Sonic Unleashed, Again?

Chapter 2-Back to Basics

"G-grrrggh..." Sonic felt sick; His body throbbed, and he could barely open his eyes beyond a set of two slits to see. Whenever he tried to lift himself, he could only manage getting up to his knees before a bunch of stars flew in front of him, blocking his view so much so that he'd lose his balance and fall again. "Ugh...," he growled lowly, "What did I hit?" He put a claw on the side of his head, quickly pulling it away again when he felt the soaked, matted fur. He glanced down at his other claw, halfway stuck in the wet sand. His cleats were filled with water, the foamy beach waves softly gliding over and up to his knees before receding and starting it again. His whole body was one drenched, matted ball of fur. "Oh yeah..." Using his large arms for balance, he steadied himself as he stood upright, slowly walking over to the edge of the beach. He lowered his head, staring down at his monstrous form, a scary frown that looked like a toothy scowl on his face. He sighed heavily, "Well, this is one form I thought I'd never see again..." He cringed at his new voice, all too familiar yet not in the least bit welcoming to him. Suddenly, but slowly, he felt a huge wave of anger shoot up through his back, right to his arms and stopping at his fists. He threw them back, balled up tightly, as he howled.

"So why DO I see it again?" He screamed to the stars angrily, "I stopped Dark Gaia! He's sleeping like a baby at the center of the Earth now! He took his dark power out of me, end of story!" He paused, still staring at the sky, then he turned back and stared at his claws in bewilderment and rage. "So then, why?" He quickly turned around again and locked his view on the nearest tree, lifting it up with both hands and getting ready to hurl it at the river, stopping only when he noticed a glint of purple out of the corner of his eye. He glanced at his wrist, pushing aside the fur and noticing a purple gem at the top of a round, gold..."Bracelet!" Sonic exclaimed as he threw the tree aside, ripping the bracelet off his wrist to hold it up to his face. He studied the milky red and plum mist swirling about where the vibrant green had once been.

Sonic's mind instantly went back to that pod Eggman had built. Sonic let out a low growl, snarling, "Why should I expect anything different from that Egghead?" He clutched the bracelet tightly, turning back to the river. "Which reminds me," Sonic pondered out loud, flipping the ring like a small coin in his hand, "How far did this river throw me anyway?" He turned towards the thick, forested area behind him, tall, thicker rooted trees stretching their tops over the jungle like umbrellas. "Far enough." Knowing he'd rather cut through foliage than take a swim, upstream at that, he began to run, or in Werehog form more like run-jog, to the jungle.

"Hot and humid. What a perfect place for that river to drop me...," Sonic thought as he tried to control his frizzy fur. To add to his list of complaints today, he was now getting snagged on thorny branches, no thanks to his new coat. A few had already cut into him, leaving a few nice scratches on his arms and legs. Some were already bleeding, making his already sticky coat like crazy glue to the touch. He shook another thorny vine loose of his arm as he waded through the seemingly never-ending sea of leaves, roots, and brush. "Least this is better than swimming," the Werehog grumbled as he pushed a branch out of the way.

Not a minute after he said that, a few blinding flashes of light rippled through the sky, Sonic only being able to see a few little ripples due to the blanket of trees. After a few thunderclaps that quickly followed, Sonic could feel the first few drops of an almost immediate downpour, becoming drenched within seconds. He lowered his eyelids a bit in frustration, still trying to keep a straight face without going unleashed on the whole forest. "Aaaand now it's worse," Sonic sighed through gritted fangs. Stretching his arm over to a small nearby tree, he grabbed a large leaf and held it over his soggy head, ears pulled back in frustration as he pressed forward, deeper into the tangled jungle.

