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LoneGarurumon: Oh, for sure :) I have multiple fandoms as well, hence all the crossovers I love to write :p Glad you like this one! :D

Chapter 3: Lost in Translation

Sudden freefall.

Amy screamed. She had no idea what had just happened, could just remember her hand being torn out of Sonic's in an incredibly bright explosion that had felt like it had ripped her apart, only for her to get snapped back together again a split second later. The world had snapped back, too, but it now looked...entirely different.

Amy's eyes grew wide as she realized she was now inside a building, about 30 feet in the air, and was also now hurtling downwards toward what seemed to be a giant indoor swimming pool.

There was a somewhat higher-pitched scream, that coincidentally perhaps sounded a bit like 'This isn't Sonic EEEEEEEEEEX!" and then there was giant splash! and Amy Rose the Hedgehog impacted the water at the Cerulean City Gym with a fountain to be seen.

xxx

Somewhere else, the hero of Mobius and his newly-found electric friend were proceeding at a much more sedate walking pace, but also leaving the forest, which Sonic on a very instinctive level did not feel that comfortable with. It had been a long time ago since Mobian hedgehogs had evolutionally split from their feral ancestry, but some basic impulses like the need for cover in unknown surroundings persisted. But Sonic currently also had no choice but to follow the lead of the yellow pet thing, and so he prayed that it at least wouldn't be too long until they perhaps met some other people that would hopefully be helpful and relieve him off his burden.

"Pi-ka, pi-ka, pi-ka..."

In front of him, perhaps in a bizarre manner intending to give them a rhythm to walk to, said yellow pet thing was walking on its two legs in front, holding the unconscious boy's ankles over its head, while Sonic had his hands under his armpits at the rear, supporting the kid's upper body and carrying the brunt of his weight. There had been a footpath actually quite close to the clearing that the critter had led them to, and now it was leading out of the foliage of the trees and into a wide array of fields and grass meadows. Sonic's eyes immediately zeroed in on the building amid them, a sort of two-storey farmhouse with a red roof and a large wind turbine on top of it. As soon as it came into sight, the yellow mouse had already dropped the boy's ankles and was now racing on all fours up the path to the entrance of the house.

"Hey, wait-!" Sonic called out, still effectively hindered from moving by the torso of the boy in his arms and he could only watch as the mouse didn't stop running until it almost collided with the wooden door, then proceeded to bang its tiny fists against it.

"Pika! Pikapi, Pikachu!"

"Pikachu-? What...? ASH!" As Sonic watched, the door had already opened, and a middle-aged human man in a white lab coat had stepped out, first staring down in confusion at the little creature, but then his eyes widened in shock as he looked up and beheld the hedgehog and his injured cargo.

"Pikachu! What happened?!" The man was shouting some more (but, the hero of Mobius realized with a sinking feeling, just as incomprehensible things) as he and the mouse creature were now running back toward Sonic in obvious agitation. The blue hedgehog was actually not altogether too happy as he saw the second human approaching, having no idea what they would think of Sonic's involvement in the accident of the boy, but unfortunately Sonic also couldn't very well drop the little psycho and give him a second concussion.

"Oh no, Ash, what happened to you-?!" The man, perhaps a doctor (judging from the white labcoat), bent down and immediately hoisted the kid up in his arms, still talking – before he then froze, and seemingly beheld Sonic for the first time.

"Wait, who are YOU?"

"Uh..." Sonic, sensing that he was suddenly the new topic of interest but not appreciating it, tried to back away, gesturing with hopefully placating open palms. "Look, I just wanted to get your kid home safe, I didn't pick the fight-"

"Incredible!" The man yelled something and then grabbed Sonic by the arm, (thereby also very unceremoniously dropping the injured kid). "You're a new Pokémon! And so close to my home!"

For some reason, the hero of Mobius just had the worst sense of déja vu.

Great, any moment now he's gonna fling mutant yellow rats at me, too.

"Uh, look, glad to help you and all-!" Sonic tried, attempting to suppress the slight panic in his voice, and still trying to pull his arm free, but the man was by now also grinning like a maniac and seemed to possess far more strength than he should have.

