Chapter Text
14 years earlier
Young Jeremy had another bad day at school. It wasn’t uncommon for him, since even though he was the fastest kid in his class, he wasn’t the strongest by any means. A group of older, tougher boys had ganged up on him during the day, teased him, and tackled him to the ground. He hadn’t been terribly injured, but it had indeed hurt, and he had a bruise on his left arm to show for it.
He wanted to tell his brothers, but he was at an age where he was starting to feel embarrassed about going to his older brothers for help with bullies. He wanted to be tough, he wanted to be strong like them.
Even though his brothers were all watching TV in the living room, he remained alone in the bedroom he shared with a few of them. His mother was still at work, and she wouldn’t be home until later.
Jeremy laid on the bed and drifted off, his tear-streaked cheek pressed against the pillow. There was a little flicker of joy as he realized that he might see his friend again before a reassuring sleep took over.
Soon enough, when Jeremy opened his eyes again, he was laying in soft grass beneath a very tall tree, with a vibrant blue sky overhead. This place was always familiar to him, even if it didn’t seem as though it existed in the real world.
He looked around in excitement, and not too long after, he spotted who he had been hoping to see.
“Sonic!” Jeremy exclaimed excitedly, waving to get his companion’s attention. “It’s me, I’m back!”
Sonic, also a young boy but not a human one, sped over to meet up with Jeremy, throwing his arms around him in a hug.
“Hey! I’m so happy to see you!” Sonic greeted, echoing Jeremy’s excitement. “I was just looking around and I found a really cool valley! There’s a lot of space, maybe we can go for a run and then you can show me how to play baseball!”
“That sounds like a great idea!” Jeremy agreed, the stress and unhappiness of the day instantly melting away.
He and Sonic laughed and chatted about all the enjoyable things they planned to do as they went hand in hand into their shared dream. These dreams with Sonic were one thing Jeremy never wanted to forget, as he thought Sonic was imaginary. What he didn’t know, though, was that Sonic believed Jeremy to be imaginary as well.
Because of this, neither of them had any idea that their paths would one day cross in the real world.
Present day
“Man, I don’t get why we gotta come out here,” Scout complained as he leaned against a stack of crates. “What the heck do we need to do training for, anyway? We’re already perfect! Everyone knows that.”
“Oh, really?” Sniper scoffed. “Mate, we’re doing this because we bombed that mission last week. It was a complete disaster.”
“Wasn’t a complaint disaster,” Scout rolled his eyes. “I mean, we got what we’re looking for, right? We got that briefcase, that should be enough!”
“Yeah, but we caused a lot of damage. Made everything real messy. You know the Admin hates that.”
Scout sighed and turned to watch Engineer get some of the practice bots ready for them to shoot at. "Whatever, man. You’re startin’ to sound like Spy, he’s always gettin’ on my case about this kinda thing.”
“Well, this is one time I agree with him,” Sniper picked up a cleaning cloth to gently wipe off part of his rifle. “Gotta be careful with these missions, you know? That bastard Gray Mann has been outta control.”
“No kiddin’,” Scout picked up his energy drink, taking a long sip. He then got quiet, staring down at the can, brushing his fingers over thoughtfully.
Sniper put his cleaning cloth down, noticing Jeremy’s expression. “You good, mate?”
“Oh,” Jeremy shook himself. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
He got quiet again, before asking, “Hey Snipes? Look, I know that sounds like a weird question, but…do you think the people we see in our dreams are real?”
Sniper’s brow furrowed. “I don’t get what you mean.”
“You know, like…dreams just happen in our heads, obviously, I know that,” Scout clarified. “But…I dunno, what if the people you see in there are real? See, ‘cause I used to have these dreams about this…friend. I used to say he was my imaginary friend, when I was a kid, but I haven’t seen him in a real long time. Ain’t no way he could’ve been real…but what if he was? I dunno, maybe I sound dumb.”
Sniper paused for a long moment, thinking this over. Finally, he decided, “To be honest, I don’t really think it’s up to me to decide what’s real.”
“Excuse me,” a voice called out, and both men turned to see Spy approaching. “I’m sure you two are having a lovely conversation, but we have some training to attend to, due to our little fiasco last week.”
Scout rolled his eyes, picking up his bat and heading over to the practice bots. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Let’s just get this crap over with. There’s a baseball game on in an hour, I’d better be back to watch the whole thing! I don’t wanna miss any of it!”
“Yes, you and your little games,” Spy sneered, taking his own position and pulling out his revolver.
The training went off for the first 20 minutes or so without any sort of hitch. Soldier, of course, took it upon himself to fully demolish his practice bot, leaving no part of it intact. This angered Engineer greatly, despite this being a regular occurrence with Soldier.