The rain had dragged on for hours, and it only poured more. Even with the giant leaf he had found, the weight and slippery texture of the water had made the already thin leaf flimsy and hard to keep a hold on, despite his large hands. He had to keep an iron claw on it just to keep it from slipping. His cleats were sloshing noisily in the muddy ground, which also tended to have a sucking effect every time he stepped in a particularly soft part, forcing him to give a hard jerk to either side, thus forcing him to lose his balance and fall sideways into the mud. Every time, he would just growl a bit, maybe bare his fangs in frustration, then lift himself up, shaking off any loose or clumped dirt, then promptly resume his march. "It's only for the night. It's only for the night. It's only for the night," he told himself. He had to keep repeating that in his mind constantly, more than he normally would before as a Werehog anyway, for tonight was only around halfway through. He could tell from the moon's positioning, which he managed to get a good look at maybe-about a half hour ago? It was hard to tell the time in such a place, not being able to look at the sky through the tree tops, which the clouds would then still obstruct normally-even if he got a chance.

He just couldn't help but keep coming back to this nagging question, though. "What can break my curse now?" He already knew that somehow the bracelet's power and Eggman were involved, but he didn't know how he would be able to fix things this time around. After all, the Gaia Temples weren't for purifying bracelets. He didn't really even understand why the bracelet's corruption had an effect on him in the first place.

He even remembered what Tails said about its power when Sonic first discovered it after a fight with one of Eggman's larger mechs. The Egg Goliath, as Eggman had called it, was a giant, humanoid, red, yellow, and white fighting machine. It wasn't terribly unique, he'd seen about half a dozen others like it, but it was very strong, and it was almost like its own island; It was one of the few best fights he'd ever had.

He could remember the exhilaration he felt as the giant robot missed a left hook at Sonic, allowing him to land safely on its forearm and take a ride up to the sky on its uppercut. As he let gravity guide his spin-dash to the cockpit, he saw a right coming straight at him from the corner of his eye. Turning the situation around, he homing attacked the shoulder of the right as he let it plow the left, knocking it clean off its mechanical joint. The other arm was soon to follow after Sonic drilled it with another spin-dash. Losing its balance, Sonic could remember perfectly the wide smirk on his face as he hopped off the Egg Goliath and watch it fall to the side like a tipsy shelf of antiques. The thing looked like a mound of metal and glass.

Chuckling as he began to speed up in place for a straight spin-dash to the cockpit, he noticed tiny little pieces of metal seemingly leaking from small open gashes on the Egg Goliath. Ignoring them at first, and noticing that his sight was about to go blank from all the dirt he was turning up, Sonic whipped himself loose, traveling at top speeds up the machine's torso, right at the cockpit for a second try. He could remember the look on Eggman's face. Much like the one he had when he was staring up at him through his 'junk' shell earlier that night, Eggman was grinning ear to ear, sitting back in his chair comfortably. He wasn't even touching a button!

Before Sonic could react, he felt a small, cold tentacle wrap around his leg, stopping him just mere inches before he hit the cockpit and hurling him back to the right ankle, grinding loudly against the metal as he did. He sat up, shaking his head a little as he heard Eggman's laughter bouncing off the metal. Turns out the Egg Goliath was exactly like an island. Eggman had Badniks inside it so that they could repair whatever damage was done to it. That explained why it appeared to take so much longer than usual to knock the machine down. Problem was that Sonic had just done exterior damage to the Goliath, which meant the Badniks had to crawl out to fix it. Of course, Eggman had kept that in mind when he designed them, so now they had him pinned down on the ground. Sonic could only watch as the Badniks merged themselves together, creating two new arms for the Egg Goliath.

