Sonic's New Life, Chaper 2

Chapter 2: A Friend Comes Back


The moon is in full view over the lake now. I think to myself how beautiful it is, how ordinary, but then I remember that it holds a darker side to what it is. Sound's kinda like me, at least in some strange, inexplicable way.

I sigh once more to myself, wondering what I'm going to do for the rest of the night. I'm not just going to stand here in the water the entire time. My thoughts are cut short though, by an acute pain in my wrist. I suddenly remember that the bracelet is still around my wrist, now cutting deeply into my skin. I lift by wrist up to take a look at the damage, but the shaggy white fur is in the way. With my other hand, I push the fur aside and am shock by just how deep the bracelet is cutting. Blood has stained the metal red, and I can feel it oozing from the wound and see it fall into the water. The circulation is all but cut off from my hand and there's no way I can remove the bracelet without sawing my hand off while in this form. I kinda wish Chip was here now. Maybe he'd be able to remove it somehow. His hands are small, so he'd be able to get hold of the bracelet better. Of course, wishing that is pretty stupid; since Chip was resealed beneath the planet along with Dark Gaia.

"Damn it," I curse to myself.

Suddenly, the green gem begins to glow brightly. Growling softly, I look away and shield my sensitive eyes with my other hand from the blinding light. During this, I felt the pain leave my wrist, and the new sensation of pins and needles running all across my hand as the circulation returned to it. Anyway, a moment or two later, I lower my hand away from my face to see what had happened. My mouth falls open slightly in surprise, revealing some of my fangs. There, floating a few feet in front of me is the friend I'd thought I'd lost; rubbing his eyes and stretching as if just waking up from a good, long nap.

"Chip?!" I exclaim in surprise.

The little floating creature stops stretching and turned around in response to the familiar name calling for him. He gasps in shock at my appearance, falling to the ground. "S-Sonic?" he asks, unsure as he leans back on his hands looking up at me.

"How's it goin'? " I greet sheepishly, rubbing my hand at the back of my head through my long dark fur and quills.

Chip gets up and flies up to me and around my head once, getting a good look at me. "W-What happened? Why are you still like this?" he asks, now floating in front of my face.

So I explain to him about how I transform every full moon, just like a werewolf in all those fairytales.

"D-Do your friends know?

I shake my head. "I thought it was gone when Dark Gaia was gone. Everyone else thought so too, and still thinks so."

"Well, what're you gonna do now?" he asks, abruptly changing the subject.

I shrug in response. I still haven't figured that out yet.

~

It's quite a few hours later now, probably pat midnight. I'd decided on just climbing and swinging through the trees. There's nothing else for me to do. I can't go into town like this like I used to, since I don't wanna startle or frighten anyone. I could just give into the more animalistic side of my nature and hunt, but I'm not like that. I don't like to kill. Anyway, swinging through the trees is kind of fun. Climbing them is easy, with my claws and spike-studded sneaker bottoms. I guess I could just reach the lower limbs with my stretchy arms, but that's just no fun. (Yes, I have stretchy arms, at least while stuck in my werehog form. Go figure why, because I sure don't know.) Anyway, swinging through the trees is pretty fun. It's nowhere near as fast as when I run in my regular form, but it sure does still make me feel like I'm flying.

It's easier for Chip to keep up with me. While I swing and he flies, we talk. I tell him about adventures I'd had in my past and over the last few months while he was gone. He asks me a lot of questions. He's really curious, but I guess I can't blame him. He's been locked up within the planet for so long that it hurts my head if I try to imagine the number of years that is, plus the fact that he got locked up again for the past few months; so there's that. There is one thing I wanna ask him though.

"So, how'd you come back anyway?" I ask after finishing up a story about me going to a different world and how I'm king there (I still don't quite understand it completely, so please don't ask about that).

"That bracelet I left you was so you could call me back whenever you wanted," was his answer.

Oh. Wow. I feel so stupid right now for not having known that. Anyway, I can see that Chip's starting to get tired. I don't wanna stop swinging around, but the muscles in my arms protest against me, so I drop to the ground from the branch I was hanging on, landing a little roughly on all fours (hands and feet people). My gaze turns to the sky, and wow is the moon high! Chip and I must've been talking for hours. It sure doesn't feel like it though. There's still at least a few hours until daylight though, so I can't go home just yet. I don't wanna risk anyone seeing me like this, especially if they're waiting for me at my house because they might be worried about me.

~

It's around four in the morning now, at least that's what I'm guessing for the position of the moon. I'm not heading home yet (if case you were wondering, I do have my own house, despite being only fifteen). There is one thing that's been bugging me all night. It got pushed to the back of my mind during the transformation, Chip reappearing, and me getting caught up in telling him stories about my adventures, but it's something I feel I should do.

You see, before I'd run off to be alone in the woods, I'd been helping Amy with something, though what it was I don't quite remember. (Amy, or Amy Rose, is a twelve year old pink hedgehog girl who's been in love with me as long as I can remember. She often claims to be my girlfriend, though time and time again I tell her I don't feel the same way about her. She refuses to listen to me though, and can be kind of annoying sometimes, but she's a good friend nonetheless. …Wow, I really got off topic! Sorry! Anyways, back to what I was saying). At one point, I'd looked up at one of the clocks in her home and saw just how late it had really become. I hastily told Amy I was late to meet someone and I had to go (an example of my lame excuses) and I took off before she could ask me any questions.
I feel bad about having done that to her, even with how annoying she can be. So I wanna make it up to her with some kind of present. (I guess I should've searched earlier, but I was having too much fun swinging through the trees and talking with Chip. I got sidetracked.)

