Author's Note

WARNING!

Important to read Sonic x Make Your Mark from episodes 2 to 9 before continue.

P.S: Thanks to JD1 for editing this chapter!

29. Dragon Dad

At the Sheriff Station, the Mane 5 and Team Sonic were playing with Sparky as he was swinging in a bucket with hoof cuffs on a lamp to stabilize it; Izzy pushed Sparky to swing, and the rest smiled at the cute baby dragon while Sparky cheered in joy and Zipp began to swing Sparky next, though a little too hard at the swinging when she hit the bucket.

Hitch and Knuckles watched from Hitch's desk, keeping a close eye on Sparky, being overprotective of that dragon after he disappeared a few days ago. Their worry grew when they saw a tiny crack in the cuffs' chain, and they gasped in panic. "Ponies, stop! The hoof cuffs are about to…" Hitch tried to warn but got cut off when Zipp hit Sparky's bucket so hard that the hoof cuff snapped and shot Sparky into the air, with the rest looking in shock and Zipp surprised at her strength, while Hitch shrieked in panic and trotted off to catch his dragon.

Sparky cheered at the excitement as his bucket fell, while Hitch cried out as he flopped to the floor and caught Sparky, but then he skied through the floor and hit a table cabinet with a fruit bowl on top, and then a pineapple landed on Hitch’s head. "Great," Hitch groaned, glad that Sparky was okay but really annoyed that he got fruit on his face again. Sparky licked some pineapple content off Hitch's head as he cheered at the taste, with Hitch sighing at this outcome.

Hitch got up from the floor while Knuckles retired the pineapple from his head, while Hitch held Sparky in his hooves. "Right. That’s it. You ponies obviously need a refresher on the 'Three S'es of Successful Pony Parenting,'" Hitch said to the group as he put down Sparky.

"The Three S’es?" Sunny asked as she and the others were confused.

"You didn't just make that up, did you?" Sonic questioned with a raised eyebrow and his arms crossed.

Hitch looked at them in disbelief, realizing that he just made up the new rules, and he tried to think about them carefully as he smiled nervously. "Pssh, no! Uh..." he then started to laugh nervously. "You know. Um… Uh… My foolproof system for perfect dragon parenting!" he quickly said, thinking about the rules while Sparky shuffled around with the bucket on his head as Knuckles chased him. "Uh… Number one: Keep them safe! Yeah," Hitch said while Knuckles launched himself in front of Sparky and placed a surge on the side of his desk before he hit it, which caused the dragon to sit on the ground from the sudden soft impact. "Number two: No snacks!" Hitch cried out, wrapping all the snacks in a cloth from the table and starting to shred them on the shredder.

Izzy gasped at the shredded snacks and smiled. "Spaghetti snacks!" she said with a cheery smile while Knuckles facepalmed at Hitch, overthinking things... again.

Hitch turned to his friends again for the last S rule. "And three: Never let them out of your sight! Wait, where’d he go?" he asked, looking around and not seeing Sparky anywhere. "Sparky? Sparky?!" he called out to him with worry and panic.

The rest looked at him strangely as Zipp chuckled at Hitch and pointed to his head. "Up top, sheriff," she said to Hitch.

Hitch looked up where Zipp was pointing and saw Sparky on top of his head. "Yah!" Sparky cheered, waving his paws.

"I know!" Hitch quickly said with an embarrassing smile. "That was… a test," he said, chuckling sheepishly. "And you passed," he added with a sheepish smile.

Knuckles rolled his eyes at Hitch’s attitude. "Man, you are overthinking and overprotective again," he said boredly.

"I don’t overthink things, Knux. I’m just trying to keep Sparky safe," Hitch said stubbornly, but Knuckles' face said otherwise. "Oh, come on! When was the last time I overthought things?" he asked him and the others.

"Those times you used to think unicorns and pegasi were bad news," Sonic said with an amusing expression.

Hitch blinked at the mention of that. "Okay, good point. But aside from that?" he asked with a confident smile.

"That time when you made every earth pony, Sunny included, from using their magic, it backfired," Tails reminded me with a bored expression. "You even tried to erase it from existing," he pointed out.

