The Game Awards: Player’s Choice.

It all felt way too… surreal? Nah, seen weirder… bah, Tails would have some big word for this. Sorry, let me catch you up to Speed, I’m Sonic, Sonic the Hedgehog. Super cool, super-fast, super blue, and sometimes super… sorry, off topic. I’ve been invited by those dudes who made a video game about me and all of my adventures. This new one about my story with the Starfall Islands and it’s supposedly a huge hit! So much of a hit that it’s aiming to win a players choice award! That’s incredible to me, you know? To know that i’ve got such a dedicated fanbase… really something…

I pondered this while sitting in the food court eating a pizza slice (all you can eat and not a single chill dog? Oh, the tragedy) when suddenly someone sits at the table I am, someone rather tall and with a decisively feminine voice. “My, my. What’s the famous blue blur doing all by his lonesome?”

“Oh, hey Bayo, I could say the same for you, what compelled you to sit down with someone such as myself?” I say in the haughtiest, teasing way I can… which is still pretty bad all things considered.

Bayonetta, The Umbra Witch. 7 feet tall, in all black, and a new braided haircut which made her surprisingly less… ‘mature’ if you understand me. Sega invited us both here, given that she won an award, and a new game was revealed too. She looks at me with an inquisitive look. Those eyes, I feel myself sweat at the pressure. “What’s troubling you darling? Is it perhaps your own nomination? Not like you to doubt, say, anything really, let alone your own supporters”

I hastily corrected her. “No, no, I believe in my fans, they’re amazing down to the core, all of them! It’s just…” I hesitate, something I never do normally.

“It’s the competition, actually.”

She smiles, a gentle smile unlike her normally sharp demeanor. “If you were to get the award, Sonic as a franchise would gain more support and more recognition, yes?

I nod “well, yeah, but it's more than that”

She raises an eyebrow “Oh? Do tell”

I look out the window, a shot of the skyrise and metropolis area sits beyond, looking for the right words. I’m not as good as this whole speaking stuff as she is. “I already have most of that as far as the franchise goes. This is for them, the fans. As far as I gather, they’ve been looking forward to something like this for ages. And… I don’t know, I believe in a bit of competitive spirit, I just feel like there’s so much at stake for them you know?”

I look back at Bayonetta. She has a surprisingly concerned face for the gal I remember so fondly never wearing anything but a coy smile. She leans back a bit and closes her eyes in thought. “Hmm… I don’t think I’m the right person to talk to about this” and abruptly stands up.

“Wha- hey!” I call out as she begins to walk away and turn a corner before i Can get out of this chair. As I begin to run after her, turning the corne-

I bump into someone going a little too fast then I should have. Too fast, who'd've thought?

All I saw was white, a dress maybe? And what felt like running into a wall.

“Hey! Watch it!” a rather squeaky voice called out. A kid? No, smaller?

As I gather my surroundings, everything slows to help myself get back on track. I see a blonde girl in an elaborate white dress with a star motif and an empty silver platter in her hand.

Wait. Empty?

I look up at the cooked ham suspended in midair. That would do it.

Time still (kind of) stopped. I take the liberty of grabbing the silver platter out of the girl's hands and position myself to where the ham falls back onto the platter.

As their shock subsides and take stock of their surroundings and notice that i've saved their meal I take a moment to be rather smug about how out of all the people to run into, i’m their best outcome

Or, I would have, if I had remembered the honey that falls slower due to gravity right above my head.

…

I told Paimon that trying to take one of our Mondstadt sticky honey roasts into the food court was a bad idea, and yet here we are.

Sitting at a table, with a moderately less sticky roast.

Trying to apologize to adequately stickier hedgehog.

“Look, again, I can’t apologize enough for-”

He cut me off with a wave of his hand “and I told you, don’t worry about it. I’ve been in worse situations and besides, it’s kind of my fault for going that fast anyway”

Trying to move past our mistakes, I ask him a question. “So, I’m just going round out a guess, Sonic, right?”

He smiles rather fondly, with a side of smug. “You got it, but that’s pretty easy to figure out, now you spill. What’s your name?” He seems rather happy about this, despite the circumstances.

