A tram rattled by overhead and Whisper flinched, a hand instinctively shifting to her back to grab her wispon. When she realized what she had done her brow furrowed and her poise relaxed, but an expression of embarrassment clouded the wolf's face all the same.
"That's, like... The fourth time that's happened. Are you sure you don't want to double back so we can do the usual thing for this mission?" Tangle asked, looking over her shoulder with concern. Immediately, the wolf shook her head. Tangle hated seeing Whisper like this, but at the same time she was fairly sure that nothing she could say would talk her down at this point.
"Not nervous. Just prepared," Whisper insisted quietly. She wasn't lying. This was a job she had total confidence in the Diamond Cutters to complete. No more lone wolfing; when they were all together they couldn't be beaten.
Four days ago, the Diamond Cutters had been roused in the middle of the night by alarm bells signaling that someone had broken into a secure area in Restoration HQ. While generally a pretty easygoing place (Jewel had tried her best not to make things seem anywhere near as militaristic as they had in the Resistance days), they did have secure vaults with dangerous stuff and secret intel.
As it turned out, someone had infiltrated a vault and stolen exactly one thing: information. A folder of encrypted information recovered from an old Eggman base on West Side Island that had been abandoned since his initial attempt at taking it over. It was the only thing that had been snatched out of the cache of stuff that seemed markedly more valuable than the mad doctor's unreadable spaghetti code that even Tails couldn't pull apart and Belle had no time for, and no one in Restoration knew exactly what anyone would want to use something like that for.
The identity of the thief was a lot more apparent though: Duo had been caught on camera, going in and going out. He hadn't even seemed concerned that he was being recorded doing so! To Whisper, it had been immediately obvious what had been going on.
It made Whisper sick to her stomach; she had fingered Mimic early on after his arrival, but that incident where he had seemed innocent and the rest of the team had confronted her for acting on her own had made her back down. He had been right next to her these few months that he had been part of the Diamond Cutters, sharing training rooms and dining hall tables and even going out for friendly drinks now and then.
She knew he must have been laughing silently the whole time to himself. The Variable Wispon, strapped to her back, felt reassuringly heavy against her back as she convinced herself they would be getting the last laugh this time. But… What did he want with that data? Or, more importantly, what did whoever must have been paying him at this point want with that data? What was important enough for him to never try and shiv her in her sleep when he had a multitude of chances?
"You two are approaching Metropolis' main thoroughfare. According to informants, that's the area he's going to be handing off the stuff. Try to keep a low profile, Tangle." The voice in Whisper and Tangle's ear was small but audible over the bustling of the city around them.
"Hey! Why only me, Lanolin?" Tangle asked a little bit too loud.
"Because I can hear you clear from the rooftop I'm on right now." The sheep said with a hint of bitterness. She was moving along the roofs right now, scouting out the area and trying to keep tabs on the movement on the streets below. Normally it was a position Whisper herself would have taken, but she wasn't about to miss being on the ground when it came to taking out Mimic. She certainly wasn't going to put her new friend in danger… In fact, if she had her way, Tangle would be up there too.
"Understood. In route." Whisper responded quietly. Tangle's outbursts rarely bothered her anymore; she had vivid memories of the lemur being absolutely incompatible with the idea of "stealth," but she'd been improving at that without losing her status as a ball of sunshine for everyone around her. Especially Whisper. She'd tried to talk Tangle out of accompanying her like this, but she ultimately didn't push too hard. Maybe she was getting soft.
It had been a fantastic windfall to have informants who were involved in shadier stuff on West Side Island; even if they were never too specific, when the Restoration pulled strings hard enough with people they could usually get info about things. West Side was deeply rural. In fact, the only real place stuff worth worrying about to Whisper's experience; formerly almost like a capital city for Eggman when Sonic had liberated it years ago the inhabitants had taken for their own when the doctor fled to greener pastures. Now it was a great whirring city of metal and steam that was populated by all variety of people.
