Omg this is so late!
Sorry about not updating for a bunch of months .
Well I hope you enjoy this chapter!
9
Holoska Werehogs
"It's really cold here!" Tommy whined. He was wearing more clothes than all the rest of us, with his normal clothes underneath his winter hat, jacket, thick gloves, and just about any winter clothing you could think of. Tails even lended him some of his clothes, and yet he was still complaining?! "I'm cold!"
"Yeah, well, so are the rest of us! So stop complaining!" I snapped.
"Number Four, calm down!" Number Five said "You know as well as I do that if he wasn't whining, you would be. So there's no need to complain about his complaining."
"We're almost there, guys!" Tails announced from the cockpit of the plane. I wasn't sure how he could tell where we were, because all I could see out the windows were torrents of snow.
"Oh, boy…" Sonic sighed "Tails, it's eight o'clock right now; can we hurry it up a bit?"
"The plane's already going as fast as it can go, Sonic."
"I can see the city!" Knuckles exclaimed, pointing out the window. I think he must've seen it with his sensitive animal eyes or something, because I still couldn't see anything but snow. "We should land the plane nearby!" Tails nodded briskly before banking the plane towards an area where the plane wouldn't likely be damaged.
I'll tell you one thing; if it was cold in the plane, it was freezing outside of it! I felt like a walking icicle. Even Shadow's teeth were clattering!
"L-L-Lets find some shelter," Amy said.
"B-But we need to find the Ch-Chaos Emerald!" Shadow argued.
"We cant f-find the emeralds if we get f-frostbite and lose out t-toes!" Rouge stated.
"We need to go to the c-city!" Knuckles said.
"I-I-I wish we got h-h-here before it got d-d-dark!" Number Three shivered.
"Y-y-you don't know the h-half of it!" I heard Sonic mutter.
"L-Lets just get this o-o-over with!" Number One said as he began to trudge off in the snow. Tails flew in front of him and gave him his phone as a GPS system so he could lead the way.
"The e-emerald is about a f-few m-m-miles ahead," the fox said. The rest of us ran after them so we wouldn't get left behind.
Before too long, things were taking a turn for the worst. We couldn't see any farther than a few feet ahead because of the darkness and snow, and Tails' phone was beginning to run low on battery. Not to mention that the GPS system had lead us to some sort of gully, so we had to walk single-file in between high walls of rock and snow. And we were still freezing cold; torrents of snow were pummeling into us as the blizzard got stronger by the minute. But right as Tommy opened his mouth to complain again—
"Hey!" a voice exclaimed. We turned around to see a figure standing on a cliff above us. "You guys need help down there?"
"Yeah, sure!" Sonic called out "Quickly, please; my feet feel like blocks of ice!"
"Hang on a second!" at that, the figure on the cliff disappeared and then reappeared in front of us.
She was a tall, pure-white polar bear with sparkling ice-blue eyes. She was wearing a blue winter jacket and dark pants. We could tell she was friendly because Sonic almost instantly smiled at the sight of her.
"Kristen!" he exclaimed.
"Sonic! I thought I recognized you from up there!" the polar bear greeted, wrapping him in a bear-hug. "What brings you here?"
"Who is that?" Amy asked.
"This is my friend Kristen! We went to school together, before Eggman started going cuckoo for world domination." Sonic said.
"H-h-hello, Kristen." Shadow said, shivering.
"Hello. So what are you guys doing out in the middle of a blizzard like this?" Kristen asked.
"W-We're looking for the Chaos Emerald,"
"And we didn't know there'd be a storm today," Cream added.
"It storms almost every day here; after living here for a year or two, you get used to it. Come on, I'll take you to my house so you can warm up." Kristen said, beginning to walk away. At the mention of warmth, we were ready to follow her just about anywhere.
"So, this is my house!" Kristen said, gesturing to an igloo a few yards away. As far as I could tell, it was completely made of ice and snow; two extremely cold things.
"A house made of ice? And you actually expect us to get warm in that thing?!" I exclaimed.
"For once, I actually agree with Number Four! I don't think sitting in a tiny house made of ice will get us warm." Tommy added.
"Actually, igloos get warmer on the inside because your body heat getting trapped inside. And anyways, this is just a disguise; just in case Eggman ever wants to drop by and kidnap a few Freedom Fighters, my house is a hide-away." At that note, Kristen crawled inside the igloo, and we followed after her.
Once inside, we noticed that there was a set of stairs near the back, hidden by a secret panel in the ground. We all went down the stairs, and our mouths dropped to the floor.
