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"Good-bye, then. It was a pleasure speaking with you," his demonic duplicate said as Shadow disappeared through the wall of curtains.
Shadow went to where Honest was sleeping, sort of hunched over in a sitting position against the wall with her arm draped over her camera bag, and reached out to softly shake her awake. Honest's eyes snapped open immediately, but it took her longer to lift her head and actually see him and be aware.
"Your turn, Honest," he whispered, trying not to wake the others who were sleeping just feet from them.
Honest yawned and undid the clips on her bag, pulling her cell phone out and checking the time. She squinted at the screen and lowered the brightness to its lowest setting. "Okay. Just a few more hours until the time we usually wake up. Sleep well!"
Honest added that last bit with a small cat smile and took off for Mephiles and her post. However, instead of going to sleep like she expected him to, Shadow instead went to the curtains she just passed through and sat there on the floor, training his ears on the cavity behind them, eavesdropping.
He hadn't actually fallen for what Mephiles had said about Honest betraying them, of course not. Shadow was just... Curious as to what they would speak about.
"Hey, Mephy."
Honest had actually initiated the conversation first. Shadow wasn't saying that was proof she was conspiring against them all, though. He kind of expected that from her. Usually when Honest felt scared or intimidated by someone or something, she would take the offensive by, in this case, going out of her way to be the one to initiate the very conversation she was dreading.
"Good morning, cat," Mephiles greeted her, sounding rather warm despite addressing her by her species rather than by her name.
Honest giggled softly. "Is it fun sitting in a cage you can easily escape at any moment?"
"Well, I wouldn't say it's fun per se, but chatting with you guys has been pretty interesting so far. Especially with Shadow just now. He didn't present very interesting topics, but I did enjoy unloading quite a bit of information myself. Please tell me I can continue to do that in the future."
"Of course! I love including others in the world behind the pages. As long as you continue to play fairly, you'll always have a part in how this turns out," Honest affirmed. She then added in a lower voice, "And you still have a whole plot of opportunities in Silver."
"I know," Mephiles told her. "You've told me. So what are you doing with that device in your hands?"
"Oh, this?" Shadow assumed Honest was currently showing Mephiles or passing the phone to him because he heard the stool creak and the light tapping of Honest's boots on the wooden floor of the stage. "I thought I'd pass the time by drawing. Tei-chan looks awfully nice here, doesn't she?"
"'Tei'? Uh... Yes. You are truly talented to be able to weave something so beautiful from just a collection of pixels."
Honest blinked rapidly out of confusion. "Uh, thank you. Actually, it must be really ugly to only earn just twenty views."
"What? No, that's nonsense. It's a masterpiece more lovely than anything I've seen in thousands of years." Honest thought he must be confused because what he was saying was completely genuine. Those weren't empty compliments he might tell if he were trying to mislead her. She just sighed and pulled her phone away.
"Thanks, I guess," Honest told him. Instead of going back to the stool, she sat down in front of the cage and rested her shoulder on the cold bars. She let out an enormous yawn and rested her head against the bars where it was cradled perfectly between two of them. "I feel spiritually exhausted, like I could just sleep for the rest of time."
"You know, though I don't need to sleep, I feel that by hanging around you I'm sort of... recharging." Honest's eyes were closed, no longer focusing on Mephiles nor the cell phone lying limp in her hand, so she didn't react.
"How long until you know how and why you're able to do this?" Mephiles asked. Honest supposed that by "this" he meant writing this story.
"To be truthful, I have no idea."
To be truthful, Shadow had no idea as to how and why Honest could be so carefree and Honest around everyone she met and in this case, her sworn enemy since Chapter 10 of {w/Sonic}. He knew it as a simple fact of life that Honest was going to be 100% herself in every interaction, it was just the "why" that eluded him. That was one of the reasons why he knew she would never betray him. He usually went into every situation without trusting anybody present, so saying he could totally trust any one person was very rare for Shadow. Honest didn't form and hold grudges. Everybody was equal in her eyes. The way she talked to Dr. Eggman was just like the way she talked to Sonic. The way she was talking to the embodiment of darkness currently was identical to how she would speak to Shadow if he were to be the one sitting in that cage right now. Why, though? Well, who could know, really. However, attempting to answer such questions just didn't feel right for whatever reason. It was like... Why try to fully understand a puzzle before you even attempt to solve it?