Within minutes, the Goliath, using boosters in its feet, was upright again, getting ready to land a foot right on Sonic. The Badniks at this point had a firm hold on Sonic, so he could only struggle as the Goliath's foot was to meet with his face. Suddenly, just a few centimeters before it was to squish Sonic, his bracelet glowed an intensely bright green. Before he could even tell what had just happened, he was surrounded in a green force field, and the Egg Goliath was losing its balance again. Not even paying attention to the force field now, he noticed the holes for the boosters under the Egg Goliath's exposed foot. There being plenty of room for a small blue hedgehog, Sonic decided to invite himself in with a homing attack, speeding into the hole, bouncing off the various inner mechanics of the Egg Goliath until he blasted into the cockpit. The force field had disappeared by now, but Eggman had seen it, somehow, and now he was searching anxiously out the front of the cockpit, not realizing Sonic was preparing a spin-dash.

Dashing into him from behind, Eggman was booted out of the cockpit by Sonic, who followed closely behind as the Egg Goliath fell to the ground, exploding rather loudly as it did so. Tails had accidentally caught Eggman by the wing of his plane as he was circling by, trying to do damage to the Egg Goliath before he realized what Sonic had done. He managed to shake him off before the extra weight could send him tail-spinning, but once again, no scrambled Eggman for Sonic.

Back at Tails' workshop, Tails had taken a good look at the bracelet. After testing the energy flow a few times on Sonic with random objects and setting them as projectiles aimed at him, Tails deduced that that bracelet was, in fact, connected to Chip. Chip was the one who was able to make the bracelet create those force fields, and since the bracelet was now on Sonic, Chip could tell when something threatening was about to attack Sonic based on Sonic's own body movements. Thus, he could actually send some of the energy he had collected for his and Dark Gaia's next proper awakening to the bracelet to create a force field whenever Sonic wanted. It was an amazing new ability, and quite frankly, Sonic got quite cocky after that. Sure, none of Eggman's inventions ever hindered him again after that, not until now that is, but Tails had warned Sonic about overusing it.

"...Hah, guess I learned my lesson now," Sonic remarked to himself as he continued into the jungle. He still didn't get why the bracelet's corruption hurt him though. Since the bracelet actually didn't contain any power unless Chip was sending it, why is it even corrupted in the first place? By that logic, Sonic guessed it was just the machine's corrupted energy that cursed him, but why the bracelet? He had a feeling that Tails didn't completely figure out everything about this bracelet yet. Sonic started to feel a headache coming on now from such confusing questions, so he decided to take a break and focus all his attention on getting to Angel Island, wherever that was now.

As Sonic clutched the leaf tightly, one of his nails tore a hole in it, causing the water to rush through it, almost immediately tearing the leaf in half as all the water that had been sagging on top poured nicely onto his quills. He stared at the leaf shreds for a moment as the rain continued to pour, then he violently tore them to shreds. He howled angrily, face raised to the sky. "Oh, please just let it be daytime already!" He growled.

As he continued to run in a small circle, tearing various trees and plants apart, still howling as he did, a large coconut fell from the tree, nailing him directly in his back. He grunted lowly in pain as he looked up towards the trees, sizing up which one most likely did it so that he could hurl it to Chun-Nan. As he searched, he heard a small, echoing series of giggles coming from a certain tree. He turned and listened hard. There it was again, in a large tree to left of where he was standing. He turned his head in the proper direction, and, to his shock, noticed a pair of small, golden orange eyes staring down at him, moving up and down with its giggling; He snarled loudly at the figure, as a sort of dare to come down and face him-Werehog to...whatever he was that Sonic was dealing with.

Suddenly, he felt another coconut hit him square in the back of his leg, knocking him off balance as he fell backwards into the mud. He howled in pain-just before yet another coconut landed square in his mouth, plugging his roar of anger. As he stared up at the tree tops, he noticed three sets of eyes staring down at him in a triangular shape, all three of them moving up and down with their laughing. Still laying down in the mud, Sonic crushed the coconut in his mouth, bits of shell, meat and milk dropping from his mouth as he bared his fangs wide, uttering a low snarl again as he did. As he began to stand up, walking slowly towards the nearest tree with eyes in it, the three of them, knowing they were now discovered, fled through the branches, swinging from tree to tree in a synchronized trio.

