(Yay! So, this was the chapter I was talking about way back at the beginning of this story that was my apology to introducing Scourge to my stories so poorly- and apology from him! That's... kind of strange now that I think of it... And, this chapter became the inspiration behind another story of mine, {w/Rosy}!)

It was March 14th, 2018, and at the front counter of the cafe stood a true, blue customer who wanted to order something. The owner of the cafe came flying into the room and landed behind the counter. "Do you know what day it is?" she asked.

The spiky, blue rat looked at her with confusion. "The day you finally admit your love to Knu-"

"No! That's not what day it is!" She almost tackled him from the other side of the register. "That day will come in time, but guess what day it really is?"

"Give the town hero a break day?" he asked, extremely hopeful.

"No," the cafe owner, a bat, told him seriously.

"Oh," the customer said dishearteningly, his ears drooping.

"It's national pi day! And you know what that means?" She knew not to wait for his answer this time. "It means that all you can order is pie! So what kind?"

"But.. What if I want to order something else?" he asked, concerned.

"You will buy pie!" she said, pointing bitterly at him. His ears drooped again.

"Blueberry?" he asked.

"Wow, so original," Rouge commented.

"Oh! No, I'm not choosing blueberry pie because it's blue like me. I'm choosing blueberry pie because I love the taste of blueberries. It's so unique, you know?"

"No," Rouge said immediately, unamused. The doors to the back room were flung open a second later and an overly enthused, blond cat came flying into the room and up to the royal blue speedster.

"I do! I completely understand where you're coming from! Blueberries have a taste all their own that no other berries share similarities with. It's not my favorite kind of pie, but it does definitely have a unique flavor like you said," Honest exclaimed, lifting her index finger to the sky as if to cue a "did you know?" moment.

"What flavor of pie is your favorite, Honest?" the blue blur then asked.

Honest shut her eyes and imagined her favorite pie being carried to her by an angel on a silver plate. "Blackberry..." she said in response, drool dripping from her lip.

"Ew, uh.. where's Shadow?" he asked her, dodging the stream of spit.

"Right here," came his answer. Shadow was standing in the doorway that Honest had just emerged from seconds before in his uniform with his hand on his hip looking cross as... well, always.

"Shadster! How are you? How are you feeling? Would you like me to buy you a pie?"

Shadow actually decided to answer his questions, one-by-one. "I am... fine... I feel... okay... and no. I'm not a pie person. Buy one for yourself, faker. You're wasting valuable time."

"Would you like a pie, Honest?"

"Oh, would I!" Honest exclaimed, running towards the incredibly gracious, cobalt pineapple. Shadow sighed outwardly and walked away towards the center of the cafe.

"Alright, then! I want one blueberry and one blackberry pie, please!" he told Rouge.

"Go tell Amy," Rouge replied. Sonic went into the kitchen, pulling open the door and disappearing inside. She had meant for him to go to the window and tell her there, but whatever. Shadow had gotten an order written down on a note and went to the pass-through to give it to Amy. He saw a pair of emerald (grassy!) green eyes.

"Hey, look, Ames! It's a wild Faker in its natural habitat!" he exclaimed, peering at him. Shadow stuck the note to the counter and flicked Sonic's nose hard before stomping off. Sonic backed away from the pass-through and put his hands over his nose to stop it from moving back and forth. When it finally quit, Sonic laughed.

Shadow heard him laughing in the other room and huffed. "Why is he such an idiot?"

Manic heard him mumble and smiled. "That's my brother for ya," he said. "What did he do this time?"

Shadow thought for a second. "I don't- Nothing. He didn't do anything but be dumb."

Honest was greeting someone at the door. Manic recognized the voice and looked up just in time to see Scourge enter the cafe. He saw Manic instantly.

"Is that.. Manic?" Manic looked up at him hesitantly. "I didn't know you were working here. Did Shadow convince you that working here and dressing like that would impress me or something?" This whole time he had been walking towards him. Now he was standing beside him and Shadow, looking at Manic the whole time. "Because it most certainly did," Scourge said, grinning with his strange, triangular teeth.

Meanwhile, steam was billowing out of Honest's ears as she stood at the other end of the cafe near the door to the kitchen, watching them with a clearly angry face.

"Step away from the waitress, you viridescent, discourteous, four-eyed porcupine!"

Scourge turned around and beamed. "Oh, hey, Honest! How are you?"