"Oh, yeah," Honest suddenly said, opening her eyes as if a thought had just come to her. "Do you think I was treating Shadow unfairly? I wanted him to approach the situation seriously by not breaking the fourth wall and telling him that I knew, without a doubt, that Sonic wasn't in danger, but, well... I just think I might've gone too far. You don't think he likes me any less now, do you?"
Mephiles thought a moment before speaking. "Well, I tried to make him worry about your loyalty to him, but I'm not sure it worked, actually." Mephiles looked despondently towards the wall of curtains that Shadow was currently hiding behind.
"Oh, it worked," Honest told him. "Shadow is very doubtful right now. Shadow?"
How the heck did she- Shadow stuck his head through the curtains and scowled at them. "Why do you feel the need to cheat like that?"
Mephiles's eyes grew and he put a hand over where his mouth might be if only he possessed one. "Shadow? You've been eavesdropping?" He hadn't the abilities Honest had, so of course this astounded him. Then, his eyes narrowed back to normal size, and he laughed softly. "You don't trust Honest?"
"I-I do," Shadow stammered. He crawled out of the curtains and stood up. "You're the one I don't trust, Mephiles."
That was a lie. However, Honest didn't call him out on it because she thought it funny. "Oh, Shadow, you were looking out for me? That's so sweet of you. Actually, though, we have a truce," she explained.
"It's a little more than a truce," Mephiles added, apparently thinking he was being clever or something. He should be careful. Honest might change her mind.
Honest rolled her eyes. "Actually, it's less than a truce." She remained facing Shadow, though, and laid her phone down. "This doesn't mark the end of anything; there will still be struggles for power in the future. However, Mephiles here doesn't have an army currently."
Said demonic hedgy seemed ashamed of this as when Honest said that, he immediately turned to look at the curtains behind him rather than at Shadow or Honest.
Shadow tilted his head in confusion. "Wha-what do you mean?"
Truces, power struggles, armies- Oh, boy. Was all of this an act to mess with him? What could they possibly be aiming to gain from confusing him of all people? When Mephiles had said making him suspicious of Honest was "for his own good", did he really mean that?
"Well for starters, I won both Fiona and Infinite over to my side as soon as I found out about Mephiles's plan. Well, Infinite took a while, but still. But actually how scary Infinite got when he was part of the council quickly forced the rest of the council to reconsider. So, his small army disintegrated pretty much overnight." Honest's eyes became upwards-facing carrots as she continued. "And I couldn't just leave him defenseless like that. I'm not a total monster. Anyway, that was weeks ago, and it was really just a byproduct of everything building towards the upcoming story arc."
Shadow couldn't help but notice how Honest's entire demeanor had changed from reserved to obtuse once she had begun talking to him. He wasn't sure he liked what that seemed to be implying: that she took conversations with Mephiles far more seriously than conversations with Shadow. Annoyance seemed to be exuding from his body as he kept his head tilted.
"Is that really what's happening? Be serious with me."
Honest seemed to be annoyed as well, most likely by his prying, as she then puffed out a cheek and hugged her knees to her chest before answering. "His army's not entirely gone, but they just have a strained relationship for the time being." Mephiles was avoiding looking at her now, which Shadow would have found intriguing if he weren't so preoccupied at the moment.
"But... He does have an army? That wasn't an exaggeration?" That was unexpected.
"Uh, yeah, kinda. My notebook's in my bag. I can show you," she said, standing up.
As she disappeared through the curtains behind Shadow, the embodiment of darkness swiveled his head back to face him and said, "As I entirely expected, Honest finally uncovered my true intentions for the student council about nine chapters ago. Ever since, instead of shutting me down, she's been using it as just another element of her grand plot."
Shadow just stared at Mephiles as if an inanimate object like a lamp had just spoken to him. Said demon just cocked his head to the side in slight confusion.
Honest returned with a large and yellow spiral notebook which seemed to be at least three times the width of an average spiral notebook. She stopped in front of the cage which Mephiles currently occupied and laid it on the ground there, sitting on her knees and flipping the pages, one-by-one, looking for what she had written regarding the situation with the student council.