"And the actual last time, you put us in a chase all around Maretime Bay that ended up scaring everypony," Knuckles listed with a frown. "Heck, you even threatened them on a terrible Robin cosplay!" he pointed out.

"Who's Robin?" Izzy asked in whispers to Sunny at her side.

"I have no idea," Sunny replied in whispers.

Hitch blinked in surprise at all those points and then chuckled sheepishly. "Okay. I see your point, guys," he said with a chuckle. But this time is different! I’m just trying to look after Sparky, and these three rules will keep him safe," he assured.

"Well, I hope so because last time he got lost, I got a scar on my back," Sonic said with a frown and his hands on his hip. "And even tho another scar would look badass on me..." he said with a little smile that faded away once he saw Pipp staring daggers at him. "... I'd rather not get another one if that means I have to get her rage again," he added with an anxious look.

"Uh, who's 'her'?" Tails questioned.

"You live better without knowing it," Sonic replied.

Misty was walking by outside the station, but then she stopped and saw the window open, curious to know what was happening inside.

Back in the station, Sparky giggled a bit but then stopped as he felt a burp coming up. With that burp came his magic dragon fire, which went out the window.

"Whoa!" Misty cried out as she ducked from Sparky’s dragon fire. "Wait a second," she said, placing a hoof on her chin. "That looked like... dragon fire?!" she called out with wide eyes in realization, since she saw that fire when Opaline asked her to capture him.

And then Misty’s medallion, which Opaline gave her to stay in contact, opened up glowing and floating, pointing to the open window of the station. At the same time, Misty peeked through it and watched Sparky on Hitch’s head. Hitch panicked because Sparky kept shooting his dragon fire.

Misty saw this and brought out her notebook to write down what she saw. "If I can get some juicy intel on Sparky’s dragon fire, maybe Opaline will finally stop talking about it," she said with an annoying look, as she remembered every time Opaline mentioned that dragon fire.

Opaline was shaking Misty, growing dizzy, while Eggman cringed behind. "Get me that dragon fire!" Opaline demanded Misty, while said unicorn looked scared at Opaline’s outburst.

Them, Opaline was showing Misty and Eggman a diagram with a candle on her hoof as she turned with a mischievous smile. "With dragon fire, I’ll be the most powerful Fire Alicorn of all time!" she announced with an evil laugh, while Misty looked on with a nervous smile, nodding her head to Opaline and looking around, while Eggman rubbed his eyes with one hand in annoyance.

And finally, Opaline was taking a nap on her throne straight up with a hoof on her cheek. "Dragon…" she said as she snored. "fire…" she snored again, then turned to the other side with her other hoof touching her cheek while Misty looked worried at Opaline since she was so obsessed with dragon fire.

"Misty, I swear I'll end up killing someone if you don't bring her her damn fire..." Eggman said with an annoyed look.

Misty ended her flashbacks with a strange and focused her attention back to the station to keep notes of what she saw.

In the station, Hitch looked determined as he walked in front of the others, Misty peeking through the window without the others' knowledge.

"The station is danger-proof from head to hoof! Hey, that rhymed," Hitch said with a small smile.

"Oh!" Sunny realized as Izzy nodded. "Like putting those safety locks on cover doors," she said while pointing to the covered door with a safety lock.

"Uh. Try a six-point laser-triggered alarm system!" Hitch said as he pulled a red button from his hoof and pressed it, making two laser stands appear and six lasers appear in front of the cover door.

"Dude, if you made this because of what I said when we first met about having worse security than Eggman, then please grow up," Sonic said with a bored expression, while Tails at his side just looked confused.

Izzy ran to the stands and touched the laser with her hoof, which caused the alarm to go off as the station glowed red. Izzy felt amazed as she stopped touching the laser, but then, of course, she placed her hoof back on the laser, touching it repeatedly as the alarm went off with each touch. Knuckles came close to Izzy with a bored expression as he shook a pair of keys in front of Izzy, which got her attention as she stopped touching the laser. Knuckles walked backward while Izzy hopped after the keys.

