A/N: Next episode of my stories. Be warned if you haven't played Sonic Riders and plan to, it turns up in bits and pieces. Some people might consider this a crossover story, but I don't see it that way, since Sonic Team did the cross in at least 6 games so far. Postings on this will probably be a bit slow at first, the rough plot is sound, but the details have changes at least three times so far. But the chapters will come up as they get finalized. Oh, and just for anyone who's new to my stories - 'dokan' is the word I use for 'furry', 'anthropomorph', etc. It's just easier.

Dreamchaser

1. Robots from Nowhere

It was a fabulous day. There were just enough clouds overhead to keep the sun from being oppressive, and a pleasant breeze kept things from being too hot. Not that the only person on the road could feel the breeze– he was generating far more wind merely by his own passage. The speed of said passage was proof that the traveler was one of two particular people on the planet, both of whom were dokan hedgehogs - and this particular traveler was not black.

Sonic the Hedgehog ran on, barely glancing at the scenery he was passing so quickly. He gave a few skips, and occasionally leaped into the air, curling onto a ball long enough to do a midair somersault or two before landing on his feet and continuing his run. He loved to run, to let the speed of his passing rip its fingers through his quills, to feel the ground beneath him pushing back against each stride of his powerful legs. Sonic had only one competitor when it came to running power, and he was an artificially created life-form.

Life had been complicated lately, with his nemesis Dr. Eggman trying to take over the world (again), and Sonic was very glad to get back to the simplicity he preferred: nothing but himself and the wind, moving as quickly as possible across the open spaces of the world. In a few days, or weeks, or perhaps next spring, he'd call Tails and check that everything was all right, but his friends were perfectly capable of taking care of themselves and each other - his presence was hardly needed. Of course, Eggman being Eggman, Sonic would probably have to abandon his own routine all too soon to deal with another of the human's grandiose plots. Sonic shook his head in rejection of that thought and upped his speed another notch, to where even thoughts couldn't keep up.

The sound of soles on pavement was less a rhythm than a constant sound, but Sonic was accustomed enough to his own running that he still heard the distant cry. He screeched to a halt in a massive cloud of dust, hopping from foot to foot to dissipate the resulting heat while he listened. There it was again: a desperate, despairing sound, not so much asking for help as knowing there was none around. Well, they don't know that Sonic the Hedgehog is here! He left the road and ran towards the cry, hearing the sounds of engines, and (his pace increased) the zapping sound of lasers. He frowned. Surely Egghead hasn't gotten his new act together this fast!

But apparently he had. Sonic found himself on the top of a ridge, overlooking an elementary school. The side of the hill nearest the school had been cut away to provide parking for cars and buses, but apparently school wasn't in session right now. A panicked human boy crouched behind a light pole in the nearly empty lot, while a pair of sports cars charged the pole and veered away at the last moment. A small fighter jet - too small to hold even a dokan pilot - screamed around the pole in impossibly tight circles, and as Sonic came upon the scene a second jet was actually turning itself into a humanoid robot. The hedgehog gaped as the metal feet clanged onto the asphalt. "Whoa. Eggman's outdone himself this time!" The cars had made one last charge and were now themselves rearing up, as their trunks unfolded into legs and their doors opened up to become arms. The remaining plane now strafed laserbolts across the pavement, ultimately demolishing the base of the lamp and sending it crashing down on the other robots.

But not on the boy. Even as the young human cowered and covered his head, something had snatched him around the waist and yanked. And suddenly he was being stood on his feet on the grassy edge of the parking lot. Startled he looked up - and then down slightly, to stare into the emerald eyes of a blue hedgehog known world-wide as a hero. "S-s-sonic the Hedgehog?" he squeaked.

Sonic winked and said, "Hold that thought! I'll be right back!" He raced across the parking lot to meet the oncoming robots. In a neat move, he homing-attacked the closest car-robot and ricocheted himself skyward to slam into the belly of the jet racing for its escaped victim. The other two robots lost interest in the boy and tried to shoot Sonic. With a crow of delight, he avoided the attacks, and hurled himself back at the first robot he'd hit. The second bounce inactivated the thing's computer brain, and he ran a tight infinity sign around the two that were firing at him, throwing them completely off balance. The fallen jet was trying to turn into a robot where it lay, but seemed to be getting stuck mid-change. He bounced a few times on the closest pair, then aimed for the last one– but it had vanished. He grunted sharply as he landed harder than he intended and looked around, searching for his missing target. It was nowhere to be seen. For that matter, the three he'd smashed were also nowhere to be seen. He frowned at the boy who was now trotting across to join him. "Where did they go?"