"I'm over the meeting place. I've got eyes on someone," Lanolin whispered into her communicator, "Not an octopus. Bird guy, holding a briefcase and just waiting. Do you think…?"
"More than likely. We're close now." Whisper confirmed. In her experience, Mimic rarely moved around in public undisguised. Even as far back as the original Diamond Cutters, he turned himself into random people when they were out of compulsive paranoia. When he was actually out doing business, there was no way he'd be showing his real face even if he had no idea they were around.
"Keep hidden, Lanolin. I've fought with the guy before and he's no joke." Whisper could hear the seriousness in Tangle's voice. It was good advice; Mimic was nothing if not dangerous.
"I'm the last person you need to tell not to go charging in like a dummy. I'm just fine up here," Lanolin sighed, "Holding my position. I'll stay out of sight unless you two need me after the fight starts."
The pair of Restoration operatives strode between a small crowd of midday shoppers on the massive main thoroughfare of Metropolis. What had once been some enormous outdoor manufacturing zone was now a futuristic array of building-sized machines that had been converted into machine-shaped buildings. People were operating shop stalls, storefronts had been created with no more than placards denoting their names and a little elbow grease, and not a soul among them really seemed concerned that they were living in what was once devoted to turning the majority of them into badniks. It was kind of inspiring, in a way.
"Ready? I come in from the street side of the alley, you go around back. Remember?" Whisper asked. She could see the narrow entrance just ahead of them and felt her heart flutter with excitement; they were going to have Mimic surrounded and exactly where they wanted him. Tangle, meanwhile, was strolling alongside her with such casualness that she might as well have been walking on clouds.
"Did you give that thing I asked you any more thought?" asked the lemur. This gave Whisper a start, and she immediately put the white Diamond Cutter mask she had been keeping stowed away under her cloak onto her face. She'd need the tactical readout, but more importantly, it was hiding the blush she had right now.
"I did." She said quietly, stopping on the sidewalk beside Tangle just a short ways away from the alley, "...Maybe we can give it a shot."
"Heh heh. Then I'm ready for anything. Break a leg, partner! Watch my back and I'll watch yours." She clapped Whisper on the shoulder, and then proceeded to go jogging off to the next street over that the alleyway passed between. Whisper took a deep breath, fidgeting and unstrapping her wispon from her shoulder. Of all the times to bring that up. Tangle was really something else.
She counted ten heartbeats, and then began to make her way down the alley. It was time to put an end to this once and for all.
The green woodpecker in the alleyway shifted nervously. He looked at his watch, although he knew doing so would do him no good; just an odd habit he had picked up.
He knew he had been waiting here for at least a minute or two too long. He did not have a long list of things he found valuable in a person, but a prominent entry on it was consistency and the man he was working for wasn't showing a whole lot of that right now.
A shadow leaned into view and he breathed a sigh of relief, at first thinking that the one he had been waiting for had finally arrived. Wait.. No. The silhouette moving towards him was wrong.
"Heya, Mimic. How ya doin'?" Tangle asked. The lemur was walking towards him with half-lidded eyes and hands on her hips, looking terribly pleased with herself. Nervously, he took a step back and looked over his shoulder… Only to see a second shadow moving towards him. Long cloak, white mask, one glowing blue eye looking at him expressionless. But that large wispon in her gloved paws was telling him everything you needed to know.
"W-Woah, woah. I don't know any Mimic." He put his hands out to either side of himself, shaking his head, "Ladies, I um.. is this a mugging?"
"It can be if you don't give up and drop the act. We'll rifle your pockets after we beat the crap out of you," snickered Tangle. They were now on either side of him. On two sides of him now were sheer walls, and a violent looking lady was now obstructing both exits to the alley. He stood there for a few seconds, contemplating what he should say as he gripped that briefcase nervously. And then, he tried to make a break for it.
Whisper was the first to move, grabbing the man's wrist and yanking it back. The bird cried out in pain, letting out another, "I don't know anythi-," but was cut off as Whisper pinched the winding wheel of the watch on his wrist. It turned forward and yet nothing on the face of the watch moved. All three hands simply stayed still, the second hand not even moving at all.
