Honesty is the Best Policy {Comic Edition}

Chapter 55: Roulette Rolls and Heroic Goals

Although he called the Flying Crate, a furniture store in the Ruined Mall, his home now, Frank always reported to Doctor Eggman's lab in his base in the mornings for what the doctor called a daily checkup. It was just to make sure he was still, you know, living. After all, creating living creatures wasn't the Doctor's forte. Frank was the first living being the doctor had produced. He usually just built robots, albeit fairly advanced ones.

Right now, Frank was waiting for one of these checkups to be performed. Frank looked curiously over at his metallic mate who was playing on some sort of handheld game console a feet or two away. "Hey," he said, getting the robot's attention. He looked up with a beep. "Do you think having been born in a tube makes me any less of a Mobian?"

"ᴛʜᴇ ғᴀᴄᴛ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ᴄᴀᴘᴀʙɪʟɪᴛɪᴇs ᴛᴏ ᴀsᴋ sᴜᴄʜ ᴀ ǫᴜᴇsᴛɪᴏɴ ɪs ᴘʀᴏᴏғ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴀʀᴇ ᴍᴏʙɪᴀɴ."

One too many smart-aleck remarks caused the Doctor to remove Metal Sonic's ability to speak entirely. That was about two weeks ago. Since then, Frank had taught himself to understand Metal's varied beeps and whirring sounds, which turned out to be a surprisingly complex system of language themselves.

The white and red hedgehog put a finger to his lips in deep thought. What did that mean? Was Frank a Mobian in mind and spirit only? Or, was he a Mobian in body too, but he was just artificial in origin? Did that sort of stuff even matter?

Frank sighed loudly, leaning back against the warm glass of the machine which once held him. Red light still illuminated the inside of the tube, which was probably what was keeping the glass so warm still.The base of the machine, which was metal, was painted school bus yellow and was very cold in comparison, as was (literally) painfully clear to Frank as he sat there.

But, despite Metal's serious lack of human emotions, his robotic reasoning was still sound, you know. Logic was baked-in to practically all robot brains, so he had to be right. Frank had the ability to question his very nature. That was proof that he was real. Really real. So, he didn't have to worry about that.

He thought back to his encounters with Shadow, the one he was based on- no, his brother. Shadow and him were made of the same stuff, so if Shadow was able to meld with the other students and not have his origins questioned, then Frank should be able to as well. And then, he started wondering... Had there been others, besides Frank and Shadow, who'd been created artificially? Maybe they weren't one of a kind like he thought. If so, then Frank definitely wanted to meet those other people.

Frank also thought about asking Metal Sonic another question, but when Eggman entered the room, it suddenly felt too awkward to ask him anything, and they both clammed up.

---

Honest wasn't sure how to tell Dina what she wanted to say, so she just blurted out the first thing she thought of.

"Jet has a crush on you."

Dina turned towards her with an air-headed blink. "Who?"

Honest's eyes contracted. After that whole encounter Jet and Dina had, she didn't even remember his name? How... Honest's mind just went to what Shadow had said last period: how embarrassing.

"Uh, he said you met at an afterschool event and got ice cream together," Honest told her.

The white and pink hedgehog's mouth formed a circle. "Ohhh, that guy. He's a parakeet, right?"

Honest replied flatly, "No, he's a hawk actually."

"Oh," Dina said, looking down at her feet as if ashamed she had made such an unspeakable error. "Yeah, I sort of figured that out. Him having a crush on me, not him being a hawk." She crossed her arms. "He wasn't exactly being discreet, but... He did seem quick to show an interest in my hobbies, so..."