Sonic immediately followed, letting his instincts take over as he took off on all fours, rapidly climbing up the tree and swinging with his stretchy arms from tree to tree, covering ground, or branches, with great speed. The three were already far ahead of him though, and now one of them had loaded up on coconuts and other fruits and began hurling them at Sonic. Sonic, angled eyes locked squarely on them now, swatted the fruit away, not even breaking his beat for a moment. He picked up speed, his heart beginning to race, arms outstretched from branch to branch, sometimes vine to vine, his mind now solely focused on the hunt.

The trio, Sonic now hot on their heels, ran into a maze of branches, jumping from level to level of branches and trees, nimbly slinking through the many thick layers of hanging moss and vines. Sonic, now being much bulkier, hit the maze-like trees with force, now immediately beginning to slip and fall to the forest floor from his sudden offset of balance. He narrowly managed to cling onto a vine, even then slipping some from the slippery surface caused by the rain. Losing the beat of his chase, he scrambled up the vine, covering little ground despite his frantic and wild clawing at the nearest branch or vine.

He slowed himself, forcing his instincts to the back of his mind to gather his bearings and just carefully work out how he was to climb up this tricky vine. He glanced up, noticing the trio of eyes, bobbing up and down with their laughter again. Up and down, up and down...up...and...Rage and instincts narrowing his eyesight to nothing but various shades of red, Sonic flung his arms at the closest vine, climbing to the connected branch in seconds. Recoiling in disbelief, the three troublemakers jumped a few levels of branches, fleeing through a small burrow of them above Sonic.

Sonic, claws sunken deeper into the branch bark with each jump to the next, pressed forward, building speed again as he kept up with the trio through the sound of their footsteps. Once again, he was back at the back heels of the trio, just a few inches out of his claws' reach. He could see them shifting through the trees' thicket on a higher branch above him as he chased. Sonic looked forward for a second, then back above at the troublemakers. Both Sonic's and their branches opened to a large clearing up ahead. He smiled cleverly, picking up speed as he approached the clearing.

Suddenly, as he was about to stretch his claw out, he ran straight into a thick knot of vines, a few jagged ones tearing a few slashes into is stomach. Howling loudly, he could hear the footsteps of the trio tip-tapping away as he fought with the vines. Anger at his boiling point, Sonic pulled back a tight fist, snarling lowly as he paused for just a moment. Feeling the power in his arm finally peak, he unleashed his best Wild Whirl, tearing the vines to shreds. Not wasting any time, he bounded ahead, pushing himself to his limit as he approached the clearing. Leaping at the branch above him, he sent a claw towards the tip of it, ripping the end of the branch right out from under the fleeing trio. Screeching loudly in surprise, they quickly recovered, diving right past the Werehog to a forest of dangling vines. Zeroing in on one, they rode it down, using their built-up speed to swing and propel them into the sky above the tree tops and out of sight.

Determined not to lose sight of them, Sonic dove down, following the same path as the troublemakers. Stretching his arm out, he gripped the vine tightly as he continued to let himself fall, using its speed to swing himself above the tree tops as well. Clearing through some branches as he went higher, he quickly found himself high above the forest, still flying forward from the strength of his swinging speed. The view was breathtaking.

The rainforest expanded all the way past the horizon in every direction, light blue rivers several times longer and wider than the largest trees he'd seen on the ground level still just mere, small veins in comparison to the vast rows of green that seemed to envelop everything else. He glanced up at the sky, completely moonless and dark, the only reason he himself could see it being his Werehog eyes. Rain, seemingly coming from nowhere, was coming down in buckets. He couldn't believe how much rain had been blocked from the leaves before! Slowly, he began to descend, accelerating faster and faster, everything around him merging into one green and aquamarine blur. For a moment, Sonic could've sworn he saw the big, muscular arms and claws change into his familiar thin, peach ones with gloved hands. Just for a moment.

