Alternative Freedom Fighters:
Season Two.
Chapter 11: Loud as a Whisper.
The next day...
Station Square, City-State of the United Federation. 8:00 AM, Local Time; 11:00 AM, Central City Time.
The urban landscape of this city contrasts with the thick jungle surrounding it and extending through almost the whole North Soumerca. An extensive portion of the said forest, a short distance south of the great city founded by humans, is a "Restricted Area" surrounded by guard posts and several soldiers of GUN.
Some humans passed nearby and, when seeing how those troops guarded the area, they imagined all sorts of crazy conspiracy theories: that there had been some clandestine experiment there to create living weapons similar to the famous Shadow, that this place was used for nuclear tests that shouldn't have been done, that they were investigating some kind of super-volcano similar to the one under a geyser in Mid-Western Northamer, and so on.
But the unsuspecting citizens who have seen that Restricted Zone from outside couldn't even imagine the kind of things inside it...
Several Wisps of different races run or fly among the trees, not far from the ground, while they're playing. This area is full of these aliens, so benevolent and adorable but also so powerful. From a treetop, a mobian watches over them: the legendary Whisper.
She's a young Indian wolf. She has biscotti colored fur, long hair of the same color, tied in a ponytail by a black hairband, with a thick tuft hanging in front of her right eye, and small strands protruding at the sides of her neck; white fur around the eyes and between them; brownish skin, visible in her snout, her arms and the upper part of her chest; a rather thin body, with a beautiful silhouette but with bust, buttocks and hips not very noticeable; a bushy tail with several strands protruding at the tip; eyes which remain half-closed and have cadet blue iris and light gray eyeshadow; a mouth usually in a natural frown and with slightly protruding fangs, and an outfit designed for use in combat: a beige strapless top; black clawed gloves with gray palms; dark gray sleeves that cover her forearms and elbows and include black elbow guards; tight gray pants; black knee guards, and black steel-toed combat boots.
Although she's an independent agent well respected in the Resistance, Whisper was never officially part of it. Moreover, many still think she's a legend, and the only concrete things known about her are her help in the war and her guide about the Wisps; this is because Whisper always stayed "in the shadows", avoiding any kind of contact with the Resistance, firing from terraces, scaffolding and other high and safe places, using her adaptable Wispon able to use the Hyper-Go-On of different races of Wisp.
One day, a young Knothole villager, who had been part of the Royal Army of Acorn and had surprisingly reached the rank of Lieutenant before Robotnik's coup d'etat, was intrigued by her (without even knowing her age or sex), so he set out to meet Whisper in person and convince her to make herself known to the Freedom Fighters. The former soldier had a special attribute for tracking people, and finally, he found the elusive "Guardian Angel of the Resistance", as people used to call her.
Whisper was cold when it came to fighting and she preferred to keep the distance, she had extraordinary abilities, she had trained on her own, and she had frustrated on its own an attempt by Robotnik to use the powers of some Wisps who had somehow arrived at Mobius; but she was extremely shy and introverted, she was disciplined in all areas of life, she had been very traumatized because of what the dictator did to her and her family (even when she herself was never roboticized), she used to spoke in whispers and used to say only one word or two at a time, and the only ones she trusted were the Wisps she had saved. On the contrary, that villager was a fierce fighter who liked to fight closely, he had trained formally in the Royal Army but had chosen to live like a civilian when he realized his abilities were almost useless in a war like the one the Resistance was fighting against Robotnik, and if he had the opportunity to participate in the war, he preferred to always do so as part of a team; he knew how to be disciplined on the battlefield and at the same time be someone happy, relaxed and carefree in life as a civilian, he had an ability to relate to others and make friends, he was extroverted and cheeky, and he even publicly admitted his liking for other boys for years.
The "lone wolf" and the former soldier didn't take long to form a strong bond: he had become more interested in her and her personality, and he was sincerely concerned about her emotional welfare; she had grown fond of him and even felt a little more motivated to open up to others. Meanwhile, he contacted some influential members of the Resistance, who decided to keep secret all knowledge about Whisper, given how vital she and her abilities were, her difficulty in relating to others, the power of the Wisps with whom she formed that bond, and the express requests of the own Whisper and the former Lieutenant. Shortly thereafter, Commander Tower offered to provide a cozy, safe and secluded home to the "lone wolf" and her alien friends; following Whisper's wishes, that new home was this huge Restricted Area in the middle of the Soumerca jungle.
