Disclamers include, but are not limited to, the ones at the top of the first page of this document. Suffice it to say, I don't own anything.

Sonic woke up to "Cock-a-doodle-doo!" He got up, eager to start.  Then he realized he didn't have any chickens. He ran out to investigate.

He stood outside and heard it again. It came from the dog house. Sonic got down on his hands and knees to look in. When he did, something blue flew out. Sonic fell back in surprise.

"Hi, I'm Omochao, and I'm here to help you!" the little blue thing said.

Sonic looked at it. "What are you?"

It hovered in the air using a propeller on its head. "I'm a robot. My function is to offer instructions and tips on farming. I also protect livestock from wild animals."

Sonic got a thought. "I bet you've been asked this before, but do you know what happened to my Uncle Chuck?"

"Chuck went to Mother's Hill 62 days ago and did not return. After 48 hours, I contacted the police."

"There's a police station?" Sonic asked.

"Officer Snively is the only officer. He lives with his uncle, Mayor Eggman."

"Ok, thanks," Sonic said. He went inside and ate breakfast. After that, he started to clear the field. At least, he tried to.

Sonic decided to start in the corner near his house. He picked up the large rock and decided it would be easiest to break the rocks up into smaller pieces. So he started banging the rock against another rock, which didn't work.

Omochao went over and started talking. "You need to clear the land before you can plant crops. Use a hammer to break small stones and an axe to cut up sticks."

Sonic continued banging the rocks together. "And where do you suggest I get such items?"

"Tools are located in a wooden chest in the house."

Sonic dropped the rocks. "Cool! Thanks!" He ran in and opened the chest and found a rucksack and some low-end tools. Hey, I can use this to carry things, he thought as he put on the rucksack. He then put the axe in the sack and ran outside with the hammer in his hands.

Sonic then started in the corner again and started smashing rocks.  This was much easier.  As he did this, Omochao continued: "Once land is clear, use the hoe to till the soil. One bag of seeds will cover a three-by-three area."

Sonic considered this and cleared enough land for the seeds he had.  He could clear the rest of the land when he had something to plant there. Instead of using the hoe, Sonic found he could till the soil using a spin dash. He then planted and watered the seeds. A good start, he thought. "How long until I can harvest them?" he asked Omochao.

"If you water every day, these plants should be ready to harvest in about a week."

"A week!?  What do I do for money while I wait for plants to grow?" Sonic said.

"Chickens make a great source of daily income. However, you do not have much money, and probably cannot afford one. Foraging is recommended. Anything you find or any farm products can be placed in the shipping bin." Omochao then hovered around the bin. "The buyer will pick up and pay you for the goods at 5 p.m., except on holidays."

Sonic decided to forage later. "I should save up for a chicken.  How much is a chicken?"

"Current price is not available."

Sonic decided to go ask the poultry dealer. He wanted to get to know all the people anyway. "Watch over the farm, I'm gonna get some info on some chickens."

Sonic then sped off.  He returned a split second later. "Uh, where is…"

"After leaving the farm, take the road on the right.  The poultry farm is along that road."

"Thanks," Sonic said, and sped off again.

Sonic reached the gate to the poultry farm and stopped when he heard arguing.

"I hate you!"

He then saw something pink go right by him. He then went up to the red echidna that was standing there.

"Hi, I'm Sonic. What was that about?"

The echidna sighed. "I'm Knuckles. My sister Amy and I were arguing over a chicken that she left out last night that died. I lost it and yelled at her, but I know she didn't mean to. Say, could you go and talk to her for me?"

"Me?" Sonic said. "But she doesn't know me.  She's you sister. Shouldn't you do it?"

Knuckles sighed again. "If I tried to, she'd try to knock me in the head. Besides, I got stuff to do. It's my duty to protect the chickens."

"Ok, I'll do it." Sonic said and he ran off.

That guy sure is obsessive about chickens, Sonic thought.  He talks about them like they're rare emeralds or something.

Sonic ran into the forest and looked for Amy. On the way, he found a whole pile of bamboo shoots and stuffed as many as he could into his rucksack. That'll add to my income, he thought with a smile.

Sonic found Amy sitting by a lake, crying. He carefully approached her. "Hey, are you Ok?" he said softly.

Amy turned around to face him. She was a pink hedgehog with green eyes like his own. She was wearing a red headband, a red dress and red boots with white stripes. Sonic thought she was actually very nice looking.

"It's all my fault!" she said between sobs. "Birdie was my favorite chicken."

Sonic sat down next to her. "It'll be Ok."

"Thanks," Amy said. "Oh, I'm sorry. I don't even know your name. I'm Amy Rose."

