Special shout out to the reviews section as a whole! You guys are great! Everyday I wake up hoping to find a new one and so far I just smile ear to ear reading you guys' feedback.

I honestly thought this fic wouldn't get the reception it has but I'm pleasantly surprised.

For this chapter in particular most of the trivia is delivered in-character ala Sticks the amazing sex educator. Onto the crazy!

(EDIT: 12/22/17: If you're reading this, you might notice some nice additions to the chapter thanks in part to mass-editing. Enjoy the fic.)

Sticks somehow managed to get Tails to come to her house where he wouldn't be surrounded by any technology that'd give him the wrong impression of what animals do. There were benefits of befriending people beyond the fourth wall... Sticks learned so many things just that day. She learned things that no one else could learn in-universe... It was a very beautiful thing that no one else could truly appreciate – save Knuckles every now and then maybe but he was dumb...

After locking all of the doors and windows and giving the echidna and the fox glasses of water and offering them a bowl of fruit cut into cubes mixed with some weird-looking and smelling white meat neither of them could identify. When both of them declined the badger ate out of the bowl with her bare hands, sitting in between them on the couch.

"Um... So you were going to explain everything that was going on Sticks?" Tails asked nervously, playing with his fingers to distract himself and give him something to focus on so his imagination wouldn't wander into weird territory.

"Well, I can tell ya this: Sticks is gonna get me an emerald! She knows the writer!" Knuckles could do nothing but smile and day dream about the gemstone he could get out of this adventure.

"First off: getting that shiny green stone is no guarantee. Second: Everything is a lie Morty-uh... I mean... Tails?" Sticks put her bowl of meat and fruit on Knuckle's lap and stood up. "Sorry... Got my signals confused."

"Your point?" Asked Tails.

"Right. My point." Sticks cleared her throat. "Point is: animals mate. It's a totally normal thing. It's why we're all here right now, alive and kicking."

"AND GETTING KICKED!" Knuckles rebuttled, eating handfuls of whatever Sticks made for herself despite declining it earlier.

"Thank you Knuckles." Sticks rolled her eyes, hoping the audience would sympathize with her. "So what made you get so freaked out Tails? Are you comfortable with saying?"

"Sonic was just acting really out of character. He was just super aggressive and he was more of a jerk than normal." The fox contributed. "Then when I called you guys over all I could hear was you two fighting or doing something horrible... And then..." He looked like he was about to cry before hiding behind his tails instead as a makeshift shelter to shield what was left of his innocent brain.

"Ah... Well lucky for both of us the monotreme didn't get too outa hand. So you don't gotta hide and you don't need to be so scared, you wanna know why?"

"Why"

"Cuz matin' is a normal thing and it'll be over before you know it. Most animals mate during a certain time of year when the weather's just right. Sonic's just going through that phase. Amy is too. It'll be over once they get it over with or get bored of one another."

"But I don't wanna think about that! Me and Sonic are like brothers... We're friends! I don't wanna think about that!" Tails sat up, his tails on his lap and his arms crossed with a lil' pout on his face. "Why does he have to mate anyway?!"

"How else do you continue a species?" Sticks looked at Knuckles, who'd eaten her mysterious dish and was licking the bowl. She motioned toward him."Take Knuckles for instance. Since he's the only echidna alive in this universe, he can't procreate and continue his species. Granted I'm also unaware of whether he can feasibly settle down with a nice platypus girl because the platypus and the echidna are monotremes..."

"What's a monotreme?" Knuckles asked, putting the bowl on his head like a pathetic hat.

"A monotreme is a mammal that lays eggs." The badger answered.

"You mean like a chicken? Wait... IMA CHICKEN?!"

"Knuckles you're dumber than a sack of potatas..." She would've loved to point out that even if he was a chicken – male roosters don't lay the eggs... But he was far beyond help, with Tails even giving her a look of 'I feel your pain and know why you kicked him so much'.