A quick smile crossed his face, just a small smirk, before he dropped below the tree tops again, pouncing right on top of three troublemakers with a triumphant roar. The three had their backs turned, so they all looked quite startled when Sonic uttered his roar. He gripped two by their mid-section in his right, then one the same way in his left. They struggled and squirmed, but there was no way they were escaping this Werehog. Not after he had to chew on a jaw full of coconut. He hit the three with such impact that Sonic had broke the tree branch they were standing on in half, causing them to fall all the way into the muddy floor, the three troublemakers still pinned beneath the Werehog's intimidating claws.

He leaned down close to them, the three troublemakers trying to get away by forcing their heads back deeper into the mud. "Got ya," he whispered through bared fangs. As Sonic got the chance to look at them better, he noticed one had eyelashes with a light green feather tucked behind a brown, oval shaped ear. She had two gold bracelets on both wrists, with jewel-encrusted braces on both ankles. She had shoulder-length brownish-caramel hair, her tan muzzle twisted into a terrified frown. The other two, a little smaller, looked almost exactly identical save for the fact that one had a messy mop of hair on top while the other had a red feather in his hair. The twins were both wearing matching gold braces on their arms, bandages around their ankles. All three now had their eyes wide open as they stared up at the Werehog in fear, their long, thin tails swishing erratically like worms.

"Y-You're," Sonic began, unknowingly loosening his grip on the trio, "You're just kid monkeys." For all this time, Sonic had actually thought that some Dark Gaia's henchmen were messing with him. After all, if the Werehog was back now, he may as well expect the monsters, too. The girl gave him a hard kick to his nose, Sonic immediately staggering backwards a little as the monkeys scrambled to their feet. The girl had her arms crossed, an intimidating, yet unintentionally cute glare on her face. The other two tried to mimic her, twisting their bodies into awkward positions.

"S-So what if we are!" The girl stuttered.

"Yeah! What if!" The boys echoed in childish tones.

"At least monkeys don't go around and eat people!" She snapped at Sonic, still rubbing his nose from the kick.

Sonic looked at the three in confusion. "...Wh-Wait, what?"

"You know what I mean, monster!"

"Yeah! Monster! Monster!" The boys repeated.

"Not really...," Sonic responded, now growing impatient as a bit of a growl escaped his throat.

"You ate Mr. Sonic the Hedgehog! You ate him! You ate him!" The twins shrieked in anger, prompting the girl to turn and hiss a shush at them.

Sonic was quite taken aback, and rather rightfully upset. He'd been mistaken as a monster before when he was a Werehog, but tonight, he had had it up to here with these shenanigans.

"But I am Sonic!" He roared angrily.

"Liar! Liar!" The boys retorted. "You ate Mr. Sonic the Hedgehog, and now you tried to eat us!"

He glanced down at his claws for a moment, remembering the chase he'd just given them. "Guess I didn't help my problem any with that," Sonic thought, now beginning to feel guilty. He refocused his attention at the monkeys again, trying a different tactic. "Look! I didn't eat anyone ok?" Sonic protested, trying now to watch his tone with the kids. None of them looked older than 9.

"Nuh-unh! You did too!" The girl argued, motioning to her brothers (Sonic could clearly tell they were at least semi-related). "We saw you! We had pulled Sonic from the Great River, 'cause we knew he didn't like water! He was asleep, though, so we went to get Papa-"

"But then when we came back-" One boy interrupted.

"You were there!" The other finished. "And you were roaring and scratching and shouting and, and and-" The boy continued to blather, imitating Sonic's various Werehog roars and growls.

"And then we saw you go into the jungle! We knew you were looking for more people, so we decided to follow you!" The girl finished.

"...And pelt me with coconuts?" Sonic replied, still a little upset at the sore mouth that last one gave him.

"W-Well, you were going to eat us! And-"

"Yet I haven't eaten any of you," Sonic pointed out.