The house was extravagantly decorated. There were colorful bottles in ice blue, purple, and sea green filled with flowers (where she got them, none of us knew) on the shelves, comfortable-looking furniture, a bookshelf, a TV with videogames plugged up to it, and, best of all, a cozy-looking fireplace.
As we peeled off our winter hats and jackets Amy said "It looks so nice in here!"
"Thank you!" Kristen said as she bent over a crib.
"You had a baby?!" Sonic exclaimed in surprise.
"What?! No! I found this little guy in the same ravine I fond you, just a few days ago! He was all alone, and I couldn't find his parents anywhere, no matter how hard I looked. I fear the worse; Eggman swooped by here a week ago, with some of his weird cronies, the day before I found him. So I took him in!" the polar bear said as she pulled out a baby Mobian wolf cub. It had white fur and bright gold eyes, and some light streaks of red around his right eye. "This is Okami!"
"He's adorable!" Cream cooed. Everyone began to admire the baby, and I even noticed Shadow smile a bit and say he liked the red on him. After awhile, when Kristen asked what Sonic thought about the baby, we realized he was gone, along with Tails and Amy.
"I wonder where they could've gone," Rouge pondered,
"Yeah! And without me!" Knuckles added.
"Yeah, Sonic usually does bring you along with him when he disappears like this." Shadow stated.
"They might've gone to find the Chaos Emerald without us!" Number One suggested.
"Then we need to go find them!" Kristen said. She grabbed a leather backpack and put Okami in it, opening the top so he could breathe, before heading out the door.
"Hey! W-wait for us!" Tommy exclaimed, running after her. A second later, he came back inside to grab his hats and coats, shivering. The rest of us put on our winter clothes and went after the two.
The snow blizzard outside had stopped, so it wasn't freezing like it was before; our winter clothes actually helped keep us a bit warmer like they should have. The skies were clear of clouds, so we could see the twinkling stars and the glistening snow. But most importantly, we could see three sets of shoe prints walking away from the house and towards what Shadow and Kristen said as called the Holoskan Ocean.
"They went this way!" Number Five exclaimed, pointing down the path of footprints. We all hurried off into the snow and followed the trail.
Kristen's observant eyes noticed blue quills buried in the snow, which progressively turned into dark blue fur. Sonic's shoeprint seemed to grow bigger, and tiny cleat-holed began to appear in them. Tattered sock fragments also trailed along.
"Does Sonic usually shed his quills?" Kristen asked, slightly confused.
"Sometimes, if he's burned. When he's cold, he usually fluffs up his quills." Knuckles stated.
"I do remember seeing him doing that before," Rouge said.
"But the issue is, where is this fur coming from?" Shadow asked, picking up some and observing it "As far as I know, the only fur Sonic has is peach, and the light-blue fur under his quills."
"And what about these sock parts?" Number Two asked "Who would rip up Sonic's socks, and why?"
"And where would he get new shoes from?" Number Five asked
"We can ask him now; I think I may have found them." Shadow murmured. We all turned around to see him gesturing towards three dark figures farther ahead of us. A small pool of light in front of them told us that they had some sort of technology on hand; maybe Tails' phone.
"Yes, that could be them! Over there, by the coast! Lets go!" Kristen said, running towards the figures.
"Coast?! All I see is snow!" I stated.
"We're in Holoska, Number Four; the ocean might be covered with ice." Number One stated before running after Kristen.
"Sonic! Tails! Amy! Wait up!" Knuckles shouted. The three figurines turned around and saw us. Then the weirdest thing happened. Sonic shook off his quills, which were immediately replaced with dark blue fur. His snout grew longer, and his tail got longer and fluffier, until he looked more like a dog than a hedgehog. Then he got down on all fours, let Tails and Amy climb onto his back, and ran away.
"What the?!" Knuckles exclaimed, trying to skid to a stop but slipping on the ice and landing hard on his tail. "OUCH!"
"That…that couldn't have been Sonic!" Number One stammered.
"Unless that was the Code: Furry they spoke of back in Green Hill Zone." Shadow stated.
"Seems like it," Kristen said.
"See?! I told you these guys are weird! Next thing you know, Shadow's gonna become a…a vampire or something!" I said to my team.
"I will not! Professor Gerald said that I won't change forms unless I'm exposed to great amounts of Chaos Energy from the Chaos Emeralds! And supernatural beings was not one of the things he listed!" Shadow stated "And, as long as you're in our dimension, you all are the weirdos!"
