Disclaimer: See first chapter.

Bad Ideas

The first thing that was important to any sniper, or really anyone who was thinking of some kind of dirty work, was to scope out the area that they'd be hunting in.

Sonic pulled up the van to a small curb a fair distance away. It wasn't a white van, nor a black van, but rather a dark blue, almost the color of Sonic's fur. It'd be perfect for blending in, especially in this region of Green Hill.

Whisper got out, whispering a quiet 'thanks' as she looked into the alleyway. It was mostly grey, wet thanks to all the rain, with a few dumpsters closest to the road. There were metal stairwells leading up to the second and third floors on both sides. It wasn't wide, only around ten feet. Enough for the garbage folks, and that's about it. What most people would expect from an alleyway called 'Drug Alley'.

What Whisper noticed though was that it was clean. There weren't any spare needles somewhere, like she'd seen sometimes. Even the alleys in Digburg had a few sketchy areas, but this one seemed as if everyone regularly cleaned it out. She folded down the mask again, letting it sit on her nose and face, before she took to the stairs. Sonic was staying with the car, and was trying to get some shuteye in the back of it. Shadow had already been alerted as to where she was.

The fire escape was never the easiest of places to get to, nor was it ever intended to be. "Sure would be easier with Green..." she said quietly..

"Yeah it would. I don't know how you'd do it though. What's your plan here?" Orange asked. Whisper wasn't sure either, as she looked around the alleyway. Could she do it? Hmm...

"I have an idea. I'll need your help," she asked Orange. The wisp stared at her with her one eye, before she nodded, and imbued herself into the wispon. Rocket, the Orange wisp's power, generally made the wispon into a sniper. However...like most things, bullets had mass to them. "Turn down the bullet velocity and up the mass, please," she said patiently. She could almost feel the confusion from the wisp.

The alleyway wasn't big, but it was much too big for a single jump. She turned and jumped onto a dumpster, trying to get as much height as she could before she turned, aiming the wispon very carefully and firing off a shot.

The shot bounced, exactly like she thought it would. She raised her foot hoping to catch the bottom of it, only to get hit right in the thigh rather than her foot.

She crashed onto the ground with a solid thump, and she took a moment to breathe deep. A wisp's imbued weapon actually wasn't deadly, unless they wanted it to be. It did, however, generally hurt.

A few minutes later she tried again, this time just flat out missing and crashing onto the ground. A third try had her getting a bit higher, and thus missing the bullet entirely. "I think you're going to have to try something different," Orange said.

"No, one more shot," Whisper said, forcing herself up and climbing up onto the dumpster one more time, wall running up as high as she could and turning to fire.

She crashed onto the ground again. "One more," she said. She could feel Orange's sigh of 'here we go again' from here.

This time she managed to get the bullet exactly where she wanted it, right on the ball of her foot. With excessive force she forced it down, using its force to jump up to the fire escape's metal.

Her boots landed on the steel rungs, and she gave a quiet "thank you" to Orange, who disimbued herself from the wispon. The fire escape was easy to climb up and down, it was just hard to get to. By the end of ten minutes or so, she'd found herself on her favorite of sniper's perches, the rooftop looking down. "Wow. You actually did it. That's impressive," Orange said. Whisper shrugged, keeping an eye out for anyone coming there. The rain and wind buffered her, but still she sat there.

She felt, rather than heard or saw, Shadow land next to her. "Anything yet? And you mind telling me what you were thinking?" he asked, his gruff voice showing his obvious disapproval.

"Nothing," Whisper reported. "To get back, we have to find Tangle and Tails. Both of which require us to leave. Mayor won't let up without first being proven he has nothing to fear. Hence, taking out the head."

"You do realize I'm not going to kill anyone, right?" Orange suggested. "And to think that I...oh I see what you mean. By firing the shot, it causes noise."

"Noise that attracts the police, allowing them to do their actual jobs," Shadow finished. He tapped on the side of his ear. "I can understand you just as well, wisp."

"I have a name. Granted, Whisper just calls me Orange, so call me that."

"Orange isn't your name?" Shadow asked.

Whisper shook her head. "It's not. I can't pronounce it, it requires sounds my throat can't produce at all," she said.

"Yeah, it's just -" Orange said, and Whisper felt it. The sudden uplifiting of emotions, the rage and buried fear of heights and the ever growing need to go higher and higher. "Now you try!" she asked.

Shadow blinked in surprise. "I'll be fair. I don't think I could say that either. Especially when those aren't sounds, those are feelings. Emotions."

"Oh I know. But to wisps, they're represented as sounds," Orange said. Whisper could hear the teasing tone in her voice. "How long do you think?" she asked.

"Probably not long now," Whisper said. She kept her eye on the sniper's scope, ready to see the...she'd never figured out what Helen was.

"I'll scout out. Keep your radio on," Shadow commanded, skating off through the rain like a shadow in the night. Whisper reached up and turned off her radio.

"That was mean."

"Then he shouldn't be like that," Whisper answered. The minutes clocked by, and the hours ticked. Whisper felt herself settling into her own unique rhythm. She had thoughts and dreams, fantasies that she could use to overlay with the boring, allowing her mind to stay awake and watch.

She thought of Tangle, coming over for the first time, as well as the lemur's embarrassing attempts at trying to say the wisp's names. And her even more embarrassing version of spaghetti. Whisper had gotten take out that night, because as she found out, of the Neo Diamond Cutters, she was the best cook. Even Lanolin, the sheep that was essentially her boss and the one that organized them, was...rough.

Or as Sonic put it when he'd tried the sheep's cooking, "This makes Blaze's attempts look like a five star meal!"