"You never could make these." Whisper said quietly. That one glowing blue eye set in the mask like a sapphire was burning a hole in his soul. But he could tell just from the voice how angry she was; how much hate was behind her words.
It was delicious. He grinned as his disguise began to slip back to his normal shape.
"I'm versatile.. But creating working things is a bit beyond me. Can't just create a whole new machine, can I?" The voice of Mimic was low and gritty, an unpleasant weathered sound. He could hear the feet of Tangle behind him quickly closing ground, and acted immediately as he elbowed Whisper in the gut. The wolf growled and took two steps back as a long knife appeared between Mimic's hands as if out of nowhere, sliding out of the sleeve of his fading disguise and swinging around to swipe at the charging lemur. She came skidding to a stop, eyes wide and head ducking back as the blade cut through the air only inches from her nose, "Only you would pick up on something like that I guess. Spent enough time standing in the corner and watching everyone else I guess."
That briefcase that was in his hands faded too; it was more or less just a prop, an extension of the outfit he had copied from the man he had seen on the street earlier waiting for a bus. No, he had the documents hidden away on his person.
"No talking," Whisper rumbled, her wispon suddenly glowing blue as a massive blocky light hammer materialized on the end of it, "Not this time."
The swing was an enormous horizontal thing, weighted and a little slow with enough time for Mimic to duck back from it. Tangle's tail swung with the force of a tree trunk past him in the other direction; he was in a terrible position pinned between the two Diamond Cutters and their crushing blows were coming at him far too close for comfort. Trying to regroup, he scampered backwards; neither of his opponents switched sides, keeping on the approach from their respective direction and blocking both of the alley exits off. Even Tangle was maintaining her discipline here! They really had to have rehearsed this.
"B-Blue, you wouldn't!" He put on the best voice of hollow empathy he could muscle and made a plea to the blue wisp currently powering her wispon. It was a tactic that had worked before, but as he ducked and the hammer crashed into the wall above him, tearing off a chunk of the brickwork, he realized that card had been played one to many times. And to top it off, Whisper proceeded to knee him in the side of the face hard as he crouched, pain shooting through the front of his face as his beak met bone and the reinforced pad she was wearing.
"Whisper might not wanna talk to you, but I will." As he was reeling, he suddenly felt the thick furry tail of the lemur wrap around his legs. He let out a cry as he was loosed from the ground and suddenly flung as casually a baseball in the opposite direction, ramming shoulder first into the opposite wall off the alley painfully, "You suck! All this time I thought you were a cool, kinda clumsy guy who mostly meant well!"
"You hung out with us! You did a couple missions with us, even! Why in the world did you not just… Show up as yourself? Wasn't all that stuff way more fun than whatever the heck you're trying to do now?!" As she vented she was dragging him along the ground, still lassoed around his ankles. Mimic was still seeing stars from the pair of impacts, and when his head had cleared he was looking up at a very angry looking Tangle and the cold white surface of Whisper's mask gazing down like an expressionless Grim Reaper.
"Maybe… But do you really think that would have worked?" Mimic growled at Tangle, and then glanced over to Whisper, "You might come from the school of everyone-gets-thirteen-chances, but look at your friend here. She's just begging to kill me. Right in front of you. How's that going to make you feel?"
There was a momentary flash of guilt on Tangle's face that was incredibly satisfying to see. Practice and rehearsal or not, the lemur was still an idiot, he reminded himself. Putting the fight out of his mind for a second, Mimic lay there and just listened.
Whisper had begun to raise the wisp hammer up again, this time fully intending to end him. Tangle didn't move to stop her, but her gaze followed the wolf and her mouth opened to say something she didn't have a chance to say before the sound Mimic was looking for finally came. The rattling creak of one of the monorail trams that rattled along the Metropolis skyline on the regular passing over their heads. The octopus rolled in the direction of the distracted lemur, who yelped and tripped as he thrust his body as hard as he could to the side, raising his arm up.