"Whisper?!"
("That voice...") The she-wolf thinks.
She looks to the side and below her, finding out the one who called her.
("It's him. No doubt") Whisper makes a little smile and immediately drops to the ground.
Once she's back on her feet, she timidly makes a barely audible whisper:
"Leonidas..."
Lieutenant Leonidas Proción, dressed in his uniform of the Royal Army of Acorn, stands in front of her and gets to hear the whisper. "Hope I've not interrupted anything important."
"Don't worry." Again, she says this in a whisper, which the raccoon manages to hear anyway.
He approaches Whisper very carefully, kneels politely in front of her and looks into her eyes. The she-wolf seems surprised by this gesture.
"No need..."
"I don't care, Whisper. I wanna keep showing you I'm not a menace."
She stays still for a few seconds, until she slowly kneels too, ending up very close to the soldier. Then, always moving slowly, she gives a deep kiss to Leonidas, who returns the gesture. They both hug each other tightly, the kiss becomes more and more passionate, and then she starts touching Procion in other places and kissing his neck, causing a very low moan from the raccoon.
"That's the Whisper I knew..."
Half an hour later, in a hut built in a glade in the middle of the Restricted Area, both are in a bed, naked and covered by a sheet. They're tired, sweaty and dishevelled, and this time the she-wolf has her eyes wide open and is smiling.
"You were great." The raccoon says. "Especially when you did it to me with that dildo. It takes skill for that."
"Thank you." This time, Whisper speaks a little louder and sounds a little more confident. "You also made me see the stars like never before."
"Hehe... I'm the best, right? For men and for women, me being the dominant or the submissive, I'm always irresistible."
"So, did you keep taking other men to your bed?"
"Oh, yes, a lot of boys have ended up in my clutches, and I ended up in those of many other boys too. Both things happened to me with some women too. But no boyfriend or girlfriend can be compared to you: you're so nice, so understanding, so beautiful, so peaceful- Well, except in bed: here you really do honour to your wolf heritage. And you're also so expressive, even when you're shy. Especially when you're shy."
She blushes intensely, and he notices it easily.
"There you have it! *sigh* My very soul is touched when you smile like that, when you blush, when you open those blue eyes I could behold all day long..."
Both remain in their places, in silence, for a while.
"Is there a particular reason why you came here today, Leonidas? Does it have anything to do with the new threat of Finitevus' army?"
"I knew you'd find it out. Anyway... We need your help, your experience with the Wisps: Finitevus and his ally have potentially dangerous troops, a sort of Black Arm-Wisp hybrid."
The she-wolf's face becomes serious when she hears the name of the Black Arms.
"Shadow is with you guys, right?"
"Of course. His powers are very necessary, as well as his knowledge about the Black Arms."
*sigh* Again, she squints and whispers. "I'll have to work with him."
He hugs her tenderly. "Please, Whisper, you have to get over it-"
"Easy to say..." She speaks again a little louder, but her voice is trembling.
The raccoon responds by hugging her more closely and caressing her, trying to make her "friend" feel safe again. "He no longer works for Snively, nor for Eggman himself, nor for the original Robotnik, nor for anyone in his empire."
She begins to cry, and her tears drag the grey eyeshadow, painting her cheeks. The soldier sees this, but he refuses to say the classic "Don't cry, please", and he tries to say something helpful.
"I also had to see how they robotized my family and a boyfriend whom I loved very much. I also lost people, not only all of them but also my mentor, who had treated me almost like a son. And yet, I'm willing to work with Shadow, 'cause I know that he's now a good mobian, that he had nothing to do with all this, and that he had reason to ally with Snively at that time. Besides, he has traumatic memories of his own too, he lost loved ones too."
"But he's still capable of doing those atrocities, either on behalf of Eggman or on behalf of that alien empire."
