Welcome to Hacked In. Rather than a serious project, this is a little side deal only for this site that I'll work on in my spare time. As such, its quality is bound to be worse than any of my future projects.

Enjoy!

Chapter 1 – Green Hill Act One

The change was sudden. One minute, Shadow had been relaxing quietly with only his thoughts for company, and the next, he was standing on a carpet of green grass, a pristine blue ocean behind him, and a sunflower that was taller than he was in front of him. There were palm trees just to his left, and apparently nothing to his right.

"What the hell?" the black and red hedgehog muttered, looking around. "Where am I?"

"Uh-oh…" he heard a voice say somewhere nearby. He looked all around, but all he could determine was that either the speaker was invisible, or a voice inside his head. But at least he knew the voice.

"Sonic? Where are you?"

"Sort of in a pocket dimension. You pushed me into it by taking my place."

"What do you mean?" Shadow demanded, folding his arms and tapping his foot. …Wait a minute – wasn't that Sonic's mannerism? Why was he doing it!?

"You've been hacked into my very first game!"

"…Hacked in?" His mind was spinning. "Haven't some people done that already? What was it called, Megamix?"

"Well, yeah, but this is a straight-up hack, it looks like. All the hacker did was change the animation so you skate instead of run. Probably used the Megamix sprites, come to think of it. …Oh, cool! I'm looking at the source code!"

"You are!? Can you get me out of here and put yourself back in?"

"Hmm… Nope, no can do, buddy. Looks like your sprites completely replaced mine in the code. Good luck! Hope the Player's skilled!"

"Wha…!? Hmph, you're useless!"

And then he began to run. Er…skate. He was surprised at how quickly he got up to speed, it took at least half the time it took him in any of his other incarnations. He leapt through a set of three rings, and over a strange-looking crablike robot, then came to a bridge that seemed to be connected to the two cliff edges by sheer surface tension. Apparently, the Player thought the same because he jumped for the rings, bouncing off a pirahna robot to land on the other side and collect some more rings.

"This place is pretty peaceful…" he said. "It only seems to exist for collecting rings."

"Well, duh," said Sonic. "It was the first stage ever. Not everything revolves around your angst, buddy."

"We're not buddies…" Shadow growled as he skated up an incline. "And why doesn't the Player spindash?"

"That doesn't exist yet."

"What!?" Shadow couldn't believe it. There had been a point in time when the spindash wasn't available. "That's insane!"

"That's classic," countered Sonic. "The Player's got some nice moves," he added as Shadow bounced off two Crabmeats in succession. He came to a yellow spring, and the Player ignored it entirely, jumping instead to the ledge nearby. It crumbled behind him, and, rather than land on the ground below, seemed to fall through it, into nothingness.

"Weird…"

"It's sixteen-bit," said Sonic. "That means, conventional physics be damned! Well, whatever conventional physics we follow in the first place…"

"Hmm…"

Two more crumbling ledges later, he came to his first Star Post. It was nothing special, just a thin metal post with a blue orb on top that turned red as he tagged it.

"It doesn't even have a star on it!" Shadow exclaimed as he rushed beyond it, only to kill a Newtron enemy and rush back to the post, where he saw some floating platforms. "And…why are there moving sections of land here?"

"Classic. Platformer," Sonic told him, apparently bored.

The Player missed the first jump and so Shadow had to try again, wondering why he made that odd sound whenever he jumped. Apparently, the Player really wanted ten rings, because the only things up there at the top were a lone Buzzbomber and a Ring Box, both of which he destroyed in one jump. Beyond that, there were more Buzzbombers, more floating platforms, and a shield on top of a loop.

"Shields were blue?" Shadow wondered aloud as he dropped off the left edge to go through the loop he had just been standing on. The movement was smoother than he expected, he was used to clipping his shins on the edges of loops. But since he was now moving in 2D, there was no edge to speak of.

"Yep…" said Sonic, sounding like he was ready to go to sleep.

Shadow ran across some mostly-flat terrain, and then saw he was nearing a tunnel of some sort, one that was too narrow for him to go through! And there was no spindashing!

"Um…does the Player know what he's doing?" Shadow said as he neared the tunnel.

And then he was in ball-form, being pushed down the S-shaped tunnel like there was wind at his back. He tagged another Star Post, still in ball-form, and went through another tunnel before being propelled off an incline as if it were a ramp.

"Hey! I thought there was no spindashing!" he said. Sonic had tricked him, that little-.

"There isn't. That doesn't mean there's no ball-form. Tch, what, you thought I was just running all the time?"

"Um…" Shadow had never considered a ground-based ball-form could be separate from a spindash. He couldn't remember ever having to do it, himself…Until now, at least.

And then he saw them (how he could see anything in ball-form was beyond him). There were at least fifteen rings up there, and he was heading right towards them! He cheered as he soared through them, past startled Buzzbombers, and over a bridge, where he landed on another Ring Box, keeping airborne.

Dare he admit it? He was having fun!

And then he landed, right in front of a sign that had, inexplicably, Eggman's face on it.

"Um, what's up with the Eggman sign?" he asked.

"This early, his name is Robotnik," said Sonic. "And it's the end of the Act. Good job, Shadow. …Oh, wait! Special Stage! Go for it!"

"What?" But before he could receive an answer, the Player had already guided him into the giant golden ring above the sign, which had spun to reveal his own face.

Shadow has cleared Act 1!

Sorry there wasn't much to write about. Green Hill isn't all that interesting, is it? :P