Whisper's killing blow stopped before it came, Tangle in the way as the hidden grapple he wore on his wrist shot out. The black cable with the silver spike at the end embedded into the underside of the tram, and he was lifted off of the ground along with it as it began to retract and pull him closer to it. He cackled and his feet left the ground a split second later carrying him above the pair. The both of them were idiots, not just Tangle. No matter how hard they tried, no matter how hard they practiced, they were never going to amount to anything more than weekend warri-
The familiar crescendo of a cowbell resonating with wisp energy, and Mimic's manic glee was cut short. Lanolin was here. Of course she was!
Maggie, Lanolin's wisp, flittered past him and hit the side of the tram with a gong. All at once, the tram sputtered and came to a stop, the gears and motors powering it shorting out from the wave of energy washing over it. The octopus' eyes shot over to an adjacent rooftop, where the white-fluffed sheep girl was currently standing with her foot hitched up on a ledge and looking at him with a smug grin.
"Hi, Duo. You're looking different these days. Haircut?" She was oozing with sarcasm. His thoughts momentarily turned from escape to rage, his free hand instinctively reaching under his cloak for a knife to fling at her before another sound put him in a cold sweat. In a last ditch effort, he tossed his body as hard as he could to one side and flung himself to the rooftop across from Lanolin just as the electric humming from below reached a boiling point.
The cyan bolt from Whisper's wispon passed through the space he had been, flying beneath the stalled tram. Commuters inside were beginning to peer out the glass windows in confusion and panic at the battle going on beneath them. Mimic had no time for this; both Tangle and Whisper in a fair fight was a little more than pushing it as it was. Adding a third to the equation was a sure recipe for death. He had to run! As quick as his feet could carry him, he began to bound between the Metropolis rooftops, the tightly knit machines-turned residences just close enough to each other for him to land safely.
"He's on the run!" Lanolin shouted down to the other two Diamond Cutters. Whisper cursed under her breath as Cyan returned to her with an apologetic look in its single eye. It was her fault, though; if she had been just a little bit faster pulling the trigger there...
"C'mon! Up, up!" Tangle had her tail on the ground like a platform. Whisper, having done this particular technique during training with Tangle several times, quickly hopped onto the thick end. The lemur grinned from ear to ear as she called out proudly, "Here it comes! Whispangle Special!"
They really had to put together a better name for that one.
The tail flicked upwards with surprising power and Whisper went up with it, flying into the air gracefully for a few seconds until she had cleared the top of the building. She swung her wispon upward as Green burst out from the vial under her cloak and the umbrella-like hover mode initiated. She could see the octopus ahead of her, outpacing Lanolin who was already in pursuit of him. She would send Maggie out as she went, noise bursts exploding behind Mimic and just missing again and again as he outpaced her. Lanolin was smart, calculated and brave but she wasn't exactly fast.
Tangle meanwhile was a different story; the lemur had already lemur-d her way up the side of the building from the alley and was currently blazing in pursuit of Mimic at a rate that saw her overtaking both Whisper and Lanolin pretty quickly. The lemur was parkouring over gaps, scrambling over air conditioning units as if they were ramps and using her tail to swing off of railing and radio antennae. Out of the three of them, she'd absolutely catch up to Mimic first at this rate. But… Where was he planning on going, anyway?
Mimic serpentined past another blast from Maggie, looking over his shoulder; he was leaving the sheep in the dust, but the lemur was catching up fast. His mind was running a mile a minute as he tried to hastily put together a conclusion for this escape plan… And after a few moments, grinned as he found one.
Taking a hard left suddenly, his path whipped towards a taller building; very tall, in fact. A rail ran through a loop at the top, one of those trams that had been repurposed from shipping materials to public transit passing right beside it. That was his ticket out of here, he just had to get there fast enough for Lanolin and her blasted wisp not to be close enough to stop it.