"I'm Sonic. I'm running the old farm."

Amy looked down. "I'm sorry that I've taken up so much of your time. I'm sure you have a lot to do to get that old place up and running again."

Sonic checked his watch. "Actually, it's only 3. I've got loads of time." He got up and offered his hand to help her up. "Can I walk you home?"

She took his hand and got up, and shook her head. "I'm not ready to go home. Mind if I hang around your farm while you work?"

Sonic grinned. "No problem."

They walked back to the farm, which still had sticks and stones, but only a few weeds remained.

"Wow, you already cleared all those weeds out?" Amy asked while Sonic dumped his collection into the shipping bin.

"Not me, I only cleared out enough to plant some seeds." Sonic said. He then noticed a familiar figure at the other end, pulling out some of the weeds that remained. "Hey Tails!" he yelled.

Tails looked up and grinned. "Hey Sonic," he said as he ran up to the hedgehogs. "I got the weeds pulled out for you."

"Thanks, that was a big help. But why did you do it?"

"Well," Tails said, "I wanted to pay you back for yesterday. For both your words of encouragement and for the soda."

"Well, it looks like you're helping a lot of people and making friends in only a few days," Amy said with a smile.  "We should be grateful you came here."

"What can I say? I have a steadfast heart of gold," Sonic said. He then took out his hammer and started breaking rocks.

"You're Amy from the poultry farm, right? Did Sonic help you out too?" Tails asked.

"Well, I got into an argument with my brother Knuckles. Sonic comforted me afterwards."

Sonic spoke up as he was trying to break a big boulder with no luck. "Your brother did say that he didn't mean to yell at you, if it makes any difference. Why won't this stupid boulder break even a little?!"

Amy got up and walked over to the boulder. "I know he means well, but sometimes he makes me so mad," she then whipped out a giant mallet out of nowhere and raised it above her head. "KNUCKLES NO BAKA!!" She then brought the mallet down on the boulder, breaking it into extremely tiny pieces. She then did the same thing to the other two large boulders.

Sonic and Tails stood there with wide eyes. "Whoa," Sonic said. Now he saw why Knuckles didn't want to deal with her until she calmed down.

"Better the boulder than me," a voice came from the gate. Everyone looked up.

"Knuckles!" Sonic said.

Knuckles walked over to the other three. "I heard the sound of Amy hitting something. You don't mistake that sound."

Knuckles then turned to Amy. "Look, I'm sorry I yelled at you. I'll try not to in the future."

"Apology accepted. But I did put my anger to good use," she said, indicating where the rocks once were. She then hit the last rock with her mallet, thus clearing the field of stones.

Knuckles grinned. "Not bad, but I'll clear out the tree stumps." Knuckles then jabbed a tree stump with his spiked knuckle, causing it to split instantly. He then repeated this for every stump, while Sonic ran behind and put the new logs and sticks in the log bin. Now the land was completely cleared.

Knuckles rejoined Amy and Tails sitting on the shipping bin and admired his work. "How's that?"

"Perfect," Sonic said with a grin.

"Now all you have to do is till it," Amy said.

"You may want to get off the shipping bin unless you want to be sold," came a new voice. They saw an armadillo.

"Oh, hey Mighty," Amy said as she and Tails got off the bin. "Sonic, this is Mighty. He's the local buyer, and he sometimes delivers special items you order off of the television."

"Pleased to meet you," Mighty said, shaking Sonic's hand.

"Don't worry, I'll do my best," Sonic said. "At least, once I get something that I can sell."

Mighty got the bamboo shoots out of the bin. "Wow, there must a million Shoots in here!"

Mighty calculated how much to pay. He got out the amount and gave it to Sonic in an envelope. He then started to leave with a bag full of bamboo shoots.

"Thanks, Sonic.  I'll be back at five tomorrow. Oh, if you're not here, I'll leave the money in the mailbox." Mighty then left.

 "OK guys," said Sonic. "Stand back!"

Sonic then curled into a ball and started spinning. He then took off all across the field as a spinning blade, taking care to avoid where he had planted the turnips. He had the whole field tilled in less than ten seconds.

The other people were surprised now. They had no idea that Sonic could go so fast or spin like that.

"Thanks for your help. No matter what, you guys are always welcome here," Sonic said.

"Sonic, I still wanted to thank you for helping Amy," Knuckles said. He then pulled an egg out of his backpack.

"An egg?" Tails asked

"If you place this in the incubator in the chicken coop, it'll hatch into a chicken in a few days." Knuckles said.

"But don't you sell chickens? Doesn't this cut into your sales?" Sonic asked.

