Everything Changes (A Sonic Boom Fanfic)

Chapter One

Chapter One

"Ugh. Tails, it's too early for this," Sonic the Hedgehog muttered to his sidekick as they trudged up the last bit of slope before reaching the top of Mount Safety. It was bad enough that the sun had barely risen; they also had to walk at a slow pace so Tails' tracker could keep a lock on the exact location the anomaly had appeared less than an hour beforehand.

"An anomaly in the space-time continuum is very rare," Tails explained as they reached the summit and strolled towards peak's ever-frozen lake. "Who knows what we'll find? If could be a priceless gem from another dimension, or a version of us from the future, or—"

"A girl sleeping on the rock in the middle of the lake?" Sonic suggested.

Tails frowned. "Well, that seems kind of boring."

Sonic placed a hand on Tails' head and turned his focus away from his tracker for a moment. "No, I mean, that's all that's here. A girl sleeping on the rock in the middle of the lake."

Sure enough, a brown-furred female hedgehog was snoozing in a precarious position atop the rock. Tails blinked a couple of times, confused, looked at his tracker again, and then suddenly perked up. "Maybe she's from the future!"

"I'm pretty sure she just got tired from walking all the way up here. I don't blame her," Sonic added with a yawn.

Still, the young fox raced forward onto the ice, keeping wonderful balance as he slid right to the rock and the girl. Now that he was closer it appeared to him as though she was probably about Amy Rose's age, or maybe a little older. She was still sleeping peacefully, undisturbed by Tails' sudden appearance. Curious, Tails put a hand on her shoulder and shook gently. Sonic watched from the rim of the lake.

"Hey. Hey," Tails said, shaking the girl. "Are you all right?"

The girl – Kay – fluttered her eyes open. It took her only an instant to focus on the fox standing before her and, still lying down, she wrinkled her brow and said, "Tails?"

"Uh...yeah?" Tails frowned. "How do you know me? Are you from the future?"

Kay's frown deepened. She blinked once. "What? No." Then she pushed herself up into a sitting position, took one glance at her surroundings, and realized with a start that she had no idea where she was. All around her on all sides was a lake frozen over with a thick sheet of ice – thick enough for Tails to stand on, anyway. Beyond that was snow, then grass, and a variety of trees. She hadn't seen Sonic yet when another, more pressing realization occurred to her.

I'm alive?

Kay held out her hands in front of her. They were smaller than before, and covered in a thin layer of copper fur. Her arms were the same way, and her legs. She brought her hands up to her face, feeling the old familiar difference of a hedgehog's eyes, nose, and ears compared to the human's she'd gotten so used to. Her fingers trailed down her hair – or quills, now – and felt that they stopped much sooner than they ever had before, falling just above her shoulders.

Tails watched her do all this, confusion evident on his face. "Uh...are you okay?"

Her attention snapped back to him, but in the back of her mind all she could think was, I'm a hedgehog again. She again looked at the geography around her and asked, "Where am I? How did I get here?"

"You're at the peak of Mount Safety," Tails replied, "and I was hoping you could tell us the second part."

The first thing Kay registered was that the fox's voice sounded different, somehow. Older, maybe? The second thing was that he'd said 'us.' She peered around once more and that, finally, is when she saw Sonic the Hedgehog standing at the edge of the frozen lake, arms crossed, watching them tiredly. Kay's heart leapt in her chest and she took a breath of cold, mountain air. Sonic...was different.