Hewwwooo everyone! I'm back!

Sorry for taking so long- but updating two fics at the same is harder than I thought. Also I may or may not have gone through a little Phineas and Ferb fic obsession for a few days, and read a lot of ao3 and fics. Which obviously delayed my writing too.

Also you guys might have noticed (or not lol) that I've tweaked the timeline a bit in this fic. So, instead of a year gap between Green Hills meeting Sonic and Tails and Knuckles showing up, it's eight months. And instead of six months between Sonic, Tails and Knuckles becoming brothers and Longclaw coming back, it's ten months. I did that because I found out recently that the second movie's book said there were eight months between the first and second movie.

It's nothing crazy, but I felt it would be better that way.

And just one more thing before I let you guys read this new chapter. I've realized I've never said the ages Sonic, Tails and Knuckles have in this fic. So, I'm going to do that now lol.

Sonic - 14 years old and a half (I headcanon him as being 13 years old in the first movie)

Tails - Almost 8 years old (I headcanon him as being 7 years old in the second movie)

Knuckles - Almost 16 years old (I headcanon him as being 15 years old in the second movie)

Well... that's it! Hope you guys enjoy this new chapter!

Longclaw and Sonic were almost reaching the center of Green Hills, where the humans gathered most frequently. Longclaw would be lying if she said she wasn't nervous.

She was definitely nervous.

She sort of trusts Tom and Maddie—they both (and Sonic, too) showed enough reasons for that—but other humans? Not so much.

Sonic trusted them, and the whole town kept him a secret the whole time until the world found out. And that was just enough for her to go anywhere near those humans. Especially since Sonic sure loved them. And a lot.

And then there's Tails—what a poor kid! He had to go through so much, and he's still only seven! She really hopes they can help him get better. Perhaps she could help him, too—if the opportunity surges, that is.

From what Sonic had shared with her, Tails was a true genius. He had done so many things she could only dream of doing! And seeing h-their Sonic being so proud of his little brother was honestly pretty enduring to see. Sonic has a heart of gold, so it's not a surprise that he is a good brother to Tails… and a good brother to Knuckles too.

Speaking of Knuckles...

When she woke up this morning, she certainly hadn't been expecting Knuckles to offer the proposal of sharing the Master Emerald with them. She had already been content to know that their son shared the Master Emerald. And if something were to happen, she (when her other ring fully healed, that is) and Sonic could defend themselves and each other. But the fact that he asked if she wanted to be part of their order, when she knew (since Sonic had told her yesterday, when they were the only ones together) that Sonic wasn't going to ask Knuckles for that, really surprised her. She's still not sure if Knuckles' intentions are pure or not.

But he had no reason to do that either. A part of her says.

And he was Sonic's brother. So, she's starting to trust Knuckles a little. Otherwise, why would he make her part of the Master Emerald order? He could be doing it to make her trust him, yes, but it still didn't make much sense.

Perhaps Sonic was right about Knuckles. Since yesterday, a lot of things she thought of as absolute truths were wrong.

An echidna being trustworthy, even to the last of her species, became a lot more plausible in a day.

Once they finally reached their destination, everyone was just acting normally. As if Sonic and Longclaw were just like them—humans—even though they weren't! They were also incredibly polite, greeting Sonic and her by their names too! (They already knew her name- Tom had apparently told them. He was what humans called a 'shearif', which meant he was someone who took care of this 'town' and their people. So, it did make sense).

Sonic answered them with very excited greetings, most of them filled with nicknames that she couldn't quite comprehend. She did her part and greeted them, too, in a respectful way. She didn't expect everyone to be this friendly and welcoming. And Sonic definitely wasn't kidding when he said he was famous around here.

After Sonic showed her various places the 'town' has (the town looked really lovely, she had to admit), a wrinkly male human with white hair approached in their direction, waving at Sonic.

"Hey, Carl! How is it hanging?"