As they approached the halfway point of their practice session, Heavy halted. His eyes narrows towards the distant horizon, and his shoulders tensed.
“What’s the matter?” Medic asked, concerned.
“Hear something…” he muttered clenching his fist.
Engineer knelt next to the bot Heavy had been fighting, shifting the gears so it would pop up for another round. "Probably just a bird or something, big guy. C‘mon, y’all, we’re almost done! Let’s…”
The sound then met everyone else’s ears: the unmistakable rattling of one of Gray Mann’s robots. It soon became apparent that there wasn’t just one, but many.
As everyone looked around in confusion, Demoman bellowed, “It’s a bloody ambush! Get yer weapons!”
As a wave of robots flooded into the practice area, everyone rushed to reload their weapons and take their positions.
Scout used his bat to hit a couple robots in the head while attempting to discharge his gun with the other hand. This was efficient for a while, but it soon became incredibly difficult to keep up with.
“Snipes, there’s too many of them!” Scout exclaimed, bashing a Spy-Bot over the head with his bat. “Can you watch my back!?”
“Way ahead of you!” Sniper called back, scrambling over to a perch. He got into position, aiming and firing, quickly subduing a few bots.
“Geez, what the heck is Gray Mann doing!?” Engineer barked, slamming a wrench over the head of a Soldier-Bot with a wrench and watching is it crumbled to the ground. “I mean, an ambush, like this!?”
“He’s a stupid terrorist!” Soldier yelled, twisting the head off of a bot and using it to beat another one.
Heavy slammed against Heavy-Bot, only to yell in pain when it grabbed his arm and began to twist it. In an instant, Scout leapt over and smashed the bot on the head with his bat. “I gotcha, big guy!”
The Heavy-Bot then focused on Scout, snatching him by the neck and choking him. Scout gasped for air and dropped his bat, anxiously clawing at the bot’s hand to try and get away.
Heavy yelled in alarm, balling his huge hand into a fist and punching the bot as hard as he could in the back of its neck. The force of the punch caused the bot’s head to completely spin around, but it still did not release Scout.
Before Heavy could go in for another attack, he spotted a Sniper-Bot standing a few feet away, pointing its rifle at his head. Medic’s Ubersaw soared through the air, and before the bot could fire, the saw lodged itself into its head and knocked it to the ground.
Medic rushed over, yanking the saw out of the bot’s head. “There’s too many of them! Prepare to respawn, everyone, we can only do so much!”
“We will destroy Mann’s robots! Do not lose hope, Doktor!” Heavy hollered back. He went for the Heavy-Bot again, tearing its head completely off. The body sparked a few times, before its grip released and its mechanical knees gave out beneath it.
Scout collapsed on the ground beside the demolished robot, gasping for air, but another Heavy-Bot suddenly appeared from around the corner. It grabbed him by the leg, holding him upside down, and gripped his head with its other hand. It began to pull with considerable force, and Scout yelled out, struggling to escape.
Everything was happening so fast, Scout was certain that the Heavy-Bot was going to rip him in two. He pressed his eyes shut, preparing for the familiar feeling of being sent through the Respawn machine. Yet nothing happened — at least, not right away.
There was a smashing of steel before him, and his eyes popped open just in time to see that something had completely bisected the bot at the waist. The top half slid off the bottom and collapsed on the ground, bringing Scout down with it.
He fell into the dirt, coughing and shaking himself off, but he didn’t have much time to collect his thoughts. A blue flash zipped through several of the bots, effortlessly smashing them into pieces before everyone’s eyes.
Scout could only stare in disbelief as his mind tried to process what he was seeing. The force and speed seemed otherworldly…and yet, somehow, it was familiar to him. He looked over his shoulder at the others, wondering if they were seeing it, too.
The other mercenaries, like Scout, had come to a halt, gazing in disbelief as this blue blur demolished yet another group of robots.
It slowed down for just a moment so that they could get a good look at it: it wasn’t human, that was for sure. Aside from the unnatural blue coloring, the creature bore the resemblance of an animal, but its face looked as expressive as a human’s. It stopped just inches in front of a Spy-Bot, but only smirked at the sight of its weapon.
“Huh! I thought you were some Eggman’s rust buckets, but I dunno…you guys look like you came straight from the junkyard! What idiot slapped you together?”
The Spy-Bot stride to strike at the creature, but he dodged, laughing. “Oops! Too slow!” In a swift motion, he slammed forward, smashing directly into the bot and busting it to pieces.
“What the hell is that thing?!” Engineer hissed, unable to tear his eyes away from the scene.
“I don’t know…” Medic remarked, but there was a gleam in his eyes. “I want to study it! Do you think it will slow down enough so that I can catch it?”