"And he's also doing everything possible not to do it. The only way he could turn against us is by brainwashing, which will be very difficult to do 'cause he will avoid it at all costs. Please, Whisper, trust him."
Procion gently takes the she-wolf's chin and makes her look at him, and then he wipes away the tears mixed with eyeshadow.
"I swear you'll be safe with me, and there's a whole team that will protect you if Shadow ends up brainwashed."
"That's another problem: I cannot work with a team, you know-"
"Easy, my tender little wolf. I'll take care of that."
He gives her a little kiss.
"Leo..."
Surprisingly, Whisper makes Procion roll and she ends up sitting astride him. Now she's wide-eyed and seems to be very much looking forward to something involving very intimate contact with her "friend".
"Whoa... Are you ready for the Second Round, little wolf?"
Another three and a half hours later...
Near a park in the Fairfax District, on Station Square, there's a big building a few floors high: GUN's offices in this city-State, a building that people often just call "Fairfax".
There's a subway line passing under the park; Marshal Prower, his teammates -except Procion- and Hope Kintobor are in a subway station, disguised as Maintenance workers with overalls. When the subway has just left the station, the nine mobians and the Overlander girl take the opportunity to go down to the railway without attracting the attention of subway users, and they move away from the station. Once they're far enough away so that people in the station don't see them, they pass through a door supposedly reserved for Maintenance workers; once they're inside a brick-covered hallway, a scanner -hidden in the wall in front of them- "reads" the DNA and physical complexion of each, and when it's confirmed they're actually Amadeus, his team and Hope, the bricks of a portion of the wall move just like in the first Harry Potter movie, until a thick metal door similar to that of a vault is revealed. The door opens before the ten of them, and when they've all passed, the door closes, the bricks return to their place and everything seems normal again.
Fairfax has several underground floors, and these floors extend even below the park and other nearby buildings, connecting to subway lines and the sewers. Now, the team is in one of those underground floors and walks to an elevator, which then takes them to the lowest underground floor of all: a Command Room, created to lead the troops from a safe position during a war. Amanda Tower, daughter of Commander Abraham Tower and Chief of Staff of the Air Force, is already there.
"Did you have a hard time finding the access door?"
"No, not at all." Amadeus replies while he and the rest of his team remove the uniforms of the subway's Maintenance staff.
Now it can be seen they wear the outfits they usually wear in missions. In Fiona's case, she carries her weapons but not her cloak; the only weapon carried by Antoine is his diamond knife, he doesn't bring his bow and arrows with him, and neither he nor Amadeus carries their sabres; the others still carry those rather small weapons, such as knives and Julie-Su's proton gun. On the other hand, the outfit worn by Hope is the blue overalls she often uses when working with machines, a light red sweater, a trouser covered by the overalls, and rubber boots.
"Has Leonidas arrived yet?" Antoine asks although he's able to guess the answer.
"Yes, Lieutenant Procion returned from the Restricted Area half an hour ago."
"And he brought that mysterious agent with him, I guess." Fiona says.
"So is. Procion is with Agent Whisper right now. She made a small tour of this room and the rest of the building, but she preferred to remain isolated most of the time. In fact, she and Procion stayed inside an empty Meeting Room for the last fifteen minutes."
"Does that agent actually have so many difficulties for relating with others?" Armand asks.
"Anything is possible." Julie-Su answers. "With what Robotnik and the other villains did to people all over the planet..."
"I've known her when we developed the Wispons." Hope comments. "The only times we talked was about weapons and Wisps. If it hadn't been 'cause we worked together on something that interested us both, she'd never have spoken to me. She has a problem and has a hard time dealing with it, no doubt."
Meanwhile, Procion stands outside the Command Room, next to the entrance, and he eavesdrops on them.
"In that case, I dunno what Leonidas could achieve by staying locked up with Whisper for so long." Nic says.
"Unless he's making her feel better." Rouge says. "If you know what I mean..."
Upon hearing the she-bat saying this with her characteristic suggestive tone, Fiona, Antoine and Amadeus look at each other... and they start to laugh and deny what Rouge said.
"Impossible!"
"He'd never do such a thing."
