Trial of the Wolf Pack

**Trial of the Wolf Pack** is the sixth one-shot of Sonic X: Heroes Forever.

## Characters

* Sonic the Hedgehog (mentioned)
* Lupe Wolf
* Lobo Wolf
* Marcos Wolf
* Maria Wolf
* Lyco Wolf
* Leeta Wolf
* Reynard Wolf (first appearance)
* Diablo Wolf (first appearance)
* Canus Wolf (first physical appearance)
* Lupis Wolf (Unnamed, seen Lupe’s imagination)
* Aurora (Mentioned)
* Aerial
* Athena
* Brandon Mutt
* Riff
* Chaos (Mentioned)
* Chris Thorndyke (Mentioned)

## Plot

This one-shot starts with Marcos laying on his back and feeling irritated. All three of his sisters are sound asleep and the quartet are in a darker part of the woods than they would normally be. He starts to think about what he did yesterday.

Marcos and his sister Maria enter their parents’ section of the hut, though Maria voices her concerns about this. Marcos assures they are just going to borrow Lupe’s spear to catch fish and practice playing the flute. Maria notes Lupe wouldn’t leave her spear unguarded, while Marcos is angry that he and his sisters are treated like ordinary kids when they are the children of the Wolf Pack Freedom Fighters. The twins then show up and Maria explains what’s going on. Aerial voices her concerns, but, Athena actually sides with Marcos. Aerial explains that Lupe’s probably taken her spear with her and she may know what Athena and Marcos are planning when a familiar voice blurts out that she does. All four kids spin around to see a very angry Lupe staring at them, saying she was disappointed in them. Maria protests it was Marcos’ idea, but, Lupe explains that despite the fact she and Aerial protested, they did nothing to stop Marcos and Athena from going further. Lupe also tells Maria she has a responsibility to her siblings, being the oldest, but, Marcos cuts in that he’s sick of being treated as an ordinary kid. Lupe scolds him that he is 10 years old and can’t fight (despite the fact Tails and Cream are both younger than him and Ray is the same age as him and able to fight), but, Marcos protests that she’s underestimating him. Lupe tells the kids they are grounded and Marcos and his sisters all grumble as they head to their sections of the hut.

Cutting back to the present, Marcos looks at a Wolf Pack script and tries to read it, but, since he never paid attention to his lessons, he can’t. He wakes up Maria to read the script for him (who hadn’t taken notice of the environment she and her siblings are in) and as the Overlander twins wake up, she realizes they are in the darker part of the forest and must live their for a month as part of the Trial of the Wolf Pack, set up years ago by their ancestors to see who’d be the new leader. A forest spirit also roams the area, so says the note, but, Maria quickly reassures Aerial it was made up by her mother to scare them and they try to find their way home. As Maria pushes the bushes back, the kids are shocked to see the Forest Spirit trying to attack them with his axe. They all run for it and after 2 hours, the spirit gives up and leaves. Maria is shocked that it wasn’t a trick and they all decide to take refuge in the area. Unfortunately, the kids are hungry and they have to find food. Marcos notes the spirit’s gone and he smelled mossy and they all climb down from the tree. They also spot an earth rabbit and decide to hunt it down for food, but, unfortunately it gets away and the children all get bumps on their heads. They then settle for catching fish, but, the fish slip away from them at the last second. Athena then catches a fish in a bowl that seems to be made from stone, a salmon to be exact, but, it ends up jumping out of the bowl, much to Maria’s shock.

Unfortunately, as they don’t catch any more fish, they resort to eating bugs, the Overlander twins being more visibly disgusted than the wolf kids. Marcos isn’t eating and Athena asks in sign language why he isn’t eating anything. Marcos admits he’s thinking, to which Maria believes will take a few days. After a few insults, Marcos admits he’s thinking about why they can’t get good tasting food and he ends up sleeping on it.