“My name is Lumine, and my emergency food fattening herself on that ham-”

“Hey!” says the rations, poking her stubby finger at me. “The name, Is Paimon! And!” She disappears from the ham with a blimp, only to reappear at my other side to lightly punch me with every pronunciation. “Paimon! is! Not! Emergency food!”

Sonic tilts his head slightly “No, I can kind of see it, definitely a tasty chili dog in the making” with a smug aura and smile that would give Childe a run for his mora.

Childe… I think back to him again, I haven't seen much of him lately.

“Ahh! Not you too… No matter where Paimon goes, Paimon will never be safe!”

Paimon’s voice brings me out of my stupor, can always rely on her to bring me back to Teyvat… or I guess earth right now. We both share a good chuckle at Paimon’s expense before a moment's silence passes.

“So, I never asked, but lemme guess, you’re both from Genshin, aren’t you?” he asks

“Yeah, Teyvat is the actual name, but the developers went with something a little more ambiguous.” another silence passes.

I hadn’t actually thought about what it all meant until now. What would happen if we won? What would it mean? Nothing for me and everyone in Teyvat most likely, but for everyone here.

Breaking the silence, Sonic stands up on his chair and extends a fist. “To a fair competition”

I smile, and stand up from my chair and put my fist to his “to a fair competition”

…

I look over at sonic. His face is… conflicted?

We just won; I can’t believe it. Mihoyo told us the odds of this were very, VERY, low. Sonic as a video game franchise had been there since the beginning of video games to begin with, and with that a fanbase so immeasurably large, and confoundedly devoted that they would follow the blue blur to the end of the world.

And the game I was from just won a popularity contest on a global scale against that.

…yet I didn’t care too much, because as I looked down at my new blue friend, I saw a lot of things in him. A whirlpool of emotions behind those eyes that he was suddenly struggling to repress. Given how he hasn’t said anything witty, or anything coy or… anything at all.

Before I knew it, I had knelt down beside him and pulled him into a deep hug.

I could hear Paimon’s cheering subside as she took in the situation and floated down to my side. I could feel his walls breaking, his pride and his honor falling, to leave a person who shouldered all the burdens of his world, fall, as the last straw fell onto his back. I… don’t know what drove me to do it, maybe because one day I'll be the exact same as him? Maybe he reminds me of myself, way back when I first broke down after finding and losing Aether again? I don’t think I'll ever know, and I don’t think I'll ever care. This is much more important right now.

“I…” he speaks in a quivering tone, desperately clinging to what he can. “I lost… I don't… I don’t get it” I feel him growing warmer.

“Am I… no longer a hero to these people? Can I no longer inspire hope in these fans of mine?”

“You’ll always be a shining beacon of hope for your fans, and you know it” I cut him off of that train of thought in the gentlest voice I can

“The thing is though… things have changed… times are changing, faster than both you and I” I get a small chuckle from him.

“But that’s not where your concerns should lie, think about yourself for a bit. I know that feeling coming from you because I’ve met so many people with that exact same line of thought. I don’t have to know your story to know that you… You have been through a lot… too much. ``

I feel his head bury into the crook of my shoulder, silent still, but I can tell this is more than he’s done in a very long time. “That’s it, let it all out, you’ve still got people to rest your head on, see?” Paimon attempting to console him better than I thought she would. Then again, I wouldn’t have gotten this far without her, so maybe she knows more than she lets on. A soft chuckle emanates from the hedgehog, then another, then a few more until settling down into silence, before moving away from the hug.

“I… um, t-thank you… everyone back home looks up to me, you know? Can't have their hero break down in front of them, can I?” attempting to be a little brighter than before with a sad smile on his face he then lowers his voice “please don’t tell anyone about this, I don’t want anyone to worry about me too much.”

I nod. “Deal, but only if you promise to talk to someone about everything you went through, someone who would understand you more than anyone else”

“Yeah… I think I can do that.”

…

“Paimon… doesn’t get it… Sonic, who’s Bill Clinton and what does he have to do with the Elden Ring?