The kid shrugged. "I dunno, they just all vanished. But that was sooo neat! The way you just went bounce and pow! it went down, and you went swoosh," the busy hands made a tight figure-eight, "and the other two fell over! That was so incredibly cool; I can't wait to tell everyone at school tomorrow!"

"Thanks," Sonic grinned, but his heart wasn't entirely in it. Where had the robots gone? He scuffed around on the ground with a foot, half-hoping to either feel a metal limb or turn up some sort of trapdoor. I know old Eggy's done some that exploded on deactivation in the past, but robots that evaporate? They can't have turned invisible, can they? No, cause I can't feel this one and they aren't still attacking. He scratched his head, riffling the blue quills, then gave it up. I'll find out soon enough if it's important, he reasoned, with a mental shrug. He held out his hand to the boy. "I'm Sonic the Hedgehog. Why were those things attacking you, anyway?"

"Jason Blarick," said the boy gravely, shaking the hedgehog's hand, and then went back to bubbling again. "I know who you are! You saved the world a bunch of times from Dr. Eggman and his monsters, and the aliens with Shadow the Hedgehog and everything!" He drooped a little and continued more slowly, "I think they were after me because I didn't finish my homework."

"Huh?" Sonic blinked up at the kid. "Why would Eggman's robots care if you'd done your homework or not?"

"Dunno. But it was almost just like my nightmare last night - I went into class and said I hadn't done the homework and the teacher and all my classmates turned into robots and attacked me. And when I woke up, I tried to finish it, but it was too late, so when I got to school I had to tell Ms Evans that it wasn't done. She didn't turn into a robot, she just gave me a detention, but when that was over and I came out to go home, the robots just came roaring in out of nowhere!"

Sonic looked around at the all-too-existent proof of the now-nonexistent robots' attack. "We'd probably better not hang around," he said, looking at the scorched pavement and shattered lamppost. "I don't fancy trying to explain a robot attack when there's no robotic remains to back up the story." Hero he might be, but he'd run afoul of both the law and the military before for breaking their silly rules, and he preferred to avoid a repetition.

Jason was looking around himself. "Yeah. I'm in enough trouble for having to stay late without getting accused of vandalism." He started to walk away, then hesitated. "Um, would you mind walking home with me? I- I don't know why those things attacked me, but . . . ."

"No problem," answered the blue hedgehog confidently. "But I can't really see Eggman caring whether you'd done your homework or not. Are you sure you haven't seen anything - robots in weird places, or something, or maybe found something he might want?" He was thinking 'Chaos Emerald' but didn't want to ask straight out.

"You mean, like a robot part?" The boy was clearly thinking along a different track. "I found an old spark plug, but I didn't think there was anything special about it." He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a handful of stuff: some coins, a pencil stub, a striped rock that was vaguely tooth-shaped, a gum wrapper, and the spark plug. "You think this might be what he's after?" He held out the flattened spark plug and shoved the rest of the items back in his pocket.

Sonic took it and inspected it carefully. He didn't pay a lot of attention to such things - that was Tails' interest - but it looked ordinary enough to him, similar to the ones he'd used in the Tornado back before he gave it to the fox cub. Only flatter. "It looks okay to me, but are you sure it's safe to haul around in your pocket like that?" He handed it back.

Jason looked at it a moment, then shrugged. "I don't see why not, but . . ." he tossed it into a dumpster they were passing, "there. Doctor Eggman can come dig through there for it, if he wants it."

Sonic smirked. He wasn't convinced that his rotund nemesis was after the part, but certainly there was nothing else in the boy's pocket to interest him. They both looked up as the sunlight suddenly cut out. "Oh, yuck," said Sonic. "I hate storms."