"You have a big imagination..."
Leonidas, hidden, laughs silently at them too.
"What?" Rouge is confused, really confused. "Is he one of those guys who think they're the purest in the world?"
"Of course not." Fiona answers. "Simply she ain't his type."
"En fait..." Antoine says. "Il has always worked for the other side."
"Oh..." Rouge seems surprised, but actually, she's also a bit disappointed. "I get it now."
At that precise moment, the raccoon reveals his presence and surprises everyone by entering the Command Room and walking towards them.
"Tony, your description of my sexual orientation is too simplistic. I thought you'd be better than that."
Upon hearing this, Rouge is about to make her seductive pose, as characteristic as her suggestive tone.
"Don't have illusions, Rouge."
The bat woman is astonished by the reaction of the raccoon, who immediately addresses the others with total naturalness.
"As I've explained to you, she has problems for relating to others, due to the war traumas, and these problems are much more than mere shyness. However, I've convinced her to help us."
"And how did you convince her?" Lightning asks guessing what happened in that Meeting Room.
"Exchanging with her what any happy couple would have to exchange from time to time, of course." Procion answers smiling triumphantly.
"But what does motivation have to do with that?" Julie-Su asks.
"You already know what that bearded man who invented psychoanalysis said: "Everything has to do with coitus". But enough talk! Without further ado..."
He quickly stands next to the entrance.
"I introduce you the Guardian Angel of the Resistance! The only one! The unmistakable one! I introduce you..." He moves his hands grandiloquently. "WHISPER!"
Upon hearing the "announcement" from her boyfriend, Whisper appears there, unsure and walking slowly towards the team. In addition to the outfit she wore in the Restricted Area, she's wearing a dark grey cloak and a mask. The cloke has a pocket on each side, just below the shoulders, and has no hood; inside it, there are three capsules on each side, each of which is designed to contain and transport one Wisp. The mask, vaguely similar to those used in the kabuki theatre, has a more or less triangular shape imitating the shape of a canid's face, is mostly greyish white, and is dark grey in a thick band on the left edge; where would be the right eye of Whisper, the mask covers the eye and has three black dots, and where her left eye, it has a kind of lens with built-in technology, which helps point when she shoots as a sniper.
She stands on one side of a large table in the centre of the Command Room, while Amadeus' team is on the other side; then, she slowly moves the mask to the right, revealing her face, and she whispers "Hi".
"It's nice to meet you, Agent." Amadeus says while extending a hand towards Whisper. The she-wolf cautiously extends her own hand and shakes it with his hand briefly, then she removes her hand almost immediately.
"So... What do you need?"
"First, your knowledge." Armand says. "To detect the Dark Arms from their similarity with the Wisps, to be able to fight them properly, and to know how to take advantage of the Wisps if any of them wishes to fight on our side. And if you wish, you can collaborate in the missions, too."
"I dunno if my knowledge will be of any use when we look for the location of the Dark Arms." Whisper answers. "On the other hand, I'm sure I'll be able to help you when they're finally found and we carry out a mission to neutralize them."
Hope remains silent for a few seconds as she thinks, and then she turns to Amanda Tower.
"How about we scan the Wisps' genetic code, and then we scan the whole planet for matches?"
"Can you even do such a thing? And even if you could, do we have the resources for it?" Lightning asks.
"GUN is one of those organizations that can get everything you need for anything you wanna do, in a matter of minutes." Nic answers him. "Ain't that true, Miss Tower?"
"That's a lie: we can get everything in just one minute." Amanda replies with her pride a little hurt.
"Even so, it wouldn't be enough." Whisper admits. "There are still many Wisps scattered all over the world. Besides, only half of the genetic code of the Dark Arms would be similar to that of the Wisps."
"I can give a sample of my DNA." Shadow intervenes. "Half of it is Black Arm DNA, and if we gather the information from my DNA with the Wisp genome, we will have a better chance of finding something."
Shadow looks directly at Whisper, who in turn looks at him out of the corner of her eye. She remains silent for a while, as does the "Ultimate Lifeform" and the others present.
"Then let's do it." The she-wolf replies.
