Honesty is the Best Policy! {Forces Edition}

Chapter 16: Race to Win... Or Whatever

It was March 13th, 2018, and Honest the Cat was sitting in her sixth period class, worrying about her actions in the future and rethinking her actions in the past. But there was no time travel involved. No, no, no. After 2006, there was no way she was going to revisit that again. No, this time she was worrying about what she was going to do next period and thinking about what she could've done different at lunch in order to ensure that she had been able to eat. Instead, some artist from DeviantArt came to her class to critique their work. There were only three of them that day: Scourge, Dina, and of course Honest. He had looked at some of Honest's artworks (one being her public shaming exercise from a couple chapters ago), and Honest somehow ended up leaving for lunch being extremely inspired after all of that. Of course, she was then late to lunch which caused her to not get to eat, which led to her feeling sick, which then just amplified her feelings of dread. She had tried a million times to write a parody of a song for her speech class and failed. She also had homework that she hadn't done for Doctor Eggman which of course wasn't going to work out for her. Honest spent the whole time in study hall working on that homework.

Everything ended up turning out fairly good for Honest by the end of the day. She just sang what little part of her parody she had finished and got points taken off instead of getting a flat 0. Honest was beaming by the end of it because of the huge applause she received at the end. They were being graded on rhyme scheme, but Honest's performance turned out so well that the other students in her class couldn't help but clap. Honest hadn't expected for her singing to be too much better than her classmates', but then again she had been singing on the internet for over a year and a quarter now, so maybe she should've expected that. Either way, she had finished her work for the Doctor, and he ended up giving her a bright red A for articulated manipulator... whatever that was. Some robotics term. :/ The class was able to choose whatever song they wanted to make their next parody based on, so Honest chose Sonic Heroes. She was thinking about it in sixth period the next day.

"'What goes up must come down.' How about 'What goes down must come up'? It's not much different from the original, but it's funny because- because, um- Shadow are you listening?"

She pulled his head up by his top most spine. He was sleeping. Honest humphed and let go, and his head fell to the hard surface of the desk, waking him up instantly.

"Maria?!" "Shadow, it's me!"

He blinked a couple of times. "Huh? Oh. I fell asleep didn't I?"

"Yeah, you did," Honest retorted. "You're supposed to be helping me come up with a funny version of Sonic Heroes. 'What goes down must come up. Yet the ground's covered in muck. You can't move your feet; you realize you're stuck. It's flying towards you; you'd better duck!'" Honest sang. She ended up laughing by the end of it. "This is a lot easier than the last one I tried to do!"

"Well, then I guess that means you don't need me," Shadow said, putting his head down once more.

Honest made an annoyed sound as she wrote down what she had come up with so far. "You're right. I don't." She then stuck her tongue out at him before continuing.

Later, Shadow and Honest were leaving class. For some reason, at their school, they had turned off the bells, so now they had to check the clock all the time to determine when it was time to go or not. It was the dumbest thing Honest had heard of, but whatever. As they excited the classroom, Shadow was in front, and as soon as he had stepped outside, he was held in place by some strange force. Honest peeked over his shoulder and saw that the force had been exerted by none other than Sonic T. Hedgehog. "Hey, Shadster, Honest. Where ya headin'?"

Shadow "pft"ed, blowing air through his teeth. "To our next class, but it's none of your business anyway. What do you want? To make idle conversation? Because I'm not in the mood for idle conversation right now, faker."

He just smiled as if what the black hedgehog had just said had been his intended outcome. "Fine, fine. That's exactly the kind of behavior I expected from you. I just came by to ask you if you wanted to race outside real quick between classes."

"How is that fun for you?" is what the Ultimate Lifeform asked immediately afterwards.

Honest could swear she heard the whistle of wind even though they were indoors.

"What do you mean 'how is that fun'? I have been trapped in this stuffy school building all day! I want to run!" Sonic said crossly.

Honest could see how upset Sonic was. And truth be told, Honest really didn't want to have to listen to angry Smith Sonic right now. "Just race with him," she told Shadow.

Shadow put his backpack on which he had been carrying and crossed his arms. "Fine, then. Let's race to the cafeteria and back."

"Finally!" Sonic cried before disappearing up the stairs with nothing but a trail of flames showing where he had travelled. Shadow skated off after him. When he got to the stairs, he was forced to slowly trudge up them.

Honest just stood there, checking her invisible watch. Eventually Sonic came skidding to a stop in front of her. Honest clapped.

"You won. Big surprise," Honest said. When no one was behind him, Honest tapped the side of her head. "Where's Shadow?"

Eventually Shadow could be seen walking down the stairs, looking ticked.

Honest laughed. "You knew that would happen, so it's fine."

Sonic walked towards him. "Alright! Now, admit your defeat, faker," he told him.

Shadow walked past him. "Never," he muttered. Honest and Shadow left for their next class. Honest had to sing her Sonic Heroes parody this period. This parody, since she had chosen the song herself, was a lot more fun and easy for her, so she really focused on her singing quality and was able to top her last performance. Of course, when she rehearsed a song every day for four weeks, she could blow both of those out of the water.

When Shadow had finished his "performance", Honest was smiling a big cat smile as he returned to his seat. "You're singing voice is adorable~ :3"

"Yeah, yeah," he said, burying his face in a book.

"What are you reading?" Honest asked. When he didn't reply, Honest turned her head to be able to read the title of the book he was holding.

"How to ge-" Shadow closed the book quickly and place it front-down on his lap.

"Nosy kitty-cat," Shadow told her. Honest pouted her lip.

"I just wanted to see what you were reading.."

"Okay. It's called 'How to Get Rid of Annoying Fangirls'," he said.

---

Thanks so much for reading! Please vote for this chapter if you enjoyed and add this story to your library and reading lists!