Guardian and the Werehog
Chapter 3

Shadow was at a local bar planning ways to steal Knuckles' heart when the door burst open. He saw an old echidna standing there looking like he was in a hurry. 'Isn't that the echidna's old man?' he thought.

"Help! My son! He's in trouble!" Locke exclaimed, getting everyone's attention, including Shadow's. "He's been kidnapped by a monster!"

"A monster?" Shadow repeated.

The old Guardian turned to the black hedgehog. "Yes! A great big beast, like nothing I've ever seen before!"

"You're a Guardian; shouldn't you be able to take care of it?" said a random echidna.

"He's huge and powerful! Who knows what he's done to my son by now!"

"Hmm…" Shadow thought for a second. "Maybe if I rescue him, he'll finally fall in love with me. This monster shouldn't be that hard for me to defeat. I am Shadow after all.' "I'll help you, Guardian."

"You will?" Locke said, surprised.

"Of course, just give me a while to plan and I'll see what I can do." Shadow led the old man out the door.

"A while? But he needs help now; he'll be dead by then!" He pleaded.

"Knuckles is a big boy. He can handle himself until then." With that he pushed him out the door and shut it, chuckling to himself.

Locke glared at the closed door and decided to look elsewhere.

Back at the castle, the Werehog was pacing in front of the fireplace, waiting for a certain red-furred echidna to arrive. "Why isn't he here yet? I told him to be here!"

"Now, now. I'm sure he's just running a little late. Perhaps he's just nervous." Vector said.

Espio hopped in the doorway and cleared his throat, getting the Werehog's attention. "Ahem."

"Where is he?"

"W-well, he, uh…now don't get angry but, uh…he's a no show, sir."

"WHAT?" The Werehog burst out of the room, rushed up to the room where his prisoner was staying, and banged on the door. "I thought I told you to come down for dinner!"

"I'm not hungry!" Knuckles said from inside the room.

"Could you be a little nicer?" Vector suggested.

He tried his best to calm down. "Will you join me for dinner?"

"No!"

He glared at Vector.

"Try saying 'please'."

The oversized hedgehog gritted his teeth. "Will you join me for dinner…please?"

"I said I'm not going!"

He grunted in frustration. "FINE! THEN GO AHEAD AND STARVE!" He looked at Vector and Espio. "Make sure he doesn't leave this room!" With that the Werehog stormed off.

Once he was gone, Knuckles poked his head out of the door. "Is he gone?"

"Knuckles! Sorry about the Master, he's just a wee bit cranky," said the candle.

"I can see that."

"Would you like anything?" Vector asked.

"Actually, I am a little hungry."

"Great! Come with me!" He led Knuckles to the dining room, much to Espio's protests.

"But the Master said he must stay in his room! He shouldn't be in here!"

"Just ignore him. He gets worked up over nothing." The green candle told Knuckles as he had him sit down at the table.

"So, what's on the menu?" the echidna asked.

"Anything you want!" Vector said cheerfully as Vanilla came up and poured him some tea, getting a look from the echidna.

"What would you like, dear?" Vanilla asked.

"Um, I like grapes." He said awkwardly.

"Bowl of grapes coming up!" Vector clapped his candle ''hands" and a bowl of grapes slid across the table and stopped in front of Knuckles.

"Wow, thank you!" He took a couple bulbs and ate them. "Mmm, so how exactly can you talk? I've never seen objects talk before? And this mansion, it's like something from a fairytale or something."

"That's because this place is enchanted," Espio answered.

"Enchanted?"

"Yes, everything in this house is enchanted!" Vector added. "Would you like to see more of it?"

"Sure." Knuckles popped some more grapes in his mouth and got up and followed Vector and Espio out of the dining room.

While Vector and Espio were playing tour guides, Knuckles glanced up the grand staircase and saw that it led to a dark corridor. "What's up there?"

"And this is the- huh? Oh, uh…there's nothing interesting up there!"

"I wanna go look." Knuckles said, his curiosity getting the best of him. He started up the stairs only to be stopped by a clock and a candlestick.

"Don't go up there!" Espio exclaimed.

"Not even a peek?"

"You wouldn't find it very interesting anyway. There are plenty of other places we can see. There's a ballroom, a library, a garden…"

"A garden?" The echidna repeated, suddenly getting an idea.

"Oh yes! Huge garden! Tons and tons of fruits and veggies; and we got flowers coming out the wazoo!" Vector hopped down the staircase. "Come on, we'll show you!"

