Honesty is the Best Policy {Comic Edition}

Chapter 50: A Summary of Events

Sonic's eyes were huge. "What were you doing in No Zone?"

Hearts turned around. "Are you the Prime Sonic?"

"Saving the multiverse like I said," Honest repeated, rolling her eyes. She gestured to the newcomer. "This is Hearts, my Moebian equiva- er, Anti." Sonic just stared at her. Honest gestured to Sonic next. "And Hearts, this is Sonic. He's the true, blue hero of the school." She might as well be Honest with her, she thought. Tell Hearts the accepted facts and let her make a decision for herself. Not like there was a decision she should be making, just you know...

"People respect you, do they?" Hearts asked. Honest was unsure whether she was being sarcastic or what with that statement. Sonic acted like he knew, though.

"I don't know. I try to do my best to help others, I guess," he said, shrugging. What a Sonic-like thing to say.

"I see," Hearts said. Could she sound any more ominous?

Honest cleared her throat. "Anyways, you were looking for the Chun-nese line?" Hearts nodded. Honest pointed to one of the lines. "That's usually Chun-nese. Sometimes it switches around."

Amy watched as Hearts departed for one of the lines. "So, you picked up a new character while you were there." She turned to Honest. "Was it like an adoption? Was there tons of paperwork to fill out?"

Honest laughed. "N-No. If you want, we can get an empty table together, and Scourge and I can give you the details."

And so, that's what they did.

Scourge focused on shoveling mac and cheese into his mouth so he didn't have to look at Sonic and Amy. He didn't have to, to know that they were suspicious of him. He could feel their eyes piercing the top of his head as he ate.

Of course they wouldn't believe that he had been off "saving the multiverse" as Honest had said. It was stupid to think that they would. Scourge almost preferred that Honest lie to Sonic about what they had done, but it was even more foolish to think that would happen.

When Honest folded her hands on the table in front of her and smiled, Scourge sighed so loudly in his head that he thought Sonic and Amy must've surely heard it. Honest cut her eyes at him, which caused Scourge a split second of confusion until he realized she had heard it.

What kind of a world was he living in that he had to seriously consider believing that the ability to read others' freaking minds was a possibility?

"Sonic and I went with Shadow to the destruction derby being held by the inmates of No Zone prison Saturday," Honest told them, closing her eyes and smiling again. "Dr. Eggman crashed the party by releasing all the prisoners by blowing a gigantic hole in the side of the stadium. Also, Fiona had stolen the Phantom Ruby from Infinite and used it to send the escaped prisoners all over the multiverse." Immediately, Amy and Sonic turned like robots to stare suspiciously at Scourge.

"Why are you looking at me?" he asked in a monotonous tone, feigning boredom in order to mask his fear.

Honest laughed loudly, drawing the attention back to herself. "You won't believe this, but Fiona did all this behind Scourge's back." She then assumed a more thoughtful look as she tapped her chin with an index finger. "Fiona is to Scourge what Chaos was to Eggman." Amy nodded, understanding immediately. Sonic didn't look so sure.

"Chaos was a Chaos emerald absorbing blob of living water. Fiona's just a girl. A really bad girl, but-" Sonic crossed his arms and glared at the table's surface as if it had made Fiona the way that she was. "Yeah, Eggman thought he could control Chaos, and perhaps Scourge thought he could control Fiona, too. In the end though, that didn't happen."
Honest laughed for real this time, leaning back in her chair and appearing to be daydreaming. "Eggman tried to control Chaos. That was pretty dumb. Talk about an oxymoron."

It wasn't that Scourge thought he could control Fiona. He had fallen in love with her. However, for the sake of not being labeled as the sole person to blame for this disaster, Scourge kept his mouth shut. Honest knew what she was doing... hopefully.

Sonic looked up from where he was glaring at the table to instead glare at Honest. "So how did you guys 'save' the multiverse?"

"Shouldn't you know? You were there, remember?" It was Amy who said this. Sonic let out a deep breath and spoke in a voice as low as his in Frontiers.

"Yeah, but I came back here to protect this world," Sonic explained. "It's not my responsibility to protect the multiverse. That's Zonic's job. I'm just responsible for the Prime-verse, A.K.A. this universe."

"And Scourge is?" Amy asked, puffing out her cheek in annoyance.

"I wasn't saving the multiverse for any reason except to deal with Fiona," Scourge told them, rolling his eyes. "She's usually just my problem. When she becomes the multiverse's problem, it's only right that I do my part to contain her."

"Fiona's Scourge's troublesome puppy- er, cub," Honest chipped in with a grin.

"Well, your troublesome fox cub released thousands of dangerous criminals into the multiverse," Sonic pointed out. "Don't tell me you rounded them all up and put them back in prison in just three days."

"No, but the Zone police are actively dealing with it as we speak," Honest replied. "They're better at it than we are. Plus, they're a whole organization, not just a couple of teenagers who happened to be caught up in the commotion." When Sonic and Amy seemed pleased with her explanation, she quickly added something else. "But we cornered Fiona, and she's in prison right now... And they have the Phantom Ruby."

"Where's... Infinite?" Sonic asked, tilting his head.

"He was in prison, too, but I guess Zonic let him go free because he came to school with Hearts today."

Sonic's expression brightened and he began to smile. "Woooow, you two are pretty efficient! Maybe I should leave this world saving stuff to you more often."

Honest raised her hand above her head. "Ooh! And Shadow was a big help, too! And we met the Anti-Cream and Vanilla, and they summoned a demon which turned out to be Mephiles! He wasn't much of a help, but he was there. And then there was Hearts. She was a big help. She distracted Fiona while Scourge got the Ruby." When Honest saw the shocked expressions Amy and Sonic were giving her, she laughed nervously. "You missed out on a whole lot of action. Almost 18 chapters worth."

Sonic still looked blown away. "How many chapters is the current book now?!"

"This is chapter 50," Honest said, lifting up a finger and resembling Classic Sonic on the Sonic 1 main menu screen. Sonic continued to gape and Honest continued to beam wildly as Scourge scraped up the last of the cheese in his bowl and stuck the spoon in his mouth. Amy glanced at him curiously.

Just then, a mysterious black shape started making its way down the aisle between the lunch tables, making a beeline for the three hedgehogs and the cat. It rose up from the ground and formed a mound of inky blackness behind Honest. Scourge looked up and his pupils contracted in surprise. "Um, Kitteh?" Honest saw his frightened expression and spun around, the beam dropping from her face.

The dead, dispassionate visage of the principal of darkness emerged from the gloomy glob. "Miss Cat, your time has come."

"My 'time'?" Honest echoed, alarmed.

"I request to speak with you in my office," he explained. Honest took a hasty glance at the rest of the table's occupants and then turned back to Mephiles.

"Okay," Honest said, folding. She stood up from the table and pushed in her chair. "Scourge?"
Said moss-colored monarch lifted his head. "Hm?"

"Go check on Hearts for me," Honest commanded. When he looked confused, Honest's gaze hardened as if she were angry at him. However, Scourge doubted that.

She was giving him a chance to leave.

As Honest left the cafeteria trailing the murky being of blackness they called their principal, Scourge stood up from the table and went to put up his bowl. He waved goodbye to Sonic and Amy as he left.

After handing the hard plastic bowl to the dishwasher at the window, Scourge stuck his hands in his pockets and began to scan the area. It didn't seem like Hearts was in the cafeteria anymore.

Maybe she's in the courtyard...