The next day, he realizes the answer and calls his sisters over to him (who are annoyed at being woken up early). He motions for them to follow him to the stream as he dips his hands in the water. He waits until a fish is under his hands and knocks it onto land. His sisters are surprised as he adapted to things nicely, especially considering that, according to Maria, he stuck his tongue in a Venus flytrap once. After trying to defend himself from that remark, he insists this will take all four siblings working together. They eventually caught enough fish for a week and were about to eat some of it when they saw a figure nearby. The figure throws the axe at the fish, which causes Marcos and Maria to scoop up their Overlander sisters and rush away. They return half an hour later to find their food all gone, causing poor Athena to cry as Marcos hugs her. He then declares to his siblings this isn’t over and they will fight the Forest Spirit before the month is over and win against him. This unfortunately doesn’t stop Maria from scolding Marcos, though he admits she’s right they were in the mess because of him, causing her to be shocked. He also admits that they should punish him after the trial because they need to focus on things at the moment. Maria lets her brother go this once.

After two weeks, the wolf pack siblings have adapted to the forest. Marcos has a bow made from wood and spider web threads, Maria has made a two-headed spear and the twins have made tools and weapons. Marcos then loads his quaver with blunted arrows, Maria meditates to focus herself and the twins gather their best equipment. They find the Spirit as Maria races forward, using her two-headed spear like a baton. He counters the attack by throwing Maria over his head. Aerial and Athena fire balls of dirt at the Spirit’s mask. This distracts him long enough for Marcos to fire the blunt arrows at the Spirit’s shoulders and stomach, his eyes glowing bright orange as he does so. Maria then charges forward again, this time succeeding in knocking the Forest Spirit off his feet. Marcos is about ready to shoot another arrow at the spirit, when he realizes it was Lobo, the kids’ dad. Athena kicks him in retaliation and annoyance, and Lobo calls the rest of the pack out, including Canus, Diablo, and Reynard, much to the kids’ surprise. They were found in Mexico by Lupe, which has some good food, according to Canus. Diablo was a bit dismayed to find his name means “devil” there, which causes Reynard to tease him a bit, only for Canus to realize it was getting out of hand in front of the kids. Lupe admits this was a punishment which the kids would give up in about a day and a half, but, Lyco admits they persisted longer than they thought. Marcos apologies for trying to take the spear, but, Lupe apologizes for being overprotective of her kids and should have allowed them to be warriors. They had passed the trial and become amazing fighters, but, Marcos is still confused as to why they allowed Lobo to swing an axe at them. He admits it was blunt and he missed on purpose. Canus then explains he took the fish to be cooked as a reward for the group’s hard work, and no one could eat it, Reynard was thrown into a tree when he tried. Marcos fears the fish would have been spoiled, but, Canus explains about the jarring method he learned in Mexico (which took a while because of language barriers). Leeta also explains that Chris had brought in jars and explained about Chaos flooding Station Square, Sonic being framed and arrested by G.U.N. and Space Colony ARK falling to Earth. Maria is very disappointed they missed out on two visits from Chris and the kids start feeling hungry again. Marcos admits that on top of the crazy shenanigans, his eyes had felt weird lately. Ever since he used the bow, he started seeing things more sharply, like Leeta having an ant crawling on her nose (which she shortly blows off herself). Lupe realizes Marcos has unlocked the Sniper-Type Ability Type, which is gifted to only a lucky few and can only be unlocked “through strict determination and training with a ranged weapon.” Maria also started to feel she has a connection through nature like her mother and she started to feel that as she meditated. Lobo also realizes that the Overlander twins are Intelligence-Types, given how they managed to structure strong tools, much to their astonishment. The group all go and eat the fish that the kids had caught and Lupe sees an image of her father next to Marcos as the one-shot ends.

## Trivia

* Riff and Brandon break the fourth wall, explaining that salmon can jump incredibly high.
* Lobo wore a mossy smelling cloak to cover his scent so his kids wouldn't discover his identity by smell.
* The Sniper Ability Type has been revealed in the series and Athena and Aerial are shown to be Intelligence-Types the whole time.
* This is the first story to take place during the Chaos and Shadow saga after Episode 40 had been released.