"Don't worry, we can afford it. Besides, when it grows up, it'll need to eat, and we're the only provider of chicken feed," Amy said with a grin.

"Wow, thanks guys!" Sonic said. Knuckles walked forward to give the egg to Sonic, but tripped on a stick. The egg went flying into the air.

"AHHH! Catch it!" Amy yelled. Sonic got into position to catch it, but didn't get a chance to. Tails caught it by flying nine feet above the hedgehog.

Sonic went wide-eyed. "You can fly?"

Tails landed. "I was gonna show you later, but I learned to last night after what you said. I got some help from the daughter of the inn's owner, Cream. She can actually fly too, with her ears." He handed the egg to Sonic.

"Cool! That was great, Tails. Come on, let's get this egg started," Sonic said. The four started making their way to the chicken coop.

Amy ran up to Tails. "That was amazing, Tails!" she said.

Tails beamed. "Yeah, I'll have to tell Cream that I already used my new skills to do something good.  That'll make her happy."

"Oh, it sounds like you're trying to impress a special someone in your life," Knuckles teased. Tails just blushed.

Sonic set the egg into the incubator. Knuckles checked the wiring, and signaled Amy to turn it on. The incubator started to get warm.

They then walked outside. It was getting dark. "Well, we should head home," Knuckles said. "I'm meeting a friend at the inn tonight."

"Hey, why don't we all go to the inn?" Amy said. "We all worked hard."

"I'm game," Sonic said, taking out the money he got from Mighty. "Maybe I have enough to cover…WOAH!! There's like $700 in here!"

"Remind me to start collecting bamboo shoots," Tails said.

"I don't think that'll work," Amy said. "Nobody has harvested the shoots in months, so they built up.  They grow so slow, you'll probably only find three a day now."

"OK, I'll see you at the bar at 8," Knuckles said.

Knuckles and Amy said their goodbyes, and started to leave. However, before they left, Amy gave Sonic a quick, small kiss on the cheek. "Thanks again," she said, and ran off catch up with Knuckles.

Tails noticed Sonic start to blush.  "So, do you like Amy?" he said with a sly grin.

"Do you like Cream?" Sonic asked with a similar grin.

They stared at each other for a few seconds, and then fell over laughing.

"Don't worry, I won't tell Amy," Tails said.

"And I won't tell Cream," Sonic said.

Later, they met at the inn. Sonic found out that the friend Knuckles was stalking about was his girlfriend, Rouge, from the market. They sat at a table when a brown rabbit approached them.

"Hey guys, is this the new person running the farm?" the rabbit asked.

"Sure is!" Amy said. "Cream, this is Sonic.  Sonic, this is Cream.  She helps her mom Vanilla run the inn." She then also indicated another older rabbit behind the counter polishing silverware, who waved back and smiled.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Sonic," Cream said. "Can I get you guys anything to drink?"

"Yes please," Said Sonic. "A round of root beer for all of us."

Cream left and came back with lots of root beer. They all took a mug (even Cream). Sonic raised his mug.

"To my Uncle Chuck, wherever he is," he said.

"To Uncle Chuck," the others repeated, then they took a sip of their root beer.

After his was half gone, Sonic stared into his mug. "I wish I knew what happened to him. Omochao told me a little of what happened. Oh, Tails, I hope Omochao didn't bother you when you were pulling the weeds."

Tails looked at Sonic. "No, I never even saw it."

"That's odd. I asked it to keep an eye on the farm for me."

"Maybe it broke down," Knuckles said. "It was overdue for a checkup even before Uncle Chuck's disappearance."

"Where should I take it to get it looked at?" Sonic asked.

"Normally you send it away to the Omochao company, but that'll take days," Amy said.

"I'm good with machines. I'll take a look at it for you." Tails offered.

Sonic grinned "Sure thing!"

"Tails, you're so nice," Cream said. Tails started to blush.

Sonic noticed the clock on the wall. "It's getting late.  I'm gonna go home. I want to get an early start tomorrow."

Everyone said goodbye to him and thanked him for the root beer.  Sonic then ran home.  When he got there, he looked for Omochao.  He finally found it in the dog house.

"There you are!" Sonic said.  It didn't move.  Sonic picked it up and examined it. I guess it is broke, he thought. He took it inside and set it on the table.  I'll take it to Tails tomorrow. He then wrote in his journal, turned out the lights, and hopped into bed. He then jumped back out, took off his rucksack (with the axe in it), dropped the whole thing on the floor, rubbed his back where the axe handle had jammed into his spine, jumped back into bed, and went to sleep.

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Ok, I think that was better than Chapter 1. Hopefully I'll get Chapter Three up in a day or so. R&R!