A/N: Again, sorry for the wait. I have a sporadic update ability here lately. I'm living with my grandma who doesn't let me use her computer, and I have a horrid habit of forgetting to spellcheck when I'm typing on my tablet. Luckily, I'm staying with my other grandma tonight/last night depending on when I actually post this, so I managed to write this chapter. Woot!

NOTE: NO SUMO! Sonic and Scourge need not have sumo wrestling if they can just breeze right past. For the 'test' Sonic and Scourge just have to avoid getting hit by the elder for a certain amount of time to pass. That is all.

Scourge stayed out of the way as I managed to assure the children that they were safe and that I'd return them home whenever I got the chance. In fact, he wandered off on his own for a while, trying to stay as far away from all of the 'goody two-shoes, horrible, disgusting cheefulness' as possible. That ass.

Colin beamed at me the whole time.

"You're really brave, Sonic." He said to me when the other kids had wandered off.

Scourge had, by then, returned.

I rubbed the back of my neck, "Not really... I'm reckless. There's a really big difference." I said sheepishly.

Colin laughed, "Dad always tells me to be brave... I think I'll just take a paragraph out of your tome and be a little less freaked out by everything."

Both Scourge and I had to laugh at that. Colin raised an eyebrow at Scourge.

"Who's that? Is he your brother?"

"You could say that." Both of us shrugged at the same time.

"I'll just leave you two alone now." Colin chuckled as he walked away.

"Is it just me or—" Scourge began.

"—Or does he act like Tails?" I finished for him.

He nodded.

"Yeah. They're a lot alike. I spent a lot of one of my first days here just talking to him, and I can pinpoint a whole lot of similarities."

Scourge nodded again. "He seems to get picked on a lot." He noted, nodding toward the Shaman, Renado's house.

Beth and the others were, in fact, picking on him again.

I sighed and shook my head. "Hey! Knock it off, you three!" I snapped.

Immediately, Beth, Malo, and Talo scattered, apparently not sure who had yelled. Colin sent me a grateful look and scampered inside.

Renado approached Scourge and me a few moments later.

"You two look rather tired. I can get you both a room at the Inn, if you so desire."

"Yeah, thanks." Scourge and I chorused.

We spent that night in comfortable beds and ate good food in the morning before we left. It was nice to rest up a little.

When we had decided to leave, Renado directed us up Death Mountain. A 'Goron' stood at the top when we got there via climbing the fence thingy that spanned all the way up the cliff. It curled up, much like I do when I do a spin-dash, and rolled at us. Once again, it being me and Scourge, it should come as no surprise that we just ran past him and he missed quite completely.

Subsequently, this loop-hole kept Scourge and me from having to do a lot of unnecessary side-questing for stuff. It also meant I missed Epona, Ilia's horse, going nuts through Kakariko, but, eh, what do I need with a horse anyway?

We continued to speed up the mountain trail, ignoring every Goron we met on the way.

Eventually, we reached a place where there were archers. They would've been annoying... if we couldn't just avoid the arrows like they weren't there. A few of the arrows were on fire, and I got grazed by one, but at the speed I was going, it couldn't ignite my tunic. It did for a brief second, then immediately sputtered out. As soon as that was done, we found ourselves looking at what was apparently the Goron's settlement.

I closely examined a nearby Goron giving another a lift to the next level of the settlement. I quirked my eye ridge. Scourge and I shared a look.

Right as we did, a loud explosion caught our attention. In perfect unison, the two of us began looking around for the source. We had, at some point, descended into the lowest part of the settlement—the rest of it went upwards in levels from there—and were, as mentioned, looking around somewhat frantically for the cause of the explosion. I just so happened to look upwards just in time.

"MOVE!" I yelped to Scourge, shoving him in the opposite direction before jumping away as well.

The large rock crashed down next to me, shaking the entire mountain. Scourge popped up from behind a nearby rock on the opposite side of the large one, looking rather disturbed. We walked towards the middle of the rock, looking up at its sheer size.

"...Thanks, Blue." Scourge said, still seeming quite disturbed.

"No problem." I replied.

Eventually, we looked at each other again and shook our heads. We didn't need to be wolves to know what we were thinking—'let's not waste time standing around.' We started off again. I briefly considered having a Goron give us a lift, but Scourge had a better idea: homing attack.

As all we had to do was homing attack a Goron, we got up to the top of the settlement relatively quickly. When we entered the cavern at the top, we were almost immediately thrown into the middle of the room.

"You are trespassing!" A voice boomed, "No being but Goron is allowed on Death Mountain now!"

I slowly sat up, making a face that Scourge is usually the only one to make. Scourge took one look and seemed to understand he didn't need to do anything.

"I didn't see anything proclaiming that." I said slowly, "And if you would kindly have your goons unhand me and my brother, I won't have to resort to less honorable means of freeing myself."

Scourge barely concealed a snort.

"Do not threaten me, creature!"

"Don't tell me what to do, you hideous boulder!"

Scourge was having a hard time not laughing.

"You dare insult me? I am Gor Coron, eldest of the Gorons!"

I made sure to look as unimpressed as possible, "Is that supposed to mean something to me?"

Scourge pressed his fist to his mouth, sucking in his lips. He looked extremely amused.

Gor Coron seemed to be fuming. "That is it, spiky creature! Guards! Kill them!"

"Hey." I said it as calmly as I could, "Renado sent us, you know."

He stopped, "The human Shaman?"

"Yeah. He wanted us to 'clear out the mines so the Goron elders will welcome us once more'."

"You were certainly being very rude for that."

"So were you. I don't do nice when other people are being rude to me."

Gor Coron examined us closely.

"...In order to gain entrance to the Goron Mines..." He said.

"We have to pass some sort of test, right?" Scourge and I asked.

He nodded(?), though it was hard to see because Gorons are giant rock creatures. "Indeed you do. Now let us see if you are as quick on your feet as you are in your minds."

Without further ado, he rolled up and began charging us. We decided to keep it fair and not run quite as fast as normal, just a little above normal human speeds. After about ten minutes, he unrolled and nodded again.

"Good. You may enter."

And two guards stepped aside, allowing us out of the room and into the mines. After we had walked in, Scourge looked at me.

"That was trippy." He said.

"Mmhmm." I nodded.

And we started towards the mine proper.