Mephiles squinted and attempted to read upside down through the narrow bars. He could come out of the cage to read it, but it was necessary, at least for the time being, for him to keep up the illusion that he couldn't escape to Shadow. He needed to keep it up to everyone. Honest's reputation was on the line. If Rouge and Sonic knew about the cage-thing, they might lose all belief in Honest. If Shadow had only paid attention earlier when Sonic literally said "I had the means of getting out of the cage myself, I was just waiting for Mephiles to leave," he might've known already, but apparently that had already completely slipped his mind. Maybe he had never heard it since he was still just so focused on the fact that Sonic had returned to them safely. Shadow came over and sat beside Honest with his legs crossed, peering over the notebook as if it were the entrance to a huge abyss.
Honest flipped and flipped. She passed where she had planned out what she would do in a particular playthrough of a game involving dragons and many gray, colorless landscapes after her house had burnt down in a "fire", her in-game explanation for how all her items had been deleted when she accidentally disabled an essential mod in order to un-fix/re-break a glitch that allowed her to duplicate items. She passed a messy sketch of a character yet to be introduced (she hoped Shadow hadn't seen that) and a page of various chapter ideas to be used in arcs in the future that she had gathered from multiple sources including a 3DS game and a manga, er, the manga (see Chapter 21 of {w/Rosy}), scribbled quickly and unsteadily in a blue pen. She had just flipped to particular scenes randomly and found some logical directions in which to take her story. Maybe she'll tell the readers more about it after those events occurred so as not to spoil them. Plus, it's generally easier to explain something to someone if you can tell them what it is... You can quote me on that.
"Here." Honest stopped on a page with what looked like bulleted notes. The first point read "Chapter 3 of {Forces Edition} (A.K.A. A Friendship is Forged)".
"Infinite became friends with Scourge in {FE}. Then, in {w/Rosy}, Scourge told Infinite he could recharge the Phantom Ruby using the Master Emerald." Honest moved her finger down to the next point which read "Chapter 18 of {w/Rosy} (A.K.A. A Deal is Made)".
"That was the beginning of a whole string of events enacted by Scourge in order to take back his castle and appease Fiona for a short while." Honest's finger slid down to the third point which read "Scourge's Betrayal".
"Sometime between chapter 18 of {w/Rosy} and the Confrontation, a whole boatload of events unfolded surrounding Scourge and Infinite which resulted in something bad happening to Infinite after the Confrontation that took him out of the picture for a while."
"What's the 'Confrontation'?" Mephiles asked her.
"It's how I refer to the incident with Infinite at Eggmart in which both Shadow and I nearly lost our lives in a shootout with lasers," Honest informed him.
"Hey, why is this point called 'Scourge's Betrayal'?" Shadow asked, peering over at the notebook while Honest was turned away talking to Mephiles.
Honest quickly jumped back to the notebook and covered said point with her hands. "Uh, that's spoilers! You'll find out about it soon enough, so don't worry."
"How will explaining that spoil me if it's already happened?" Shadow inquired. Honest sighed, realising what Shadow was probably thinking. She then rested her right hand over her face and eyes.
"Infinite," she said with a dead serious look and a monotone voice to boot, apparently imitating said jackal. She then picked up the notebook and stood up, closing it obnoxiously loudly. Honest kept that serious look as she continued. "I'm going to reveal all with flashbacks. I'm running on a strict time schedule. You see, there can only be so many chapters to tack these flashbacks onto before the next arc begins. You can derive a lot just from the two I've written so far, though." Honest turned around to face the back of the stage and tapped her chin in thought.
"Maybe I can put together little explanatory booklets for the club members to get everybody up to speed," Honest contemplated aloud. "They can contain those two flashbacks, the flashbacks that have yet to be written, and charts and diagrams of what's going on behind the scenes."
"Could I possibly get in on that club of yours?" Mephiles asked, his expression resembling those of chao in SA2 with happy eyes.
Honest giggled, finding that funny and turning to face the cage. "Uh... Maybe not. I mean, I'd be fine with it, but I'm not sure how the other members would react. I could still save you a booklet, though."
Shadow had read through the notebook silently and failed to understand much. Honest had written these things out to discuss with the Honesty club later, but right now it was just a disorganized mess with things scribbled out here and there in order to protect them from spoilers, he guessed. "Something bad happening to Infinite after the Confrontation that took him out of the picture for a while", though? What happened to Infinite after he fled the Eggmart that day?221Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0PEgRrM6Vb
