This one's kinda fun. Some explanations, some fluff, all sorts of fun stuff.
Oh! And I bought Sonic Unleashed! So-from now on-it'll follow the game a bit more closely! I'm taking notes as I play, so it'll follow the game a little better now. I just finished the first Holaska level with the bobsledding and riding on a whale's back (both of which you should anticipate) and I really loved the Egg Beetle boss fight!
But the Egg Cauldron fight during the flying level on the way to Spagonia the first time...UUUUUUGGGGGG. Very happy I didn't have the game at that point, because the rating on this story would have gone up five notches from swearing alone. XD I can't tell you how many times I had to replay that level. I suck at quick-time events, and don't know the layout of the controller very well. My brother actually ended being the one who beat it (he knows the ps3 controller better than I do). But, anyway, really liking the game so far, even the werehog levels. I suck at it (My highest rank is a C right now) but I'll get better with time. It was like that in Generations too. I sucked the first go round, but when I restarted the game, I got S ranks on most of the levels first try. XD
Anyway, enough about me and my gaming life, hope you guys enjoy this chapter!
Review Replies
Sonic155: XD Thanks! I'm toying with your emotions. :D
sonicxjones: It was one of my favorite moments to write. :) Glad you enjoyed it!
strabimonx: Here you are!
SonicGirl89: And thanks! I strongly enjoy toying with all of your emotions. :D
a reader (update you mother fucker" ~A reader, August 31, 2015): I actully held this chapter out longer than I was planning to just for you, pal. You should feel accomplished. Long story short, calling me names will get you the exact opposite of what you want.
Chapter 10: More than One Piece to a Puzzle
The werehog finally stopped at the alley he had arranged to meet Chip at and called quietly. "Chip? You here?"
A smaller weight dropped onto his head, and thin fingers buried themselves into the longer fur on his head. "Ohai, Sonic. How come you took longer this time?" Large brown eyes suddenly appeared in front of his own as the Chihuahua spoke. Sonic relished the way Chip treated him like this. Nothing like the others-even better than Tails-who all seemed to do their best to placate him in this state. Chip was just...Chip.
"Ran into a few...friends...and tried to hold it back so they didn't see. But you know how that ends."
Chip gave him a genuinely sympathetic glance. "Gee, I'm sorry I dragged you into this Sonic."
Sonic rolled his eyes inwardly, they'd had this conversation a few times. "Chip, I told you, you didn't drag me into anything. I would've turned into this every night whether I helped you or not." He said, offering a toothy smile.
Chip looked away, still uncertain. "Yea...but still.." He murmured.
Sonic reached up and pulled the purple creature from his head to look him in the eye. "Chip, I told you. I'm going to help you get your memory back, weird form at night or no form."
Chip smiled gratefully at him, and it looked like the hedgehog's words had finally cut through to him.
"So you turn into this every night?'
Sonic's fur spiked up and he whirled around, teeth bared and growling slightly at the sudden new voice. The snarl died in his throat when he saw Shadow's reaction. The transformed hero's ear flattened and he turned away. "What do you want?" He muttered.
"Hey, Sonic, he looks like you during the day!" Chip's confused and excited voice broke the tension, and Sonic smiled.
Shadow-however-ignored the strange creature's comment and instead stepped forward to answer Sonic's question. "Answers. Sonic, what's going on?"
Sonic turned, looking at Shadow over his shoulder with a slight glare in his emerald eyes, and the dark hedgehog had to force himself not to swallow at the intensity. Sonic's gaze suddenly softened and he turned forward with a sigh. "The planet shattered, the Chaos Emeralds are dead, and it's my fault."
Shadow froze at this sudden amount of information. So he was right. "You...What?"
Sonic whipped around, glaring at him, his brilliant green eyes-brighter at night-blazing fury. "I had a fight with Eggman in space, I went super, he drained the emeralds of their power, used the power to break the planet, I now turn into this at night, and it's all my fault!" He snarled, fur bristling.
Shadow couldn't stop his ears from flattening. Sonic actually looked threatening. Very threatening, considering the deep claw marks Shadow still had on his back from last night, and his memory of the cracked pavement didn't help. He swallowed, taking a step back. Sonic froze, noticing Shadow's reaction, and he deflated, everything screaming shame. "It's my fault." He whimpered, his fur flattening and falling normally again, his ears also falling limply. "And it hurts."
