(Since this is the most recent chapter I've published, even the Wattpad version is a little iffy. The formatting was off, making it essentially one big paragraph. Oops. Hopefully I'll remember to fix it sometime soon.)

It was April 18th, 2019, and Shadow was carrying a tray with a single platterful of muffins of some unknown flavor. Maybe they were raspberry... or strawberry... or cherry... Whatever flavor they were, the Chaotix must have really liked them seeing as though they had ordered so many- three dozen. Then again though, there were three of them...

The Ultimate Lifeform set the tray on their table and immediately he felt someone tug the bottom hem of his apron.

The dark pineapple turned around and promptly looked downward. There was a silver fern crouched at his feet.

"Uh, what are you doing down there?"

The fern looked up and his golden eyes shone with a worrisome light. "Oh, sorry," he said, standing up and dusting himself off as it was particularly grimy down there. Shadow would have to remind himself to get Infinite on that right away. "I was wondering if you could buy me a slice of peach cobbler."

"Why?" was how he responded. "Don't you have money yourself?"

Silver blushed and put his index fingers together. "No..."

"How do you support yourself?" he asked next.

"Blaze is a princess, so..."

"Oh, right." Shadow crossed his arms and looked towards the menu.

"10 rings..." he mumbled to himself. He looked to Silver. He had that pleading face still. Shadow sighed.

"Fine." He approached the register and the ginger bunny girl behind it.

"What'll it be?" the cashier, Snow the Rabbit, asked him. She was another one of GUN's agents. Shadow has been staying in her house since the beginning of time- well, at least since chapter one of Honesty is the Best Policy! {w/Snow}.

"One slice of peach cobbler," Shadow told her flatly.

Snow widened her eyes. She resembled Scourge. Why? You know how Scourge always wears those red sunglasses? Well, every once and awhile, Scourge lifts his glasses and has this... look to him. The same thing is true with Snow. Although she doesn't wear dorky sunglasses, Snow does keep her eyes narrowed almost always. Whenever her eyes do widen, much like they did just now, she has the same look to her that Scourge has. Now Shadow couldn't unsee it as she leaned over the register and spoke to him.

"Are you sure that's all you want?" Shadow nodded immediately afterwards.

Snow still looked unsure. Now she somewhat resembled Rosy whenever she was insane and confused. Maybe, now that I think about, it's just because mine and one of the artists' of the comics art styles are so similar.

"The reason I'm saying this is Key and Amy are going to have to bake a whole pie just so that you can have only one piece of it. It's kind of a waste."

Silver walked up to the counter and jumped. "Ooh!" he said, raising his arm. "Then we'll buy a whole pie and share it with all the waitresses!" He looked excitedly to the bunny and to the hedgehog individually.

Steam was puffing out of Shadow's ears. "What makes you think I have enough money for a whole pie?"

"That's a great idea!" Snow said. She turned to the laptop sitting on the counter next to the register. She looked over the counter at Shadow. "I'll just subtract the amount from your yearly pay."

A vein appeared on his forehead, but Shadow didn't say anything. It was for Silver.

A while later, Cosmo came out of the kitchen and walked to a table in the middle of the room. The peach pie was set in the center of this table and Honest's eyes lit up. She was peeping over the side of the table at it.

"Is this really for us?" she asked. Silver was standing next to her with his hands clasped together."Yes!" he exclaimed cheerily. Flowers were dancing in the air around him- this was normal for some reason.

Shadow just watched as Honest and Silver sat down and immediately began stuffing their faces with pie. They were both extremely childish, so it was difficult for him to see them as mother and son. The dark pineapple silently prayed that Honest would lose interest in this whole family thing eventually. Plus, it was getting expensive.

"Like mother, like son, right Shadster?" Shadow jumped through the roof in fright.

He began sucking in air. "Where did you come from all of a sudden?"

The blue faker just laughed. "I've been here," he told him, pointing over to the table nearest the front entrance. "You were too busy with Silver to notice me." There was a cup of coffee sitting on that table, a cloud of steam rising from its contents.

Sonic watched as Honest and Silver continued to eat at a million miles an hour. "Why did you agree to such an absurd thing?"

"Silver needs someone to look after him," Shadow stated flatly, narrowing his eyes.

"But he's only a year younger than you," Sonic pointed out. He sighed.

"Not mentally. Plus, I'm mostly doing this because of how determined Honest is about all this. I may consider Honest more of a sister than anything, but I'm fine with including her in this if it means Silver can have a mother."

"You're crazy," Says you. "Honest is determined about everything she does. It's kind of her thing. But, if you really want him to have two parents, why don't you just have Rouge step in?"

Steam began to billow out of Shadow's ears. "She turned me down."

"Ha!" Sonic exclaimed, pointing fiercely at him. "Rouge didn't claim him! I see how it is... The baby's mama ran out on you, so now you've got a girlfriend to take care of Silver now!"

"Alright, now you're really losing it. This isn't some prime-time drama. The 'baby' is fourteen years old, and he's from the future. He hasn't even been born yet technically. The 'mama' and the 'daddy' aren't together and, let me just add, will never get together, and Honest most definitely isn't my girlfriend," he corrected him. He opened his eyes and glared at the cobalt pineapple standing before him.

"Boy, that's a relief," Sonic replied, laughing as if he had just narrowly escaped from some ironic encounter alive. "It's good to know that I won't have to compete as hard from now on."

"Compete?" Shadow asked, sounding genuinely confused.

Sonic sighed loudly. "Yes, Faker. Compete. We're talking a love rivalry here. Straight up, unadulterated competition. How can you be so air-headed?"