Hitch sighs at Izzy's personality since he should've seen that coming. Behind him, Sparky was playfully chopping a carrot with a knife quickly. Hitch turned, saw this, and gasped in panic, running towards Sparky as he snatched the knife from his paws. "And there are sharp objects," he nervously said, putting the knife in his toolbox and locked it in a safe. "Always keep them locked safely away," he said, putting the safe in a bigger safe with a hoof scanner and locking it in the cage. "And under constant watch!" he cried out as he got his animal crew, with cop hats on their heads, out of a wall door; they saluted Hitch and hopped down to the floor, walking back and forth while guarding the safe.

Zipp looked strangely at Hitch's overdoing things while Pipp smiled strangely. "Hmm. Nice and simple," she said to the stallion's safety lessons.

And then, Hitch appeared between the two sisters, startling Zipp and Pipp at his sudden appearance. "Lastly, make sure you cushion all the hard corners and edges," he said, placing bubble wraps on every hard corner and edge in the station, including his framed on the wall, the map, and some hard-edged objects. He even wrapped Sparky in bubble wrap for safety. "See! No risk of harm whatsoever," he said to the others, starting to sweat under pressure.

Sparky jumped up and down while trapped in his bubble wrap, then tripped to the floor, which caused his dragon fire to come out again. Sparky’s dragon fire hit a stabler behind Zipp, who dodged the dragon fire while the stabler turned into a gag, winded up teeth, and bit Zipp's tail as she cringed in pain.

"OW!" Zipp cried out in pain.

"Well, I hope you learn how to control that dragon fire soon as well," Knuckles said with a frown, carefully pulling the teeth off Zipp's tail and throwing them away. "It's getting wilder," he pointed out.

Outside the station, Misty kept watching as she wrote down what she saw in her notebook with an awed expression. "Whoa! No wonder Opaline wants that dragon fire. It’s so powerful!" she said in amazement, then ducked. "Yikes!" she screamed, tossing her pen into the air and dodging another of Sparky’s dragon fire, which hit her pen and turned it into a green mini guitar, which Misty caught and stared in shock at.

Later, the Mane 5 and Team Sonic walked through Maretime Bay, with Hitch holding Sparky on a child's leash so he won't go far.

"Now, Mane Street is the best practice for what I call 'snack resistance' training," he said to the rest while an earth pony stallion passed by, pulling a cart with cotton candy. "Sparky needs to be able to---!" he tried to say, but then cried out in surprise when Sparky rushed off after the cotton candy, dragging Hitch along while the rest watched with surprised looks.

"Sometimes I don't understand how a baby dragon like him can have such strength..." Knuckles said with an anxious look.

Hitch screamed as Sparky dragged him while trying to get the cotton candy, moving past ponies on the sidewalk and running past some bushes while Hitch hit them as he was being dragged.

Misty was hiding in a trash can to get more intel on Sparky’s dragon fire without being noticed, but then Sparky started running towards her at high speed, with Hitch being dragged as he screamed with a bush on his head. Misty looked on in shock as Sparky hit Misty’s trash can, tossing it into the air. Misty crashed back to the floor with a thud while the trash can landed on her head.

Hitch continued to scream with the bush on his head, but luckily, it didn’t last long since he came to a stop. Hitch shook the bush off his head, which messed up his mane from the rush and bush as he regained sight. But then Sparky started rushing off again past the dead bush, while Hitch screamed again, then got hit by a pole that Sparky circled as they came to a stop with Hitch sweating in the exhaust, while Sparky carried a giant cotton candy he got from the stand.

Hitch chuckled nervously as he continued to where he had left off with the rest while a cake cart walked past them. "As I was saying. He needs to be able to…!" he got cut off again as he cried out since Sparky saw the cakes and ran to them, dragging Hitch along again as the others watched on.

"This is going to take a while..." Sonic said with a bored expression.

Sometime later, Sparky carried a cake as he giggled. Hitch flopped on the floor, looking very tired with his messy mane. Sparky placed the cake on a pile of treats and snacks he grabbed after seeing them while the others watched in amazement and shock at what had just happened.

Hitch got up, looking tired as he looked at his friends. "It's a learning curve," he said tiredly, trying to cover up his embarrassment at what just happened.