"Lets just go after them and get some answers," Number Two suggested "After all, it might not even be Sonic and the others; it might be someone else."
"Or our imagination!" Number Three added.
"I doubt we all imagined the same thing at once, but it might just be someone else." Kristen said with a shrug of her shoulders.
"Alright! Lets go!" Rouge said, flying after the three figures. We all chased after her.
By the time we caught up to them, Amy and Tails were off Sonic's back, and they were all looking at something in the ice-covered water.
"Tails! Amy!" Number One said, running up to them. They all turned around, eyes wide. "So it is you guys! Why'd you run away?"
"Uh…" Tails murmured. Amy just pointed to Sonic.
"We were trying to hide Code: Furry." She stated. Sonic waved at us nervously.
"Hi, guys…" he said sheepishly
"Why did you never tell us that you were a werewolf?!" Knuckles shouted
"I am not a werewolf!" Sonic growled. Knuckles raised an eyebrow, and Sonic sighed. "I am a werehog. There is a difference."
"You do realize that werehog translates to man-pig, right?" Shadow stated, walking forward.
"Yeah, Tails has reminded me a bunch of times already. But werehedgehog doesn't have as nice of a ring to it."
"So why did you not wanna tell us about this little secret of yours again?" Rouge asked, tapping her foot and crossing her arms.
"Because…because I didn't want you guys to be scared of me just because I look different after ten o'clock every time I'm in Holoska."
"So this only happens in Holoska?" Kristen asked "Explains why you've never come to visit…"
"Well, since you're all here, can you help us get the emerald out of the ice?" Tails asked, gesturing towards the shining object underneath the ice.
"Lets try this," Kristen said, pulling out an ice pick axe and holding it high above her head as if she was going to slam it onto the ice. But before she could, Sonic's ears pricked up.
"Everyone, move out of the way!" he suddenly said.
"What? Why?" Shadow asked.
"There's something huge headed this way in the ice! It'll be here any second now!" at that, we all took a few steps backwards, and just in time. We heard a low rumbling noise before a large, humanoid robot burst out of the ice, grabbing the emerald.
The robot was huge; almost as big as a two-story building! It was a dark blackish-gray with arms and legs. Where the torso and head would be, there was instead a gigantic glass orb; bigger than the one inside the dragon robot in Green Hill Zone. And inside that orb…
"The Delightful Children!" all of Sector V exclaimed.
"The who?" Sonic asked, his voice suddenly gravelly.
"You know how I explained to you what Delightfulization was, right?" Number one said.
"Uh-huh."
"Those kids right there are permanent victims. They used to be Kids Next Door agents until Father got his hands on them, and turned them into…that."
"Oh. And they've allianced with Eggman?"
"Father's allies are their allies."
"Doesn't matter! They have the Chaos Emerald!" Shadow shouted.
"Ahahahahahahahahaha!" the five kids cackled simultaneously. Sonic shivered.
"That's creepy. Must be a twin thing. Okay, lets do it to it!" Sonic said. Then he let out a wolf-like howl and leapt at the robot. The Delightful Children turned around at the howl, eyes wide.
"What was that?!" they all asked in sync. Then they saw Sonic rushing at him on all fours, the rest of us not too far behind, and fired a few missiles at him. The werehog dodged them all before he reached the foot of the robot and slammed his fist into it, pulling out some wires. "Hey! Stop that!"
"Why should I? We need that Chaos Emerald!" Sonic said. At that moment, Amy caught up and slammed her mallet into the robot's leg, making it lose its balance and wobble a little bit before standing straight again and reaching down with its hand, grabbing…
"'Ey! Help!" Kristen exclaimed as the Delightful Children grabbed her using their giant metallic hand and held her up high in the air. The polar bear was kicking and screaming, trying to get out of its grasp, but she just wasn't strong enough. To make matters even worse, the quintet of evil children used the robot's other hand to rip off Kristen's backpack and hold Okami in it's palm.
"Hey! Let them go!" Knuckles ordered.
"Okay!" the Delightful Children agreed, a little bit too enthusiastically for my comfort. My bad feeling was proven right as the robot's right hand opened up suddenly, and Kristen fell crashing to the ground. Immediately, Number Three ran over to see if she was okay; but she was quickly proven to have been knocked unconscious.
"We didn't mean like that!" Amy complained.
"Then give us each and every Chaos Emerald you have, and we wont crush this baby!"
"NO!" Sonic exclaimed.