"You helped Ash, didn't you? How wonderful! Come inside, you will need to be studied immediately!"

"Argh!" Before Sonic could say anything, he had already been yanked off his feet (cursing humankind and their ridiculous size) and, wondering where the hell the older man got the energy or strength from, was pulled into the house by him, sneakered feet dragging behind, the scary scientist guy apparently also considering Sonic a lot more interesting than any hurt and bleeding kids of his own species.

"Chansey! Please take care of Ash, he's outside!"

The man still hadn't released him, but was now shouting something else, sounding like he was calling for someone. Sonic looked around, already tensing up, wondering whether this crazy person was perhaps actually trying to arrest him for bringing the injured kid home and was now calling reinforcements. He would need to get out of here before that happened. Unwillingly, he turned his head into the direction the human had called, wanting to see what he could be up against...

...and then almost jumped into his captor's arms in shock.

"What the hell is THAT?!"

"Huh? Oh, hey, there's no need to look so scared," the man in the labcoat was now looking down at Sonic, who had jumped up and curled all of his limbs around the human's forearm, green eyes wide and terrified.

Next, Sonic was surprised when the human actually laughed and patted him on the head with his free hand.

"There's no need to worry, sport, that's just Chansey, my medical assistant," he spoke something in a soothing tone and gently lowered the arm Sonic was still clinging to, setting him on his feet again. "None of the pokémon on my ranch are going to attack you, you can relax. Now, you just stay here while I get my equipment..." Another unexpected scratch of his head fur behind his ears followed, and then the human was already bending down and retrieving something from a chest of drawers. Sonic blinked, and, while still not understanding the meaning of the words, he was kind of getting the impression that man was talking to him like one would to a feral dog that was having a panic attack because of fireworks. Even if he had to figure that Sonic didn't speak his language, he was still chatting away like at a teaparty.

"No, not this, this a gardening implement, not this, that's the tea cosy from Ash's mum...now where did I put that thing again...?"

As the man babbled, Sonic also watched the other creature that had freaked him out so much – and really, how could you not freak out about something that looked like a...giant...egg-shaped...pink blob with tentacle-like appendages...- wobble past him and out the door with something that looked a lot like a First Aid kit. Sonic relaxed infinitesimally.

No guards, then. Just help for the kid. Good.

But this was the second weird, weird creature he had encountered in the last half an hour, and together with the fact that he had now met not one, but two people who didn't speak anything even remotely close to resembling New Mobian, Sonic was becoming increasingly aware of the fact that he really had no idea where he was.

If this even was still Mobius.

Sonic swallowed, but then refused to start panicking. He could deal with this. The first step would have to be to find a pen and paper or something to attempt even a bit of communication, maybe draw a map or something – he let his gaze for the first time flit around to take in his new surroundings more closely. They seemed to be in a huge, open-plan laboratory of some sort, with a wide window on one wall, letting sunlight stream in. In front of it was a kind of indoor balcony. Two walls on either side were taken up by huge consoles and two research desks, and in the middle of the room also stood an old, brown sofa with several smaller, complicated-looking machines standing around it in a bit of a messy pattern. The entire area was only semi-tidy, most of the surfaces in the lab also decorated by strewn-around research papers, half-eaten sandwiches, and, for some reason, red and white toy balls.

Sonic was hard-pressed to not be reminded of the laboratory of his old friend Kintobor.

In fact, even the man in the white labcoat was currently giving off a lot of the same vibes of 'enthusiastic and friendly, but completely cloud-coockoolander scientist' that Sonic for a moment had to consciously remind himself not to get drawn down memory lane.

"Uh, listen, you wouldn't have something to write with lying around here...?" Sonic finally kicked himself into action, talking more out of habit than because of the actual hope to be understood, and he wandered over to one of the writing desks, starting to hunt around for a pen.

"Oh hey, what are you doing? Nononono, that's NOT for Pokémon, get away from there!"