With a phone call from Amanda to Commander Tower and a few phone calls from the latter to some contacts, GUN actually took only a minute to have at its disposal dozens of satellites and hundreds of devices for scientific research. Whisper brought one Wisp of each known race and, seeking the consent of these creatures, took samples of all kinds; for his part, Shadow allowed a sample of his blood to be drawn and analyzed. Next, Hope and Whisper began to work with the computers of the place, the Wisps' and Shadow's genetic information, and the satellites and other instruments available; finally, they created a computer program to scan Mobius and search for matches between the detected and the genetic information collected.
It's been fifteen minutes since Whisper and Hope had started working. The "Guardian Angel" and the Overlander girl are sitting next to the table in a Meeting Room, drinking chocolate milk. Then, Fiona appears there.
"I thought you'd be working with the software to look for the Dark Arms."
"We already did." Hope answers speaking as if she had just finished a homework extremely easy to her. "The system has detected several Wisps scattered throughout the world, including those under the care of Whisper, which are a significant portion of them and are concentrated in the vicinity of her home."
"On the other hand..." Whisper adds, speaking at a rather low volume. "Only one being with Black Arm DNA was detected, and that was Shadow himself. His signal is rather weak since only half of his DNA is Black Arm. This doesn't surprise me: surely, this 'Eclipse' and the Dark Arms are very well hidden."
"When Black Arm signals other than Shadow's signal are detected, we will know there's something there. If the signals of those Black Arm overlap with Wisp signals, surely it'll be those hybrids, and if there's a Black Arm signal different from Shadow and that one doesn't overlap with a Wisp signal, then that will be Eclipse."
"Very well..." Fiona says as she walks back towards the door. "Tell us about any news, okay?"
The other two women nod, and the red vixen goes down a corridor. Bored, she wanders through the underground floors of Fairfax. Suddenly, she stands still in front of the door of a workshop.
Inside that workshop, a young mechanic is showing a female agent of GUN something related to the machines. Apparently, the man is quite excited about his work and smiles with the hope that the woman shares that same enthusiasm. When observing this scene, Fiona can't avoid to remember moments of the time in which she was a Freedom Fighter and she hadn't yet committed treason: Tails used to show her what he did in his workshop, and for Fiona it was pretty obvious the two-tailed fox was hopelessly in love and tried to relate to her. Immediately after, Fiona remembers other things...
The face of Tails begging her not to betray them (or rather, not to betray him), and the slap with which Fiona had responded to his pleas...
The few but terribly humiliating and painful "demonstrations of love" from Scourge...
Her return to Knothole, and the two subsequent months in which she and Tails were friends...
The beginning of the courtship between the two foxes...
The battles they fought together...
The many times they worked together on things related to Science and Technology...
How happy the two of them were every day, despite everything...
The frequent, long and amazing days, both day and night, in which they passionately demonstrated their mutual love at the most intimate level possible...
The vixen isn't realizing Rouge is walking towards her.
"Fiona, we found something-" The she-bat speaks to the vixen, but the latter looks distracted. "Fiona?"
"What? Oh, yeah, of course... I'm coming."
The former jewel thief takes a look inside the workshop, and she realizes what's going on in Fiona's head. Even so, she asks: "Is something wrong?"
"No, nothing important. Just remembering things from the past."
"Do you wanna talk about it?" This time, Rouge does not sound at all seductive, but sincerely concerned. In fact, Fiona feels as if Rouge's voice invites her to tell what's happening.
("She's really good at this...) The vixen thinks. ("Duh, obviously she's good at this. Manipulating people is part of her job, after all.")
"I know you think I'm manipulating you, Fiona." Rouge says. "I dunno if you remember, but I agreed to be your girlfriend a few days ago, and I certainly wouldn't gain anything by using you or urging you to stay away from Tails. Considering all this, do you actually think I wouldn't have even an iota of concern for you?"
Fiona opens her mouth in an attempt to give an answer, only to later close her mouth in defeat.
"You're hiding something, Fiona. You're hiding the true reason why you broke up with Tails. And keeping doing that is consuming you inside."
"I already said it before, and I'll say it again: I no longer felt good in my relationship with him."
