"SEE SAM! I DIDN'T CRASH!" The guy next to Awesamdude said proudly, crossing his arms.

"You drove through four bushes and almost hit at least three light poles!" Sam argued. He noticed a leaf in his sleeve and pulled it out to prove his point. Ponk paid it no mind, keeping the proud smirk on his face.

Sam rolled his eyes and turned to the crowd better, noticing it was much bigger than he'd expected. He noticed Badboyhalo and Sapnap in the crowd, the first two that dropped Dream off in the prison and waved them over quickly.

"Are these guys all for, you-know-who?" He whispered to them when they were close enough.

"Yeah," Bad confirmed. "All of these muffins were involved with the Dream situation in one way or another."

Sapnap nodded by his side.

"Are all of them going to help search for and recapture Dream?" He asked quietly.

"Probably," Sapnap said, "We just texted them about the situation and everyone showed up."

"Ok then, this is a lot of people..." Sam mumbled.

"Uhm- hello crowd of people!" He said smoothly and definitely not awkwardly in the slightest. "I'm Sam and this is Ponk, and we wanted to meet up to make a plan to find and recapture Dream." He motioned to Ponk who waved to the crowd.

"First off, if anyone wants to leave and stay out of this they should do so now. All of this is highly confidential and if word gets out to the public by means of any of you I will personally find and hunt you down." His tone was serious and strict, he wasn't fooling around. Everyone was confident enough and stood their ground. No one was backing down yet. Sam took the silence and lack of movement as enough to continue.

"First off, we need to have an idea of where he's going or a way to track him. Does anyone have even a clue on where he could be heading?" He asked the crowd. Only one person spoke up.

"He's on Earth." George said casually.

"Are you sure? That's a bit of an odd place to go." Sam asked.

"That's where he was going last time for whatever reason, and seemed intent on the place he was going. Plus I have a tracker that we can use when we go through the portal. Assuming he has another crystal." George said, pulling the tracker out of his bag. "I would assume he does. Dream's no idiot."

"Well that solves that problem." Sam said, clearly impressed. Ponk smiled and gave a thumbs up to George, who gave a slight smile at the remark.

While Sam was figuring out what to ask next, Fundy slid over to Skeppy.

"You look like shit dude, even through the box." He said quietly, to the point no one was really paying any attention to them.

"Thanks," Skeppy said sarcastically. "Is that it?"

"Awful sleep huh?" Fundy continued.

"More or less yeah. You too?" Skeppy asked, looking at Fundy. He didn't look the most awake either with slight bags under his eyes and slightly ruffled fur.

Fundy nodded, "Nightmare about Eret."

"Nightmare about Dream, ironically." Skeppy admitted.

"Can't mean anything right?" Fundy asked, "Just so happens that both of them are possessed and on the loose?"

"Nah, we're just paranoid. Our brains' are messing with us." Skeppy said. Fundy nodded and they both continued to listen as Sam had figured out what to say.

"So,.... uhm well you guys have fought Dream before." Sam said, pointing to Bad and Sapnap. "How about you guys explain what it's like and what we need to prepare?" He said, shoving the spotlight onto them, since he had no idea what to say.

Sapnap sighed, but started anyway. "Dream will show no mercy in a fight, so we're going to need respawn crystals and potions to out-do him when we catch up. We should get a good stock of those before we leave."

"We should also always stay in groups of 2 at least, so he can't take us out one by one or jump us easily." Bad added.

"We need to prepare more than last time too." Antfrost said from the crowd. "Armor, potions, weapons, whatever we can get quickly." Velvet nodded next to them and seemed to make a mental list of it all.

"We want to cure him not kill him." George sheathed a glare through his clout goggles. "Do you guys have any idea how to do that?" George asked Fundy and Tubbo, looking more to Tubbo for obvious reasons.

"U-uhm w-well-" Tubbo started.

As his stuttering paused in a loss for words, Antfrost's ear twitched backwards hearing the faint sound of a name. He was probably paranoid, the sound had just bounced off the wall or something, but he still glanced backwards to see nothing there. His tail unconsciously wrapped around Velvet's leg and he shrugged off the feeling, trying to pay more attention to the conversation.

