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In the echidna tribe there was no such thing as “trans individuals”, body parts didn’t determine who someone was, so when knuckles at the ripe age of 6 started wanting to be called a boy, everyone just followed the boy desires.
however after the battle with the owls knuckles was left alone, at first he remained in the empty village, but after a while the pain of the loss was too big, staying there always reminded him of all the people dear to him that lost their lives for the tribe, and he started travelling from world to world searching for the emerald.
And then after a lot of battles and dishonouring he somehow ended up being grounded at the pretzel lady house.
he was a warrior! of course he wasn’t just gonna stay in his room all day, he went on a mission with wade, to train him as a true warrior and help him win the fight against his own father.
things went a little different and they ended up in a match with a giant robot powered by one of knuckles quills, and let me tell you he was not exactly easy to beat, but the echidna managed anyway.
and then they both returned home.
-
“Knuckles you’re in big trouble kid” said maddie, still angry at him for the whole “renovations ” he did.
“Now you tell me why did you sneak out for days without telling anyone a thing? you know how scary that was for us?”
“i am very sorry pretzel lady” Said the red echidna
“But my father sent me on a mission that only a warrior like me could manage, i trained the first weak and pathetic Wade Wipple into a strong and courageous warrior, and helped him defat his father after all the dishonour and betrayal he brought to his own clan”
“and i also was kidnapped by some GUN agent, but i was saved by Wade, and then we both fought against their giant robot and won with honour , each one of us in their own battleground”
that was the most crazy story maddie had ever heard, but the red mobian didn’t even know what lying meant, so everything had to be true.
after a quick phone call to wade she had the confirmation that everything was true, and that the poor echidna went through a lot.
she decided to check him up, it wouldn’t be strange for him to keep injuries secret because of “honour ” or something like that.
and that’s how they ended up in maddie’s clinic on a sunday morning, where the place was opened only in case of emergency, and in a small town like green hills there’s not that many, so they had the whole med-stuff to themselves.
Maddie checked him up, eyes, mouth, reflexes, and everything seemed okay,
so she then decided to do an X ray to see if he had any broken bone.
she put the paper in the lighted wall as usual to read it better, and the results were quite surprising, while thankfully his bones were all okay (she also found out they were strangely big for a creature that short) she found a uterus? two of them actually,it wasn’t that easy to see, but as a vet she was used to it, there was no doubt.
“knuckles i have great news, you are perfectly healthy, no broken bones, no internal damage, it’s all good!” she said while putting away the x ray.
“but i also have one question to ask you knucks, are you trans?” she asked, she didn’t know if the echidna really knew what the word meant, maybe he grew up alone and no one ever told him he was actually a girl? she had no idea.
“i don’t know what the term trans means m’am, do you mind explaining it to me?”
okay so he did in fact not know what being trans meant.
“it’s when a person, or in your case an alien i guess, is born with some body parts, females or males, but they don’t match what they actually feel”
“i’m asking this to yo because the x ray showed me you have a uterus, two of them because you’re echidna to be precise knuckles”
“i understand the question better now, thanks for the explanation pretzel lady, in the echidna tribe we had no word for such thing, but i guess i could be considerate as a so called trans individual on the planet earth, i didn’t know it was such a big deal for humans ”
“Honey it’s not a big deal at all, i was just asking because you never said anything to us about it, but from what i understand this is pretty common from where you come from” maddie said, happy that her son trusted her with this information.
“i’m just happy you’re good after the battle, let’s go home now, i’ll buy you some grapes for the car ride, how does that sound?”
-
it had been almost 2 months since everything, Knuckle's life now that the emerald was safe and wade became a warrior was strangely calm.
there was no battling, no crazy robot to fight, he did kept training of course, but he still had a lot more free time to spend doing something else, never ever in his life he had that opportunity before, and he kind of liked it.
But one day the echidna woke up feeling strange, his stomach hurting a bit, he probably ate too many grapes the night before, he was gonna be fine, he went back to sleep.
He woke up again, and somehow felt even worse than before, and when he got up to go downstairs he found his bed with a big red blood stain.
did he get himself hurt at training yesterday? no there was no way he never did, but that was a lot of blood.
lost in his thoughts he then felt something wet going on between his legs, looked down only to find his legs stained with blood (not that it was that easy to see with him being red)
he quickly rushed to the bathroom, it was worse than he expected , he cleaned himself but he had no idea on how to stop the blood from coming out, it seemed like it just kept going.
panicked he did the only thing he could think of, he pressed some toilet paper on his crotch, opened the bathroom door a bit, enough that his head could fit, he saw some movement in the kitchen, and since sonic usually wakes up at 12 am and tails spent the night inventing something it was probably tom or maddie.
“Is there anyone in the kitchen?” he tried to say it with a quiet voice to not wake up anyone , not so easy for him considered how deep it was, no one heard him so he he tried a second time.
“is there someone in the kitchen? please i need some help”
this time he increasing his tone a bit, and someone actually heard him.
Maddie started searching for him, she didn’t know where the voice came from
“im in the bathroom pretzel lady!” the red echidna said, when he saw the woman walking towards the bathroom he then shut the door close again.
“knuckles is everything okay??” she said a bit worried
“why did you lock yourself in the bathroom”
“i have a problem m’am”
“i think i might have been injured yesterday or ate something strange, i don’t know what’s happening to me but im loosing lots of blood”
if maddie was worried before, now it was even worse
“oh my god, do you need me to bring the first aid kit? do you want some bandages or something?”
“i fear that won’t be that useful Maddie, i’m bleeding from my crotch and it doesn’t seem to be stopping”
oh
OH
You see when maddie found out knuckles was trans she figured out that with him being around 17 he already knew what a period was.
Apparently he did not.
She explained everything that was happening to him, then quickly went to the bathroom in her bedroom, where she kept her tampons and pads, and brought some of the biggest night pads she owned to the echidna, along with a pair of tom’s boxers that were too small for him and some basket shorts to cover everything.
(knuckles had a hard time putting on a pad with his big aah hand, even worse since his gloves don’t have separate fingers)
then the two of them went upstairs and started taking off the bed sheets, doing their best at being quiet to don’t wake up sonic and tails.
Knuckles felt bad.
He had no idea what was happening to him, maddie said that this usually happens earlier, and that 17 was a bit late to get a first period.
But she also said that sometimes stress can cause someone to not have one, and he had been stressed all his life.
could he have got it just now because he was finally in peace?
it didn’t matter much the reason of it, but how bad it was, everything hurt, especially his lower back, he struggled standing and the amount of blood he was losing was crazy (knuckles you have two uterus, what were you expecting?), he had to go change about every 1-1-2 hours to not stain anything .
and worst of all, apparently this was something only women had, he never had a hard time with his identity but somehow the thought of this made him feel bad about himself.
its was gonna be a long week.