"Do you have to be anywhere tonight? You could stay at my house," Jason suggested. He started to run, and Sonic jogged alongside, hoping the dark clouds that had swept up unnoticed wouldn't break loose until they got under cover. The wind that gusted past them was suddenly much colder and stronger. "My parents wouldn't mind; they think you're a hero too."

"Well," started Sonic. He flinched as the first big drops pelted down, sinking through his fur like beads of ice. The sudden fork of lightning across the sky decided for him. "Okay," he yelled over the thunder, "as long as your folks don't mind!"

The Blaricks didn't mind. In fact, they were ecstatic to make the acquaintance of someone as important as Sonic the Hedgehog, and all but fell over themselves to make him feel welcome. Mrs. Blarick had been in Station Square when Tails had defused Eggman's missile, and inquired eagerly after the little fox. Sonic made a mental note to tell his friend, since Tails was notorious for doubting his own abilities. A little hero worship from someone he'd rescued would do him good.

In the morning, he was up early, and stayed only long enough to thank his hosts and say goodbye to the children. The fact that Eggman's robots had attacked a child for no apparent reason still bothered him. It wasn't like Eggman to put a child in harm's way unless he was so outraged he wasn't thinking straight - such as when he'd launched the missile at Station Square, in fact. Sonic raced across town back to the school, pulled out a device Tails had built to detect Eggman robots, and did a quick dash around the buildings to scout for trouble. Finding nothing, he began zipping along the city streets, doing a block by block search.

Nothing, nada, zip. He frowned, keeping on eye on the tiny screen as he wove his way around cars and pedestrians. Not a blink or a bleep. He's got to be here somewhere! Unless he's found a way to hide his robots from Tails' detector? Sonic shook his head. It's not that he couldn't do it, but he's never bothered before. He vaulted over a flatbed truck parked across an alley. Eggman's always seemed to welcome the challenge of having me try to stop him, in spite of the fact that that means he always loses. The hedgehog jumped up and ricocheted his way down another alley by bouncing from wall to wall, just for a change of pace. Still no results. He reached the edge of town and reversed direction, sliding two blocks over from the last street he'd gone down. He'd scan the whole town section by section, just to be sure.

When Jason got out of school that afternoon, Sonic was perched on the stone tiger that adorned the main entrance. A mob of excited children gathered around, and Sonic cheered himself up by answering questions and giving autographs, including to a number of teachers who came to see what the noise was about. Finally the crowd cleared, and Sonic fell in beside Jason as the boy started home. "Did you find anything out?" Jason asked eagerly.

"Not a thing," admitted Sonic. "I'm not giving up yet though, there's got to be some reason those robots attacked you. I'll scout around town some more this afternoon, and tomorrow I'll try going further afield."

"Are you going to come back to my house tonight?"

Sonic grinned at the boy's excitement, but shook his head. "Nah, it's so pretty out here I figured I'll just camp out in the woods. I do it all the time, and that way if I notice anything suspicious I can run check on it without bothering anyone. And I've got pocket money enough for food."

Jason was disappointed, but the last statement diverted him. "Pocket money? You don't have pockets!"

"Kinda hard to have pockets if you don't have pants," Sonic agreed, "so I keep it here!" He slipped his fingers into his right sock and pulled out a couple of folded bills. Jason laughed, and Sonic bid him farewell.

Nothing happened that night, or turned up the next day. Sonic decided that the robots must have been a fluke, but stopped by the school one last time to be certain that the young human hadn't seen anything either. Jason insisted that he still had no idea why he'd been attacked, so the hedgehog said goodbye and raced off. He turned back though, without being quite sure why, and shadowed the boy from a distance. As Jason crossed the mostly-empty parking lot of a drug store, a small jet swooped down from nowhere and started firing at him. Simultaneously, a car roared out of an alley that Sonic would swear was too narrow for it to fit into. And before the hedgehog could react . . . a blue blur of motion swept into the lot and smashed the attacking car to bits. A second car roared up and unfolded into a robot, as both (both? Where did the second one come from?) planes dropped to the ground on metal feet. The blue hedgehog in the parking lot did a homing attack on one car-robot, while the blue hedgehog in the shadows stared in confusion. The only other person who could attack like that was Shadow, and the idea of Shadow painting himself blue, even as a joke, did not compute. (For that matter, the pairing of 'Shadow' with 'joke' did not compute.) Perhaps the Doc's tried to make a new Metal Sonic? OH! Sonic whipped out the robot detector– and became even more confused. According to the little machine, the robots down there were not only not Eggman robots, they weren't robots at all. In fact - he pushed a few buttons - in fact, according to Tails' device nothing was moving down there except Jason.