"Alright! Then you automatically give us permission to crush it like a bug!" the hand of the robot began to curl into a fist, closing in on baby Okami, who was screaming for his mother. Sonic began to panic as he struggled to decide between giving the Chaos Emeralds to our enemy or letting an innocent baby die.
Just as the robot was at the point where it could seriously harm Okami, it was stopped by a sparkling red object that was hurled at it's glass orb. Then Sonic threw the yellow and green emeralds at the Delightful Children.
"Take the emeralds, already! Just let Okami go." He said, looking a bit ticked off and disappointed at the same time. Through the dark of the night and the tinted glass on the robot, I saw the Delightful Children's malicious smirk. Knuckles stayed near the robot to make sure Okami got down safely, while the rest of us began to walk away in defeat. Sonic and I walked over to Kristen, who had just woken up, and helped her up "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, just a bit jarred up. Where's Okami?" she asked. Right at that moment I noticed that the hand holding Okami was tilting ever so slightly, Knuckles was trapped underneath the robot's foot, and another hand was ever-so-sneakily reaching down towards Sonic.
"Sonic, behind you!" I exclaimed. Everyone turned around to see Sonic grabbed and held up in the air.
"Hey! What gives?!" he growled. "You promised you'd let him down safely!"
"As long as he knows how to fly, he should be safe, right?" the Delightful Children teased.
"HES A BABY WOLF!" Sonic roared in frustration. The evil quintet just laughed as he struggled to break free, and flipped the other hand completely upside down so that Okami would fall to the ground. Except he didn't.
Instead, Kristen was standing on the back of the robot's hand, ice pick axe and Okami in hand. We were all surprised to see her there, especially the Delightful Children.
"What?! How did you get up here?!" they exclaimed.
"The plates on your robot is like rock climbing with slippery rocks, I must say. Luckily for me, I do that a lot." Kristen said confidently. Then she stabbed her ice pick axe into the robot's wrist, slicing through a few wires that looked pretty important, and pulling it out. While the Delightful Children gaped over the damage to the robot, the polar bear ran up the robot's arm and to the glass orb before slamming her weapon into it, shattering it. The children screamed as the glass fell and Kristen jumped in after it, took the blue Chaos Emerald they had, and beginning to break things.
"Hey! Stop that!" they shouted before attempting to tackle her to the ground. But she just jumped up into the air, and the evil children just tackled each other.
We had all been awestruck by her attack; so awestruck that we didn't even help her, or notice Sonic fall to the ground as the robot let go of him to swat at Kristen a few times. But we were brought back to our current predicament when she said "What are you all waiting for? You could help, ya know,"
"Kids Next Door; Battle Stations!" Number One ordered. We all immediately set into action.
Once Kristen had destroyed the main controls of the robot, the matter of destroying it was made much simpler. Before long the Delightful Children were rocketing away in the remnants of their glass orb, swearing revenge.
"That was close…" Number One breathed.
"Yeah; a bit too close, at that note!" Knuckles added "We almost lost the emeralds, Kristen could've broken some bones, Okami was almost crushed, who knows what they would've done to Sonic, and I was nearly stepped on by a robot!"
"But none of that happened, right? We stopped those brats before it could." Sonic stated.
"That may be true, but the fact that it was a possibility isn't exactly comforting." Shadow said
"We need to keep up our game; these new enemies are getting pretty hard to beat. " Rouge added.
"Who knew humans could be so powerful, even without natural powers!?" Tails said. All of Sector V immediately raised their hands.
"Well that's obvious; you are humans!" Amy said "And pretty good at fighting, too!"
"We've trained a lot, back on Earth," Number One bragged.
"So we have four emeralds now, right?" Cream asked.
"Yeah! Now there's only three left!" Knuckles said.
"And two of those emeralds are actually close by! There's one in the deserts of Shamar, and another one in the mountains of Chu-Nan." Tails added.
"Lets try Shamar next, then." Sonic said.
"Not until we get some sleep for the night! I may be nocturnal, but I'm tired!" Rouge complained.
"Alright. Number Two and I will stay up and synch the plan on a route to Shamar while the rest of you guys sleep." Tails stated. I saw Number Two slump his shoulders a little before nodding enthusiastically.
"Sounds good to me!" I said before I yawned.
"Let's head back to my house, guys; I have plenty of spots for you all to sleep." Kristen said, leading the way back to her house.
So there's the next chapter!
Oh BTW, I have an account on Instagram (well I actually have quite a few but who cares) where I post about my stories sometimes, and post drawings. It's the same as my username on here, if you want to follow it.
I'll try to update sooner next time!
~anipwrites