Izzy popped up from the pile of snacks, smiling as she ate a cupcake. "This learning curve tastes like blueberries!" she said cheerfully, eating the whole blueberry cupcake.

"At this point, I can't believe you're still in one piece taking care of Sparky," Tails confessed with a neutral expression.

"Thank Chaos I was there, Tails; otherwise, he would be dead by now," Knuckles whispered to him.

Then Sunny, Zipp, Pipp, and Team Sonic gave panicked expressions at what they saw next. "Um, Hitch? What did you say the third 'S' was?" Sunny asked nervously.

"Never let them out of your sight," Hitch said with a smile. But when he saw Sunny pointing to the leash quietly and with a nervous look, Hitch turned and panicked when he saw Sparky’s child's leash was empty. "Ah! Where’s he gone? Where’s Sparky?! We have to find him!" he cried out in panic.

"Oh Gosh, here we go again..." Sonic muttered as he facepalmed in frustration.

Hitch then turned to his friends. "Izzy, check the beach!" he pointed to Izzy, who saluted him in response as Hitch got between Sunny and Zipp. "Zipp, Tails, be our eyes in the sky!" he said to Zipp and Tails as they flew into the air, and Hitch turned to Sunny. "Sunny, you… uh… skate around until you find him!" he said, running out of ideas, as Sunny nodded with a determined smile. "And Sonic…” Hitch said while looking at Sonic.

"I know, I know. Run around town, Gotta Go Fast, blah, blah, blah..." Sonic replied with a bored face.

"Yeah!" Hitch said with a smile as he and Knuckles trotted off to look for Sparky again.

But before Sonic could boost out running, he turned to see Pipp looking at him with a frown. "And...?" she questioned, still frowning and raising an eyebrow.

Sonic rolled his eyes and sighed, frustrated. "And I'll be as careful as my reckless attitude and spirit allows me to be," he said with a little smile.

Pipp just nodded, satisfied with the result, and then flew away, while Sonic sighed in relief and scratched his head.

"I'll guess we'll act like that kiss never happened, huh?" Sonic muttered to himself with a little smile. "Oh well, better remember it then," he stated, boosting out to search for Sparky.

At the beach, Izzy used her detector to find Sparky while Misty, hiding behind a rock, spied on her.

Izzy’s detector blinked in red as it found Sparky's footprints. Izzy smiled excitedly as she trotted off at high speed, which made the sand blowing off the ground and onto Misty, who coughed at the sand in her mouth and on her.

In the sky, Zipp was wearing her Z-Goggles, while Tails used his high-tech goggles. Both were scanning an area in Maretime Bay for Sparky in Thermal mode.

Then, their sight stopped at Mane Melody, spotting Sparky cheerfully running inside the salon. That made Zipp and Tails gasp as they looked at each other, knowing they had found Sparky. Zipp quickly contacted Pipp, who is closest to Mane Melody.

Inside Mane Melody, Sparky was playing around with some of Pipp’s makeover supplies, placing shampoo bottles on his head and creating blue, pink, and yellow bubbles.

Then, Pipp came rushing in with a pant, startling Jazz in the process. Pipp looked around for Sparky, turned to Jazz, and shook her. None of them noticed Sparky walking behind them and out of the salon with a yellow mane wig on his head as Jazz rushed out of Pipp’s sight, a little scared at Pipp’s reaction while Pipp looked around for Sparky, and then stepped on a bottle as it squirted some yellow content.

Misty was reading a magazine in Mane Melody while sitting in a chair, spying on the group's movement, but she saw the yellow content hit her on her mane, which caused her mane to get poofy in the process as Misty looked at it in shock.

Sunny was skating around somewhere else in Maretime Bay while placing Missing Posters of Sparky for anypony to find him.

But Sunny didn’t know that Sparky was behind her, giggling and folding up the posters into paper airplanes as he launched them away before doing it again to the others with giggles.

Behind Sparky was Misty, who looked exhausted from what had been happening to her today, having three paper airplanes from Sparky on her poofy mane. Misty gasped as she saw another one coming and tried to shoo it away, but then tripped over the railing and fell off the cliff side, hanging onto a branch to keep her from falling into the ocean.