"Our data was destroyed, so no; It's going to take a little while." Fundy intervened, glaring at George.

"Are we going to be gone for long?" Philza asked no one in particular. "If it's more than a day we need to pack tents, sleeping bags and quite a bit of food for a group this size."

Techno nodded next to him and kept eyeing up the group. Philza started to count the number of people to calculate how much food would be needed per day so they could plan for a longer trip if needed.

"We should also have medical supplies on hand." Antfrost said, glancing towards Velvet and Skeppy. "Better if we don't have to walk 40 mintues to get bandages and health pots."

"How much can we even carry? If we're tracking down this Dream lunatic it's going to be hard to run with 50 pound backpacks." Puffy said.

"Warm clothes are important too." Niki added, "And possibly multiple pairs of clothes."

"Hey guys!" Tommy smiled at the unorganized crowd. Everyone immediately stopped talking and whipped their attention to him. Half of them flicked or or raised weapons, ready for attack. They were all on edge.

"Tommy?" Wilbur was the first to speak.

The group relaxed when they saw it was just a kid, and put their weapons away. Some of them nervously laughed at how they all overreacted, and others who didn't know Tommy made sure not to let their guards down still.

"Tommy?! What are you doing here" Sam asked quickly. "Your shift isn't until tomorrow morning."

"Well I was taking the long way around the hub while I waited for Tubbo to pick up, and couldn't help but overhear your loud planning to travel for a few days." Tommy slightly taunted.

"How much did you hear?" Sam asked quickly, thinning his eyes.

"Oh not much, just the last few minutes about the top secret plan to travel a few days to hunt down a certain green lunatic? That, if I recall correctly, was in the prison a day ago?" Tommy said with a sly smirk. He was playing a dangerous game with the warden of the prison, but was confident nonetheless. Sam glared down on him.

"Hey Tubbo! What's this about ditching me today to go and travel for a few days?" He asked, averting his attention from Sam pretty quickly. The rest of the crowd was just standing there and watching the show, unsure of what to do or say.

"Oh uhm- it's for work and stuff. I can't really say..." Tubbo fiddled with hands and avoided eye contact.

"Oh but I'm sure you were going to tell Ranboo." Tommy crossed his arms

"No I wasn't-"

"Tommy, I need you to promise that you will not tell a soul about this." Sam interrupted. His voice had no room for debate, but Tommy's eyes had other plans behind them.

"Ok sure," Tommy shrugged with a smile. "If-.... I get to come along too. This adventure seems fun, and I'm curious and bored." He said. Tubbo instantly looked happier, but everyone else in the group looked very concerned about adding another child to this mission. It would be hard enough to watch after tTubbo alone, and now there would be two?!

Before Sam could argue, Wilbur cut in.

"Ah let the child come. It'll at least be funny to watch him fail at everything on the way." He chuckled.

"I am not a child Wilbur!" Tommy argued. Tensions were dissolving to everyone's relief, but this was still a waste of time in many of their eyes.

"This is dangerous! We can't just have kids running around getting themselves killed!" He argued.

"Last time I checked, he was working at the prison every other day, alone. And considering Dream escaped, this place might need a few higher security measures before we can really call it safe. I think Tommy would be more safe in our large group, and it couldn't hurt to have another person to help with the night shifts and scouting." Philza said confidently.

It was true Tommy would be safer with them, and while it might be an annoyance, he also could help.

Sam sighed, looking defeated. "Fine, he can come." Sam turned towards Tommy, "But you need to follow instructions and stay with the group. This isn't a game." He said clearly and strictly. Tommy nodded eagerly and smiled at Tubbo who gave him a high five and was grinning ear to ear at the news.

"Ok we need to get back on track with the plan." Sam said. He took his place back in front of the crowd near the golf cart and Ponk went back to standing next to him proudly.