Knuckles pretended to follow and the two objects pranced down the hall. He quickly walked up the stairs and down the dark corridor, which was littered in broken statues and shredded curtains. It kind of gave it the feeling of a haunted house; he half expected the beast to come out of nowhere and chase him out of the mansion, wanting to kill him. But everything remained quiet as he reached a door at the end of the hallway. He grabbed the large door knocker and pulled the heavy, wooden door open and peeked inside. The room was even more trashed than the hallway. He stepped inside. As he looked around, he came across a portrait on the wall, which had four shred marks running down the paper. He reached up and straightened some of the paper to see who was in the portrait. It was of a blue hedgehog, staring down at him with a smug look on his face. 'Wonder who this is? Did he live here once? Maybe the beast ate him and took shelter here,' he thought. 'Or maybe he was already long dead before the Werehog started living here. Was he a hero? A prince?' He looked like he was in his teens, like he was about Knuckles' age.

He turned to get a good look at the rest of the room. As he scanned the room he saw something glowing. The echidna walked toward it to see what it was. "A rose." It was a glowing, red rose hovering under a glass dome. "I've never seen a flower like this before. Maybe it's one of those rare kinds." He carefully lifted the dome up and set it aside. "Wow."

As he was admiring the lone flower, he suddenly felt himself being thrown across the room into a wall. "Ahh!" He cried as he landed on the floor. He looked up at his attacker. Knuckles gasped.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?" he roared, placing the glass back on the rose and glaring daggers into the echidna.

"I-I was just-"

"GET OUT!"

"W-wha-!"

"GET OUT!" His voice echoed throughout the mansion.

Thinking he was going to kill him, Knuckles quickly got up and ran until he was out of the building and into the woods. He couldn't remember which was he came, so he just picked a path and ran in that direction. As he was running, he heard growls. He quickly turned and saw a pack of wolves behind him. He continued running, but more wolves jumped out in front of him. He was completely surrounded, so he got in a fighting stance. One of them jumped at him, but he quickly knocked it away with his fist. He continued fighting more, but cried in pain when he felt one bite his leg. "Ahh!" He kicked him with his other foot, and another one pounced on top of him. "Get off!" The wolf was ready to bite him when the canine was thrown off him. Knuckles sat up to see who it was and saw the Werehog, standing with his back to him, fighting off the wolves. They scratched and bit at him, but were quickly thrown off. One of the wolves managed to bite him in the arm. He roared in pain and flung him into a tree, knocking the animal out cold. The other wolves quickly fled the scene, not wanting to end up like their friend.

The blue beast turned to Knuckles, clutching his arm. The echidna stared, expecting him to attack him now. What he wasn't expecting was the 'Hog extending his hand out to him. Knuckles hesitantly placed his hand into the beast's large paw, feeling it clutch his own and pulling him to his feet. He leaned against a tree for support.

The Werehog turned his back toward him, "Climb on my back, I'll take you back to the house."

"But your arm…"

"I'll be fine. Your limping will just slow us down, making you easy prey for more wolves. Now get on my back!"

Knuckles slowly walked over to him. He was positioning himself to climb on when he felt himself being lifted up onto the beast's back. He quickly grabbed his shoulders to keep from sliding back down. "Um…thanks." The Werehog took off toward the mansion.

Inside, the two of them were sitting in front of the crackling fireplace. Knuckles, whose leg had already been bandaged up, was busy tending to the Werehog's bite, or at least he was trying to. "Would you…hold still, please?" He yelled trying to dab his wound with a towel, but the blue beast kept moving his arm around. "I'm trying…to clean it…so it won't…get infected!" He finally succeeded and pressed the wet towel against the beast's wounded arm, resulting in a loud roar from him.

"THAT HURT!"

"It wouldn't hurt if you'd just sit still! For a beast, you're such a big baby!"

"I'm not a baby! If you hadn't run away, we wouldn't be having this problem!"

"If you hadn't acted like you were going to kill me, I wouldn't have run away!"

The Werehog's face softened, remembering how he had thrown him across the room. "Um, I apologize for throwing you like that. I hope I didn't break anything."

"Nah, just a bruise, that's all. It didn't hurt that much."

"Oh…that's good."

He was a bit surprised at the beast's sudden mood change. "Um, thank you for…helping me back there. I probably could've taken them on myself, but with my leg…you know…"

"Right, you were doing just fine, despite the fact that your face had nearly been bitten off." The former hedgehog smirked.

Knuckles playfully hit him with the towel. "Shut up!"

The beast chuckled, but stopped when he thought of something. "Uh, Knuckles, why didn't you escape while I was fighting the wolves? You had a chance to get away, why didn't you?"

"Well," the echidna thought for a second, "for one, I wouldn't get very far with a wounded leg anyway. It was dark, too, so I probably would've gotten lost. I figured it would be safer and smarter to come back here. And I couldn't just leave you like that after you helped me; and that wound looked pretty bad, so somebody had to treat it." he started dressing his arm with bandages. "There."

"Oh. Thank you for helping me, as well."

Knuckles smiled at him. 'Maybe it won't be so bad here, after all.'

The Werehog returned the smile.

End Chapter 3