The Big Switch

Chapter 1 – The changes start here

Saturday is a town centre's busiest day. Kids are out of school and many adults are off work. Yet small alleyways, with nothing but the rubbish of the shops seem to be always near to empty. Near to.

"This guy's wasted!"

"How much d'you reckon he's had?"

A teenage couple crouched over the unconscious body they'd found lying between two wheelie bins.

"Far too much to drink."

"It's not even noon…"

The couple were aged 15 and 16, and the person they'd discovered didn't look any older than the two of them.

The older of the two leaned in close to the guy on the floor. "He's still breathing…"

As these words were said, the body stirred. His eyelids twitched and his fingers moved. The teenage couple quickly left the alley, in fear that he might be a dangerous drunk.

He heaved himself to his feet, using the bins for support. His head ached and he felt dizzy. Whilst trying to steady himself, he looked down at the floor. Did it seem further away than normal? As if he'd somehow got taller…

Sonic looked at his hands, and then scanned his whole body. Fear was building up inside him as he slowly reached up to feel his own face. Terror ran through his veins as he realised what had happened.

Sonic the hedgehog had become a human.

His head pounded, which made it harder for Sonic to get his head around what was going on and why.

He tried to remember everything before waking up to the sound of teenagers accusing him of being a drunk.

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"The readings are off the scale!"

Tails panicked as he flew the Tornado towards the interference on his scanner. Sonic was riding in one of the back seats. He leaned forwards to see the screen.

"We're getting close Tails," he said, "Bring her in for a soft landing."

"Have you figured out what it is yet?" Amy asked. She'd been keeping quiet from behind until now.

"Not yet," Tails replied, "I guess we won't find out until we land."

As the Tornado made its landing, the trio were surprised to find three familiar faces already there: Shadow, Rouge and Knuckles. They were crowded around a small patch of land, which had light seeping out from beneath the soil.

"What's going on?" Sonic asked, approaching the group.

"The master emerald led me here." Knuckles said.

"Shadow says it's a chaos emerald." Rouge answered.

"It's more than one." Shadow muttered.

Amy looked at the glowing soil.

"Did someone bury them here?"

Rouge stared at her, "Why would anyone want to bury such gorgeous gems?"

"Should we dig them up?" Tails asked the group. Sonic nodded, and the 6 got to work searching amongst the glowing soil, trying to unearth the precious emeralds.

"I found them."

The group crowded around Knuckles. Sure enough, there lying in the dirt were three of the seven chaos emeralds, all glowing with a bright light. It appeared as if they reacted to the sunlight, as the light got bigger and brighter. The six were blinded as they felt the ground disappear from beneath them.

Sonic could no longer see his friends. He felt as though his body was being pulled through the air at high speed. He felt a tingle shoot up his arms, and before he knew what was going on, an unbearable pain surged through every vein in his body. He screamed, unsure if anyone was even around to hear him, to help him…

When he finally saw his surroundings again, he was falling, falling with no way to save himself. The last thing he remembered was hitting his head, and allowing unconsciousness befall him.

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Sonic walked to the end of the alleyway.

'I feel so…tall,' he thought, 'this is going to take some getting used to.'

The alley led to a busy town street, full of shops. People were so busy with the hustle of Saturday life that no one noticed the blue haired teen standing by the alleyway. He stood scared and alone, unsure of what he should do.

'Where are my friends?' he thought, 'Why am I here? In human form?'

Then a terrifying thought struck him.

'Are the chaos emeralds here?'

(There's an illustration up on my deviantart. Link for my deviantart is on my profile if you're interested.)