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.
Come to think of it, Tails was, too. The fox looked older in the face, and wore goggles on his head and a tinker's gloves instead of the standard ones everyone seemed to wear on Mobius. He had sports tape wrapped around various parts of his body – for no logical reason that Kay could discern. And Sonic...he had even more differences.
His arms were blue. His fur overall was a darker shade of cobalt. He wore a scarf now. His head had extra quills. His shoes were new. He wore sports tape as well – again, for no apparent reason. Kay could hardly believe her eyes.
She remembered the final battle against Dark Gaia that had encompassed two worlds – hers and Mobius. She was certain that she could use the rest of her power to fix everything in one go. In theory it would have caused a reset of sorts on Mobius to eliminate Dark Gaia's presence from the world, but she didn't think it would have changed things this drastically. Surely she couldn't have done this?
"Hello?" Tails was waving his hands in front of her face.
"Huh? Oh, sorry," Kay stammered, shaking her head to clear her mind. She forced herself to focus on the here and now; the rest could be thought about later. She had no idea where Mount Safety was, and the fox was still waiting on her answer. "I don't know how this happened...how I got here...I thought for sure I was dead just a few minutes ago..."
"You thought you were dead? Why?"
"Because..." Kay started, then remembered it was probably best not to just spout everything at once without having thought it through first. The last thing she needed was a bunch of questions when her head was still spinning from the newness of everything around her. "Well...I don't know, I guess."
The fox frowned. "You don't know why you thought you were dead?"
"Well..." Kay sighed. "I was in a battle—"
"Oh, come on!" a new voice exclaimed – a voice Kay would have recognized anywhere. Tails looked to the sky behind her and she turned her head to look as well. Sure enough, it was him. The good old doctor.
"Eggman!" All three of them cried at once.
She could just barely make out the doctor's upper body, as he was hiding behind the shield of his Egg Carrier, but already she could tell there were differences to him, too. The uniform was the only thing she could tell for sure was new at the moment. She took note of Orbot and Cubot hovering on either side of the carrier.
Eggman growled down at them, "Can't I beat you to an anomaly just once? I left my island long before the sun rose, you rodent!"
Sonic scoffed. "Beat the fastest thing alive? In your dreams, Eggman."
Kay was taking note of everything different in her mind to meditate on later. Eggman's island. Sonic's voice. The fact that he hadn't snapped at the doctor for calling him a 'rodent.' That was a big one.
"There's nothing to see here anyway," Sonic continued. "Just this girl sleeping in the middle of the lake."
At last the doctor's eyes turned to her. Kay couldn't help but think it refreshing to have him see her and have no clue who she was, or remember the trouble she'd caused him before. He asked, "Why would you do that?"
But before she could answer, Tails piped up. "She could have come from the future."
"I'm not from the future," Kay replied. "I already said that."
"Wait, you're the one who caused the anomaly? You're nothing!" Eggman scoffed. "I'll have to run a diagnostic on my system."
"But—" Tails started, but Kay put a hand on his shoulder to silence him. She gave him a knowing look, which he seemed to understand.
"See you in a few hours, Sonic!" Eggman shouted.
"Yeah, yeah," Sonic called back, clearly unimpressed.
Then, after throwing a few idle threats their way, the doctor finally turned and retreated, muttering about faulty computers and early mornings as he went.
That, Kay thought, was the strangest – and briefest – encounter with Eggman I have ever seen in my life.
"Well, if you're not from the future, where are you from?" Tails asked suddenly, breaking the silence and changing the subject all in one go.
Kay looked at him. "I'm...not sure." If she had been on the Mobius she remembered she would have probably said Angel Island, but somehow she got the feeling that would be an unwise thing to say now.
Tails' not recognizing her didn't strike her as strange – that had happened before. But to have Sonic and even Eggman not know who she was? A serious reset had occurred somewhere, and until she was able to figure out more about all these crazy changes she was noticing, she would do her best to avoid questions that put her on the spot.
"Well, wherever you're from," Sonic finally spoke to her directly, "I'm sure it's not from Lonely Rock in Frozen Lake. Why don't you come back down to the village with us and we can all get a bite to eat at Meh Burger? It's breakfast time."
Kay had no clue what a Meh Burger was, but she certainly had no qualms about hanging out with Sonic while she figured out what the heck was going on, so she nodded her agreement.