crossed his arms as he sat on the floor with the broken monitor and pieces of the wooden stool laying on the floor around him.

When an hour had passed, Rouge had everyone gather in the front of the house again. Honest observed as a some people approached with dust all over their hands and faces. She guessed they had found some pretty dingy rooms upstairs.

"Are we getting breaks?" came the excited voice of Manic as he clasped his soot-covered hands together. Obviously he had taken on the task of cleaning the chimney.

Rouge laughed as if he had told some sort of ridiculous joke. "That's a good one! But, no." Honey walked into the room pushing a cart with spare uniforms hanging from it. "Honey's bringing you all fresh uniforms!" Manic's smile crumbled, revealing a frown. Rouge pointed at the cart. "Get changed then get back to work."

Honest and Shadow were walking up the stairs. Dina went to go help Infinite tidy the linen closet beside the bathroom near Shadow's room.

"I've played around 12 routes so far, and I've learned a lot and have been confused a lot. Are you or are you not an android?" Honest asked honestly.

Shadow just shrugged. Honest sighed. "You don't know either, do you?" When he didn't reply, Honest huffed and began to watch the steps underneath them. "I feel like if you were trapped inside the game for a week, you could maybe find out."

Shadow looked at her like she was insane. He then laughed. "Maybe. If only that was possible."

Honest let out a nervous laugh. "Yeah. If only."

Once upstairs, Honest and Shadow organized their collection of 100+ video games by sorting them in alphabetical order.

Thank you so much for reading! I'm going to split this into multiple chapters because if I continued, this chapter would be a hundred pages long, and I guess you don't want to read all of that in one sitting. Of course maybe you do, I have no clue what kind of crazy people are reading this. See you next time on Sonic X! :D

PS: I actually know if Shadow is an android or not, but I won't tell you because it would spoil the game. Sorry.