Honesty is the Best Policy {Comic Edition}

Chapter 44: A Mouse Problem

The sensation of Honest's legs performing the same, repeated motion of one foot after the other, walking, melted away after four hours of the same old same old being repeated, walking through the tunnel. Had that even been a grammatically correct sentence? Honest was unable to tell. Even the concept of grammatical coherence had melted away after all this time, and all that was left in its place was clumsy, hastily assembled words and phrases lined end to end within the feline's once sharp mind. Had it ever been sharp? Honest was unable to tell. Even the concept of memory had melted away after all this- "Ow!" Honest's nose had slammed right into a wall.
Suddenly, hands flew out of nowhere to cover her face as a loud "Ssssshhhhhhhhh!" echoed through the darkness. "Fiona might hear us! We don't know where she is right now." Scourge pulled his hands away and grabbed ahold of a ladder that was leading to a trapdoor similar to the one they had entered the tunnel through.
Shadow turned off his flashlight and stashed it back in his spikes. Hearts was rubbing her arms as if trying to warm herself up. Honest huffed quietly. Hearts was dressed waaay warmer than anyone else here. She thought she was cold? Try being- Hm... Well, maybe she was just used to the warm, almost stagnant air of the desert. Even the nights didn't get cool there. It was... supernatural.
All of a sudden, as if having read her thoughts, her doppelganger looked up with frightened eyes. "Why is it cold here?" She sounded as perplexed as she looked.
Scourge hushed the anti-Honest just the same as he had hushed the prime Honest. "No time for explaining. We need to find a way inside that won't lead to us being spotted."
The king used his head to push up on the trapdoor and sneak a glance at the room above. He saw a pair of blue high tops and quickly lowered his head back down, but not before causing the owner of said high tops to shriek. He thought they were for sure done for, however the bit of silence that followed begged to differ.
"M-Mice?" Rosy theorized after a while. The sound of rushing footsteps echoed down to the escape tunnel as the anti-Amy dashed out of the room above them. Scourge poked his head back out, this time all the way, and then climbed out fully. He ran to one of the walls and motioned for the others to do the same.
"Alright, let's split up and find places to hide. Make sure you have a good view of the throne room as that is most likely where Fiona is right now. Don't come out until I have. One, two, three." On the count of three, the two cats, two hedgehogs, and the demonic being split up and became one with the many shadowy corners and rooms within the castle.
"Your Majesty, I think the castle has a slight mouse problem," Rosy informed Fiona. The red fox was sitting in Scourge's throne with her legs kicked out over one of the arms as she tapped away at her Shadow Android smartphone, a golden crown resting atop her head. That was Scourge's crown? Honest didn't think he would want a golden crown. Perhaps Fiona had changed it to fit her own preferences.
Shadow seemed to notice something else as he let out a quiet gasp. He was on the small balcony next to Honest. The ceiling of the throne room was particularly high, and each floor had a set of miniature balconies to, I guess, view it from. Maybe the kings and queens of history addressed the castle staff from their throne? Scourge might know, but Honest and Shadow had no idea where he was hiding right now. They were in a set of balconies stemming from the second floor, pressed to the floor and watching Fiona and her hostage from between the bars beneath the railing.
Rosy was most definitely a hostage, though. No doubt about that. She might not have thought she was a hostage, but she was.
Fiona's throne was a deep scarlet and was decorated with faux Phantom Rubies created using the real Phantom Ruby's power. The walls of the castle, well, at least the room down below where Fiona and Rosy were, also seemed to be newly decorated using the Ruby's power. Honest squinted and sure enough, she recognized the look of the walls from Infinite's boss fights in Forces. Another closer look revealed that the Ruby was just lying on a small, square table against the back wall behind the throne.
Fiona looked over at Rosy with narrowed eyes, her crown falling over them. "A mouse problem? Really? Ugh, fine." She pushed the heavy crown back onto her head and lifted her other hand. The Phantom Ruby began to glow from its resting place on the table. Suddenly, a whole pile of mouse traps materialized at the foot of the throne. She took a deep breath, exhaled slowly and returned her attention to her phone's screen for just a moment before pressing the lock button and rising to her feet. Rosy gathered the traps and returned to the room where she had been before. Fiona followed closely behind, leaving the Phantom Ruby alone in the throne room. Their voices became quieter and quieter as they disappeared into the distance.