Shadow immediately responded with anger as if he hadn't heard any of the stuff about "love rivalry" and had only picked up on the "air-headed" part. "'Air-headed', huh? At least I have something up there," he retorted, crossing his arms.

"Aren't you going to react at all to what I just said?" Sonic asked, his eyes blank.

The black pineapple paused. "Uh... no?"

"It wasn't a yes or no question. In fact, it wasn't a question at all."

When he suddenly felt someone jab their finger into his shoulder, Shadow jumped much like he had done earlier when Sonic had suddenly appeared.

"Hey, there are two pieces of pie left," Honest informed him, not noticing how dramatically Shadow had reacted to her simple poke.

Glancing at the near-empty pie tin sitting on the table, Shadow frowned. "You want one, Faker?"

Sonic nodded passionately and pulled out one of the chairs to take a seat. Shadow sat beside him and they devoured peachy goodness in relative silence.

Now it was Honest's turn to study Shadow. Sonic and Shadow were both very stubborn and self-centered, so she guessed that was proof that opposites don't actually attract... not saying they were attracted to each other, but you know what I mean. Honest was still very confused by what their relationship was. It was her responsibility as author to determine that, right? Then how come she hadn't yet?

(Now I have a better idea ^^)

She watched them in a studious manner. Maybe it was because she was being greedy. Even though she wasn't technically a real character, that didn't mean she didn't have her own wants and needs. Then again, though, it didn't mean she had to prevent their happiness in order to ensure her own. That was just plain rude.

However, if she did put them together, that would mean that she would be breaking her promise to Amy that she had made in chapter 9 of {w/Rosy}. It was also sort of a promise to herself, too. She didn't want this story to become like everyone else's. That promise she had made in chapter 20 of {Forces Edition}.

In the end, Honest decided that her best course of action was just to continue what she had been doing- letting them determine their own future. If things started going too far, she would start doing what she was currently doing with Scourge and Manic- physically (and not physically) stopping them before anything can truly occur (as explained in the beginning of chapter 24 of {w/Rosy}). In that way, things might become more and more painful as time went on, but she would deal with those moments as they happened, or whoever was affected would just get over it.

Honest was brought back to reality when she saw a mushroom-sprouting demon floating through the middle of the tables towards the back.

(Such an ironic sentence.)

"Though I do appreciate you directing me to my table, is air travel really the best way to get there? I think I'm developing a headache," it said, at one point turning upside down. There was a fluffy, white pineapple following him, reaching up with his glowing hands.

"I'm stepping in for Honest while she's in another dimension," he informed.

The personification of the absence of light was glowing (though that sort of meant he wasn't an absence of light) a good second after Silver had lowered him into the seat. When the light left him, he crossed his arms and the dorky time traveler laughed.

"I'm fine now, Silver," Honest called out. She then thought a moment. "But you're free to take his order, too, if you want." Anything to keep far away from that creep.

Manic was standing nearby. He lent Silver a sheet of his yellow legal pad and one of his pens. Silver set it on the demonic customer's table and got poised to begin writing.

"What do you want?" he asked cheerfully.

Scanning the menu he had received from... someone... he made his decision and Silver wrote it down. He stood up and then, cheerfully once more, said, "Okay!" He then turned to the green hedgehog beside him. "Now I go hand this to Amy, right?"

"Or Key, or Rosy," Manic said. "Whoever's there."

The silver fern took off.

Honest had been watching him the whole time, but a sudden burp made her focus on the scene in front of her once again.

Shadow was fanning the air in front of his face as if an explosion had just occurred and he was dodging the resulting ash. Sonic pushed his chair out from the table, tilting it backwards. "That was really good. Who made it?" he asked.

"Key," Cosmo said. She must have been standing nearby the whole time after delivering the now completely devoured pie. "I'll tell her you said that."

It was then that an idea came to Honest. Why worry about relationships between two canon characters when she had all these fan characters standing around? Why not ship Key or Akane or Dina with someone? ... Oh, yeah. Chapter 20.

Honest clenched her fist in front of her face and silently cursed ever having set these rules for herself. Rules were necessary of course, but so... limiting.

Shadow noticed her strange actions and tilted his head. "Are you okay?"

"Fine," Honest said, suddenly putting down her fist. "Just dealing with an internal conflict. It's an important element in works of fiction."

"Right..." he said, not sounding very assured. He turned to Sonic. "Please quit leaning back in your chair like that. You're going to fall."

"And if I did," the blue rodent said, his arms behind his head. "You would laugh, wouldn't you? What's so wrong with causing someone to laugh? Isn't that a positive thing?"

"Sure it is," Shadow said, sounding rather sarcastic. He waved his hands. "But breaking something isn't."

Sonic laughed. "I've fallen much greater distances before." He held one of his hands and began counting. "I jumped out of a plane at the beginning of 3, a helicopter at the beginning of SA2, an airship at the end of my story in '06, the sky in SatBK and Unleashed, and I'm sure I've fallen tons of greater distances many other times, but I can't possibly remember every one. I'm not going to hurt- ow!" The chair finally got fed up with his idiocy and collapsed, sending its occupant to the floor. Honest jumped.

Amazingly, however, Shadow didn't laugh at him. Instead he just looked over at him as if he were absolute garbage. "I told you so. Go ahead and admit it."

Sonic bolted back up, his chair magically standing up as well. He coughed. "No thanks, I'm fine."

Honest just sighed and shook her head. Maybe they weren't mature enough to be in a relationship just yet.

Thanks for reading. This is exactly the size I want every chapter I type to be, but sadly I always seem to type either way too much or way too little. Please vote if you enjoyed it, and I will post the next chapter very soon... or in three months. You know how I operate.

(Or a year and five months as the case may be.)