Honesty is the Best Policy! {w/Rosy}

Chapter 1: A Knot of Roses

Honest found Rosy in the library one afternoon on her way to the restroom. She was sitting at a table in the back of the room by herself, flipping through a book. She reached the back cover in no time flat before setting it on top of a pile of books she had made on the table beside her and standing up from her chair.
That's when she saw Honest. She had a bathroom pass around her neck which swung back and forth on its string. The string was far too long, however, so it swung level with Honest's knees instead of resting stationary on her chest. She walked over to Rosy's table and examined the book sitting on top of the stack with just her eyes. "The Tale of Chaoberry Joe and the Seven, Golden Eggs," it read.

Rosy bit her lip and looked to Honest. "Ms. Vanilla told me I was being a disturbance, so she sent me here to occupy myself for a little while," she told her. "I can't seem to find a book, though."
An idea came to Honest in the form of an LED bulb hanging in mid-air above her head. She went to a shelf of books nearby.
"I have a problem where I absolutely can not read a fiction book no matter how interesting it sometimes seems. So, when I'm having one of those moments, I go over here!"
Honest pulled a large book off of one of the shelves and set it on the table next to the one with all of the unwanted fiction books. Rosy walked over to look at it. The title read, "World Encyclopedia: A-B"
"An encyclopedia?" Rosy asked.
"Mm-hm! Encyclopedias are fun-books like comic books and joke books. Unlike a dictionary, encyclopedias have whole stories to go with their words!" Honest opened the book to a random page. "Apotos," she read. She then ran her finger down the page. "Look at everything it tells you about it!"
Rosy played with the bottom-right-hand corner of the page with her thumb. "So... it's like Wikipedia?"
"Or Wikia or Sonic Retro," Honest added. "The librarian won't let you check out reference books, though, so you'll have to return here every time you want to read it."
"Thanks," Rosy said, taking the book and smiling."No problem! Don't mention it," Honest said, standing up.
As Honest exited the room, she bumped into Scourge.
"Oh, I'm so-" "Ssh!!"
Scourge stopped talking and instead whispered, "What's up?"
"Rosy is in there! I don't want you to set her off. She's calm right now."
"Oh, sorry," Scourge said, looking confused. He then noticed something. "Oh! You're heading to the bathroom? Upstairs or downstairs?" he asked.
"D-Downstairs," Honest replied, stuttering. She almost forgot the entire reason she was out of class in the first place.
"Well, it seems that a bit of, what do you call it, situational irony has occurred, and I am, in fact, also going to the lower hallway. I have a test I need to finish for environmental science."
"Really? I am in study hall this period in that room. You can sit by me, though I'm not helping you cheat," Honest said, narrowing her eyes at that last one.
"I can't help but want to, though," he said in a lower voice. Although they were supposed to be talking quietly the whole time, it didn't seem like Rosy had heard them. "It's in my nature as Anti-Sonic."
"What did we argue about in Cafe Edition? That your universe is a parallel universe and not an anti-universe?"
"Yeah," he said, straightening up. Honest felt as if she were speaking to a brick wall. Honest looked up and down him as if seeing him for the first time.
"Whatever happened to Fleetway?"
Scourge was angered by this. "You completely trashed him from your mind!"
"Oh, I did? I had no idea," Honest said solemnly, hanging her head.
"Really?" the king of air and empty space spoke. "I thought for sure that you had deleted him on purpose."
"No," Honest said, indicating with her expression that she was interested in knowing more. "He came to the cafe once or twice. How come he was allowed to show up there?"
Scourge shrugged. It was obvious that he also had no clue as to what had happened. "You didn't like Manic and I together, so why did you get rid of the one person that you did want me with?"
Honest clenched her teeth together. She looked uncomfortable as she spoke. "I also didn't like you with Fleetway."
"Fiona?" he asked.
"No," Honest replied. She looked everywhere but at him. "I liked the idea of you by yourself. You look happy as you hack into the Westopolis Criminal Database and mix strange substances together, but for some reason, you also look so empty and sad. I'm sorry for doing that to you."
He nodded slowly. Honest hoped that he was slowly processing the information and not judging her.
"And you know how I feel about Rosy and you. Rosy is your Amy, and you know I don't much like the idea of Sonic and Amy." She shuddered.
Eventually Scourge was able to focus back on Honest.
"I'll try to get on good terms with Rosy, but that emptiness you described-"
"Maybe Rosy's friendship is all you need," Honest told him, smiling.
Scourge nodded, looking away towards the opposite wall. "Go to the restroom. I'll meet you in the science room." Honest nodded, too, and ran past him, her bathroom pass flying behind her.
The grassy-green king peeked through the window on the door to the library. Rosy was reading through an encyclopedia at a far table. He sighed and followed Honest.
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The weekend had been sunny both days. Honest had woke up at the crack of dawn Sunday and Saturday, so work had gotten done, and now she was enjoying being early to things. She had been stuck on the same few songs for months it felt like. Now, that next week, she had been so early to finding a song that the one she found didn't even have a music video yet. It felt great.