"Wha-? Ah! Lemme down!" Sonic protested as he was suddenly (and not unlike he had done to the rat thing ealier, he sourly remembered) lifted from behind, two hands grabbing his sides and carrying him away from the desk. "You don't understand, I wanna – oh for Chaos' sake, you not understanding me sucks!" he yelled in frustration, trying to wriggle out of the human's grasp without having to resort to kicks or raising of his quills that surely would have hurt the other.

"There you go. Now sit there nice and tight," the human said, using an infuriatingly soothing tone that Sonic by now so wasn't in the mood for. But instead of being able to try and write something down, he was now placed on something that looked like a cross between a sick bed and a lab table, and that immediately let all of the alarm bells shrill in Sonic's head.

Uh-huh, no. No way. No crazy scientist is ever going to have me on their lab table again, I've had enough of that the last time Eggman caught me-!

"Get away from me!" Sonic barked, immediately scrambling backwards along the length of the padded table. The human now looked actually surprised, only holding a stethoscope and some sort of game-boy thing (much like the boy's) in his hand, and he stared at Sonic in slight confusion.

"No, what's wrong, I don't want to hurt you-" he began, sounding like he had somehow not been expecting Sonic's unhappy reaction at all. Sonic almost relaxed from the lack of hostility, now only staring back at the human in honest confusion when the other spoke again.

"See, I only want to study you, and for that I need to scan you first." Next, however,he raised the red calculator-looking thing and activated it, and when he saw the blue light pointed at him, Sonic, who had seen too many laser rifles and stun guns and tazers and plasma cannons, panicked out of reflex.

"No!" he threw himself backwards, colliding sharply with the machine standing on the side of the lab table, the collision letting it hum into life, which didn't help his comfort level any. Sonic twisted himself off the sick bed, landing on his feet with natural grace and backing away.

"Listen, I don't know who you are, but the moment you point any weird sciency thingamajigs at me, I'm outta here," he snapped, already calculating on whether he would be able to zip past the human toward the front door or whether he would have to try and hurl himself out of the window.

What he hadn't been prepared for, however, was the scientist suddenly staring at him with absolutely wide eyes and dropping both the stethoscope as well as the Game Boy.

"Incredible!" he breathed, "Did you just...speak?!"

"Wait. Now you understand me?" Sonic asked, suspiciously. The human had immediately hurried over, but to Sonic's surprise, was now not fussing over him, but over the machine Sonic had bumped against.

"My translator! It's a success!" the man exclaimed, a bright grin on his features for a moment, before it immediately transformed into a frown as he scratched his head. "But why didn't it work on the other Pokémon before...?"

"The other what?" Sonic asked, slightly bewildered. So far, nothing about this world had been making sense whatsoever, and now even with this machine apparently translating the language for him, the other was still using unfamiliar words. The human turned toward him, seeming surprised at Sonic's question.

"On the other Pokémon! On monsters like you!"

"Excuse me?!"

"Huh?" The scientist blinked at him as if not quite understanding the sudden bristling of spines on his visitor.

"I'm not a monster! I'm a hedgehog!" Sonic protested. "You're the freakishly tall furless weirdo..."

The human cocked his head, apparently not having heard the last sentence. "A hedgehog? You mean you're a hedgehog Pokémon?"

"No!" Sonic could feel himself getting frustrated again. "Just. A hedgehog."

"But...hedgehogs are small. And brown. And..." the man gave Sonic a brief once-over, "...usually don't wear sneakers."

This, of course, prompted a roll of green eyes. "Well, feral ones, duh. I'm a Mobian hedgehog. Haven't you ever -?"

Sonic stopped himself. Suddenly his throat had become as dry as parchment. Slowly, he levelled a very worried stare at the human.

"...um. This still is Mobius, right...?"

And when the man in the lab coat then assumed a very puzzled expression and only asked "Mobi-what?", Sonic suddenly also felt very, very alone.

To be continued...

Next player added to the mix, hope you liked! :D And yeah, I know that a few of you are probably waiting for the *other* stories to be updated as well, and rest assured, I'm working on them! Thanks for sticking around :) Hope you're also all enjoying the last remnants of summer and if you read, please review!