Chapter Two
The ride to the diner was awkward, mostly because Rouge and Tails kept plotting ways to get Sonic in the water at the beach, as if he couldn't hear their plans. He tried talking to Shadow to ignore them, but all the ebony hedgehog said was "Don't distract the driver, Faker."
Sonic inwardly cringed when Shadow called him that, just like he always does. The insult ran deeply with him. He was a Fake, for many different reasons. But, even so, he couldn't let Shadow know that his words got to him. After all, that's all they were. Just words.
"Ah, here we are!" Tails called out as they pulled into the parking lot of the diner. "And there's the others."
Sonic looked out the window and saw their friends waiting for them at the entrance of the diner. He looked up to the sign and cringed. It wasn't an ordinary diner. It was a buffet. Great.
Shadow parked the truck and they all got out, walking up to the entrance to meet up with their friends. Sonic scratched at his arm nervously. A buffet meant that they were expecting him to eat a lot, but with his craving for something fresh, if he ate anything else otherwise he was gonna be sick.
"Hey Sonic!" Knuckles greeted loudly, slapping the hedgehog on his back in a bit of a roughhousing tease. "You ready to get this party started?"
"Heh, yeah." Sonic said half heartedly as he followed everybody inside. His scaling on his arm was starting to bother him. He had the urge to scratch at it, but he resisted, knowing that if he did it would mess up the makeup.
Knuckles mistook his tone for the trip itself. "Ah, come on Sonic, it's not gonna be that bad. I promise we won't try to throw you in the water again."
"Swear it?" Sonic challenged.
"Of course." The echidna nodded, crossing his fingers behind his back. At that moment, the hostess came up to them.
"Hello." She greeted them kindly. "How many will be joining us today?"
"Party of nine, please." Vanilla answered sweetly.
"Alright then, follow me this way."
The group followed the hostess through the tables and by the food. Sonic's stomach churned a bit from the smell of the processed food around me. Wasn't there anything fresh in this place? Finally the woman brought them to a small party room and sat everybody down. As soon as she left, another woman came up. A waitress.
"Hi, I'm Rita, I'll be your server today." She introduced herself. "Can I start you all on a drink?"
"Just water for me." Sonic said quickly. The woman nodded and went around taking everybody else's order. As she did this, it gave Sonic time to study her.
She looked like any ordinary human woman, but there was something about her that struck him odd. Finally, she looked up and he silently gasped as he got a good look at her eyes.
They were blue with the pinprick pupils.
She was like him.
"Alright then, I will be right back with your drinks. Feel free to check the buffet during this time." And with that, she walked away.
"I think I'll take her advice and see what they got." Sonic said, standing up from the table and walking away, going the same direction Rita had gone. He had to talk to her. Maybe she knew where he could get some fresh produce.
He followed her through the crowd of customers, keeping his distance until she stopped at an empty table, picking up the tip and clearing away the dirty dishes. This was his chance.
"Rita." He called to her, making her jump. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you."
"No, no, it's quite alright." She chuckled. "What can I do for you, Sonic?"
"Well first off, you should probably consider getting some colored contacts." He teased.
"I'm sorry?"
"And second of all, what are you doing up on land?"
"I'm sorry Sonic, I don't know what you're talking about." Rita frowned at him, causing him to laugh.
"It's ok Rita, you can tell me." He leaned close and whispered. "I'm one of you." And then, just to prove his point, he took one of his contacts out after looking around to make sure nobody was watching.
At the sight of his true eye, Rita gasped. She looked around, then gently took a hold of his arm. "Come with me. It's not safe to talk about us out in the open."
Sonic nodded, put his contact back in, and followed her to the back, out of sight of the customers and employees.
"I can't believe you're actually one of us." She said to him. "Sonic, you're just full of surprises."
"I know." He shrugged with a chuckle.
"So where are you and your friends off to?"
"Ugh, the beach house." Sonic groaned. "We're supposed to be staying for a week. I promised Tails I would join them."
"Oh goodness." Rita frowned. "Right by all that saltwater, and during mating season too… how old are you again."
"I just became of age."
"Yeesh. Well, I can only wish you the best of luck."
"Thanks. Hey um, before I head back out there, do you think you can help me out?"
"What's up?"
"I am craving something fresh, and I'm afraid that if I eat anything else, I'm gonna be sick."
"I know that feeling. I'm afraid we don't really have fish out at the moment, especially fresh fish since we're in the middle of the breakfast rush. The best you can do for now is to have some fruit. That's all we got right now."
Sonic sighed. "Alright then. It'll have to do. Thank you Rita, and stay safe."
"You too."
…
Sonic took Rita's advice and ate only a fresh fruit salad for breakfast. Of course, some of his friends questioned him on his choice, but he just ignored them and ate it, and luckily, it didn't make him sick. But even afterwards, he was still hungry, but he would have to wait until they got to the beach house, which is where they went right after breakfast.
The beach house wasn't much to look at on the outside. It was a simple small blue cabin, set on hurricane suspenders, with white shingles and white frames. The real magic would be on the inside.
Tails reached under the welcome mat and picked up the key to the front door, opening the lock and allowing everyone to step inside. The inside had a shiny linoleum floor, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a fully stocked kitchen, a living room with a pullout sofa bed, and a patio leading out to the beach, which was practically the backyard.
"Wow Vanilla. This house is beautiful." Amy gasped.
"Why thank you. I do what I can to take care of it." The rabbit mother giggled.
Sonic looked around the house, still unable to believe that Vanilla actually owned such a place. He would love to stay and explore the house a bit, just like the rest of his friends, but his skin was getting worse, as well as his hunger. So, instead, he quickly set his suitcase in one of the rooms and quickly rushed back out. "Well you guys, I didn't get to do my daily morning run, so I'm going now. I'll meet up with you all later." And before anyone could say anything, he was gone.
He ran down the shoreline, being careful to stay as far away from the salty water as he could. He came up to a small cave and went inside.
Inside the cave, there was a moonpool, where Sonic had come from to explore the surface world. He had always been a curious merhog, one might say that he was an Ariel. And despite his colony telling him the dangers of the surface world and the surface dwellers, his curiosity could not be tamed.
Blending into the surface world had not been easy. Learning how to walk, run, and speak proper English took months. It also didn't help that there were times when he had to go back to the water to fix his dry scaling. Like he was about to do now.
Sonic took off his gloves, socks and shoes, and his contacts, took a deep breath and dived headfirst into the water. As soon as his body was completely submerged, he started convulsing. He screamed in pain, bubbles flying from his mouth and popping on the surface. His hands grew webs between his fingers as long, dangerous looking sharp black claws grew out. Spiky dorsal fins popped out from his back, and his legs and tail gruesomely fused together to make a long, dangerously strong merhog tail, complete with a barbed stinger. He screamed in agony again as gills started ripping themselves into his sides, and his teeth grew out into large, razor sharp fangs, strong enough to pierce the skin of sharks.
When the transformation was complete, Sonic panted, out of breath as he curled in on himself a bit to let himself rest. He had forgotten how much strength and agony it took to change, both in and out of water. So many things could go wrong if he was not strong enough. He had seen people of his kind attempt what he had done, only to die halfway through the transformation because they weren't strong enough.
He sighed and swam to the bottom of the moonpool, grabbed his spear, and swam out through the underwater cave to the open ocean to do some hunting.
This was his life.
His real life… as a Siren.
A/N: If you want to see Sonic's transformation into a merhog, I recommend going to YouTube and looking up Ryn's Mermaid Transformation.