The three monkeys paused for a moment, the girl trying to open her mouth to speak but found no word. Then one of the twins spoke up. "B-But you were chasing us!"

"I chased you because you attacked me!" Sonic snapped. "Besides I thought you were one of Dark Gaia's-"

Suddenly, Sonic heard a large roar come from behind them. He spun around, pulling back his face into a scowl as he heard the tell-tale, earthshaking footsteps coming in their direction. The three monkeys stumbled back, quivering in a huddled group up against a tree. The thudding footsteps got louder, louder, until what Sonic had hoped wouldn't show up did. A large Titan, club in one hand, effortlessly pulled two tress apart, making its path slowly towards Sonic and the three monkeys. Sonic brought his fists up closer to his face, preparing for the now inevitable fight. He let out a low snarl as he thought, "I totally called that."

Sonic placed himself firmly between the Titan and the monkeys, stopping a quick vertical club. He turned back partially towards the trio. "Nrrrrgh...G-Go! Run! Get out of here quick!" He grunted as the Titan piled on the pressure.

Nodding simultaneously, the monkeys quickly climbed up the tree, swinging into the distance. Sonic turned back towards the Titan, giving a hard lunge forward, knocking the club into the Titan's face. The giant monster hobbled backward, roaring a moan as he caught his balance against one of the trees. Sonic circled the Titan on all fours, glaring at him intensely. "Just you and me now, buddy," Sonic growled.

Before either could attack, he felt a hard claw club him from behind, allowing the Titan to bat him vertically into the air. As Sonic flew up, he turned back down towards the floor, noticing the tiny specks of several Deep Nightmares. "...Cheater," Sonic grumbled, quickly diving back down, claws outstretched as his instincts began to flood back to the foreground of his mind. "Oh, yeah? Bring it, Dark Gaia!"

Sonic crashed into the cluster of minions, taking out some Rexes, Nightmares, and Killer Bees that had shown up, too, almost immediately. He dodged a punch from a Deep Nightmare, hopping on a misplaced club from the Titan to gain a few Air Combos against them. "Come on, now!" Sonic roared as he knocked two Deep Nightmares together, "Is that all you guys got?" He guarded a spinning attack from another Deep Nightmare from behind him, turning around and coming down hard on him with a Were-Hammer.

The more Sonic fought, the more relief washed over him. It was so...refreshing, just to punch something for once! After all the hits he took throughout the night, it felt so empowering just to give something else a few punches for once. Or, in Sonic's case at that moment in the fight, headbutts, as he took down the last Deep Nightmare with a good, solid forehead hit. He turned back around to face the Titan, which he had saved for last. "Now it's your-" Sonic began to snarl, trailing off as he noticed that the Titan was nowhere to be found. "...Where'd it-" Roaring, the Titan burst forward from the jungle, plowing Sonic into the ground before he could react.

Pinning him down with his foot, the Titan began to stomp wildly, creating huge shockwaves that only damaged the Werehog even more, his consciousness quickly beginning to fade again. Continuing the onslaught, the Titan jumped off of him, the next shockwave tossing Sonic against a tree, a visible indent planted into the bark from where his hit was.

Knocking the tree down with his club, the Titan proceeded to beat him, alternating between his fist and his club with each swing of his muscular arms. Sonic twitched weakly between hits, struggling to throw a claw or a kick at the rampaging Titan. Sonic, now too weak to move, grunted in agony as the Titan beat him down further into the mud with a double-fist. Standing up and roaring to the tree tops after he was satisfied, the Titan began to stomp away, unaware of the blue aura that was slowly enveloping the seemingly KO'd Werehog.

