I am SO sorry for the long wait! As you can tell, I have terrible procrastination issues that need professional help to be worked out... I write as the inspiration comes... For my next story I'll write the chapters out before I post it here, but that might mean it'll be a while before my next story comes out. It'll also mean that the chapters come more regularly, though. By the way, I have a poll up. No one's answered it yet, so I'm assuming no one's noticed it yet. Also, Tails' house is based on the one from Sonic Adventure.

Disclaimer: I own nothing but what I own.

Marie woke to the smell of pancakes. Her eyes still closed, she breathed the warm aroma in deeply. It smelled just like Mom's... sweet, fresh, and fruity. Marie thought she could detect some sort of blueberry or blackberry in the scent. Or was it huckleberry? Mulberry? Whatever it was, it smelled slightly different from the normal berries Mom put on her pancakes. Like it was foreign. The pancakes would probably taste delicious, as usual, though.

The girl lay there with her eyes closed, trying to get her bearings before getting up and getting breakfast. She'd had such a strange dream last night. She was running through a forest being chased by... someone. Someone familiar and scary, and quite a bit annoying. Then she slipped and fell down a cliff, and when she opened her eyes again, she was surrounded by green light. The light was blinding, and she was floating in the air. It looked almost like some of the characters from the Sonic series were looking at her from the corners of the room she was in. They looked like Shadow and Tails.

Marie giggled a little. She'd only been a fan of Sonic for a short time, and already she was dreaming about the games. This probably wouldn't have happened if she hadn't started obsessively researching the series while she was-

-locked in her room.

With a gasp, Marie remembered what really happened. Greg was a jewel thief, or was working for some jewel thieves. She'd found out, and he and one of the guys he worked with chased her through the forest. Her clothes were too nice for moving or running properly (fashionably tight seams, she thought), so she'd slipped and fallen off one of the hilly ridges. Everything went black after that. The scene with the green light and the Sonic characters was obviously a dream created while she'd been unconscious. And now she was probably being held hostage by the thieves.

But, then why was there the smell of pancakes? And why was she laying in what seemed to be a very comfortable bed? Surely the thugs, or whatever they were, wouldn't have treated her this nicely when they caught her. Maybe someone had rescued her after finding her laying in the valley. If that was true, that meant the thugs/thieves had abandoned her in the valley. She wouldn't have to worry about them chasing her, or at least for a few hours.

Her fingers slid out of the thick comforter and grasped the top of the blanket. That was weird. Marie's fingers felt sort of swollen. She laid her arms completely out on top of the bedspread and braced herself to sit up. As she did so, she realized that everything felt sore. Her back ached horribly as she lifted herself. Her arms felt like jelly and her head felt blown up like a bobble-head. Right at the base of her lower back was a sharp pain, like she had been laying on a limb or something and crushing it- which was weird, because she only had two legs, not three. Marie was sweating profusely by the time she was fully up.

Then she opened her eyes. Just as she thought, the room was unfamiliar. It was a round dome shaped room that was just big enough to be a bedroom. The walls were a copper color, and on either side of her were long metal supports that went along the curve of the dome. They seemed to help hold it together. The room held nothing but a small desk and chair, a spiral patterned rug, a mirror, a dresser, and the blue bed Marie sat in. The mirror was full-length and sat by the dresser to her right. At its nearly backwards angle, she couldn't see herself. Because of the small size of the room, though, she was easily able to reach over and grab it.

"I just want to see how bad I look after that fall," she whispered to herself. Marie expected bruises, scars, a black eye or two, and bandages all over. As the mirror was turned her way, she let out a short scream.

What she saw was worse than she expected. Much worse.

Inside the mirror was a pink fox with blue hair and a fuzzy white muzzle. The fox's hair flowed in a wavy style down past her shoulders. She looked like a total stranger to Marie, except for the fact that she had her eyes and clothes. The clothes were perfectly clean and intact, and the fox had no bruises or scars or black eyes or bandages. A blue tail with a fuzzy white tip was peeking out of the blanket and hanging over the side of the bed.

Marie slowly raised a shaking hand to her face. The fox in the mirror did the same. Her hand touched her face and felt fur. She looked at her hand and saw pink. Ripping off the blanket, Marie patted herself all over, her earlier pain forgotten. She was furry. She was fuscia. She had a tail. Her hands, head, and feet were huge. Everything pointed to one conclusion- she was a Sonic character.

This is a dream, she thought. This has to be a dream. It's the same as the dream with the green light and Shadow and Tails. Except this time, I'm the character instead of them. This isn't real. I just have to wake up. Taking a few deep breaths to calm herself, Marie lifted a pink hand and slapped herself as hard as she could. "Ow!" She blinked a few times. Nothing changed.