"To answer the questions, yes it will most likely be multiple days, and so when preparing, get tents and sleeping bags and food that's easy to carry. I'll bring extra but I don't think I can bring enough for everyone. We can buy things at an Earth store if we must, but that will slow us down. As for carrying things, store as much as you can in voids or aethers or others, or use magic bags of holding if you can. If you don't have any, talk to me. I should have a few extra for those who need them."

Everyone nodded.

"Being over prepared is better than being underprepared, but we can't get too far behind Dream so we need a set time to leave today. Any ideas?" Sam asked the crowd.

"Does three work for everyone?" Antfrost asked. "It won't be rush hour on Earth and it won't be too dark out, but we can make it later if we need more time." He offered.

There was a chorus of yeses and head nods, and no one argued about the time.

"Be ready at three o'clock exactly then." Sam said. He glanced out into the distance, like he was looking for something, or rather, someone.

The crowd started to mumble amongst themselves, preparing with friends to share the load of traveling and plan together with what they needed. There were some obvious groups set up quickly among friends, debating who should get what to make time more efficient.

Niki spoke out from the crowd to ask an important question. "If this is going to be a few days trip, who will run our shops while we're gone?"

The crowd stopped talking quickly and waited for Sam to answer. No one had thought of that yet, but they were all in too deep now to call it quits either.

Sam hid a small smile behind knowing eyes and answered calmly.

"I called a few people to help us with Dream, but considering we already have more than enough people now for that, I'm sure they'll be relieved to get to run shops instead."

He looked out beyond the crowd and saw some people finally come into view, "And it looks like they've arrived!"

As if on a cue of a spectacular performance, the group came in for the leading act. They all had sunglasses on and were in a planned formation. One of them with large purple wings flew overhead and threw flower petals that cascaded down onto the group. Another person in a pink vest with her own flower crown glided down on an ice path to the side of the rest of them, which she seemed to be creating under her feet. She threw her hands in the air and tiny ice crystals burst out over them like snow. They melted in the air and rained down as mist onto the group, creating a spectacular rainbow over them. A demon person with red eyes and blonde hair lit sparklers in his fingertips and threw them out to various members of the crowd, who all caught them easily. It was almost in slow motion, rainbows, petals, sparkers. The only thing that could make it cooler would be an explosion in the background and possibly some final boss music.

No doubt, it was impressive. And the ragtag group standing next to the prison with no flowers or rainbows were at least a little bit in awe.

Tubbo noticed a man off to the side wearing armor that vaguely resembled a bee outfit and had fake antenna on the helmet. He had a few of the buzzing creatures swirling around him and landing on his shoulders, but he didn't mind, actually seeming to enjoy their company quite a bit. Tubbo poked Tommy to show him and was practically bouncing at the sight of bees. Tommy just rolled his eyes.

At the front of the group, there was a man in a beat up lab coat he wore proudly. He had a robot arm and a glowing eye on one side of his body, and green skin on the other, making for an intimidating and hella cool look.

He walked up to Awesamdude, who had walked around the crowd to meet him halfway.

"Hey creeper bro!" He said in a thick german accent with a smile.

"Hey Doc, I see you guys took the "discrete" note pretty well huh?" Sam asked with a laugh. Behind them, the guy with purple wings was trying to balance on the shoulders of two people with very different heights, which unsurprisingly wasn't working too well.

"Better than they had originally planned. The first few ideas had fireworks, explosions, and one of them kept insisting on horses, with a good stick speed. Whatever that meant." He shrugged and laughed.

"Would've loved to see it, but glad you toned it down a bit. Afterwards maybe you should all join a traveling circus."

"I wouldn't be surprised if they did eventually."

The creeper bros did a quick but elaborate handshake ending with a fistbumb and Sam turned to his group with a proud smile.

"Guys, I'd like you to meet the Hermits!" 

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I've been waiting quite a while to write that entrance scene with the Hermits and it didn't turn out exactly how I wanted, but I think it got the point across. When I can, I really want to draw it at least. Thanks for reading and i hope you enjoyed! Have a good day or night!