The Tale of the hedgehog brothers

Chapter 11: Happy Ending

When everything settled down, the gang was lying on the ground after returning to normal. They all powered down from their super forms and had their regular colors back. Sonic was the first one to get up, then helped Tails get back up, and then the rest of the gang followed. "Is everyone alright?" Amy asked. "More than alright! Did you see what we just do?!" Knuckles exclaims. "Blaze! You have your necklace back." Said Cream when she noticed that Blaze's golden necklace was back on her neck. She looked down to see she was right. "It is back. The effects of the chaos emeralds must have restored everything to their original form." She explained.

"Wow Sonic! How did you know the emeralds would give us all super forms at once?" Silver asked him. Sonic just answered  "I just thought that with all of us here, we'd be able to beat Dark Manic." He then saw them on the floor and picked them up. Then he turned to his friends and said, "Guys, I can't thank you all enough for coming here for me. I'm sorry for leaving you guys and for not telling you the whole story." Sonic then passed the emeralds over to them while they gave him their looks. "Like we said Sonic, there's no way we would leave you behind even if you say you don't need us." Said Amy. "Yeah. We'll always be there for you, big brother." Tails said while hugging him. Then Blaze came up and pointed out, "Now, I think it's time for another to reconnect with his family." She looked down at a crater in the ground below them.

They all looked down and saw something green in the center of the crater. Tails carried Sonic and flew down to where the crater was. Sonic approached it with caution as he got a closer look, and what he saw surprised him. Inside the crater was a hedgehog who looked completely worn out. His fur color changed from dark green back to its original light green color, his teeth were no longer razor-sharp, and the dark aura was gone. Then Sonic came up to him and said his name, "Manic?". He heard him and opened his eyes, which have now changed back with blue irises and black pupils. The tired and beaten Manic looked up at his brother with worry about what was about to happen. Sonic just looked at him with a straight face and said what he needed to say.

"It's been years since I've seen you the way you are now. Now that you're here, I just have one thing to say to you." He said as Manic shut his eyes awaiting the worst. But what Sonic said was, "I'm sorry." And he looked back at him with wide eyes as he continued. "I'm sorry for everything I did to make you feel bad inside. I never meant to make you feel useless, or that you needed powers to help, and especially for making you think that we didn't trust you. All I wanted was to keep my family safe, but I guess I didn't see how it made you feel. Manic, I know I'm supposed to be a hero and take on anything, but sending you away was the hardest thing I ever faced. It made me realize that I need to count on my friends and family instead of going it alone." Then he glanced at his friends who were coming down to them. "If it wasn't for my team here, then I never would have made it through everything. So please, will you put away your pride and anger and forgive me. I need my brother back." Sonic said while holding out his brother's old medallion to him.

Manic hesitated for a moment, until he just lunged himself to Sonic and hugged him tightly with tears in his eyes. "I'm so sorry! I missed you bro!" he said crying, but with a smile. "I missed you too." Sonic said hugging back. The gang just looked at them from a distance to give them their space. Silver was getting so emotional that he started getting tears in his eyes. "Silver, are you crying?" Blaze asked him and he reacted with an embarrassed look and answered "No! I just... I'm just happy to see Sonic back with his brother." Then the two hedgehog brothers came towards the group with Sonic helping Manic walk upright. "I think you guys need to meet each other properly. Guys, this is my brother, Manic." He said introducing friends to his brother for the first time. Then Tails walked up to them to say hi. "Hey Manic, it's nice to meet you." Then Sonic came up and said, "This is Tails, my other little brother. He helped me realize how important it is to count on family." Tails was touched to hear that Sonic called him his little brother. "I guess that makes him your little brother too." He said bringing them close together. "Really? Well, hey Tails. I always wanted a little brother of my own actually." Manic said and hugged him. Tails hesitated for a moment until he hugged back.