That's always what people say when they're trying to mess with somebody, Honest noticed. One of the first things Sonic had asked Shadow when he saw him was how he was feeling.

"You know I don't like you and Manic together!" Honest yelled, her hands cupped to her mouth as she chunked her voice across the cafe.

Scourge dodged her exclamation before it had the chance to hit him. "Who would you prefer I be with, then?"

Honest thought a moment before stammering, "W-With Rosy! You're the opposite of Sonic after all. Amy is in love with Sonic, so therefore anti-Amy, a.k.a. Rosy, must like you! That's how it works. It doesn't make any sense for you to be with Sonic's brother; it just doesn't!"

Scourge tilted his head. "But he's not from my zone, so it doesn't count," Scourge argued. Honest closed her eyes and shook her head. Like Fiona.

"He takes up all of your time, though, so you're never around for Rosy to chase you," Honest pointed out. Rosy was watching through the pass-through, curious as to what all the commotion was about.

"But, then again, Shadow is always taking up Sonic's time and thus Sonic isn't around Amy near as much as he should be, too," Scourge said. His eyes moved to the kitchen window just quick enough to see Rosy walk back out of view. "They're not together, but you know what I mean."

The regal renegade wasn't trying to fight with Honest. He was merely interested in how she felt about him and Manic being the way they were. That plot element was one of the only things in this story that had implemented itself without/against the author's, Honest's, intentions after all, so he was concerned that Honest might be angry about it.

Honest thought and thought, but she eventually lifted up her head and smiled. "Well, isn't that a perfect mirror?" Scourge gave a confused face before Honest explained further.

"I mean, Mobius and Moebius are opposite universes, but parallel as well. Scourge is to Sonic as Rosy is to Amy as Manic is to-"

"Stripes," Scourge finished, realizing what she was getting at. Shadow heard his name and raised his head as he was cleaning up spilled filling from Sonic's blueberry pie as he steadily continued to eat it, not waiting for Honest at all. His head hit the underside of the table and he fell unconscious.

"CPR!" Sonic exclaimed, jumping out of his seat.

"What?!" Honest ran to the table. Scourge stayed behind.

"But I still don't understand why that theory applies to Manic if he's from your dimension," he said. This statement was ignored as Honest rushed to try to pull Shadow out from under the table before Sonic could get to him, but of course it was hard to compete with the Fastest Thing Alive when it came to speed.

Sonic got to him a millisecond before Honest and turned his commiserate, comatose competitor over in the floor until he was facing upwards towards him.

Meanwhile, Silver was ordering, er, trying to order a pie at the front counter, but Rouge was steadily pushing buttons and the register never displayed the right thing. Blaze came over and tried to mess with it to see if she could at least get it cleared out so she could start over but was having no such luck.

Suddenly Silver tapped Blaze on the shoulder and her fur stood on end. She turned around. "Oh, uh, yes, Silver?" the mauve cat said.

"Sonic's about to do something disgraceful to Shadow. Can you do something to stop him?" Blaze looked to where he was pointing and narrowed her eyes.

"Yes. I think that's something I can do."

Suddenly a fireball came whizzing through the air towards Sonic. He didn't see it coming and was alarmed when suddenly he found his fur alight.

"AH! STOP, DROP, AND ROLL!" he exclaimed. He then began to roll around on the floor like an idiot. The fire went out almost immediately, though, so he had performed rather brilliantly in that matter. Shadow then chose this moment to open his eyes. He sat up in time to see Sonic smack into the wall at high speed. Honest and him laughed.

When Honest stood up and turned around, Scourge was gone. Honest hadn't heard the bells above the door chime as he left because of all the commotion that Sonic had caused. Well, that Blaze had caused. Actually, that Silver had caused.

When Honest had returned to her table, she found that her pie had gone cold, and she had only taken two or three bites. She was about to give up and go back to working like she was supposed to be doing the whole time when she got the idea to go into the kitchen and heat it back up in the microwave.

There was where she found Scourge. He was approaching Rosy. Honest immediately ducked behind a box of yet-to-be-unboxed cupcake decorations and another box which probably contained napkins or something, but Honest was unsure.

When the apologetic, green pineapple opened his mouth to say something, his fuchsia worshiper immediately pulled out her very painful-looking spiked hammer and held it in front of her as if to block him from attacking her. "What Honest told you was true! Manic is distracting you! You need to do something about that!"

Scourge held up his hands to show that he didn't want to hurt her, but she didn't move her hammer an inch. "I love Manic, though."

