It was a stormy night inside the confines of Station Square. Everyone was inside their homes, trying to keep out of the constant downpour that was affecting the city.

Surprisingly, not everyone was in their homes, though, as there was a small figure deep in the woods on the opposite side of town, a few miles from where Sonic and Tails lived.

"Hello?"

The figure called out to nowhere in particular, the light orange coloring revealing that he was in fact Tails.

As Tails walked through the forest attempting to find the exit, his senses were on high alert for the other occupant of the forest. He had absolutely no idea how he had managed to find himself back to the place where he nearly died at the hands of his feral best friend, but he couldn't really think about it for long, as he suddenly heard growling coming from somewhere around him.

"Oh no! Oh god, I have to get out of here!" he thought to himself as he desperately searched for a way out.

Unfortunately, the torrential downpour combined with the sheer darkness of the forest made it difficult for him to find his way around.

Tails eventually decided to just pick a direction and hope for the best, running off as soon as he decided. However, the growling soon grew in intensity, which terrified the young fox.

Nearly tripping over himself, Tails continued to run, dodging trees every so often as the growling became even louder.

In his haste to escape, though, he failed to notice a root sticking out of the ground that his left foot went right under, sending him falling flat on his face.

In the panicked state that he was in, though, he failed to register the fact that his foot was now stuck under a root, and in his attempt to crawl away and get back to his feet, he accidentally ended up twisting his ankle, making things even worse.

"AGH! God, why?" yelled Tails as pain shot through his leg.

Tails tried his best to endure the pain as he attempted to hobble away, but by the time he managed to get anywhere, he had already fallen again, and as he turned around, he was met with the terrifying visage of the werehog heading right towards him.

"Tails! Tails, wake up!"

Tails's mind barely registered those words, as he was still very much in the middle of his current predicament. However, he was finally able to return to the land of the living when he registered a sharp pain across his cheek.

As Tails finally managed to wake up, his blurry eyes registered a blue hedgehog in front of him. However, in his barely awake state, his mind immediately went to thinking it was the werehog again.

Before he could try to run away, though, Sonic immediately grabbed him by the arm, holding him back. Tails desperately tried pulling his arm away from Sonic's grip, but eventually Sonic was forced to resort to drastic measures, reeling back and slapping Tails in the face as hard as he could with his free hand.

That slap ended up bringing Tails back to reality, and once he managed to calm himself down, he looked behind him to find Sonic on the couch behind him, shaking his hand out from the sting the slap caused.

"Sorry about having to slap you there, bro. Needed to bring you back somehow."

"It's fine." said Tails, his voice cracking.

"But seriously, though. Were you having a nightmare? You were tossing and turning like crazy. Frankly, I'm surprised you didn't fall off of the couch!"

Tails looked down and found that he was indeed sleeping on the couch to his surprise. He vaguely remembered coming back home not too long after Sonic left last night. He thought that he managed to make it all the way to his bed, but he must have not have made it that far.

"Yo, Tails! Don't zone out on me, here." said Sonic, snapping his fingers in front of Tails's face to catch his attention.

Instead of answering, Tails simply nodded, confirming Sonic's suspicions.

"What was it about? Come on, you can tell me."

Sonic had a pretty good idea of what it was about considering what happened, but he wanted to hear it straight from his friend's mouth instead of assuming what it was.

Unfortunately Tails didn't answer. The two-tailed fox had a look on his face that reminded Sonic of someone who's just been through hell, and it made the hedgehog very nervous.

As much as Sonic wanted to accuse him of lying about how his episode with the werehog affected him, his brotherly instincts overrode everything else when he realized what was going on with Tails.

Quickly racking his brain to come up with a solution, Sonic reached forwards and grabbed Tails by the chin, raising it up so that the two of them were eye-to-eye.

"Tails, listen to me. You've got nothing to be afraid of. I promise. I told you before that I'm no threat to your safety all the way out in that forest when I transform."

"But…but what happens if the werehog gets out of the forest? I saw it come out when I was flying away that night." said Tails meekly.

"You'll be fine. The forest is miles away from here. There's no way the werehog will find this place before sunrise."

Sonic could tell from the look on Tails's face that he wasn't convinced. Frankly, Sonic wasn't convinced, either, considering he knew next to nothing about what the werehog does at night besides eat. Still, he needed to do something so that his buddy didn't end up an emotional wreck.

