Queen's Notes- Okay, updates are erratic for everything I'm doing fanciction wise, as I'm in the middle of looking for a new place to live as well as the whole moving and working things.

The joys of life no?

But, on the good side, I'm getting away from the evil landlords!

Enjoy the chapter.

Chapter Thirteen:

Calming down, kinda...

White-hot pain. It burned from the inside out. Shifting, twisting, and churning inside of him. It burned away his body and at the same time changed it. He was becoming shorter but also becoming stronger, leaner, faster...

He screamed.

It felt good to scream, to release the pain. His scream told the world large that it hurt. Yet, even as it hurt, there was something else in the fire…

His back arched and he came out of the ball he had curled into, still-forming quills stood up on end.

He was still burning in white and blue flames. He was still changing...

Dilated, dark green eyes snapped open and stared into the nothingness. He screamed again as another wave of Chaos power burned away the last of his old body.

Sonic gasped and jerked upright, his blue quills lifting as his emerald gaze darted around the rest stop, the blanket he'd been using half falling off his improvised bed. He saw no one but Jessy there, and the mechanic was half draped over her motorcycle, using her own blanket as a pillow, snuggled into her thick riding jacket to stay warm with the collar up and hands tucked into her sleeves.

The anthro hedgehog sighed and lifted a hand to rub his eyes, and then temples to get rid of the headache that trying to start. With Jessy asleep he didn't want to wake her up to get a good ear rub to get rid of it.

What was with that dream? Sonic wondered as he got up to walk around the covered shelter they were staying in to calm down. The repetitive motions of walking was calming and let Sonic think better when moving. Why did he keep having that dream?

...Or was it truly a just dream at all? It felt more and more real each time it played in his mind's eye. It also became clearer almost to the point where Sonic could have sworn that he could feel the heat.

On impulse Sonic moved to the bike, quietly opening one of the saddle bags and pulled out a note book. With the pen in the binding he retreated to his bench to sit and started writing out the dream like he did with memories. Five pages later Sonic had calmed down enough that the dream, nightmare didn't bother him as much. Enough that he put the book back and pulled another bench as quietly as possible so two where side by side.

The soft snores from Jessy stopped, and drew Sonic's gaze and he watch as the woman shifted, sleepily stretching out her left leg to relive a possible cramp before relaxing…and started to tilt… A white gloved hand caught her shoulder and another grabbed the jacket before pulling back. Carefully Sonic picked the human up, smiled as she gave a sleepy grumble as she woke up just enough to walk to the benches.

Sonic darted back to grab the blanket, "Chaos Jessy, you're going to fall like that." He sighed, settling down beside her on his first bench. Sonic lasted all of five minutes before giving into the childish want and cuddled against his adoptive sister, using her heartbeat to keep the nightmares away like he did in the worst thunder and rain storms the winter before.

Of course Jessy had fell back to sleep. She was also just this side of the dead so she wasn't even aware of what was going on until she woke up the next morning. She cracked one blue eye open, and then the other, lifting her head off the bench blinking owlishly around. Then down to the warm lump against her side.

...okay where had Sonic come from?

Wait, he had been sleeping on the bench first right? Jessy racked her fogged up mind for the answer to her question. The woman blushed, thinking that she had somehow moved over here on her own. As the last clear thing she remembered was dosing off on her motorcycle.

"Okay..." The woman muttered softly as she shifted, and then shifted again, a wriggle was needed, then Jessy paused wait for Sonic to drift off again… shift, move a little here aaaaaaaand... she was free!

Thump.

"Ouch…" Jessy muttered into the ground, feeling the first tinges of exasperation as after all that her foot had caught up in something, the blanket, and thus tripped her up.

"Wha? Hey Jes' you alright?" Sonic's sleepy voice from somewhere above and behind her.

"Yeah, I'm fine." She said as she rolled over and sat up. Jessy grasped the fuzzy hand that was offered by the anthro and let him help pull her back to her feet.

"I'm hungry." The hedgehog declared out of the blue and poked at the bag he thought the food was in.

"I'll make us something after I get some coffee…" Jessy grabbed her wallet to see how much cash she had.

Sonic snitched five dollars and with a, "Be back in a flash!" ran out of the rest stop the two had spent the night at.

Jessy lifted her hand to her head, trying to keep her hair from going every-which-way in the wind the hedgehog kicked up. She blinked a few times then let out a bark of laughter, and again when Sonic returned a little later with two Starbucks after she'd packed up.