"Of course you didn't feel good in your relationship. You wouldn't have broken up with him otherwise. But why didn't you feel good? What exactly didn't make you feel good?"
Fiona doesn't respond but tries to close herself even more.
"Tails never treated you badly. After knowing him, you hadn't met anyone else that you might like. No one pressured you to be with him; on the contrary, at first, there was pressure for you two not to be together even as friends. And he was always willing to give his very life for you-"
"That's the problem". The red vixen whispers.
Rouge has heard her perfectly, but that whisper isn't enough for the bat woman.
"Excuse me?"
*sigh* The vixen sighs and prepares to answer, but she's interrupted by someone speaking through a loudspeaker.
"Eclipse and his army have been found. All the personnel involved in missions against the Finitevic Army: please appear urgently in the Command Room."
"We'll talk about this later, okay?" Rouge says to her. She starts walking towards the Command Room, while Fiona watches her.
"Eclipse and the Dark Arms were detected on Central North Yurashia. More precisely, they're on the banks of the Tyva River in the Golden Massif, near a short mountain range."
Hope is explaining her and Whisper's findings while showing a map of the Far East of Yurashia on a screen.
"It's quite cold all year round over there, and in this season, the water is frozen and it snows a lot. The Dark Arms hide in the facilities of the port of a ghost town in this area."
Whisper takes the floor. "We've detected the signals of about two hundred hybrids. We've incorporated the genetic information of each race of Wisp, we've compared it with the detected signals, and we discovered the existing Dark Arms were created from four Wisp races: cyan, crimson, magenta and blue."
"Spy aircrafts have been sent to that area." Amanda Tower reports. "This hideout also concentrates a large part of the Finitevic Army, most of them being interdimensional beings qualified as dangerous by the Zone Cops Corps."
"So..." Julie-Su says. "This is all we have to do: go there, neutralize the bulk of the Finitevic Army and Eclipse, capture Finitevus alive or dead, and eliminate the Dark Arms. We will erase any evidence of the existence of these hybrids and their creator, and the Finitevics in the rest of Mobius will no longer be able to fight reduced to a few soldiers without a leader."
"We will need new and better weapons." Antoine points. "The Variable Wispons of Mademoiselle Whisper could be very useful for us."
"I'll try to explain to you, briefly, how to use this weapon and the Hyper-Go-On of the Wisps." Whisper says.
"Alright." Amadeus answers. "Prepare and go find what you need for that 'lesson', and call us when you have everything ready."
Two hours later...
[Soundtrack: Main Menu – Metal Slug Advance OST]
Amadeus' team, Hope and Whisper are gathered in the Restricted Area that is the home of the latter and of the Wisps under her care. To be more precise, they're in a glade ideal for practice with weapons.
"I guess you already know the Variable Wispon." Whisper says as she shows them her gun, without any Wisp inside.
"At this time, since this weapon doesn't have any Wisp, the miniature quantum reactors will provide power to fire laser ammo." Hope says. "But if we introduce, for example, a cyan Wisp..."
Whisper separates the two hollow hemispherical pieces of her Wispon, a cyan Wisp enters the available space, and the sphere closes again.
"Things get much better." The Overlander girl says.
The she-wolf covers her face with her mask, and the lens in her left eye glows cyan, as do some parts of the Wispon. She points with her gun, makes a powerful laser shot of the same colour, and this laser beam makes a zigzag path between the trees until it hits accurately in a bulls-eye. Everyone is amazed by this display of the power of a Wispon with Hyper-Go-On of a Wisp.
"I have replicas of this special lens, which create a link with the Wispon and the Wisp inside it. And there are a lot of Wisp races, each with unique powers."
During the rest of the afternoon, the team does tests with Wispons, while Whisper and Hope explain what they can do with each race of Wisp.
"When you shoot the laser with Hyper-Go-On from a cyan Wisp, you can shoot a continuous beam by keeping the trigger pulled." Whisper says. "It's preferable to shoot not too far away and without the laser changing direction. If you make the laser change trajectory, and especially if you make that change abrupt, or if you try to shoot at a very large distance, the shot will consume more Hyper-Go-On, although not much more than a shot at close range and in a straight line."