Sonic sighed heavily, realizing that keeping Tails safe, as well as sane, was going to be a lot more difficult than he originally thought.

"Look, I can tell that you're not convinced. That's fine. It's tough for me to believe, too. But I promise that I will do everything in my power to get rid of this affliction so that you don't have to be afraid anymore."

"But how are you going to be able to do this by yourself? I've never even heard of a werehog before yesterday. What makes you think that they'd have something about how to cure something as crazy as this?" asked Tails.

"I'm not doing this by myself, remember? We agreed to work together on this. So what do you say? Do you want to start working on this?" asked Sonic, mustering up as much enthusiasm as he could manage.

Tails paused, considering Sonic's words. Eventually, he stood up from the couch, wiping his eyes with his arm before finally looking at Sonic.

"Okay. I'll help."

Sonic wasn't exactly pleased with Tails's lack of enthusiasm, but he figured that it at least was a start. However, before he could make his way towards the door, Sonic stopped himself, realizing that there was something else that needed taken care of.

"Dude, you should probably go ahead and clean yourself up. You don't look too good right now."

Tails paused, looking in a nearby window and finding that he did indeed look like crap. The fur on his face was matted with sweat, and he looked like he barely managed to get any sleep in.

Without saying anything, Tails walked off towards the bathroom.

Once Sonic heard the sound of the door shutting, he exhaled heavily before flopping on to the couch, pressing his hands to his face to relieve the headache that was coming on.

"God, this sucks. I should have just told him." he said, smacking the end of the couch in anger.

Sonic knew that just telling Tails right away probably wouldn't have made much of a difference. He still would have had a hell of a time getting Tails to believe him, but at least there was still a better chance that he wouldn't have had to deal with nearly getting eviscerated by the werehog.

Sonic smacked the couch a few more times to let off some steam before he finally managed to calm himself down enough so that his thoughts remained rational.

Thankfully, he managed to do it just in time, though, as he heard the door to the bathroom open a few seconds later, with Tails appearing around the corner not too long after.

Sonic stood up almost immediately before taking a look at Tails to see how he was doing. While Tails still did have the despondent look on his face that he had after waking up this morning, he was at least clean enough that people wouldn't start asking questions.

"You ready to go, bud?" he asked as he wrapped an arm around Tails's shoulders, being as fatherly as possible to avoid causing more problems.

Tails paused, giving Sonic a blank look before finally nodding.

"Yeah, let's go."

Sonic was still a little nervous about the state the young fox was in, but he figured that some fresh air would at least hopefully help Tails out.

As Sonic and Tails walked down the path towards the city, neither of them spoke. Tails was still freaked out from the nightmare, so his nerves were on a hair trigger. Every so often, he glanced over at Sonic, thinking that the werehog was going to pop out and maul him, but thankfully nothing had happened so far.

As for Sonic himself, he was too concerned for Tails's wellbeing to think of anything substantial to say. Whenever Sonic took a look over to his side to see how his buddy was doing, Tails had the same blank look on his face. Sonic wasn't exactly sure if that was a bad thing or a good thing, but then again, he couldn't really read minds, so he hoped that it wasn't anything bad.

Eventually, once the two of them reached the city limits, Sonic stopped in his tracks, forcing Tails to quickly backpedal to return to his side. The two of them were silent for a few moments, as Tails wasn't really in the mood to say anything. Soon enough, though, to Sonic's surprise Tails suddenly spoke up.

"Do you know where we're going? We've been standing here for a few minutes already."

"Oh! Uh…yeah, I do. I figured we could probably head to the library…do some research. The only problem is I don't exactly remember where it is."

Tails sighed before stepping forwards.

"Do you want me to lead the way?"

Sonic was pleasantly surprised to see how forward Tails was being, especially after the way he was earlier.

"You sure? I don't mind leading the way so you can take it easy, especially after what you've been through."

"I'm alright, Sonic. I can handle myself."

The look on Tails's face said otherwise, but Sonic decided to go ahead and trust him, thinking that it could help him get some of his confidence back.

"Sure, go ahead."

Tails nodded before stepping forwards some more, taking the lead as the two of them headed towards the Station Square Library, both of them hoping that there was at least something in there that could help with the werehog lurking beneath.