This seemed to spawn a new pattern for the next few days, traveling in the day, finding a place to catch some sleep before a hunt for coffee. There was no rush, more so after Jessy admitted that she didn't want to go back, she had stalled her wander years long enough. Sonic had no trouble, and wanted to stay with her, with family but also explor as well.

It wasn't like they were isolated either, alone on the road. By the fourth day Jessy had proven that she wasn't aimlessly wondering, as she took them to a nomad camp, the trailers currently at rest in a rented lot while the families got supplies or scouted good work as well as setting up at a farmers market to sell and trade goods. From there Sonic and Jessy went on a power-stone hunt, looking for something bigger then coin sized that wouldn't cost money.

Then with a fair number of charged stones, instructions of where to go next (plus enough meat rolls for dinner and fallowing breakfast), Jessy set the heading to cosine she knew of, not blood related, that was a mechanic and had his own shop with his wife. There she was hoping to convert the newly renamed Mac, the large motorcycle away from gas entirely and to run off power stones.

Until then, they still needed to stop in at gas stations.

"Wow!" Jessy's yelp of surprise was slightly muffled her helmet but Sonic still heard it as he had a modified ear piece in.

"What is it?" The hedgehog asked, slowing his pace as Jessy started to slow down and pull her motorcycle into a gas station.

"I haven't seen gas this low in a long time." Jessy said after she parked and pulled off the helmet.

Sonic made a noncommittal sound as he hopped up onto the motorcycle and half laid down on it after Jessy got off. He made face at the smell of the gasoline after Jessy poked his feet to get to the tank. The blue hedgehog sighed and started to tap one foot against the side of the other as he waited.

"How long is this going to take?" the Anthro asked glancing up at the woman.

Jessy kept her eyes on the pump as she answered, "Not long bro." she said, not bothered that this question was asked every time they stopped to fill up.

Sonic shifted, propping his feet up on one of the handle bars of the motorcycle as Jessy left to pay. The hedgehog watched the mechanic through the station's windows. He started to tap a finger, unable to hold still for long. He wanted to go, to move, to run, yet Sonic kept himself in check. Yes, he did want to go but he also wanted Jessy to come along.

She was family now. That was something Sonic never had before that he knew of, and he could wait a few minutes for a sister. He hadn't said it aloud but he loved the fact that first Jessy then the rest of her family had adopted him into their mists. It had been something he had always wanted, to be a part of a family. To be safe, to have a place where he was not only welcome but could come to whenever he wanted or needed help. Being well fed was a wonderful bonus too!

Even if picks were a bit slimmer right now than they were before the still unknown ambush attack on them.

A black vehicle pulled into the gas station, making one of Sonic's ears twitch back at the sound of tires rolling on gravel. Two emerald green eyes glanced over lazily at the car.

He was stepping out of a black sedan after two others into the hot sun of central California. A large facility, with massive labs deep underground, waited for a new shift of arm guards.

Sonic blinked and sat up. His legs dropping to either side of the motorcycle and his feet dangled just above the ground. The hedgehog Anthro tracked the minivan with his eyes. He only relaxed when a family of four, plus a baby, climbed out.

Sonic smiled and waved at the two kids who just spotted him. They stared a moment, one shyly waving back, before darting back too Mom and Dad. Normally the hedgehog would grin and show off a bit, but he was a little preoccupied with that snapshot of a memory.

He knew it was him getting out of the car, yet something didn't add up. Something was off in the memory that did not match up with the him of 'now.' It was how he moved, or didn't move. Sonic frowned as he placed what was wrong.

In the memory, he wasn't being mindful of his longer quills let alone the sensitive tail.

Said tail twitched and the end started to tap a rhythm out on the seat behind him. Sonic looked back at it, frowning and trying to imagine what it would be like without a tail, but couldn't.

"Okay ready!" Jessy said coming back and broke Sonic's train of thought. "Stop staring at your tail, its attached still. Let's go, move back or run."

Sonic braced his hands on the seat in front of him and scooted back to let Jessy on. He waited a moment to let the mechanic start the Mac before Sonic latched onto her. The hedgehog wrapped his arms around her middle, catching Jessy's riding jacket in a tight grip as he propped his chin on her shoulder; streamlining himself with her.

"Let's go Jes'."

"Okay but I need to breath!"

It was that evening when Sonic spoke up about what was bothering him

"Flashbacks?" Jessy quirked an eyebrow up at the blue and brown hedgehog after he asked her what she knew of memory loss and having flashbacks. The woman took a bite of her tuna sandwich as she passed another to Sonic for their late lunch. This was far from the first time they had this discussion, and even know Sonic was writing something down before delving into his sandwich.