"What are we looking for anyway Sonic?" he asks me. So I tell him. "Oh I see. Trying to make up with your girlfriend?

I simply roll my eyes, ignoring his jibe. Chip knows Amy and I are just friends. Anyway, the two of us have gone quite deep in the forest by now. It's, my guess, somewhere between four-thirty and quarter of five, and I still haven't found any sort of decent apology gift for Amy (ugh, why are girls SO hard to find pleasing gifts for?).

Yet suddenly, my mind is pulled away from this worry when my ears turn towards a metallic clicking sound. Off in the distance, some yards ahead of me off to the side of where I'm walking on all fours, I hear said sound. I freeze in my tracks, feeling a growl building deep in my chest as my eyes flit around everywhere. Chip, who's flying alongside me, stops in midair just after I do. He looks to me about to ask what's wrong, but after seeing the look on my face, he hides behind me, underneath my
white-tipped quills.

No…it couldn't be…Hunters; this early?! (Normally I wouldn't worry about this, but since I look more animalistic, I've been mistaken for such, more than once while out here.) I have no time to wonder though, because a shot rings out through the forest. Sleeping birds are startled by the noise and fly off. I feel a sudden sharp pain in my left arm, causing me to cry out in pain as I realize a bullet has shot me, and gone clean through, and the pain is shooting down my entire arm.

Without thinking, I turn around and start running back the way I'd come with Chip desperately clinging to my quills. With me taking off the way I did though, it must've ignited some sort of signal, because before I knew it I heard all kinds of barks and growls right behind me. A pack of hunting dogs is chasing me! (For the record, I do live on planet Earth, not Mobius; where my comic book counterpart lives. There are humans and regular animals, as well as anthropomorphic animals; like myself.)

I had a good head start, but with my injured arms, the pack of dogs quickly closes in. Before I know it they're right behind me. I zigzag all over the place through the forest, but the dogs are unshakable.
One of the dogs is soon running right beside me. It jumps, lunging for my throat; missing it by mere inches as I veer to the side to avoid its death-bite. It instead latches onto my injured arm, sinking its teeth into my flesh. I growl in pain, forced to halt as I can't run any further with the dog latched onto me. Little did I realize that I'd been headed for a trap the whole time I was trying to get away. With a decent amount of force, I'm able to pry the dog off my other hand (though not before it ripped away some of my fur and flesh in its mouth from my arm) and I throw it away from me. It landed several yards away, and I heard it yelp in pain.

Anyways, back to the trap. I didn't realize until now that I'm surrounded on all possible sides. My eyes look around as I clutch at my bleeding arm. The pack of dogs is slowly closing in on me and Chip, who's once again hiding beneath my quills in fear. Instinctively, I growl back in response, though I feel slightly light-headed from both blood loss and exhaustion.

Another shot rings out, sounding much closer this time. There was barely enough time to escape, Using some of the energy I still had left, I stretched my good arm as fast as I could to the nearest to the nearest tree and grab a low hanging limb. My arm retracts, pulling me upwards into the tree. I climb still higher so I can't be seen, with Chip still clinging to my quills. I think the bullet intended for me must've shot one of the dogs that had been behind me, because I hear on yelp in pain. Great, now I'm stuck up here until the hunter and his dogs decide to leave, bleeding badly from my left arm where the first bullet fired at me before went through my shoulder, but also from where I was bitten on my forearm by that dog I threw off of me.

~

Finally, after a half hour, the pack of dogs and the unknown hunter finally give up and leave. My injured arm is all but useless now. It's still bleeding, but not as badly as before. (Almost forgot about that injury on my right wrist from when the metal bracelet cut into my wrist before. It's stopped bleeding, though it's become a bit swollen and red from the irritation of the fur on my wrist rubbing inside of it. It doesn't hurt at all though.)Blood had soaked into the fur on my arm that's still there as well as down my shoulder and back, caking into my midnight blue fur as the blood dries. My uninjured hand (well, uninjured as compared to my left arm) is also covered in blood from where I tried to stem the bleeding. I'd even resorted to trying to clean the wound (the bite would I could easily reach) with my tongue like regular animals do. Let me tell you something, my blood tasted awful as it got lapped up onto my tongue when I tried cleaning the wound. The taste made me feel sick (and Chip looked like he would vomit a couple times himself).

I've somehow managed to climb down from the tree with the use of only one arm and am walking home on two legs while clutching my bleeding arm. It's slow going, because I tend to stumble a lot when walking of two legs in this form, but somehow I manage. I'm so light-headed I can hardly think straight, and yet by some miracle I manage to make it most of the way home. I'm actually in my backyard (which is actually connected to the woods in a way) before I collapse completely. It's still early enough so no one is outside in the other yards that I can see. The sun is coming up now, and I feel an agonizing pain grip my entire body as I begin to revert to my real self. My muscles and bones retract to their original size, my fur shrinks and lightens back to the regular blue and my arms return to their peach color, the white on the tips of my quills and around my wrists disappears, the claws on my hands return to normal as the light midnight blue turns peach like my arms and the claws on my feet return to normal as my shoes change back to the way they usually look (though my socks remain torn in places), my ears and tail shrink back to normal, and my face goes back to its original shape.

This process is painful too. My screams are muffled by the grass where I lay face down.

Because of the pain, I black out completely as blood slowly pools from my arm, staining the grass a sickly red color. Chip, who's been with me the whole time, flies off in search of help. Little did I know that someone had been waiting for me on my back porch; well, it's a deck actually (my yard isn't fenced in, so people can just go directly through the back without going through the house or through any gates if they want to); the entire night, waiting for me to come home from what I'd supposedly told her I had had to do before taking off from her.

To be continued...