Rosy tightened her grip on her hammer. "I understand now. Manic is preventing you from acting!" Scourge looked confused. Rosy swung her hammer at the open air. "I will take him out. Just say when!"

Scourge looked more concerned than confused now as he watched the green and yellow hammer swipe at an imaginary attacker. "I don't want you to hurt Manic, but I also don't want to hurt you."

Rosy had a strange face when she heard this. "I don't want to hurt you," Rosy repeated. She made a sad face and let her hammer droop and hit the ground with an echoing clank. Scourge didn't know what else to do or say, so he left. Rosy watched him leave the room quietly until he closed the door and left the cafe entirely.

Honest watched him leave, too, and then stood up. Rosy looked up at her.

"Did you see that?" she asked her. Honest nodded.

"I think that was Scourgey's way of apologizing," she said, shrugging.

Honest laughed. That sounded exactly like something Amy would've said about his opposite, Sonic. "I guess, so. I came to heat my pie up in the microwave, so it'll be warm again!" she exclaimed, dashing to the back of the kitchen with the pie tin held in front of her.

Rosy had left the kitchen at some point, and Honest saw her again when she returned to the front to go enjoy her pie. She might not have to do any work at all today! Honest found Sonic sitting at his table again instead of laying on the floor, but he was still thoroughly singed from that whole incident with the fire earlier as he sat and ate his pie silently. When Honest sat down, the blue speedster pointed across the room without lifting his head. "Do you see Shadow?" he asked.

Honest looked where he was pointing and saw the black blur leaning against the wall opposite them, closing his eyes as purple swirls floated around his head.

"Silver told him about what I was trying to do while he was out," he told her next. He took a bite of his pie, and Honest made a sympathetic face.

"It's okay. I'm cool with it. He's cute when he's all pouty like that anyway," he said, taking a very self-assured bite of his blueberry pie. Honest's eyes shot to Shadow to see his reaction, but he hadn't heard.

Anyway, the cafe closed at eight and Honest walked home with Shadow. Sonic had already boosted all the way home. He had no sort of patience for normal-paced walking. The sky was still lit up in a way that the town's lights were on, but it was still bright enough to see at the same time.

"Are you okay?" Honest asked him.

"Yeah," he said, sounding surprised. Honest hadn't realised this, but he had been walking with his eyes closed this whole time, and only now had he opened them. Wasn't it dangerous to do that while walking? "Why do you ask?"

"Well," Honest said, smiling in an amused sort of way. "Today was pretty hectic."

"It was. Someone even got injured today- and that was me," he rubbed the side of his head.

"Are you hurt?" Honest asked.

"Not now, but when I hit my head on the table it sure hurt," he said, sounding annoyed.

"Oh, yeah. I totally forgot about that," Honest said, watching the sidewalk move underneath them.

"Where did you go afterwards anyway?" Shadow asked next.

Honest looked up. "Oh, uh, when things had settled down, I went to go heat up my pie, which had gone cold, in the kitchen," she told him.

"And it took you that long? I was standing there for what seemed forever," he said.

"Scourge and Rosy were talking in there, so I stopped to eavesdrop."

"Did they want you doing that?" he asked, concerned that Honest might've upset Scourge again.

"Rosy seemed okay with it," Honest claimed.

"You do know her mind's not exactly sound, right?" he then said.

"About that," Honest said. "I think I'm going to make her a major part of the story. Maybe even... make a special book like {w/Rosy}. No one will be too opposed to me naming a book after her because I have an account called XxRosytheRascalxX, too, so it would make sense for her to be a major part of the story."

Shadow clearly wanted to get back to Snow's house as quickly as he could, as he was staring eighty meters ahead of them as if willing himself to be there instead of where he was. "Well, you can do whatever you want, I guess. I personally don't care what the story's called, just as long as you're continuing to type it."

Honest smiled. "Don't worry! I will!"

Thank you so much for reading this chapter, and leave your thoughts in the comments about the potential new story. I might wait until I have all of these chapters finished before I make that though. Of course, if you're reading this, it's probably really close to being made right now. I will stop typing {Cafe Edition}, but they will still continue to work at the cafe as long as they... continue to work at the cafe. *shrug* I mean, money has to be made somehow.

(About what I said, I was planning on stopping {Cafe Edition} and instead just writing cafe parts in {w/Rosy}. However, I changed my mind. :3)