His path became more like a solid wall; several stories were between him and the top. When he reached the edge of the building before it, he hopped with his arms and legs outstretched and slammed into the side of the wrought-iron fire escape on the side of it. It hurt a little, but not enough to keep him from beginning to rapidly scale up. He scrambled from railing to railing, his tentacles rising around him to provide extra handholds against the slightly rusty old metal. He just had to get to the top before the other three…
Tangle came to the fire escape just shortly after Mimic, hurriedly beginning to scale it with sheer leaps unassisted by her tail; she didn't need it for something so fast. She was shocked at how quickly Mimic was able to go, though; those tentacles along with his arms and legs made him look like a great slimy spider scurrying up a drainpipe. Just behind her, Whisper was ascending with her hover-wisp, but Tangle knew that she would get to the top before her. Lanolin had fallen behind them; she was pretty sure the sheep was out of breath at this point.
"Gotta stop him.. Gotta get there," a voice in her brain pounded encouragement into her. Mimic crested the top of the building, passing out of sight just ahead of her; she reached out for one of his ankles but missed snagging him by a hair. Undeterred, she launched herself upwards to meet him… Only to be met by a dizzying haymaker to the side of the face mid-flight. He had been waiting for her, and his quick reaction was to simply swing at her as fast as possible. Tangle grunted as she spilled to the side, rolling across the top of the building.
"Tangle!" Whisper was not far behind, her hovering taking her up to the top to see her friend going end over end across the ground. Mimic flung one of his knives in her direction while she was distracted, but the wolf's senses were keen enough to see it coming and maneuver herself a little to the side at the last second. Unfortunately, while this brought her out of the path of the weapon, the knife bounced off the side of the Variable Wispon, hitting the split orb shape near the barrel. There was an electric sizzle and Green suddenly popped out of it, looking around confusedly. The hover mode died out, and Tangle felt herself suddenly began to fall. At the last second, her clawed hand reached out and snagged the edge of the building securely. Her muscles strained painfully with the fall, but she was secure enough to toss her wispon up and grab the ledge with her other hand to pull herself up.
Mimic was running again, and her heart sank as she saw a tram passing along the silver rail that looped past the building. With one hop, he landed atop the surface in a crouch. To her surprise, though, Tangle was right on his tail again; she had recovered from the spill she'd taken and had enough time to bound right off the edge of the tall building and make a death defying leap of her own, joining Mimic on top of the tram.
"No. No no no. Not alone, you're not going to fight him alone." She pulled herself onto the building, scooping up her wispon and desperately attempting to initiate hover mode again; it did nothing except make sizzling noises. Green fluttered around it, the wisp shrugging its arms to either side helplessly. A loud, uncharacteristic shout left her,"Chaos! Now of all times?!"
She ran to the edge of the building, this time readying Cyan.
"Almost made it, didn't ya?" Tangle grinned at Mimic, her hands up in fists as she took a fighting stance in front of him. The trams weren't bullet trains or anything, but it was fast enough that the wind was uncomfortable against her fur. Mimic was staring at her darkly, and to her unease he seemed to be smiling. Whisper wasn't joining her; something must have gone wrong on her end. That was okay; maybe this was for the better. Maybe this way, Whisper wouldn't have to kill anyone and Tangle could end this here with a beat down and an arrest.
"Oh, I made it. And honestly, I'm fine with you making it too." Mimic sneered. He could see the building they had hopped off of behind him and knew he was now out of range of the scout's sniping mode… At least for now. He had noticed something unfortunate about this tram; it had a looping curve. Beneath them was, more or less, a bottomless pit. Metropolis was full of them, former strip mines that Eggman had dug deep in for resources while this had served as his capital on West Side Island. These trams passed above them, but they often took strange paths. At this rate, the wolf would have another chance in just a handful of minutes.
"Why's that? Awww, did you start liking being around me when you were doing the Duo thing?" She giggled.. And then hopped backwards as Mimic suddenly came at her, knife drawn. The deadly blade swept at her a few times in succession, Tangle nimbly avoiding along the cramped space atop the tram that swung a little with every movement they made.
