So this chapter is a bit short, but I think the content might help make up for it. I'm in Texas with my family at the moment and it's midnight so I am tired. I also had a dog laying on the keyboard while I was doing stuff. When I was watching videos he kept pausing it and screwing everything up! Plus it was subbed anime so it was sort of hard to read through dog. But eh. He's cute.

Serene Serious: Yeah. Neither of us really knew how to dance though. We sort of winged it.

Insanity Allegra: Oh you're going to have fun here. *Evil laughter*

Skiller339: I'm sure you will. There are some pretty cheap ones out there. And if not a lot of the bigger ones have started to do livestreams of the panels. I'm not sure where to find them though. Sorry.

"Manic, it might be a lost cause at this point."

"No way. It's gotta be here somewhere."

His sister sighed from out behind him. It had been a long day and this sure wasn't helping her mood. First the incident with the van, which had refused to move forward no matter how much the wheels spun. Then, after they called Cyrus to update him of the situation, they had to walk all this way on foot. Of course this had made the trip much harder and longer which Sonia did not appreciate. And now they had finally arrived at a forest that was close to their coordinates and Manic tripped over some root and dropped one of his drumsticks into a nearby river. So here they were, running down the river stream looking for the lone stick.

"Manic," she watched the green hedgehog's eyes scanning the water and bank. Why couldn't he be this diligent all the time? "It's probably gone way ahead of us by now."

"It's nearby. I can feel it," he told her without taking his gaze off the stream. He ignored her sigh.

These were special drumsticks. Ferral had given them to him. Well, technically Manic had pick pocketed them off him, but he had been planning on giving them to him anyway. Over the years he's had them, they'd became his lucky sticks. He rarely brought them out on field work like this unless it was something big, but he felt like they could really use some good luck. Of course he had dropped one of them. He had to find it.

Sonia decided to drop the issue. She could see the panic and worry starting to rise in his eyes, which was a very rare thing to see. She just silently dragged behind, enjoying the shade the overhead trees provided.

"Ah!" Manic's sudden yelled had startled her out of her daze. She whipped her head to her brother who was running forward with a large smile on his face. She looked ahead of his to see a small stick protruding out of the ground.

"Told ya," he gloated when she arrived on the scene.

"Yeah…" Sonia examined the recovered stick. She stopped her brother's hand when he reached out to grab it, receiving a startled and confused glare from him, "I don't think that it just washed up on shore, Manic." He didn't say anything though his expression spoke enough to get his confusion across, "It looks like someone moved up the dirt around the base. Look."

He did as she said and looked at the spot she was looking at. Sure enough, the dirt around the stick was packed tightly together and the surrounding soil was slightly dug up. "So do you think-" he stopped suddenly when he touched his stick and, like a trigger, rustling started in the bushes in front of them.


As soon as he returned to the village Tails sought out Sonic. Luckily the blue hedgehog stuck out and he was able to quickly locate him near the lake of rings.

"Sonic!" he practically tackled the unsuspecting hedgehog.

"Whoa!" Sonic was barely able to keep himself from falling off the log at the young kit's attack, "Hey there buddy. What's up?"

"Nothin'. What are you doing down here?"

"I was with Sally, but she went off to get an update from Uncle Chuck and Rotor about this whole situation." He sighed heavily, the dozens of emotions pounded onto him clearly making an appearance.

"Oh. Okay," the two tailed fox sat down next to the hedgehog with his legs crossed. "Hey, Sonic?"

"Hm?"

"Do you think you're siblings will like me?"

Sonic nearly fell off the log again at the sudden question. "Wha-? Of course they will!"

Tails smiled at the answer (giggling a bit at his surprise). Sonic had to wonder where the question came from. Tails had always been confident in himself. Maybe it was just the fact that they didn't meet a lot of new faces around here. They were keeping this village top secret after all. Although he did make quick friends with that Terrapod he had found in the forrest.

He looked down at the ten year old. He had started messing with his tails after his question was answered, though he was just making them dirty with all that dirt on his gloves. Wait. "Tails, how'd you get your hands so dirty?"

The fox looked down at his hands, as if he was just now noticing the soil that covered them. "Oh I found a drumstick in the river earlier. I tried to find the owner but I couldn't so I left it on the bank. I put some dirt around it so it wouldn't fall in again."

"A drumstick?" his mind instantly went to his brother but he knew that couldn't be. He should be in Robotropilis, and he certainly wouldn't drop one of his drumsticks into a river. It took way too good care of them to do that. And yet, the possibility refused to leave his mind. What if that was his? What if he was here? He could definitely be clumsy at times.

Eventually he gave in, "Tails, can you show me where you left it?"

"Um, sure." The fox was certainly confused by the request but still lead him up the river to where he had left the stick buried.

They went through some brush when they neared the spot. He scratched at Sonic a bit but he wasn't really paying attention to that. His focus was on getting to that spot and identifying that stick. With his luck it was just from their own set they had at the stage…

And then they made eye contact.