They were at another rest stop, one that had a small cliff face and that over looked a healthy looking forest, Jessy had parked her motorcycle back near the bathrooms, within sight. Both were enjoying the sun and talk seemed unable to stay on one topic for long until now.

"I'm sorry Sonic I don't know that much other then you have to let it come on its own." Jessy said, "You know what Red said just as much as I do."

"What if I don't want to remember?" Sonic asked leaning back on the picnic table they were sitting at. "Some, most really, of what I have been remembering isn't very…nice."

"Well, I don't know what to say to that, sorry Sonic." Jessy frowned but reached over to ruffle the fur between his ears, trying her best to be comforting without smothering him like some members of her family might (coughcoughAuntyMinicough).

Sonic shock his head to clear it, his quills swaying from one side to another in a secondary movement. "Oh well." He shrugged it off; he was getting very good at that now, instead shifted closer to get a welcomed ear-rub at. After a minute the anthro tipped both his ears up as he eyed the half of sandwich that Jessy still had left.

Jessy blinked, not knowing the danger.

Sonic bolted and Jessy yelped as he hopped up and stopped right behind her. One blue arm that was stronger then it looked, pinned her right arm to her side and Sonic used his other hand to take the sandwich half.

"Ah!" Jessy yelped, "That's mine Sonic!"

"Not anymore!" the hedgehog said leaping backwards out of reach as Jessy scrambled after him.

"Give it back, please?" The woman asked.

"No can do Sis."

"Sonic!"

"Mmmmm…" Sonic mumbled as he took a bite.

"Ahhh! Don't eat it!"

"Mmm? Vhy? It vood."

"It's mine!" Jessy insisted as she ran after the hedgehog.

"Not anymore." Sonic swallowed his mouthful.

"…Grrr!"

"OH! Too slow Jes'!"

"Come back here!"

"Missed me!"

"Sonic!"

"Come on Sis, I know you're not this slow."

"Oooo…! When I get my hands on you, you hyper hedgie-" The mechanic growled out, she had thought this brand of sibling rivalry was well and truly gone when her elder bothers had left those years ago. She was about to bring up the threat, promis of not making any food for Sonic for the next few weeks when the impromtue game was interrupted by a shock wave and a deeper then thunder...

~BOOM!~

"-AHH!" Both human and anthro yelled, balance disturbed by the shock wave.

"Jessy!" Sonic grabbed a fistful of the mechanic's riding jacket and yanked; pulling her safely back away from the small cliff's edge and into his blue and brown chest. Sonic tightened his grip on his adopted sister as both of them regained their feet and stared with wide eyes at the large, dark mushroom cloud of smoke that was forming over the forest below.

"Sonic…?"

"Whoa…"

Sonic's quills lifted up and spread out to either side slightly as he focused in on something. Jessy felt him tense, it was her only warning she had before Sonic lifted her into his arms and took off. With another yelp Jessy ducked her head down into Sonic's shoulder to hide from the worst of the wind. She couldn't hear the secondary explosion at first thanks to the wind that was shielding them from almost all sounds outside the cocoon of air that formed around Sonic when he was truly running. The anthro hedgehog jumped and landed on a branch half way up a tree. They both looked back the way they came at what was left of that part of the cliff they had been standing on.

"What the hell?!" the two yelled in unison.

"Hang on!" Sonic added as he jumped again; this time pulling Jessy tightly close into his chest and middle so he could curl around her, using his quills to protect both of them from falling rocks, dirt and wood chunks. Some pieces of wood were on fire!

The hedgehog landed on his feet and took off again. A sonic boom rolled through the forest after a streak of dark blue. The blue streak that was Sonic made abrupt U-turn, ignoring Jessy's rather loud protests as he headed straight to whatever had been firing missiles at them. With his anthro ears, Sonic had heard the fear filled scream that Jessy couldn't over the wind.

The blue and brown hedgehog slide to a stop in a large, unnatural clearing, some husks of trees were burning away off to the sides. Sonic lost his grip on Jessy's legs, so now they were standing side by side with his arms wrapped around her middle, when he got a good look at what they were up against.

From between the massive robot's legs the two could see a petite, pink, anthro hedgehog on the ground. A large hammer of sorts was not far away from her, like she may have dropped it.

She spotted them as the robot lifted a mace-like 'hand' over its head, "Help me!" the female hedgehog cried as she tried to back away.

Jessy managed to sum everything in the situation up quite nicely in just two words herself. "Oh crap."

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