"Hey, Sonic. Good to see you again!" Carl replied, giving a small smile to Sonic before looking at her. "And you must be Sonic's other mother, Longclaw. Tom and Maddie told me about you the other day. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"It's a pleasure to meet you too, Carl." Longclaw nodded with a polite smile.

And so they began having a quick chat. Sonic seemed to really like him. Carl, too.

And Longclaw had to admit that she was enjoying the conversation. Carl was a very nice and polite human. At least, he seemed so. He was the one who brought all of those mice for her to eat (obviously, she thanked him immediately). The mice he had caught were really good ones. And he did hide Sonic from the government.

And besides, why would Sonic like him if he wasn't (probably) a good person.

That was until...

"Yknow, Lo-mom, Carl was the only one who had seen me before Tom did." As soon as their son finished, his face became one of 'I said too much'.

What was their son hiding?

"I-I," Carl started, immediately after he noticed how nervous Sonic was, his words somewhat faltering... Why was he hesitating? "I was in the forest one night and saw him—back when he was little. I thought I was hallucinating until I saw him battle Eggman. Your son is a real hero, let me tell you."

Longclaw had a distinct feeling that neither their son nor this human 'Carl' were sharing the whole truth. There was something else that at least one of them wasn't telling. She can tell it isn't anything serious, but she's going to keep an eye on this human. Maybe ask a couple of questions to Tom and Maddie about him. Especially since Tom is the leader of the town. To understand if there's anything dangerous about this man.

Eventually they finished their little chat. She enjoyed their conversation,even though she felt some distrust towards Carl. She was sure that at least one of them was hiding something from her.

Sonic, then, showed more of Green Hills (as if he wasn't hiding anything from her... and potentially Tom and Maddie, too) with his usual charisma and excitement.

In certain aspects, Sonic was the same as he was when he was just three years old. She's so glad everything he had to go through didn't break who he was. Even if, according to Tom and Maddie, he has some issues because of her, he's still a very happy kid. She needs to find out more about this 'therapy' they talked about.

Perhaps she could ask Tom and Maddie what it was in more detail later.

And it would be a good opportunity to ask about Carl, too.

Eventually, after a lot more greeting of Green Hills' residents, two young humans headed in their direction. They were greeting Sonic. Sonic did the same excitedly.

These two humans, who were around Sonic's age, became his friends after he revealed himself to the town. They were cousins named Matthew and Gabriel, and they both had dark brown hair in different styles. They also wore 'glaases' on their eyes. Gabriel was taller than Matthew by a few inches.

They talked for a bit, and it was very noticeable that Sonic really liked them. And those humans liked Sonic a lot, too, she could tell. She was glad Sonic had found people who seemed to love him. And she was starting to feel more hopeful about humans. She wanted to try to trust them… for Sonic's sake. Not that she wasn't before! But seeing Sonic so happy and the way the whole town is welcoming them made her more motivated to do so.

"So Longclaw… You're his mom, too, right?" Mattew asked Longclaw after quite a bit of chitchat.

He was the one who was actually speaking, besides Sonic, of course. Gabriel was very quiet. But it seemed it was more because he didn't feel comfortable talking to new people than anything else. He probably opened up more when it was just him and his friends.

Longclaw nodded.

"That's pretty cool, actually." Gabriel said it somewhat awkwardly.

Gabriel reminded her a little bit of herself when she was his age. She was also a bit awkward with new people. Thankfully, she grew out of that phase. She was kind of forced to, after all. Her par-

"Good morning, everyone!" A human that looked to be about the same age as Tom said this, disrupting her thoughts.

Everyone replied, including Longclaw, with their good mornings.

"You must be Longclaw. Nice to meet you." Wade said, gently holding her good wing with his hand. "Or is it Miss Longclaw? If that was the case, I apologize. I didn't-"

"Longclaw is just fine." Longclaw replied, interrupting Wade's ramble and laughing slightly at Wade's awkwardness while the kids snickered as well (not that she could blame them).

