Chapter Four - The Badlands

Sonic slept, for two full days, before he woke. He hadn't realised he was that exhausted. He rolled onto his back, and immediately opened his eyes. He felt very different. He sat up, looking down at his hands. They had gloves on them. He looked down at his feet, he cherry red shoes and socks had reappeared again. He was back to normal. He placed he hands on his head and left leg to check, but is injuries were gone, fully healed. Sonic smiled awkwardly, so transformations heals wounds, does it. He noticed his transformation back to normal hadn't woken him, which meant he didn't cause him pain. Sonic was glad of that. He took a deep sigh and put his hands on his face, and took in a deep breathe through his nose. Sonic stared.

'What the...!' he thought, as his wolf instincts went mad. He was carrying a scent that was not his own. The foreign scent was quite pungent. He sniffed around. The scent was strongest around his muzzle, shoulders and back. Sonic rattled his brains. He knew that scent, but he couldn't place it.

Someone had been there with him. He looked around. Whoever it was, was now long gone. But his 'inner wolf' was going nuts over this foreign scent. He closed his eyes, and delved deep into the scent, now on his hands. Sonic immediately noticed that his highly acute sense of smell have remained even though he had transformed back to normal. He was getting a sorts of messages from this foreign scent. Pain, anguish, terror, anger, and calm. A lot of calm. He was also getting something else, deep within the scent, there was a smell so faint, that it was his 'inner wolf' who found it, not him.

Another werewolf.

'What!' Sonic cried in his head. Another werewolf. Here! He thought he was the only one. He quickly got to his feet and looked around, and stopped immediately, feeling very strange. His head throbbed as he had got up too quickly, and he put his head in his hands. He noticed that all of his teeth now had a sharp points to them, and all his canine teeth, both top and bottom, were now centimetre long fangs. Not very large compared to what he had had for last few days, but still. He ran his tongue along them, they felt very weird. His eyes fell to his arms, and he smirked. He'd always had muscles on his arms, but never this well defined. They were twice the size they were, before the full moon. He looked at his legs, they were the same too.

He felt strong, he felt powerful. The transformations had caused him to gain some weight, and most likely, some height, as well. His tail now had long fur running its length, it swished from side to side as he thought.

Sonic's eyes now fell on his groin. They widened. The large tuft of fur there, that made him look convincingly like a male hedgehog, was gone. He was a flat as a pancake. Sonic felt very embarrassed. He felt like he had to cover up. But there one thing for certain. He wasn't a male hedgehog anymore. He didn't look like one, be properly didn't smell like one either anymore

He was a 'whatever' werewolf. Male, female, he didn't know. He settled on male, for now, that was what he knew, and that was how he had lived. He had forgotten about the foreign scent, admiring his new stature, he was growing fast, but a loud noise above him, broke his train of thought. He looked around. Nothing. Then it came again, louder this time. Sonic panicked.

The Werewolf Hunters, they were coming after him! They had found him. After the show he'd put on over the last few days, he wasn't surprised. But he didn't want to take his chances, and took off into forest, away from the clearing. He ran through the dark forest, and out into the countryside, and bright sunlight. Sonic squinted his eyes, and was amazed by his own speed. He broke the sound barrier, with seconds of leaving the forest clearing, and was now travelling at just over twice the speed of sound, without too much difficulty. He'd had to seriously strain to make those speeds before, and only ever did running in blind panic. He still heard the loud noises from behind him, and pushed on. Sonic ran for a few hours or so. There a desert coming into view on the horizon, with canyons and ridges.

'The Werewolf Hunters won't find me in there' Sonic thought, and headed for straight for it.

Shadow was loosing his patients with Tails' Biplane. The stupid machine was so slow, he could have pulled that dam thing along the ground faster then it could fly. He swore and cursed at it, the entire journey. A journey that took Shadow alone, about half a day to complete, took Tails a full two days of constant flying. It was dawn on the second day, by the time they reached the forest. He had been extremely tempted to just bolt and leave Tails behind, the two reasons had stopped him. One, Tails didn't know where he was going, and like Shadow, didn't know the area that well, and two, Tails wasn't really old enough to be left alone in the middle of nowhere. Shadow cursed again.

He was fuming with Tails as he ran into the forest, heading for the clearing. He was almost there when he heard loud noises of an engine backfiring above him as Tails' Biplane was struggling. Shadow looked to through the trees, and saw the Biplane now had a trail of smoke behind it, but Tails was an expert pilot, and managed to steady the Biplane easily enough. Then he heard it. An noise so loud, he was like someone had dropped a large bomb, a matter of feet away from him. From the other side of a large bush. He knew that noise, and he knew that there was only one other person on the planet who could make that noise apart from him. The sound barrier breaking. He torn through the bush and into the now familiar clearing. Sonic was gone.

Shadow cried out as strong winds whirled up around the clearing from the shear power of the acceleration used by Sonic as he left. Shadow put up his hands to protect his eyes from the whirling sand. He gritted his teeth in absolute frustration. He'd missed him. But Shadow was amazed at the power used here, Sonic must have grown, and was almost certain that Sonic had transformed back to normal. But it made no sense, he had more power now then he had ever had before, he could see it in Sonic's chaos aura that was left behind in the clearing. He didn't look like he was injured any more. He had healed somehow.

All this, for nothing. Shadow roared in the anger and frustration of it all. If he'd known that Sonic would have healed on his own, then he wouldn't have left him. Now he'd gone, again. Now Shadow really wanted to find Sonic, get that kid's side of the story, find out they the hell he was playing at, and what the hell was going on, and then throttle him, for causing him so much trouble. Shadow didn't really want to throttle him. He just wanted to find his friend.

The Biplane was now flying above him. Shadow signalled Tails to land. This was a lost cause, they were not going to catch him now. But the plane didn't land, didn't turn or slow down. If fact, it got faster as Tails went full throttle in the direction that Sonic had ran in. Large noises came as it backfired again but stayed true.

Shadow cursed. How could that fox be so stupid? He ran. If Tails was going that way, so way he. He forgot about his manners, and went full throttle, breaking the sound barrier as he went. Out of the forest, and into the countryside, Shadow ran. Tails hot on his trail. But then the area in was running in began to get familiar to Shadow, really familiar, and soon he found himself screeching to a halt, knowing what was on the horizon. Knew the direction he was heading.

"Oh, you have got to be joking!" Shadow said to himself. Staring into the distance. Beyond the horizon, Shadow knew of a large desert, dry, inhospitable, and dangerous, and knew it was part of an enormous area known as 'The Badlands'. The Badlands were so called because they were numerous stories of people entering, and never coming out. They were completely uncharted, and the main reason why Shadow never set foot there.

'Sonic had gone in there. What was he thinking?' Shadow raged in his mind. Worry welled up for Sonic inside of him, his heart shell cracking further. The tears ran again. He couldn't take much more of this. He had to find him.

He heard Tails fly over his head, straight for The Badlands. The kid fox must have known where is was heading, but the Biplane was beginning to get lower in the sky. Shadow could foresee the Biplane crashing in heart of The Badlands. He panicked, he had no idea what was out there and ran after Tails as fast as he could.