"Well! If Tails is still a kid and I'm a chicken, I guess Sticks is the leader of the team until Sonic and Amy get their act together." Knuckles proclaimed, putting his feet up on a mini tree stump to use as a foot rest and putting his hands behind his head to recline and relax. "So how do you suggest getting Sonic and Amy back to normal?"

"How do they get back to normal?" Tails asked, petting his tails.

"We just let nature run it's course and see what happens. End of story." Sticks put it bluntly. "Now unless either of you have anymore questions, I'm gonna spend the rest of this pathetic adventure in my bunker ALONE..."

"But... Sonic can't mate! He's supposed to do the fighting! He's supposed to be tough! How else are we going to defend the village against Eggman?!" Tails asked, still not wanting to grasp the fact that these sorts of things just happened.

"Well hey, if they manage to breed and pop out a few hoglets, maybe they'll have kids tough enough to beat Eggman and we can all retire. Anymore questions?" Sticks – now designated team leader and sex educator – asked.

"SONIC CAN'T HAVE A KID! ARE YOU KIDDING?!" Knuckles shouted.

And then the fox backed him up. "Exactly! See? Knuckles agrees with me!"

"If Sonic has a kid, who are we gonna hang out with?"

"And who's going to help fight Eggman and every other villain of the week?"

"And who's gonna be my implied rival, friend and frat bro?"

"And who's going to provide the jerk-ish comic relief?!"

"And who else is going to help me cope with the fact I'm a chicken?!"

Sticks just walked up to a nearby wall and put her head against it, sighing and dreading the fact she was surrounded by a smol naive fox and an idiot. Whatever Amy was doing to win her man, she hoped it was fun enough to justify her absence and Sticks having to be the substitute team leader while she and Sonic were busy doing who knows what and who knows who – or what!

Tails opened the door and flew out, the not hearing anything he said over Knuckles shouting for him only for Tails to come back. And then he door slammed shut.

"Well, poor kid is doomed.. And so are we..." Knuckles sat back on Stick's couch like a sad puppy.

The angry badger turned her head to look at him. "And why are you still here?"

"Well now that my best friend and rival is having a kid I feel left out... And then when's Eggman gonna come back?! I'm just thinking a lot about my future. I'm the last of my kind and I fear I'm always going to stay that way..."

"Wow... That is some surprisingly deep analysis of your psyche." And then Sticks turned away. "But I'm too tired to deal with you. You're too stupid. So I'm just gonna stare at my walls until the Illuminati come to take me out."

"Well, I thought of a way I could be less dumb!"

"That being?"

"I'll just follow you around* until I get smarter and I'll take notes so I don't forget all the cool stuff you tell me!" Needless to stay he got Sticks to stop looking at the walls and had her reaching for a spear...

Chapter 6 end

Animal trivia for chapter 6:

Thankfully a lot of the trivia was delivered in-universe and in general there wasn't that much of it in this chapter. But if you need the bullet points version of scattered trivia we have 1. Echidnas are monotremes. 2. Platypuses are also monotremes. 3. monotremes are mammals that lay eggs instead of giving live birth.

Also another thing my inner 1am-4am zoologist occasionally asks that I had Sticks bring up: if Sonic is the fastest living creature in the franchise universe, wouldn't that make him a prime cannidate to reproduce? And if speed would be a desirable trait, why wouldn't every female hedgehog (including and especially Amy) be after him constantly? And seeing that Amy is the second-fastest in the universe, how fast would their offspring be as a result? The same could also apply to Shadow – since he's supposed to be the ultimate life form/Izuru Kamakura of the universe – how isn't every female hedgehog also trying to mate with him?

The things my inner zoologist asks...

Specific lines:

*"I'll follow you around" - An actual cute and not creepy fact I learned about echidna mating habits. Often during mating season for an echidna you'll find a train of echidnas, specifically several males following one female around. The male who stays closest to the female in the front of the train often ends up mating with her if the female is reproductively active at all in that season.

Next Chapter is pure Sonamy adorableness...