That was when all of the pain from earlier came back. Her arms, legs, head, back, and now her tail were all hurting like heck. Marie knew as well as anyone that you couldn't feel real pain in a dream, and this was most definitely real pain.

A moan and a stifled sob escaped her lips. Am I going crazy? Am I sick and hallucinating in a hospital after my fall? Am I part of some nutty scientific experiment where they put me in a virtual reality machine and see how long it takes for me to realize that none of this is real and when I do they'll take me and inject me and make me forget who I am and this is all a government conspiracy and I've been abducted by aliens and-

She finally stopped thinking and just screamed at the top of her lungs.

A door beside the desk in front of Marie flew open. In skated Shadow the Hedgehog, an abnormal amount of concern on his gruff face. Behind him flew Tails holding a steaming plate of pancakes. The vixen gulped down her scream and stared at them as they stopped in front of the bed. Tails set the plate down on the dresser and hovered over to Marie uncertainly. He looked at her for a second, waiting to see if she would scream again. When she didn't, he spoke.

"Look, um..." he started. "I know you might be wondering what you're doing here, and why you're a fox and all..."

Shadow crossed his arms. "I told you she would scream once she saw herself in the mirror. One of us should have watched for when she woke up, not just turned the mirror the other way."

Tails' ears lowered guiltily. "I'm sorry. I didn't think she'd wake up for a while now, but then again, I haven't seen anything like what happened earlier."

Marie looked back and forth between the fox and the hedgehog. Her brain was desperately trying to make sense of the fact that what shouldn't be real was standing in front of her. "W-what happened?" she choked out. She couldn't even be sure that she'd said that out loud. This was so unreal.

Apparently she had at least managed to speak, because Tails answered her. "Earlier today we were on a mission to stop the plans of a mad scientist who has a habit of trying to take over this world. You wouldn't know him- his name's Dr. Eggman."

"We?" Marie murmured. Dr. Eggman's here, too? she thought.

"Yes, we," Tails gestured to himself. "I'm Tails." He pointed at Shadow. "That's Shadow, and we were with my best friend, Sonic, when we started out today. Dr. Eggman likes to build big factories for the robots he builds, so we had gone there looking for something called an Ultra Ionic Chaos Emerald. It's based off of a gem we have in this world that's filled with natural radioactive power, and he altered it to make it extremely dangerous. Sonic got there ahead of us and fell into a trap. We think Dr. Eggman teleported him away with the Ultra Ionic Chaos Emerald, because when we got into the room, he was gone and you were in his place. And then, because your world doesn't have any Chaos Emeralds, the radioactivity affected you and when I touched you, you turned into a fox like me. Did you get all that?"

Marie continued to stare at him. He waited expectantly for an answer. She opened and closed her mouth, and finally replied, "I- I guess so. Sorry, this just all seems like a dream. I'm having a hard time believing any of this is real." At least she had gained her voice back.

Tails nodded like he wasn't very surprised by that. Shadow picked up the plate that had been left on the dresser and handed it to Tails. "She needs to eat."

The little fox took the plate and passed it to Marie. "Yeah, it might help her to think clearer." Marie crossed her legs so she could hold the plate better and set it in her lap. Three perfectly round, impeccably browned pancakes sat on the dish. Golden yellow syrup dribbled over the sides. In the exact center of the pancake on top was a pat of butter with a little pile of spherical golden berries sitting over it. The syrup was in a puddle around the berries, implying that it was made from the fruit. It looked delicious, but totally different from normal.

She picked up a fork that was lying on the side of the plate and gingerly poked one of the berries. "What is it?" she asked.

This time, Tails looked mildly surprised. "Pancakes. They don't have them in your world?"

Marie couldn't help but give a tiny smile despite the situation. "We have pancakes. I love pancakes. It's the berries I was wondering about; I've never seen them before."

"Ohh!" Tails giggled at the mistake. "Those are sunberries. They grow on the trees in the Mystic Ruins near my house. It's my favorite kind of berry."

"Never heard of them," Marie commented, looking curiously back down at her plate. She then picked up the knife that was on the other side of the plate. Giving a quick little prayer of thanks for the food (at least her head was clear enough to do that), she cut a big bite of the pancakes. The fork brought it up to her mouth, and she methodically chewed. Her eyes widened. Marie quickly swallowed and grinned. Sunberries were the best berries she'd ever had! They were sweeter than a strawberry, with the texture and tang of a blueberry and a raspberry mixed together. The sweet overwhelmed the tang, making it seem like a fruity candy. It tasted so good. Why hadn't they ever talked about these in the games featuring the Mystic Ruins?

The pancakes disappeared in under five minutes. Marie hadn't realized she was that hungry. Her body still hurt, but it felt much better now with some of the fuel it needed. Just as Tails had said, she was able to think clearer now. With a satisfied sigh, the girl sat up straighter in the bed and looked at the two game characters in front of her. Game characters. She still couldn't believe it. She felt pain, so this wasn't a dream. And those pancakes certainly tasted real. Could you taste things if you were crazy? Marie didn't think so. It didn't feel like she was crazy, just sore.

