Honesty is the Best Policy! {w/Rosy}

Chapter 9: Amy vs. Shadow and Zodiac Signs

It was November 5th, 2018, and Honest was walking out of the library on her way to lunch that day when she spotted a flash of pink slip out of the door ahead of her. It was this story's namesake! Honest quickly bolted after her.

Rosy stepped outside. It was raining, but she hadn't brought her umbrella. Like usual, the weather report that morning hadn't said anything about rain, but here it was. She sighed and decided on just walking through the rain. She was hungry and wasn't going to wait.

Suddenly she heard her name and before Rosy could react, the rain stopped falling. She looked up and saw a yellow umbrella.
"Here!" Rosy recognized the voice as Honest's, and when she turned to her right, lo and behold it was her.
"Oh, thanks," she said gratefully. "Hm? What class did you have this period?"
"English," Honest replied. "We were in the library today because we're working on a research essay."
"I have English, too," Rosy told her. "That's why I was in the library."
Honest then remembered something. "Wait. You're in tenth grade English, right?"
Rosy blinked. "Yeah. Aren't you in the tenth grade, too?"
"No, I'm a senior... oh! Now I remember. You're Amy from a dimension where she hadn't wished on the Power Ring and became older! That makes total sense," she said.
"It does?" Rosy asked. "I'm pretty sure that any time dimensions are mentioned, nothing makes sense."
Honest laughed. It was amazing how sensible Rosy could be when she wasn't having one of her manic episodes. Honest felt pity for anyone who thinks she was always that crazy.
Eventually they made it indoors and, while Honest was folding up her umbrella, Rosy ran off to their table. Honest went through the line. Today they were having the mysterious chicken balls. The secret to making them edible consisted of tons of honey mustard. That was the one thing in Honest's life she was sure of right then.
She went to get a box a milk but was stopped when a fight broke out.
There were bolts of energy and dust flying everywhere. "Chaos-" Explosion. "Chaos-" Explosion. "Chaos-" Explosion. Honest walked up to the large milk cooler and peered inside. There was one box left. She took it and darted to one of the lines.
Eventually the dust had settled and Honest smiled as she heard them speak. "Where did it go?"
"What do you mean 'where did it go'? It's mine."
"No, like, it's not here!"
Honest quickly typed in her PIN and ran to her table. Rosy looked up as she sat down. "Why are you in a rush?" She didn't reply and instead stuck her straw into the box of milk and took a large gulp.
Sonic walked begrudgingly up to the table and pulled a chair out, sitting down with his food and crossing his arms. Shadow sat down beside him and popped a chicken ball in his mouth. Dina was sitting on the other side of Rosy. "Where are your drinks?"
"They're out," Shadow told her. Sonic just continued to stare down his food with an angry expression.

"Oh!" Dina exclaimed. "So you got the last one, Honest?" She was smiling.

Honest smiled, too, with her eyes closed. "Yep! The very last one."
Suddenly she could hear a fire igniting across the table. "What?! That was my milk! I won the fight to get it!"

"No, you didn't. I won," Shadow said matter-of-factly.
"No, I'm pretty sure I won that one. You were totally at my mercy," he said just as matter-of-factly.

Suddenly Shadow stood up. "Do you want to go again, faker?" Sonic clenched his fists and stood up as well.
"No, no! Wait up! Someone's bringing out more milk, look!" Shadow turned his head slowly.

Before he could even think, Sonic had taken off at the speed of sound. "Hey! Come back!"He turned when he heard Honest laughing. He made an annoyed expression and walked slowly in the direction of the kitchen.
When Honest had finally caught her breath from laughing, she dipped a chicken ball in her honey mustard merrily. "Why are those two in such a fighting mood today?" Honest asked.
Dina shrugged. "The new game?"
Honest sighed loudly and collapsed on the table. "I'm so tired of not having internet. I have no connection to the outside world. It's horrible." The worst part was that everyone else just continued to eat. Honest sighed again, but this time it was muffled by the table. "I have no way to watch a play-through or the cut scenes. It's the worst feeling in the world! Season 3 could already be airing, but I have no clue! I don't know what channel it would be on, so I can't look for it. I would know if I had internet!"
Suddenly the two hedgies returned with milk. As Sonic stuck the straw in the top of his, he said, "Oh, by the way, Honest. Snow called me earlier and said we'll be getting internet hooked up Monday."
Honest felt like jumping into the air and freeze-framing, but instead she just smiled as she bit into a piece of chicken. "Awesome."
Dina and Rosy just rolled their eyes. Then Amy and Rouge came out of the line a few seconds later and took their places at the table. "How has your day been so far, Sonikku?"
Sonic slouched in his chair. "It was fine..."
Amy laughed and cut off the circulation in his left arm.
"Why do you sound so down? What happened?" the bat on the other side of the pink rat asked. Apparently she was the only one who was in his world today.
"Shadow beat me up for a box of milk," Sonic complained, tears streaming down his cheeks.
"Aha! So I did win!" Shadow proclaimed triumphantly. Suddenly a giant metal hammer was raised above the table.