And she thought Gabriel was awkward.

"You're the Wade Tom told me about, right?"

Wade nodded.

"Nice to meet you, too." Longclaw finished with, once again, a polite smile.

"Y'know…" Wade began. "I thought you were Tails' father back when I saw you in that hologram thingy."

"In what?" Longclaw asked, genuinely confused. What did he even mean? In what way did he even see her?

Sonic just snorted, while Gabriel and Mattew tried their best to hold their laughter. Then, Sonic explained to Wade that he had seen Longclaw on the map she had given him. Which definitely made a lot more sense.

As he's finishing his explanation, something starts emitting a tune. Sonic picked up his 'telephone' (so that's where the sound was coming from). In it, it was written 'Pretzel Lady (Mom)' accompanied by a silly picture Sonic and Maddie had taken.

But why was Maddie calling Sonic? It was still too early...

Tails was busy in his workshop, designing and building a communicator for him and his family, which was a surprise. Sure, phones existed. But these communicators would have many advantages that phones didn't have (in case they had to save the world again) and would make communication between everyone easier. It was a watch, so it was less likely for them to lose it than a phone. However, at some point, his thoughts about how many features the watch could handle, how the watch would look, and what kind of hardware would be necessary for the watch to work properly gradually shifted towards Longclaw.

He had read some theories that some Mobian scientists had written about the possibility of time travel with the rings (when he had the courage to go to his village library). He never would have expected, however, that to happen specifically with Longclaw. He already knew what had supposedly happened to Longclaw, even before he met Sonic. After all, he had watched him for seven months. Which made him know a lot of things about Sonic. He could never imagine how it must've been for Sonic to lose someone so close to him and to be fully isolated in a whole new place.

But, at the same time, he could.

His village and family always saw him as some kind of… curse because of his two tails.

And neither of them hid how much they despised him because of that.

It really didn't surprise him when his parents left him in the middle of a forest, back when he was just a three-year-old kit and was deemed good enough by his parents to take care of himself. And to be fair, He had to endure constant abuse from his village and his own family, which made him more capable than he should have been at that age. Genius or not.

He had, after that, for years felt ashamed of his tails.

Until the explosion.

Sonic was different. He was weird. Like him.

But he didn't care. He was proud of what made him different. And the people back in Green Hills accepted Sonic for who he really was.

Sonic made him realize that he shouldn't feel ashamed of his two tails. That his two tails made him special. Not weird.

And, then, for the next eight months, Tails idolized Sonic. Sonic had become a hero to him.

That is, until he met his hero and started living with him. Eventually, Sonic became more of his brother than his hero.

He gained a family. A family that actually loved him and cared about him.

It was kind of weird. But a good weird. It was amazing. He had never had anyone who loved or wanted him. Now he had a family that accepted and cherished him. A mom and dad and two brothers who were there for me. It seemed like a dream. A fairytale.

Except it wasn't. His family was real. This wasn't a fairytale, neither were his dreams nor anything inside his imagination.

This was reality.

And now that Longclaw had actually been alive all along, his family would become even bigger. Obviously, his older brother, Knuckles, was having some difficulties with that (Longclaw, too), for obvious reasons. But Tails was sure that, eventually, everything would end up alright.

He had always wondered what Longclaw was like. He had seen her old home, a place that was now abandoned and sacred, where Sonic used to live (back when he was looking for a clue to track Sonic down). But he never got to meet her. He wished he could have talked to her.

But now he can. And since she's not going anywhere, he has plenty of time to do that.

There was just a tiny little problem in all of this.

He hasn't been very open and truthful about his past.

While he told Sonic, back in Siberia, and his family, eventually, that his village thought he was weird, he really hasn't told them about everything else.

About his past.

His family had asked him about it. And they had opened up plenty of opportunities, too.

But Sonic and Knuckles had way bigger traumas than he had anyway. And he had been fine these past three years anyway.