Honest blinked. Had she really just done that? Maybe it was a trap. Or, maybe, Fiona was just that trusting that nothing would happen to the Ruby if she just stepped out for a moment. Regardless, once Scourge saw that the Phantom Ruby had been left behind, he immediately came out of hiding and dove for it. As soon as he had scooped it up, Fiona's voice started picking up in volume again.
Panicking, Scourge made possibly the worst decision of his life. He wasn't certain that he would be able to return to his previous hiding spot without being caught, so he immediately looked for another. He hooked his fingers under the front of the large, synthetic Ruby-decorated chair, and lifted it up, the throne opening like a chest, pivoting on a hinge and revealing a large cavity underneath. Scourge jumped inside without hesitation and lowered the seat back down above him just as Fiona entered back into the room, this time without Rosy.
Honest began to panic, about to jump out of her hiding spot to go assist him, thinking that the king's cover was about to be blown at any second. Instead, Hearts stepped out first. She had been ducking behind a large, round, stone plant pot full of nothing but nutrient-depleted dirt and dust. She came out and walked up to Fiona with a calm look about her.
"Wh-Who are you?" Fiona asked, immediately leaping off the throne. Hearts stopped about three feet away from her.
"I'm a princess on an important mission to get revenge on the evil king that stole my people's land," Hearts lied.
Sounds like the plot of one of my creative writing assignments in fourth grade, Honest thought.
"Evil king..." Fiona whispered to herself. "Are you talking about Scourge?" She asked it in a disgusted tone as if it were an insult to her to call him that.
"Yes," Hearts said. "Where is he?"
"I've already gotcha covered," Fiona boasted, sticking her nose in the air and puffing out her chest dramatically. Yes, Fiona was indeed the type to brag to complete strangers. "I've stolen his crown and his castle and thrown him out on the Cosmic Interstate to be arrested by the Zone Police."
Now she's bragging about betraying me to a complete stranger! Scourge thought rather loudly from his poorly chosen hiding spot in the cavity beneath the throne. A cavity in which he liked to store something precious.
A string of profanities followed, so Honest quit listening in on Scourge's thoughts as she peered cautiously around the edge of the pillar she was now hiding behind on the ground floor. It was about this time that Shadow realized Honest was no longer in the other overhang and began to fret. Where had Honest gone off to? Shadow wasn't sure if he could trust Honest not to do something dumb and compromise... whatever was going on down there. Instead, she just waited. Her opportunity, which was also Scourge's, would come eventually.
"So that's just it? He was arrested?" Hearts asked, feigning disappointment.
Fiona nodded. "Yup! Sorry." The fox gave her a sympathetic shrug. Observing the unfamiliar character's reaction to her news, Fiona noticed something. "Hey," she said. Hearts looked back at her with surprise. "You look a lot like a friend of mine. Are you the Anti-Honest?"
When Hearts didn't reply at first, Fiona was afraid she might have struck a nerve. Eventually though, the Honest look-alike rolled her eyes and answered. "I'm Hearts."
"That's a cute name," Fiona remarked, tilting her head and almost sending the shoddily-fitting crown perched there flying across the room. Hearts narrowed her eyes as if warning Fiona to back off. She didn't seem to catch on, though. "What makes you two different, huh? Would you mind telling me your story?"
"I'll tell you," Hearts said, turning. "But can we go outside? It's cold here." They were now standing a distance down the corridor, inevitably brought there due to the nature of their conversation.
"Sure!" Fiona exclaimed, immediately turning back around and racing back to the throne. "One sec." However, what she found, er, what she didn't find, caused her to halt in her tracks.
"Um... Where's the Ruby?"
Suddenly, the throne started to shake violently, a bright light erupting from beneath it. Before anyone else could move, the top of the throne was thrown back and the source of the light began to float upwards out of his hiding spot. Anarchy beryl with the energy sapped from it was knocked out and rolled in multiple directions across the floor. Fiona just stood there, her mouth agape as Scourge- no- Super Scourge's head snapped to look at her.
"Give me back my crown."