The aura continued to grow, brighter and brighter, until it was a beautiful light blue, glowing intensely in the dark, wet night. Suddenly, Sonic snapped his eyes open, and, with a roar of fury, stretched out his hand towards the Titan, pulling him back right into Sonic's fist. Continuing the punch, Sonic turned it into a Sho-Hog-Ken, his uppercut sending the Titan high into the air with the Werehog. Dodging a mid-air attempt from the Titan, Sonic grabbed onto its sides, pile-driving it into the ground. The Titan, despite his size, was back on his feet almost immediately, throwing a few whiffs with his club as Sonic ran around to his back. Giving it a good, hard kick, Sonic stretched an arm forward and into the air, shoving an outstretched punch into the Titan's face. It wobbled backward a bit, holding its head from such a hit.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Sonic grabbed onto his face with one claw, grunting heavily as he heaved the Titan over his head and onto its back on the ground. Sonic leaped onto him in a second, clawing wildly at the Titan as he struggled against the Werehog's attacks. Finally, after Sonic was satisfied with the amount of damage he'd done, he pulled both of his fists back in the air, paused, and unleashed a huge Earthshaker on the Titan. With one final punch, the Titan poofed into a purplish cloud of smoke, the dark energy being absorbed by Sonic unintentionally. Proud of his victory, Sonic threw his arms back and faced his head towards the sky, howling victoriously as his aura faded, quickly passing out.

…...Sonic could hear voices. They were murmuring, but he didn't quite know what. He slowly opened his eyes, squinting to see where he was now. He felt the floor around him. Leaves, shaped in the form of a bed. There was a light, cloth blanket over his legs as he examined the area around him. It was dark, but Sonic could tell he was in a small room of some sort.

The walls felt cool, possibly made of an adobe-like substance. The floor itself, Sonic couldn't tell for sure, but it looked like bark. Noticing his hands, Sonic held one up in front of his face. It was gloved with a thin, peach color to his arm. "Finally," Sonic sighed with relief.

Almost immediately, the three monkeys from last night burst into the room, light flooding in from outside. Shielding his face as his eyes adjusted, the three monkeys jumped onto his bed in unison.

"S-Sonic!" The girl cried, "You're ok!"

"W-We're sorry we didn't believe you earlier, a-about before!" One of the boys cried as they all hugged him tightly.

"We came back after we heard you howl," The other began quickly, "A-and then the sun came up, a-and then you-We took you back here, and-"

"H-Hey, hey!" Sonic began, a little startled, "It's ok, just gimme some air, alright?"

The monkeys backed up almost immediately, looking sheepishly at each other. "We really are sorry, Sonic, about before...," The girl began slowly.

"Look, it's alright," Sonic reassured.

"I-It's just that, well, you looked so different!"

"And scary!" One boy interrupted.

"Yeah! I was shaking!" The other chimed.

"And those roars, and big long claws, and huuuuuge arms, and, uh, oh! Those looong fangs!"

"Yeah! Fangs!" The first agreed.

As the girl tried to hush her brothers, Sonic stared down at his bracelet, tucked securely under the cuff of his glove, then down at his hands. He sighed heavily. He remembered a similar conversation he had with Chip after saving Amy in Spagonia. He had completely forgotten how afraid people were of his Werehog self. He'd forgotten how he had to be careful with who saw him at night. He'd forgotten just how lonely it was...

"Hey Sonic?" One of the boys yelled loudly, snapping Sonic out of his trance, "Did we tell you our names yet?"

"Uh-"

"Oh yeah!" The girl exclaimed. "I'm Mocha!"

"Caramel!" The boy monkey with the feather in his hair exclaimed.

"Mango!" The other boy monkey finished.

"So then," Mocha began, "Do you think you could feel well enough to come and meet the village?" Caramel and Mango were already tugging on Sonic's arms, dragging him towards the door.

"Aha, I guess," Sonic said unsurely with a weak smile as he was dragged out the door.

Artist's Comments

Yayz! Next chapter! I hope you guys like it! More info about the mysterious appearance of Dark Gaia's minions will be next chapter! Feel free to review! No critiques please.