"With the yellow Wisp, the Wispon takes the shape of a drill." Hope says, showing what happens when a creature of that race is introduced into the weapon. "It allows you to accelerate and destroy everything you find in your path, dig and move underground, and travel through the water like a torpedo. I don't advise using the drill in a hand-to-hand fight against a single enemy since this weapon would be too big, rough and difficult to use in this case. On the other hand, what uses more Hyper-Go-On is the use of the drill to dig and move underground. In any case, if absolutely necessary, all available energy can be used to fire the drill as a means of attacking from a distance."
"With the blue Wisp, the weapon takes the form of a mace. In addition to using this kind of "hammerhead" as a weapon for hand-to-hand combat, you can also aim the Wispon's barrel as if it were a handgun to create a platform where you wish. However, a platform's creation consumes a large part of the Hyper-Go-On donated by the Wisp, and It's easy to deduce that the bigger the platform and the longer you wanna keep it where it is, the more energy it'll spend."
"The green Wisp serves to transport you and protect you more than to attack: it creates something similar to a circular medieval shield, which you can use to float in the air, to navigate in water or to repel attacks. The form that consumes less Hyper-Go-On is as a means to fly, while the shield form is what more energy spends, especially when the attacks received by the shield are very powerful. If what you want is to fly farther and control the flight more, instead of just floating and being carried away by the wind, the best thing is to use the crimson Wisp, which forms a sort of hang glider."
"With the pink Wisp, the Wispon becomes a circular saw. It doesn't generate damage as large as a drill, but it's more reliable for hand-to-hand combat. You can also attack from a distance by firing the saw."
"The orange Wisp turns the weapon into a sort of rocket launcher. Of course, it's ideal for attacking from a distance."
"The red Wisp turns the Wispon into a flamethrower. It's better to use it to attack at a medium distance since the flames lose effectiveness as they move away. You can also create explosions that will propel you to where you want with an effect similar to the recoil of a firearm, but this consumes more energy."
"The magenta Wisp allows sound-based attacks, either to stun and disorient the enemy, to vibrate their molecules at a specific frequency until they disintegrate, or to create a shock wave. The latter is what consumes more energy."
"With the ivory Wisp, you can make electricity-based attacks. It can also make you move faster or float, by using static electricity."
"The black Wisp turns the Wispon into a sort of grenade launcher."
"And finally..." Whisper speaks with a more serious tone than before. "The mere use of Wisps in war should be only in exceptional cases. After all, we're talking about using the energy of the body of a living being, even if the creature donates its energy voluntarily and its life ain't in danger when lending that energy. However, there's something that should never be done and obviously, I'll not show you: the use of a Nega-Wisp."
"That's a Wisp who was forced to give the whole Hyper-Go-On of its body, right?" Lightning asks.
"That's right. The mere creation of a Nega-Wisp would be equivalent to a crime against humanity. Besides, its use is enormously dangerous. I think Lieutenant Procion has already told you what a Nega-Wisp does."
"It goes out in search of energy, to restore its own." Armand answers.
"And what would be the best source of energy?" She asks, already knowing the answer.
"Matter." Fiona answers.
"Matter?" Nic asks.
"In essence, matter is very, very concentrated energy. The ancient human civilization relied on this to develop the first weapons of mass destruction, and one of their first creations was a bomb capable of reducing a medium city to rubble and requiring only a small amount of uranium as an explosive."
"Therefore, a Nega-Wisp would look for matter of any kind to 'feed', in addition to absorbing energy." Amadeus tries to imagine what would happen. "And a Nega-Wisp looking for matter and energy so avidly... would be like a living black hole."
"Another reason why we have to stop Eclipse as soon as possible." Antoine says. "If he discovers the power of a Nega-Wisp..."
"We will prepare right now for the mission in the Golden Massif." Amadeus says. "And we will travel there tonight."
Everyone walks out of the glade to leave the Restricted Area and return to Fairfax. Whisper stays where she was, and Procion turns to her.
"Are you coming?"
"Oh, of course..." The she-wolf walks quickly towards them to accompany them.