Sonic looked from the detector to the parking lot and back again. Then he shoved it into his non-existent pocket (a dokan trick that no human could pull off) and sped out of the cluster of trees and onto the pavement they bordered.

Jason caught the movement, gaped a moment, and yelled, "S-Sonic?" He looked in shock towards the other Sonic the Hedgehog and– just like that, the second Sonic and all the robots were gone.

The pair stood blinking and looking around warily, but the enemies stayed gone. Eventually, Jason said, "What happened?"

"I'm not sure," said Sonic. "But those weren't Eggman robots, whatever they were. Tails' little gadget said you were the only moving thing down here, and I don't think it's malfunctioning. Oh, I saw them too," he added hurriedly as the boy started to protest, "the changing robots and the, the um, other me. But they weren't really robots, and they weren't alive, either."

"Then what were they?" But Sonic had no answer for that. "You're leaving today, right?"

"Well, I had planned to, but if you're getting attacked. . ." Sonic started, but the boy cut him off.

"No, that's okay! Actually it's great! See, I had another dream last night - not about the robots, but all through the dream I was looking for something, and I never could find it. It had fallen somewhere, and gotten lost. And all sorts of other, uh, things, and other people, were helping me hunt for it, and some of them weren't very nice things. You showed up to save me from some of them. And then they all sort of followed you away to the ocean and fell in. So I figure if you go away the whatever-they-ares will follow you, but you're a hero so you can handle them!

"But you go all over the world and you must meet a lot of people, so I guess you'll forget me pretty soon."

Sonic, was caught off guard by the abrupt topic change. "Uh, yeah. Oh! No, I mean that's right about my meeting a lot of people, not about forgetting you! I won't forget you; I never forget my friends!"

But the boy was fumbling in his pocket. "So I want you to take this with you. It doesn't weigh much, and you can remember me when you look at it." He held out the tooth-shaped rock he'd had in his pocket when they'd first met.

Sonic took it and looked it over. It appeared to be an agate, or some similarly striped stone, in reddish, black, and purply tones. Now that he took a good look at it, it wasn't as tooth-shaped as he'd first thought, although it did have two protrusions like legs or roots, off of a blobby base. It was as smooth and shiny as if it had been polished. Sonic looked back up at the boy. "You really want me to take this?" Sonic wasn't one to pick up souvenirs - that really would load him down, the number of places he traveled - but this was light enough, and he could always leave it at home the next time he passed through there.

Jason nodded. "I found that the day before I met you, and that was the greatest day of my life, in spite of the robots! There was this weird guy, he looked like a wizard or something in these long purple and black robes with gold symbols all over? He was in both of my dreams, now that I think about it! But anyway, I picked this up when I saw it later that day because it was sort of the same color as his robes. I sure won't forget you, but please take that and remember me, okay?"

Sonic nodded in agreement. "All right, then! I'll take it. You're sure you'll be okay getting home?"

"Yeah. You came to save me, and according to my dream, that means they'll all be after you now," he grinned. "But I'm sure you can handle it. Besides, it's Friday, so I'll just hang around the house for the weekend, in case anything happens. But I'd better get home now. G'bye!"

Sonic watched the boy run off into his neighborhood and took another look at the stone. It occurred to him that if Jason's adventures had started when the boy found the stone, then perhaps the stone had something to do with them. He sniffed it cautiously, then held it up to his ear. Nothing. He pulled out Tails' detector and scanned it every way the unit was capable of. It appeared to be . . . a small agate, albeit of slightly odd shape. Must have been the wizard causing all the problems, then. Snorting at his own whimsy, he tucked both items away and jogged off. If trouble did come after him, he'd deal with it then. He was Sonic the Hedgehog, after all. Actually, he rather hoped it would. He liked excitement.