Tails again was looking at her expectantly, maybe waiting for a verdict on the pancakes or something. Shadow seemed to be studying her. Based on his role in the games, he probably wouldn't say much. Marie was surprised by how much he'd said already to Tails. Then again, he was a tiny bit friendlier to Tails in the games than he was to Sonic. Not a whole lot, but a tiny bit. A smile unconsciously started to form on the girls face as she looked at him. If this was real, this was really, incedibly cool. Maybe she would get to go on an adventure with him, her favorite character! He probably wouldn't like it if she got all fangirlish around him, though. Marie didn't want to be his Amy. That would just be weird. No, that wouldn't do...

Marie blinked, realizing she was getting totally offtrack. Stupid ADHD. Tails was waiting for her to say something! The girl quickly looked back at him and tried to think of a good comment. "Um... those pancakes were really good. I think sunberries might be my new favorite, too." She laughed a little. Darn it, that felt awkward. She hoped neither of them noticed. Tails just grinned. Good. Shadow didn't acknowledge that she'd said anything. He just continued to study her thoughtfully.

Marie swallowed, trying to collect her thoughts. "So... this Ultra Ionic Chaos Emerald that Dr. Robotnik made turned me into a fox? The energy from it, I mean?"

Tails nodded. "Basically; Shadow's connected to the Chaos Force, which is the field of Chaos Energy around the world, so when one of those rings on his wrist touched you it exposed you first. Then when I touched you, you mutated. I'm pretty sure we can you back to normal, though, and get you back home." Marie followed along, trying not to look scared. The idea of being stuck as a fox made her nervous, sure, but that wasn't what really scared her.

She realized as Tails started talking the mistake she'd made: she called Eggman "Robotnik." Tails hadn't introduced him as "Robotnik." At the moment, she had no idea how to explain the video games to them. The fox didn't notice the mistake, but what if Shadow did? Marie glanced at the artificial hedgehog as Tails spoke. His face didn't betray anything, but he looked a little more thoughtful than before. He was looking at her a little harder, maybe. Was she just being paranoid? No, Shadow was extremely smart. He would have noticed. Marie held back a sigh, knowing she might get interrogated by him in the near future. Hopefully he wouldn't be too intimidating. She would just have to try to hide the rest of her knowledge until then. Which might be hard, considering how often she put her foot in her mouth.

"Okay, so... what now?" she asked.

Tails thought for a second, then looked at Shadow. "We should probably go find Eggman and get the emerald from him, right? I need to examine it if I want to find where Sonic went, and possibly use it to turn her back." He tilted his head toward Marie, and she realized she hadn't told him her name yet.

"Uh, sorry... I'm Marie, by the way..." the girl said tentatively. "I think I forgot to say so earlier..."

Shadow nodded. He turned and walked out the door without another word. Tails and Marie looked after him. The kitsune smiled at Marie apologetically. "Sorry about that. He doesn't talk much. I guess he's going to wait outside." The vixen nodded. She almost said, "I know," but held it back at the last second.

Instead she just nodded, too. He walked to the door and stopped. It looked as if he was waiting for something. His eyes looked at her questioningly.

"Aren't you coming?" he finally asked.

Marie jumped. "W-what?! I- but I thought you said that Eggman was dangerous!" She made sure she said the name right that time. "With his trying to take over the world and all that... wouldn't it be safer if I stayed here?" A minute ago, she was hoping to go on an adventure with Shadow. She hadn't imagined actually going after Eggman with him, though! She had envisioned sort of helping from the side, like Amy and Knuckles usually did.

Tails just laughed. "Oh, you don't have to worry about that! We've fought Eggman tons of times, and we're still fine. Sonic is the one who'll jump into situations without thinking, and that's why he's in your world now. I was a little worried about him earlier, but since I know now that he went to a place with humans, I'm sure he'll be fine. He always is. We'll protect you if you come with us, and it would be a good idea to have you nearby in case the Chaos Emerald does one of those one-chance-to-get-it-right timed things, like what happens so often. In other words, we'd need to use it then and there. I'm still hoping to have time to study it, but there's always the risk. So, yeah, you should probably come."

He came over and helped Marie out of bed, which she was glad for, since she still felt sore all over. Then he supported her as she took a few steps. It felt strange using such short legs and large feet. After a couple of seconds, though, she was able to walk normally. Tails gave her one last encouraging smile and went out the door. Marie wondered for a minute why he wasn't giving her directions, but then remembered that his house was so small that it would probably be obvious. She glanced back at the plate laying on the bed. Maybe she should take that down with her. After all, leaving a dirty plate like that was just begging for ants and mold. Unless this version of Earth didn't have those things...