"No. A chance alone with you is a chance to cut you wide open, you bouncy little moron," Mimic snarled. Switching the knife to a reverse grip, he swung a stabbing blow aimed directly at Tangle's neck. The lemur again dodged the deadly blow, punching Mimic hard in the gut and making him stumble backwards a few steps winded.
"This isn't going to be like last time," Tangle hopped from foot to foot, shamelessly bouncing just as the octopus had claimed, "Last time I just had what I taught myself. This time… I've been training!"
A breathless Lanolin crested the top of the building, having had to take the fire escape stairs normally. Whisper didn't look back at her; glaring down the barrel of her wispon, the scope in her mask zoomed in on Tangle and Mimic as they fought. The lemur was holding her own for the moment, but Mimic didn't seem to be backing down either. He was cornered, and a cornered octopus was one of nature's most dangerous creatures.
"It.. The tram.. Just Tangle..?" Lanolin panted, leaning over but keeping enough distance back not to interfere with Whisper's aim. The wolf pointed to the single-rail track that the tram followed.
"Can't hover. Tram doubles back a little bit. Only time it's in range," Whisper re-steadied herself, the staccato cadence of her quiet speech concluding with one last phrase tinged in steely confidence, "Only going to get one chance."
Lanolin frowned, seeing where the rail bent back towards them somewhat. It was still too far out for Maggie to fly… She was going to have to count on Whisper and Tangle to get this done, just as the plan had been initially set.
He had to admit… Tangle had gotten better at hand to hand fighting. They were closer to even this time.
"I hate you. I hate both of you so much." Tangle dodged another swipe of the knife, only to get popped in the cheek by an elbow. Her head rattled she hopped back a few steps and swung her tail in front of her to keep Mimic from pursuing. He kept aiming right for her head, the jerk!
"But honestly, Tangle? I really hate you. Whisper at least has to futily defend herself out of obligation to survive, but you? If you let me just put a few holes in your precious little puppy you wouldn't have to be involved in all of this, and I could continue my life free of this nonsense."
"That nonsense is you trying to murder my friend! Gosh, do you even listen to yourself talk?" The lemur slammed her tail downwards, but this time it was a feint, aimed at the octopus' side as her legs bent and she hopped forward, careening at Mimic with a flying knee. He barely managed to get his arms up in time and block the attack, but wasn't able to react to a left and a right that followed it up. He roared angrily, moving to almost the edge of the tram before he held his arm out dramatically, knife pointed at Tangle.
"Enough!" His eyes went between Tangle and the return bend of the tram. He was almost back in range of Whisper, who he knew wouldn't miss; there was really only one chance to get out of this. The last card he had in his deck. Taking a deep breath, he shut his eyes and the molluscan features of his bodies rapidly began to shift and change to a more mammalian shape. Gray-and-white coat, big fluffy tail, orange and black outfit… Amethyst eyes staring into amethyst eyes.
"Uh… What are you doing?" Tangle tilted her head in confusion now that she was staring at the copied form of herself, a cruel smirk on its face.
"I'm about to make the puppy very, very sad." Her own voice responding to her gave her a chill but she had no time to dwell on it as Mimic bum rushed her.
"No!" Whisper hissed in frustration. Through her scope she watched the pair of Tangles crash into themselves and roll end over end along the top of the tram in a desperate wrestling match. She tried desperately to follow the one she had known to be Mimic, but they were a mess of flailing limbs and tails.
"You're kidding me. He knew?" Lanolin was watching through a pair of mundane binoculars. Of course he knew; he likely knew the instant he looked at the tram rail that he'd be coming back into range. And now, he had turned what should have been shooting octopi in a barrel into a living shell game.
Every now and then Whisper was able to see a flash of metal in the tangle of Tangles; one of them was holding a knife in the conflict. That was her only chance. Silently praying to Chaos that Tangle lasted until the moment where she was able to fire, she did her best to watch for which one was holding the weapon.