He was just… kind of isolated from everyone… in the forest… all alone… but Sonic had been fully isolated and alone way longer than him! For ten years! And Knuckles had to bury all of his tribe when he was six! So, they had it worse, and he was going to burden them further if he told his stuff! He could handle it just fine, anyway!

As Tails kept thinking about everything but how to make the watches, Tom called him.

G.U.N had found out about Longclaw.

Then, Tails, with his brothers and parents, watched Longclaw, Command Walters, and some G.U.N. agents go to the living room to have a "talk" (whatever that meant). Apparently, G.U.N. hadn't stopped with their daily (and very obvious) observations. Rather, they changed them to monthly.

As their conversation became more of a heated argument (while Longclaw remained somehow calm—she really had been well trained), everyone started to fear what could happen to Longclaw.

Quiet and rushed conversations were made between his family during the argument, while Tails thought of a solution to all of this.

If it were them, it would've been, at the very worst, somewhat easy. One thing was them. They had saved the world, after all. And Sonic had done that twice.

Longclaw hadn't done any of that.

And the world didn't know of her existence, which, of course, was mostly a good thing. However, in this case, it wasn't.

The world not knowing of Longclaw meant that the new associations, organizations, and groups that aimed for aliens to have the same rights as humans wouldn't even know about Longclaw, which was yet another advantage to G.U.N. And that's not even considering that G.U.N. was part of the government.

So they were at a major disadvantage.

They could always go into hiding. Maybe go back to Mobius. But Mobius could also be a dangerous place. And Tom and Maddie would have a hard time adapting there.

As Tails' mental gears spun faster and faster, thinking about a plan that would make G.U.N leave them and Longclaw alone for good, Tails' brain was hit with an idea. An idea that could very much solve all of their problems...

Tails immediately went to his workshop, giving a very fast 'I know what to do' to his now confused family.

This had to work.

Longclaw stared at the human, Commander Walters, in front of her, trying her best to remain calm.

They were asking a lot of questions that she refused to answer. Questions about herself, Mobius, their son, and everything in between.

With Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles saving the world, they were (relatively) okay with the Wachowski family not answering these types of questions.

Since she wasn't part of their family (with the exception of Sonic, of course), these humans felt like she owned the answers to their questions.

Answers to questions that don't concern them or the government- and she wasn't going to answer them either. The humans already knew more than enough about them. Well… these humans.

Humans could be good, like Mobians could (and, perhaps… echidnas, too). That's just logical. Green Hills' residents seemed to be filled with those types of humans. She can definitely understand why Sonic likes them so much now.

However, Commander Walters showed how humans could be bad. Or, at the very least, towards Mobians (or aliens, as humans call them).

Still, she was going to remain as calm as ever. Especially, because…

"An owl fueled by blind anger and devoid of self-control becomes a weapon turned against itself."

Her mother told her, with her father by their side, right before she was going to sleep.

That phrase was still vividly emblazoned in her mind, since...

That was one of the last things her mother told her.

A few hours later, she woke up to her father's frantic shouting. The echidnas had found their hiding place.

And her mother… had already been killed.

Thankfully, before they could do the same to her and her father, her father woke up. One of the echidnas had stepped on a stick, and since her father was a light sleeper (because of his training), he naturally woke up.

That day was just a blur for Longclaw. Just glimpses of her dead mother's body and father's death.

The only things she can remember clearly are becoming the last one of her species alive after she (not her and her mother and father, no, just her…) outwitted the echidnas and the tears that fell after...

Then, disrupting Longclaw's thoughts of her past, Tails opened the door with a little 'technological' device in his right hand, and...

I really hope I wrote Wade and Carl right 😭 😭

To be honest, I don't think I'm capable of writing them properly. (And yes- I'm not sure if I wrote Carl properly either on chapter 3 of this fic. But, oh well, we livin' and learnin'!)