It was only a moment or two before one bot remained. A Sentry Buster came running, ticking in preparation, but the creature spotted it. He spun around and kicked it into a pile of other destroyed bots, watching as it exploded and sent bits of scrap metal flying everywhere.
“That was almost too easy!” The creature laughed, dusting his hands off. He then turned around to look at the mercenaries. “Where’d those buckets of bolts come from, anyway? Did someone send them after you guys? Did…” he trailed off, flinching as he realized a small, red dot of light had appeared on his forehead. “What the—?”
It wasn’t just Sniper that had pointed his weapon at the creature. Within seconds, Soldier, Demo, and Heavy had all pulled out their weapons, surrounding him.
The creature put his hands up, eyes widening in alarm. “Hey, hey! What’s the deal!? I just saved you guys!”
“Who are you?!” Spy barked, stepping forward with his own gun. He paused, taking a moment to look him up and down. “Actually…a better question might be: what are you?”
The creature laughed, now seemingly unfazed by the weapons pointing at him. “The name’s Sonic, Sonic the Hedgehog! I’m not from around here, so I guess you guys haven’t heard of me!”
Scout blinked a few times, trying to process everything he was seeing and hearing. He pinched himself a few times, making sure he was awake, before he made his presence known.
“Sonic!” Scout exclaimed, getting his attention.
Sonic glanced in Scout’s direction, puzzled. “Huh? What’s up?”
“Sonic, it’s me! Fellas, put your guns down!” Scout rushed past the others, running to meet Sonic. He was surprised by just how small Sonic was in comparison to him. He couldn’t quite recall how big he’d been when they were children, but Sonic only stood at about three feet. “It’s me, Jeremy! Do you remember me?”
Sonic’s brow furrowed for a moment, and he studied Scout’s face. “Jeremy? From…those dreams I had when I was a kid?”
“Yeah! Yeah, that’s me!” Scout’s voice came out as a breathy laugh. With a shaky hand, he touched Sonic’s arm. “Are you real?”
“Yeah, I’m real!” Sonic nudged Scout’s arm in return, laughing. “Hey, buddy, it’s good to see you! I guess I thought I dreamt you, I didn’t think you were real!”
“I didn’t think you were real, either!” Scout exclaimed, and the two embraced one another. Since Scout was taller, he lifted Sonic off the ground a few inches, but Sonic didn’t mind.
The other mercenaries watched in pure confusion as the two happily reunited. Sniper climbed down from his from his perch, thinking back to the conversation he’d just had with Jeremy. “I don’t believe it…”
Spy put his gun down, but he was still eyeing Sonic suspiciously. “I’m sorry, Jeremy, but…how exactly do you know this…thing?”
Scout glared defensively over at Spy. “He ain’t a ‘thing’, Spy! He’s an old friend, he used to be in my dreams when I was a kid!”
“Yeah, we used to have races!” Sonic reminisced as the two broke the hug. “Though, I’d probably beat you, now, buddy!”
“I mean, no argument there!” Scout snickered. “The way you demolished those bots? I ain’t ever seen anything like it! You wanna come inside? I can show you my Tom Jones albums. Oh, wait — do you know who Tom Jones is?”
Engineer cleared his throat, taking a step forward. “Hey, fellas — as much as I’d love to invite your lil’…critter friend inside, Scout, I’d like to ask him some things.”
“Did you just call me a ‘critter’?” Sonic asked incredulously.
Engineer couldn’t stop staring at Sonic — he was so odd-looking to him. “What…are you, exactly?” he finally asked. “You said you’re a hedgehog, but I ain’t never seen a hedgehog that looks like you before.”
“Well, it’s kind of a long story, but I’m not from this world,” Sonic explained. “I’m looking for a guy, maybe you’ve seen him? You’d know him in you saw him, he’s called Eggman. I thought those robots were some of his when I saw them, but…” he picked up the head of one of the Scout-Bots, turning it over. “I dunno, this doesn’t seem like anything he would make! It’s real junky.”
Engineer tapped his chin, processing everything he’d just heard. “Interesting…listen: why don’t you come inside and we’ll talk a lil’ more about this? Personally, I’d like to know more.”
Spy pulled Engineer aside, hissing into his ear, “Dell, you’re going to let that thing into our base!? What if it’s dangerous? It doesn’t even have pants on!”
“It’s a ‘he’, not an ‘it’,” Engineer corrected, before turning his attention back to Sonic. “Tell us about this ‘Eggman’ fella you’re lookin’ for, maybe we can help you out.”
Scout grinned, beckoning Sonic. “Heck yeah! Come on, buddy, let’s go! I’ll give you a tour!”
“Sounds like a plan!” Sonic agreed, eagerly following after Scout.