"You dared lay a hand on my Sonikku?" Amy's eyes were red. Shadow was equivalently relentless.

"Technically, it was a bolt of pure chaos energy," he said. It felt like there was a weighty, steel fog enveloping the table.
All of a sudden, Sonic coughed. They both turned towards him. Once he had their attention, he started smiling. The steel fog drifted off. "You're both so cute when you fight over me."
"Really?" Amy asked, her anger and heart both melting at the same time.
"What?!" came Shadow's irritated exclamation.
A question mark shot from Honest's forehead. "Huh?" Had Sonic just signed his death warrant in breaking up this fight? Sonic heard her (and probably also saw the question mark) and laughed.
A cloud of hearts was erupting from Amy as her hammer disappeared. Then suddenly all the hearts popped and her expression changed. "But you said... 'both'?" She looked across the table at Shadow. He didn't know whether to scowl or blush so he did both.
And then Sonic realized what Honest and most likely everyone else at the table had already realized. He stammered. "Wh- What I meant was-"
Amy's hammer reappeared. She picked it up and looked at him in a confused manner before making it disappear again. She stood up and almost tripped over her own chair as she struggled to leave the table. Before she left, however, she looked back at Sonic. When she opened her mouth, he thought that she was going to say something to him. Instead she said:"Honest, we need to go talk." And then she pulled Honest out of her chair and ran to the other side of the lunchroom. They ducked behind a wall.
Everyone at the table was still looking in their direction.
"What are you trying to do?" Amy asked angrily.
"What are you accusing me of now?" Honest asked, still confused at what just happened.
"You're doing something with Sonic and Shadow. I know you are. You can't hide it."
"Trust me, I didn't say or do anything to cause this," Honest said earnestly.
"Of course you didn't say or do anything. You're influencing them," Amy said confidently.
Honest sighed, suddenly looking quite bored. "They and I had this conversation the other day. Sonic admitted to having everything to do with this."
Amy suddenly pushed away from her. "But Sonic would never do this to me!"
"He's not doing anything specifically to you," Honest told her.
"Why should I trust anything you tell me? You'd do anything to get your two favorite characters in the same room," Amy said in an effort to assure herself.
Honest didn't say anything. Amy knew that wasn't true. She knew what Honest's mission was. She has been in this story since the first chapter of the first book.
"Sonic loves me. He just told me he does. He was just kidding when he said-" Amy laughed, "Both."
Honest smiled. "I'm sure you're totally right." Amy nodded and walked away and out the front doors of the cafeteria. Honest let out a humongous puff of air and went back to the table.---
Now it was November 14th (don't ask what happened to the past nine days), and Honest came back to school on a Wednesday after surviving a horrible sickness. She walked into the fine arts building just to have her beanie snatched right off her head. "Hey!" she exclaimed. She turned around to see that Dina had been hiding in the shadow of the door and had stolen her hat and was now wearing it.
"Here, have this one." She gave Honest a black one and she stuck it on her head. It was way too small and had cat ears on it.
"Hey, this doesn't make any sense. I have two pairs of ears now," she said. Indeed she did. Her actual ears stuck through the hat, but it also had ears sewn onto it.
"But look! This one matches my hair," Dina told her. Indeed it did. Honest's beanie was hot pink and had white snowflakes which matched the hedgehog's white and pink hair perfectly.
"That still doesn't mean you can take it and give me one that's too small. That beanie is warmer because it has a layer of fleece inside," Honest pointed out.
Dina made a pouty face. "But do you ever think about how cold I am? You're so selfish." Honest gasped and pointed at her angrily.

Suddenly, our favorite, speedy blue pineapple rounded the corner and saw them.
"Honest! Dina! Get over here! You won't want to miss this!" He then moved his hand as if to pull them towards him. It must have worked because they instantly began to gravitate towards him. Just around the bend stood a confused, black rodent. Sonic gestured to him with his hands as if revealing some amazing thing.
"Oh. Good morning, Shadow," Honest said. She turned to Sonic. "What about him?"
"Look at him-- all ready for winter!" he said, flowers rotating in the air around him.
Honest hadn't even realized he looked kind of... cute (>:P) today. It was probably because everyone was wearing relatively the same thing. He wore a matching green hat and scarf. It was what he had worn every day last winter. "Sonic, you're way too easily amused," she told him.

