The author's hands shook. Here he was, writing a story that he had dreamt up on a lazy afternoon's whim. He contemplated deleting it. He had promised himself to write more than the intro. He had also promised to scrap this project if it other thought it was a bad idea. He didn't know if any of his previously brainstormed ides would actually be incorporated into the progressing story, but he couldn't wait for a beta reader... His imagination's inconsistent ways simply would not allow it. He had to publish something before his drive and ideas ran dry once again. He ran over the Submit button and unsubtly transitioned the narrative into...

Terminus of Teufort, Mission to Mobius

… some kind of Team Fortress and Sonic the Hedgehog crossover fanfiction.

Written by the ridiculous prose plugger, Herpaderpster.

"Medic, I am leaving for trip now!", our favorite Heavy Weapons Guy shouted to his longtime friend, the Medic of his team of mercenaries, who he called... the Medic.

"Goodness gracious, Igor, we are not in a round right now. It is safe to call me Otto!" Medic appreciated that Heavy respected the things that he did for the team, but Heavy was slow to register what was going on around him at times, something that put Heavy at a disadvantage in combat, especially since he was the most prone on the team to an ambush. Medic brought his mind back to what Heavy had to say.

"Right, right. Helen finally granted you that extended vacation, yes?"

"Yes, docto- Otto! And even better, announcer lady says we have no matches coming up, so we can relax for long time!"

"Did she happen to say how long?"

"She say 'expect about 2 weeks, but if our setbacks last longer than that, I may just let you stupid, bloodthirsty oafs organize some scrims and lobbies on your own' when I was there."

"Really now?"

"Dah. Vorbis tom!"

"You mean verbatim..."

"Yes. Maybe. I cannot remember."

Medic breathed a sigh of relief. The two engineers, RED and BLU, had been working in tandem for quite a while now, trying to fix the respawn system that had been setting the timer hours longer than normal. This was just the relief that both teams needed. Perhaps he could even meet with the other Medic to share procedures and experiments. Medic knew that Heavy would normally leave with much more ruckus, so he humored Heavy on his blatant inquisitions.

"I know you are wanting something from me, Igor. Normally you are less subtle about your departures."

"Right, Otto! I want you to take care of Sasha while I leave. My cousin says he wants me not to cause much panic at place."

"This is the first time you have asked anyone to hold onto your minigun, Igor. You must have a lot of trust in me this time. Or another bullet in your skull..."

"No, I thought this one out much! Engineer has extra metal, so he built new sentry gun just for Sasha! And he also say something about repair node."

"Well, if you say so. You know how prone Engineer is to Spies."

"I made Spy promise not to touch her. With fists!"

With this, Heavy hoisted his beloved gun onto a cart for Medic to pull into storage. Heavy did, however, pack away a Sandvich and shotgun.

"Even in civvies, always bring some backup power," Soldier always said. And enforced, for that matter. Heavy made the retroactive choice to run back and grab a Buffalo Steak Sandvich and Soldier's recommended boxing gloves, the Gloves of Running Urgently. Soldier liked to say that pain was weakness leaving the body, and to never give up a fight. He also emphasized the ability to escape a losing battle, to Heavy's chagrin. He gave a final solemn glance at his gun, before he turned tail and shoved off in his dinky little Volkswagen.

"Have fun with Soldier! I hear he is working on pocket work, off roaming game!" That bit of gossip certainly helped Medic feel better for his safety, but without Heavy, life around the base was sure to be a bit more boring for the rest of the team. Everyone in Dustbowl knew that Heavy's world famous Sandvich recipes were the life of any party. Medic recalled how Heavy had always dreamed of opening up a Sandvich Shop after the bloodsport stopped paying well. Medic could do nothing but hope that Heavy would have fun meeting his family after such a long time.

"Mobius? I have never heard of place!" Heavy remarked, reading the simple letter his cousin had sent to his home. "It must be private area, or maybe city in other country!" As he got out of his car and headed for the shuttle to the airport, he began to daydream of just how exotic his destination might be.

As his bus approached the bench he was sitting on (and taking up much of the space of), Heavy stood up, dusted the breadcrumbs off of his suit, put away the remaining half of his Sandvich and prepared to head off to his flight.

"Well, pancakes, where you heading?" Heavy turned and grinned. It was the unmistakeable voice of his "buddy" on the enemy BLU team, Scout.

"Scout, you are leaving for trip too?"

"What else you think I'm here for, dumbass? Not like they'd let me kill you on off-hours."