Chip dropped from the air into the hedgehog's lap. "C'mon, Sonic. It's not that bad! We'll fix it! Don't worry!"
Sonic looked at the purple creature and couldn't help but smile. "Thanks, Chip."
"Sonic..."
The green gaze flickered towards the midnight hedgehog, who-to Sonic's surprise-looked sympathetic. Unusual for him. "I think I can honestly say I don't want to be in your shoes." He nodded to the maroon spiked sneakers on the hedgehog's feet, which looked about as threatening as their owner. "I mean literally as well as figuratively. Those things look uncomfortable."
Sonic managed a slight smile. "Gee, Shads, if I didn't know any better I'd say you made a joke."
Shadow shrugged. "Now that that's cleared up, another question."
"Hit me. ACK! IT'S A FIGURE OF SPEECH MAN!"
Shadow smirked as the hedgehog backed away from the rock in his hand. Then frowned. "In all seriousness, that Dark Chaos you're filled with."
Sonic's eyes widened and his voice took on a slightly scared edge. "D-Dark...Chaos?" He whimpered and seemed to shrink.
Shadow looked at him strangely. "Not really Dark Chaos. It feels different, older."
Sonic heaved a sigh of relief that seemed a little too heartfelt. "I have no idea what it's from, but I can feel it." He looked at the fluffy white patch on his chest. "But I can only feel it when I'm like this."
Shadow frowned. "Omega said your brain activity had increased, even when you're out cold."
Sonic become oddly still and shrank again. "Oh...th-that...You know how when I attacked you the other night, I might've been about to kill you?" Shadow stepped back, and Sonic's worried look changed to sadness. "I didn't mean to." Shadow stepped back again, and the sad look changed to pure dejection. "It's a side effect of turning into this. There's something...in me. I think it's what's giving off that darker Chaos Energy. But it's...another personality, I guess you could say."
"So now you're bipolar?"
"Not quite. It normally happens during fights, but sometimes it'll randomly show up. Most of the time I can fight it off, but other times I don't need to, or can't. I was probably trying to fight it off when I almost killed you. Other times it's just weird visions."
The dark hedgehog felt a pang of pity for his blue no-longer-doppelganger. He could hardly relate to this, and there wasn't much he could say that about. A painful transformation was hard enough to imagine, but he'd never had a split personality, and that'd be especially hard for Sonic-who would give his life ten times to save a friend-to find that he'd nearly taken it from one.
It was so strange for him, that Shadow's hand hung a few inches from the hedgehog's shoulder, before finally settling awkwardly on it.
Sonic stiffened and gave him a nervous look, but when Shadow made no more threatening moves, relaxed slightly and shifted closer.
"So, you turn into this at night?" The normal hedgehog said, running the thick fur through his fingers.
The navy hedgehog nodded. "Yea. It's...not fun." His voice had dropped to his feet.
Shadow gave him another look over. "So...what is it?"
"I think it's a wolf. Just going off the long fur, teeth, ear change and tail though. I could be wrong. Knuckles has been calling me a werehog."
Shadow couldn't decide if that was very insulting, or pure genius. If it was the first, it was still the latter. "Every night?" He returned to his previous question, remembering what little he had seen of the transformation, they were a little far away to get a good view of what happened.
Sonic nodded again, looking at his hands and clenching them, then unclenching repeatedly. "Every night when I get his by the moonlight." His voice had taken on a very pained tone.
Shadow couldn't blame him. The little he saw/heard was about as painful as he could imagine. He assumed the snapping and creaking had come from bone rearranging themselves, as Sonic seemed to spend significantly more time on four legs than two, which meant some change in skeletal structure. Then the fact that it all happened over the course of two minutes. He could imagine that suddenly growing so much muscle would be painful if it happened all at once. He looked away. Every night. He knew pain. There was no denying it. Shadow was one of the people pain knew best. Physical and emotional. But this was on a whole new level, especially for Sonic.
The two were silent for a while and it finally stretched for too long in Chip's opinion. "So...you don't talk much, huh?"
Sonic gave a harsh bark of laughter, making Shadow jump slightly at its suddenness. "Understatement, Chip. Understatement."
Shadow gave the hedgehog a withering glare. "I just don't talk to people who don't have the brains to offer a decent conversation."