The flowers around Sonic lost their petals and disintegrated. "I thought you loved Shadow."

Honest flinched when she saw how steely his eyes had become. "I- I do, but I've been around him for ten years now." After some time, Honest began to shake. "What's going on?" she said in a panicked voice.
"Are you cold?" the puffed up hedgy beside her asked when he saw her shaking.
"No," Honest told him truthfully. "I think Sonic's using some sort of witchcraft."

Shadow huffed and guided her into the design lab nearby. Dina rushed inside as well and closed and locked the door. Sonic was beating on the glass. "'Witchcraft'? What do you mean 'witchcraft'? Hey, I'm not doing anything!"
Honest crawled underneath one of the tables. She pulled out her 3DS and began to play Puyo Puyo versus the computer. Dina and Shadow didn't bother her. Instead, they looked up their zodiac signs on a PC.

"June 23rd... Hey, Sonic is a Cancer," Dina said, smiling as she read the description. "Impatient, guided by their heart, moody."
Suddenly Honest's head poked up from under the table between Dina and Shadow.
"Sonic CD came out on September 21st, so- oh. Amy and Sonic are..." Dina pointed to the screen. Honest's eyes widened.
"Sonic and Amy are... impossible?" Shadow asked.
"Uh, 28%," Honest said. "It's still possible."
"That's pretty much impossible," Shadow said in an affirmative way. He sat back in his chair.
"Shadow is a Gemini, and a Gemini is an Air sign just like Libra, Amy's sign, so... Shadow is a better match for Amy than Sonic," Dina said. She then laughed. "How do we tell Amy about this?"
"What?" Shadow shot forward in his chair suddenly.
"Hey, calm down, Shadow," Honest told him, raising her hands in front of her. She then turned to the screen again. "Let's check out my sign, Dina."
Dina nodded and clicked on "Aries".
"Courageous, determined, confident, enthusiastic, optimistic- H-Honest?"
Honest looked where her cursor was hovering. "Huh?"
"No, not Honest; honest!"
"Wait... one of the strengths of Aries is Honest? And people tell me they don't believe I'm an Aries kind of person," Honest said, laughing.
"It says here that Aries' opposing sign is Libra. I guess that means if Shadow and Amy are a perfect match, Shadow and Honest aren't." Honest sighed.
"All these Zodiacs are just superstition anyways," Honest claimed.

"Oh, wait... 74%? How?" Dina said, confused. Her eyes went wide. "You're trust is abysmal. Major trust issues I guess."

"Well, this says that Gemini representatives like Shadow are tricksters and Aries like Honest are extremely jealous. Because of this, Honest would be very untrusting of Shadow..."
"Can we stop talking like Honest and I are going to be a couple? I can't stand to be seen with her in public, much less have everyone think we're in love," Shadow said angrily, rolling his eyes.
"What other couples are possible according to these superstitions?" Honest asked next, ignoring him.
"Well, the thing about that is we don't know or can't be sure of everybody's birthdays. But, let's see... Sonic Rush came about on November 15th, so that would be Blaze's birthday. '06 came out on November 14, though. See? Blaze and Silver would have nearly the same birthday, so they would have the same signs." Dina made a defeated noise and rested her head on the keyboard.

Suddenly Honest's phone came alive in her pocket. "It's time for class!" came the voice of Sonic. He had recorded all of the alarm sounds on her phone for her. She pressed something on the screen and then smiled.
"Whelp! It's time for me to head to Business Management," Honest said happily.
"I have art first period," Dina informed, smiling.
"I wonder what Sonic has," Shadow pondered, frowning.
Honest shrugged her shoulders. "I dunno," she said. "Whatever it is, it's in this building. Maybe he's in debate!"
Shadow thought a moment, trying to picture Sonic debating anything other than what he was going to eat for dinner.
"Anyway, we've got to start moving or else we'll be late," Honest said, picking up her bag and slinging it over her shoulder. All she had was paper and her sketchbook, so why was it always so heavy? They all three left the room, Dina flipping the light switch as they passed.---
Thank you so much for reading this chapter. I know it was kind of long and nothing really happened, but hopefully you enjoyed it anyway! :D