"Where are you going to go, little war-criminal?"

"Tourin' some place called Mobius. I was lucky enough to be on the first flight!"

"Same place I am headed... you said first flight?"

"Ain't ya heard the news? Inter-universal test flight ring a bell?"

"I didn't know about destination until today. My cousin paid for trip."

"For a guy with a literary PhD, you sure ain't been reading the news lately." Heavy didn't bother reminding Scout that his PhD was in Russian literature. "Engineer and a team of people found the documents and blueprints of some Russian scientist. Right up your alley, huh? Anyways, they found a way to do 'inter-universal travel' and stuff, and the dude had coordinates for a place he called 'Mobius'. Today's the first trip open to anyone. Even then, it ain't really public. I think our team just got early access because of your Engineer."

"Scout."

"Yeah?"

"Who was scientist?"

"Some kind of robotics engineer. I don't remember stupid shit like that."

"Oh. I am going to see cousin in Mobius."

"Who knows, maybe he's the dude. You know, like in the movies?"

" Entire story sounds very suspicious and very specific."

Heavy made a mental note to never question his BLU rival's intellectual prowess again. Evidently the hyper child had been keeping up on the latest tech. After all, despite fighting for about half a century, he was still in exactly the same condition as he was when he was 21. An ethically dubious side effect of the mercenaries' respawn system.

"Scout, you bring backup weapon?"

"Your Soldier blabs about that too? Man, he made me pack my whole damn arsenal. I got away with leaving my pistol behind by grabbing a can of BONK on my way out, but I dunno what there could possibly be that needs my gun at my side."

"You cannot be too prepared."

"You sound like my old scoutmaster."

The two decided to stick together for their trip.

"What's with the guns, you two? You want to cause trouble on first contact or something?"

"We work for TF Industries.", replied the Heavy. "Guns are all of what we have."

"Oh yeah, you're from the mercenary team we brought with us! Never mind, you two are off the hook; after all, we can't reasonably expect to fight off a potential attack with a spanner and scrap metal." quipped the mechanic they were being escorted with. Eventually the group arrived at a plane. It was obviously some sort of prototype, as the only paint seen on it was used to label it with letters and numbers. A few bits and pieces inside of the aircraft hooked up to other parts made it quite obvious that this was strictly experimental tech they were dealing with.

"This is boring. When do we get there?"

"Scout, we have not even sat down."

"Doesn't mean this isn't snooze-fest 2012, Heavy. I'm hungry. Do you think the place we're going to has chilidogs?"

"I don't know.."

"We should totally grab some chilidogs. Actually, we should go for tacos. How 'bout Pizza? That sound good to you? Wait, wait, you're a sandwich guy. I forgot." Heavy sat down and filtered out the incessant chatter that he was used to from the Scout. He waited for the trip to begin.

"Alrighty, fellas. You guys know how the drill works, and y'all should already be at your respective seats. I've heard about your plans, Igor, so just sit tight with 'lil tramp, don't cause no ruckus, and we'll handle anything you need."

"Hey! How come you're callin' him by his name, and not me?"

"Because you're on BLU, Stanley. We're not supposed to let on any signs of familiarity."

"That's a dumb rule the higher-ups pulled out their asses; 'sides, Announcer ain't even here."

"Shut up, Scout", Heavy muttered. "He said no ruckus." The three sat down in an aisle, and waited for the rest of the team to finish preparations. Heavy twiddled his thumbs, Scout kicked the chair in front of him, and Engineer frantically plugged some code into his computer.

"Hey, Hewlett! We're taking off, but the coordinates might be a little off. Just saying!" called the pilot.

"Just make sure we don't arrive at the base of a cliff or anything", Engineer shouted back. "We've gotten far enough with this to the point that our precise location doesn't matter anymore. My friends and I can get y'all to safety."

The plane took off. Engineer explained the procedure to Heavy and Scout. "We're gonna start the teleportation up in the clouds. That'll decrease interference and keep our profile low. Reading the radars and signals, we can expect to see a large, albeit genetically unfamiliar, civilization already up and running, but if we don't, well, we can set up a camp just fine."

"Will we meet friends if we see people there?", Heavy asked.

"If they aren't too suspicious of your bandolier, I'd say you'd be the first one they warm up to. For now, let's worry about making sure we get through to this new universe." With that, Engineer began to load up the code that would enable their travel to a new world. He and his fellow troopers could only imagine what they might find there.