Sonic ran around town to look after the baby dragon.

"Come on, Sparkeroni! Where are you?!" Sonic questioned, as he kept running until he spotted something in the corner of his eye.

He then ran closer to one of the cake carts from before and found Sparky eating a whole cake.

"Well, look at that," Sonic said softly, lifting Sparky with his hands. "You enjoy giving your father, uncles, and aunts a big scare, don't you?" he said to Sparky, who just giggled in response. "Oh well, let's take you back with your dad before he does more crazy stuff," he stated.

Once again, Sparky giggled and cheered while Sonic boosted towards the station with the baby dragon in his arms.

Back at the station, the Mane 5, Tails, and Knuckles returned after having no signs of Sparky anywhere, while Hitch started to break down.

"I can’t even look after one baby dragon!" Hitch cried out over the missing Sparky as he flopped to the floor. The rest gave him sympathetic looks, and he started to tear up.

Something zoomed past Hitch, and then a dragon fire shot over Hitch, which startled him. He got up and saw that dragon fire hit his tail. He looked in the direction where the shot came from and found Sonic with a smirk, as he had Sparky playing over his head.

"Sparky!” Hitch called out in relief as he ran towards Sonic and grabbed his baby dragon. "Oh, thank hoofness!" he breathed, nuzzling Sparky before placing him back down. "I was so worried! I thought you might have fallen into the sea or baked into a pie or eaten by bees or…!" he cried out dramatically.

Izzy then came in front of Hitch with a comforting smile while holding Floppy in front of him. "Look at little Floppy, Hitch. Look at little Floppy," she said to Hitch as he looked at Floppy. Once Hitch looked at the bunny, who smiled cutely at him, he calmed down as he took a deep breath. "There we are," Izzy said with a calm smile.

"Wait! Where do you find him, Sonic?" Hitch asked the hedgehog.

"On the cake cart... again," Sonic replied with a smirk.

"Oh, okay..." Hitch said, then sighed in relief. "I’m sorry, everypony. I just… Aah! All I want is to be a great dragon dad!" he said, his voice cracking as he held Sparky.

"Oh, Hitch, Hitch, Hitch... You say that, but you don't realize you already are one," Sonic said, placing his arm around his neck.

"Sonic's right, Hitch," Sunny told him. She and the others smiled at him, and Sunny walked towards him. "You are a great dragon dad," she said, placing a hoof on his shoulder before looking at Sparky. "Just look at how much you cared about Sparky," she pointed out as the rest huddled close to him. "But honestly, I think you can relax a little bit," she added.

"Yeah, man, try to chill a little bit," Knuckles said with a smile.

Outside the station, Misty crawled to the open window again as she groaned, exhausted at what she had gone through today, with her mane still poofy and having paper airplanes on.

"Sunny and Knuckles are right," Zipp said with a smile. "Sparky might be a baby, but he’s made of pretty tough stuff," she said while giving Sparky a belly rub. This caused the baby dragon to laugh, but then he began to puff up, and Hitch knew what that meant.

Once Misty tried to get a close peek at the window, she got hit by Sparky’s dragon fire, which caused her mane to turn into a flower. That did it as Misty fainted from that, having endured enough punishment for one day.

In the station, the Mane 5 and Team Sonic stared in shock at Sparky's surprise dragon fire as Sparky puffed some out of his mouth.

"But seriously, tho, we need to find a way to control that fire breath of his..." Sonic pointed out with widened eyes.

"Thanks, everypony," Hitch said with a smile as he placed Sparky down. "And you’re right. I need to be less controlling," he said in guilt as he scratched his neck. Hey Sparky, I’m sorry I was so…" He tried to apologize but stopped once he and the rest realized that Sparky was missing again. "Sparky?" Hitch called out again as they looked around for any sign of him.

"Why does this dragon keep disappearing?!" Knuckles cried out with frustration.

It didn’t take long for the group to look out the window and see Sparky rolling across a giant ball of bubble wrap, which he wrapped together from Hitch’s office.

"SPARKY, NO!" the Mane 5 and Team Sonic cried out in unison as Sparky continued to roll the bubble wrap ball across Maretime Bay for more fun.

THE END...?