"Get.. Oof… Get off me!" Tangle buckled beneath Mimic, but he was surprisingly good at grappling. He wasn't able to do any of the tricky things Tangle could do with her tail while taking her shape, but he was on top and she was on the bottom rendering her best asset useless. The other Tangle grinned wickedly, repeatedly just missing stabs downwards as the real lemur shifted her body from side to side.
"If you insist," the false-Tangle crooned wickedly… And then did something she didn't think made any sense. He let up for a moment, passing something to her. Without looking down Tangle scrambled backwards and to her feet, raising her hands up defensively… Only to see that her fingers were currently wrapped around a combat knife. She looked at the weapon dumbly for a moment, looking up to Mimic-Tangle who was looking… Scared?
"This ends now." Whisper's finger squeezed the trigger, aiming center mass at the Tangle holding the knife. There was an electronic hum as the weapon cracked a cyan bolt in the direction of the tram which had finally come into range. It flew towards the man who had destroyed her life like an arrow straight from hell, leaving a long streaking trail across the Metropolis skyline.
And then, it stopped.
The cyan wisp had come to a screeching halt on a dime the moment it got close enough to see Tangle's bewildered face, bursting out of its projectile form, hovering in front of her with a wide red eye. Time seemed to slow to a stop as she and the wisp traded glances, and she came to a realization that Whisper had taken a shot and fallen for Mimic's trick. The wisp had recognized the error itself at the last second.
"Die."
The feeling of the impact that followed was like white hot fire. Time seemed to resume all at once as Tangle turned to see Mimic, unmorphed once more, standing just in front of her with a grin as wide and sinister as his beaked face could manage. Slowly her eyes went down from him to his hand, which was holding a spare combat knife buried hilt deep in her ribs.
He yanked it out and stepped back. Tangle tried to say something; an insult. A quip. A joke. What came out of her mouth was instead a gout of blood to match the crimson that was pouring down from her side. The decoy weapon she had been holding fell from her fingers and clattered to the tram. She could feel her legs, although she had lost control of them, bringing her staggering back from the octopus.
The sound that escaped Whisper's mouth was not a scream as much as it was a horrified howl of despair. Through her mask lense she saw Tangle, bleeding and stumbling as she staggered backwards helplessly. The glassy look in her eyes, the jaw dropped in shock.. And finally, the twisting ragdoll as she went tumbling backwards off of the tram into the abyss below. Anger and sadness instantly hit a boiling point inside of her and overflowed as she moved to launch herself off of the side of the building they were on. She had completely forgotten that her hover wasn't working in that moment of anguish. All her thoughts were of Tangle. She had to get down there. She had to find where she fell. She had to save Tangle. She couldn't let Tangle die.
"TANGLE!"
"S..Stop! Stop!" It was Lanolin who saved her life, her arms wrapping around Whisper from behind and bringing her backwards against her, "Stop! You.. Gh.. You can't! She's..."
"TANGLE!" she bayed again, tears pouring from her eyes. Her mask came free and clattered onto the ground as she struggled, Lanolin grunting and wincing.
"Whisper! Whisper… She's gone." Lanolin said, voice haunted.
"I can… I have to.. She c..could…Still be..." Whisper's struggles against the sheep finally petering out as the heaved sobs came. She buried her face in Lanolin's chest as the other girl stroked her hair. Lanolin stared down into the expansive abyss, Mimic and the tram becoming more and more of a dot on the horizon. Her eyes were dark with depression only deepened by the despaired noises the wolf was making in her arms.
Mimic had gotten away with the data for a second time. But this time, he'd also stolen something far more precious.
A/N- I've decided to start crossposting my newer stuff to my old account starting with this one, just to get them out there a little more. It's been a long time since I've used this site but it kinda gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to see that it's still kicking.
This was mega fun to write, and a good exercise in action scenes. I fell in love with the IDW sonic comics recently and the idea of Whisper in a somewhat serious spy story seemed feasible enough to me that I immediately wanted to give it a shot. This is going to be sort of a medium-long story with some twist and turns. The romance tag is on there for a reason, and that is as much as I will say on the matter.
Anyway, thank you for reading. See you next chapter!