The transformed hero gave another bark of laughter. "Cute." He looked around again, then stood and straightened. "I need to get back to the gang. They'll be wondering where I got to." He shook his thick fur and scooped up the purple Chihuahua. "I assume I'll be seeing you around." He turned to go, taking the bipedal route and lumbering awkwardly away. It was clear he was more comfortable on four legs than two in this form.
Shadow's eyes remained narrowed as he watched the shape walk away. He didn't flinch as Rouge landed next to him. "Did we get what we wanted?"
"Most of it." Shadow answered, murmuring. "I got answers to the questions I had when we started…" He looked away. "But now I got more…Some I'm not sure Sonic can answer." He stood, his ruby gaze still locked on where the former speedster had disappeared. "I'll see if I can figure out where he's staying for now, maybe someone in his peanut gallery can answer some." Then he slid a hand over his face. "But I gotta call the general. Tell him how right I was." A smirk crossed the normally blank face at that thought. "You and Omega see if you can scrounge up anything about the planet shattering with the people around."
The group split up. Rouge and Omega headed back the way they came from, talking to each other. Shadow remained in the small alley and put a finger to the communicator in his ear. "This is Shadow the Hedgehog, calling the General."
"Shadow. This is the General. Make your report."
"I was right. Sonic's behind this." He-once again-turned his gaze to where the werehog had disappeared. "But not in the way we thought. He was-apparently-stopping Eggman in space and used the Chaos Emeralds to go Super. But it was all a setup." He explained. The majority of what he said was the lines between the dots Sonic had provided, but he thought it got the picture across. "Eggman captured him and forced him back to his normal form, and then drained the Chaos Emeralds of their power. The same power he then used to shatter the planet to pieces. Sonic's got a new…condition…from it. He explained vaguely. He wasn't entirely sure how to explain it, and didn't particularly want to.
"Hmm…so Eggman is at fault." The General sighed on the other end of the line. "Now what."
"That's what I'm wondering. Since Sonic's not beating on robots at the moment, we can assume Eggman got what he wanted and went into hiding. Sonic and his group is likely working on finding him. I'm going to try and tag along with them. See if I can help or get some more answers."
"Since I can't stop you, go ahead. Oh, and what is this 'condition' of Sonic's?"
"A side effect of the planet shattering." Shadow replied vaguely again. He cut off the protests on the other end of the line with a "Over and Out." He released the button and turned the communicator off again.
He looked around again, before his gaze focused on where Sonic had disappeared to. He closed his eyes and searched for the Chaos Signature of the blue hero. Now that he knew what he was looking for, it stuck like a sore thumb. Shadow couldn't believe he hadn't noticed it before. Or that massive spike of strange energy next to him. Shadow opened his eyes, frowning. The Hell is that? He wondered. None of Sonic's pals produced that much energy, especially that weird form of it. They all gave off Chaos energy. So what was giving off that much weird energy? He closed his eyes, trying to figure out what it was. He opened his eyes again as he noticed something. The Dark Energy Sonic gave off was dimmed. Very dimmed. It was almost nonexistent. Whatever it was that gave off that energy, it trumped the energy Sonic gave off. His eyes closed again. Sonic wasn't too far away. He met up with a smaller spike of Chaos Energy, and a massive one as well. That would be the fox kid and the Guardian. He opened his eyes. They weren't far away. He shrugged it off. It would be easy enough to find them in the morning.
He paused. Sonic had that little purple thing with him. Was that giving off that energy? No. That little thing wasn't special. It wouldn't give off that much energy. It was too small.
Shadow frowned. He normally tuned out the Chaos Radar in his head. If it was the Chihuahua, he wouldn't notice if it was next to him. He wasn't paying attention to the radar. He shrugged it off. That was a mystery for another time. What he wanted to know was why Sonic was turning into that thing.
Yay! Shadow feeling sorry for Sonic! Sonic being sad! I'm toying with your emotions again!
Hope you guys enjoyed, and review if you did! They help me write faster. ;)
P.S. If you guys don't already check my DeviantArt (squidkid11 dot deviantart dot com) go there! I've posted chapter covers 1-6 for TDIM, and I'm doing a short comic of the fight scene in chapter 8 on there that'll be up when I post chapter 8 on there. That, and a lot of doodles about it out! If you haven't, you're missing stuff! (spoilers included)