A friend found my semi-similar story, Eclipse the Hedgehog, and asked me to make this for her. So, I decided to be nice and do so. Hope you like.
"I understand that I need to make the next in line of guardians soon...BUT WAS THIS REALLY NECESSARY?!" It had been a quiet day on the floating Angel Island, until the almost shrill scream pierced through the forest. The well-known echidna guardian was glaring at their charge, the Master Emerald floating a bit above the floor of the broken down old shrine. The giant emerald did not respond to the angry question, not that the echidna had really expected it to. Knuckles sighed, attempting to calm down and looking over himself...or, what used to be himself. The once very MALE echidna was no longer male at all, but a female with similar looks. She looked exactly like a female version of her male self, no clothing beyond her gloves and shoes, except that she was missing her namesake entirely.
"Knuckles?" Called a female voice, Knuckles' head snapping towards the sound. She ran to hide behind the nearby trees, not wanting anyone to see her. She'd called Rouge earlier, the two had become somewhere between friends and rivals over the time they knew each other, and ask her to bring her some female clothes. Rouge landed a few feet from the tree the female echidna was hiding behind, a little confused as to why the proud echidna was hiding. Nonetheless, she couldn't help but pick on said echidna. "So why did you want me to bring you girl's clothes Knuckles? Have a sudden want to wear them or you got a female friend back there?" Rouge asked with a playful smirk.
"Sh-shut up Bat Girl!" Knuckles snapped after trying to make her voice as close to her old one as possible, blushing while Rouge laughed at the echidna's embarrassed reaction. "Now um...put the clothes down and turn around. And no looking." Knuckles ordered, Rouge's laughter stopping and now confused. After a moment of thought Rouge decided that the girl Knuckles must have hidden wanted to get the clothes on her own, and turned around. Knuckles ran out from behind the tree and grabbed the clothes, dashing as much as an echidna could dash back behind the tree. "You couldn't have gotten some OTHER colour?!" She demanded suddenly, seeing that everything Rouge had gotten was a sapphire blue and dark jean blue.
"Don't blame me, you said nothing pink or overly girly. The blue things were the only ones left on sale." Rouge responded with a huff. "Which reminds me, you owe me for those." The bat added as Knuckles began to try and put on the sapphire blue tank-top with the straps a dark jean blue along with a band at her waist. It was rather difficult with her boxing gloves on.
"I'll pay you back later." Knuckles sighed, pulling her dreadlocks from the shirt after putting it on. She then grabbed the dark blue jeans and tried to pull them up, having trouble with the zipper before finally taking off her gloves and throwing them to the ground in annoyance.
"You must have really roughed this girl up if she has no clothes left...have fun with her Knuckles?" Rouge began to tease again, Knuckles peach muzzle becoming nearly as red as her fur at what the bat was implying.
"Shut, up!" The echidna's voice cracked in her embarrassment, only making her all the more so. She growled and pulled on the simple white gloves before taking off her old shoes and replacing them with what looked like sapphire blue dress shoes with dark jean blue clips to keep them closed. She walked out from behind the tree to see Rouge still not looking at her, so she cleared her throat slightly. Rouge spun around with the hope of see who Knuckles has found to be his little girlfriend, only to see that her first tease of him wearing the clothing to be true. She almost immediately began a laughing fit.
"I-I didn't actually th-think you were g-going to wear th-them!" The bat exclaimed between laughing, falling over. Knuckles glared at the older girl in anger.
"Stop laughing, this isn't funny!" The echidna snapped, trembling with rage. After a few moments of attempting, Rouge stood again but was still laughing.
"That's what you think, Knucklehead!" She continued to laugh. Without thinking Knuckles dashed at Rouge, punching the bat with all her might. However the older girl only went about half as far as usual, causing Knuckle's eyes to widen in horror. The punch had caused Rouge to stop laughing, she wasn't very hurt despite it and looking up she saw Knuckles with 'his' head down with the dreadlocks covering 'his' face, the echidna's fists clenched. It was then that Rouge noticed the missing spikes, the echidna's name sake. "Knuckles?" She asked softly, realising that there was something very wrong and shouldn't be picking on the echidna.
"I don't ask for this...I can't even protect the Master Emerald anymore..." Knuckles' voice trembled as she tried to choke back her sobs, she was a proud echidna not some overly emotional girl.
"What...what happened Knuckles?" Rouge questioned, wanting to help the upset echidna. Knuckles looked up at her rival-friend, biting her lip to stop from crying.
"The Master Emerald...it decided that none of the girls that had been around it were 'worthy' of producing the next guardian...it decided on a guy with a pure heart...and turned me into a girl..." Knuckles choked back more sobs as she explained her situation, wanting to punch something but with only half her previous strength and no spikes punching a tree or something was more likely to hurt her than make her feel better like it did when she was a male.
"It can do that?!" Rouge exclaimed in shock, looking at the giant emerald. She'd known it had unimaginable power, but to think that it could change a male into a female entirely was...a little unnerving. Finally able to speak without crying Knuckles sat on the steps of the alter, Rouge sitting beside her.
"This has happened before...to a few guardians in the past. They were turned into girls; had coitus with the pure hearted male, had the new guardian about four months later and then returned to normal and never told the guardian about what happened until they became guardians themselves." Knuckles explained to the bat.
"So...why don't you do that?" Rouge asked, secretly wanting the echidna back to normal in the hopes of him returning her well-hidden feelings.
"Beyond me having more respect in myself and others to use someone simply to return to normal..." Knuckles huffed at the suggestion, but trailed off for a moment. She murmured something that even with Rouge's superior hearing couldn't pick up.
"What?" Rouge asked, her ears flicking. Knuckles repeated it a bit louder so that Rouge could hear, but this time Rouge asked the question because she was certain she'd heard the echidna wrong.
"It's Sonic! Sonic the Hedgehog!"
If you like this story check out Eclipse the Hedgehog Revised. Read and Review, see ya around!