Then it was Friday.
Honest woke up a whole two hours after the time she had planned, and had to scramble to get anything done. In fact, all she really could do was get something set up to record while she went to school. No matter. At least some progress was being made. She showed up in front of the school at a regular time, just to witness as a whole wall of the school was blown out and a large assembly of robotic ladybugs, crabs, caterpillars, and hornets came flying and scurrying towards her followed by a gigantic, talking egg in a hover vehicle.
Honest gasped and ducked as the group of robots and moved past her. When they had all passed, the highly confused main character stood up and blinked. She turned around to watch as a group of strangely-colored, humanoid creatures sprinted out of the building and down the hill after them.
Steam puffed from the top of her head. "What's happening this time? And why so early in the morning!?!" Eventually a head peeked itself out of the rubble that used to be the wall of the school. It was Dina, the recently ameliorated (woah, Honest is using big words today) abrocome (which is NOT what she is; I just needed a word that started with "a"). She stepped out of the debris and raised her finger.
"I swear, I didn't do it," she said before walking back into the building. Honest stomped after her.
Dina was walking down the hall to her first period class. "Woah, woah, woah!" Honest exclaimed, halting her. She turned around, stopping. "Hm?"
Honest stopped in front of her. "Did you change your schedule? The history classroom is behind you."
Dina smiled, brightening up. "Oh! I forgot to tell you this morning. I took what you told me the other day and applied it! I'm no longer your sidekick. In fact, I'm completely removing myself from your school day!"
"What?" Honest asked, seemingly upset. "You can't just do that! I kind of need you."
"You mean you're upset about you not being able to see me?" Dina asked in reply.
"Yeah. If I ever want to draw you again, I won't be able to since I won't be able to witness any cool-looking things you do if I can't see you," Honest explained.
"Oh," Dina said, sounding disappointed. What else had she expected her to mean?
Honest tilted her head. "Will I see you... at all?"
"Yeah, after school," Dina said.
"You do know that being near me doesn't necessarily mean you're my sidekick. ... And who says I have ever had one in the first place?! Akane made that whole thing up," Honest pointed out.
Just then the bell rang, jerking them both from their little section of the universe. Nothing moved.
"Did the whole school go after Eggman?" Honest asked.
"No," Dina said, crossing her arms. "Did you see an army like the one in Forces come out of here? Of course not. No fan characters followed them."
"I didn't see Shadow with them either. Where is he? We can start there. Maybe he's with the others."
They split up. Dina went to her new first period class to go look there, and Honest went to her first period class, which she happened to share with him. When Honest entered the classroom, she was greeted by a peculiar scene.
CC was sweating profusely as he was cornered by Rouge, whom had her leg raised in the air as if charging a kick of absolute, uninhibited pain.
"Rouge!!" Honest shouted. The bat girl lost her balance and almost fell as Honest ran over to break up the supposed fight.
"Ah!" she exclaimed. The Custom Hero regained a more standard stance and looked fiercely at the spy, trying desperately to convey something to her.
"Oh!" Honest put her index fingers to her temples and focused as if she were performing some sort of Space Chao mind trick. Rouge looked at her confoundedly.
"He wants to say 'why are you attacking me, crazy bat lady'!" Honest declared. The Custom Avatar smiled at her and nodded. Honest closed her eyes pridefully. "I used my 'Author Powers' to read his mind."
"'Crazy.. bat lady'?" Rouge said slowly as if she were some sort of strange monster ready to spring on him. CC became sweaty again.
Just then, the three of them turned towards the door as Dina pushed through, followed by Shadow. "Honest! I found Shadow," she said. Shadow had a look that said "I was busy". It was also a look Honest recognized Akane having after she was bathed in her cat form. "He was talking to a group of fan characters in the science classroom and writing things in his notebook."
"I was interviewing them," Shadow explained. "To find out who let the Doctor into the school just then when he showed up with an army of robots."
"Well, duh," Honest said. "He's a teacher. He has a key."
Shadow fell to the ground dramatically. "How come I didn't think of that?! How could I have let GUN down like this? Me, their best agent?"
Honest frowned and looked down at him as his forehead connected with the tile floor. "You interrupted my entire morning for this? Alright. This is the end of the chapter. I'm through."
Honest stomped out the door, past the group of confused fan characters, and to the bathroom, where she stayed for the rest of the morning, hissing at anyone who entered the stalls next to hers.
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Thanks for reading this chapter! Please vote and leave a comment if you enjoyed this chapter. I promise next time that I will be able to focus on the true subject of this new book. See ya!