The vixen gave her head one last smack. Yep, it still hurt. This had to be real. But, it couldn't be! It was a video game, for Pete's sake! Video games didn't exist as real worlds! And yet, here she was. Which meant that video games did exist as worlds. At least, the Sonic universe did. Did that mean other video games existed? Was Mario real? Was Fox McCloud real? Were Spectrobes real?

Gah, she was loosing focus again! Shaking her head to get rid of the thoughts, Marie grabbed the plate and ran out of the room. There were stairs right outside the door, and they led down to a larger square room. This one was made of wood slats rather than metal, with a door on the right that probably led to the balcony shown in the games. There was a small dining table surrounded by chairs on the left, and a kitchen against the far wall. Marie put the plate in the sink there and turned around to the next set of stairs, which was just to the right of the stairs that led up to the bedroom.

She went down to the last floor of the house. Here, there were a couple of windows on the left and forward walls, and a door on the back wall. That door was most likely the one that led to the little hangar for the Tornado, and the exit outside. This part of the house was made of metal again, but the copper looked quite a bit rusted. That, or it was just a different rusty looking metal that Marie didn't know about. The room consisted of a small bathroom against one wall, a love seat and flat-screen TV with more buttons than the girl could count against another wall, and a small desk by the door covered in papers. Behind the stairs was what appeared to be an elevator. Marie guessed this connected to the larger level underground that Tails used to fly his second plane out, opening to the cliff side. The temptation was strong to check it out.

No, Marie reminded herself. Tails and Shadow are waiting outside for me. She tore herself away from the elevator and walked to the door. Man, I never thought I'd be telling myself that, ever.

Outside the front door in the hanger was a stone brick porch. There was a sort of hydroelectric converter thing on the right- or, whatever that thing was called that turned water into power. Tails was an economical little fox. A log arch was set up at the top of the stone steps off the porch. At the bottom of the steps, in the dirt yard that spanned outside the house, were Tails and Shadow.

Shadow looked up as Marie stepped down to stand next to him. "I see you found your way out." Tails chuckled a little at that, but to Marie's ears it sounded more like a jab than a joke. She had to remind herself that Shadow wasn't the most patient person around. It would be pretty poor form to get mad at her favorite character. At least, she thought it would. This was the first time someone from her Earth had spoken to someone from his Earth after all. Marie decided to leave it and ignore the comment before she got herself confused again.

"Sorry," she replied, smiling as best as she could. "This is my first time here and all... it was really hard for me not to go looking around Tails' underground-" Marie coughed, stopping her from saying, lab. She shouldn't know about that. "Uh, basement area," she finished uncertainly. "I saw the elevator, and was curious." Oh, this was so hard! Once again, Tails didn't seem to notice her near flub. Shadow was looking at her hard again, though. Yes, she was most definitely getting interrogated later.

Tails started walking for the steps that led down from the platform his house was on to the rest of the Mystic Ruins. "Come on, the jungle is this way. One of Eggman's old hideouts is at the edge of it, and we can use that to find where he is." He didn't explain how, and Marie assumed she would find out when they got there. She timidly followed after him, Shadow walking beside her. His hard look was fading. Maybe two mistakes weren't enough to call for an interrogation... maybe he would wait until she made a few more before doing that. Marie could only hope.

As they drifted away from the house, the girl noticed that the sky was slowly slipping into sunset. Wow, it's the next day's sunset already? How long was I out? Wait... that doesn't make any sense. Tails said he found me earlier today. It was night when I left my world. The times must not be perfectly aligned between the two. I just hope that the ratios are the same... I don't want to be here a week and find out it's been fifty years there.

Marie continued to think while they walked. When would she get home? How long would she be stuck a fox? Would she have to explain the video game thing to Shadow and Tails? How dangerous was this whole mission going to be? What would she do if it was like the super hard levels she went through in the games? Were there really random trampolines and rings just planted everywhere? What was Sonic going to do in her world? Would he find out about the video games? Why did Eggman bring her here? Was that an accident? And had the Chaos Emerald thingie that turned her into a fox also fixed her rips and tears and cuts, since she was sure she would have had some before and they weren't there now?

By the time they got to the minecart that led to the jungle a few minutes later... she still had no idea what to think. This was going to be a long day. Night. Sunset. Whatever...

So, as you can probably also tell, I've discovered the horizontal line option.

Also, I'm going to be switching POVs every other chapter from here on out. It's easier that way. And I have something planned for the thieves in our world.

I'll try to be a bit more timely with the next chapter, but I can't promise anything, because I've said that before. Plus, as of a few months ago, I'm much, much busier than I was before. I hardly have free time anymore. But maybe the fifth chapter will be a Christmas present. Hey, if you review and scream at me to update, it'll encourage me to do it sooner! Hint, hint!