Needless to say, Sonic was banned from eating anymore of Lanolin's food. In Whisper's mind, this meant he was getting out of the danger of trying to imbibe Lanolin's food.

Tangle was better. Not by much, certainly not on Blaze's level of complete failure, but...not by much. Whisper though...she considered herself half decent. She could make most foods without too much of an issue. She was no Amy, or Cream. Those two could create masterpieces without blinking an eye. She could almost envision a cooking tournament, with all of them in it.

It was hard to think she'd been shifted so far into the future. What was Tangle like now? Was she still just as bad of a cook? What about Blaze? And when had Blaze and Tails even met each other!? That was an unlikely duo that she'd ever think of.

Sonic and Amy though...Amy seemed happy, but Whisper had seen it. The small stress lined on her face, the fact she had to handle a handicapped Sonic and not just her own kids, but Tails' kids as well. Sonic on the other hand...she'd seen it there, too. Trying to keep it together for the kids sake, trying to not break down and be unable to so much as run. The hedgehog, the fastest thing alive, unable to run...the thought pained her.

If she knew what was in store for him, she'd keep him out of the Neo Diamond Cutters, if only to let him run freely more. That was who he was. "The Knight of the Wind" he called himself. And Tails just up and disappearing on his kids, Blaze too? That wasn't normal. Something had happened there, but Whisper had no idea what. It was obvious Violet didn't either. Mata was probably too young to know.

Shadow, too, seemed...almost restless. The world was broken and shattered here, and he had just been...watching movies. He was still just as fast as he'd been in her time, but now...he was more methodical.

What had happened? She'd missed so much...but she was going to get that time back. She was going to rescue Tangle, even if she didn't need it, find and rescue Tails, especially even if he didn't need it, and she was going to get back to her own time, and prevent all of this stuff! Every bit of it!

Movement out of the corner of her eye drew her attention. She discarded the fantasies of thought she'd been developing, instead focusing on the here and now. Her eyes drew to the clock in the corner. Three hours later. This 'Helen' had been late. Whisper wished that she had made sure she was actually part of the Bullies, but there hadn't been time, and she'd been forced to act like she already knew.

A small white sedan, practically nameless in a city of this size, looking like every other sedan. The driver got out, a raccoon with a nice suit on him, showing he either came from money or had the suit bought for him by someone with money.

He practically ran over to the other side and quickly pulled open the passenger door. A badger with mostly white fur came out, standing tall despite the rain. In an instant the raccoon came out with an umbrella, making sure that the white badger wasn't getting wet.

Didn't like being wet. Whisper could work with that.

"Small mass, large velocity. We're going to pop the tires," Whisper asked. Orange nodded, imbuing herself into the wispon. Standard sniper play, she thought. She wanted this soundless.

Another vehicle stopped her just as she had the tires in her sights. The one was a large grey van, much like the one Sonic had driven. Through the windshield, Whisper could see a few humans, most of which weren't...all there. She could see one with their head on their shoulder, their tongue hanging out.

She didn't even need to try to extend her hearing. They were being loud already. "Boss! Boss! It's a trap, they already know you're here," the human in the van shouted, getting out of the car. Whisper recoiled in her mind. She didn't need to see anyone's mostly naked body. They still had some underwear on, but everything up top was...well, she'd never been attracted to humans in the first place. Males the same.

Male humans? No thanks.

"I'm aware, John. Back in the car with you. Alex failed to send the proper delivery message," the badger said. Whisper's eyes widened as she spotted down to the tires.

The doors behind her, the ones leading down into the building, suddenly slammed open. The ones on the other building nearby all did too. Did they own everything on this entire block!?

"Get down!" a raccoon shouted. Different than the butler, Whisper barely caught what he was wearing. He took out a gun from his waist belt, barely taking a moment to aim.

"Aim for hurt," Whisper said, leveling the sniper wispon instantly. The raccoon smirked as he fired two shots. Whisper shot back, the wisps power deflecting both bullets, and the third straight into the raccoon's hand.

"I found her!" he shouted as he cradled his hand. Across the way, she could see a lizard deciding to try to jump the way. Even farther, another wolf was deciding much the same.

"Whisper, I think we made a stupid call," Orange said.

Yes, yes she had. "I have an idea," she said, leveling the wispon at the lizard just starting his jump. He seemed to realize with widened eyes that it was a bad idea, as she fired a single shot onto his arm. His momentum half canceled, he spun down onto the wall and fire escapes, crashing down with a loud thud.

She turned and jumped off the building, ignoring the way it was nearly fifty feet up. She leveled her wispon downward, aiming for the van that had pulled up.

One shot. Two shot. They both punctured directly into the van's carapace, setting off the vehicle's alarm. The badger and raccoon turned back, scrambling to get back into their own sedan. But it wasn't wanton destruction that Whisper wanted, although it felt good. She used the momentum from her first shot to slow her fall by just a bit, with the second slowing down further. If it was water, she'd be good for landing.

But it wasn't landing on water. "All mass!" Whisper shouted. The third and final shot collapsed most of the back of the van, but in turn shot Whisper up a few feet.

She landed noiselessly in the front of the Drug Alley, her mask glowing and her chest heaving from having fallen fifty feet. "Little mass," she said, taking the tires into her view. One shot. Two.

The sedan stopped instantly, the driver not wanting to have to drive on broken tires. "What do you want!?" The human shouted at her. "Just leave us alone!"

The badger stuck out her head and opened up her own door. She had hard red eyes, scowling as she walked past the burning wreckage that was the van. "Boss, boss, wait, we can handle-" the man said.

"Your boys couldn't handle her at all either. We don't stand a chance either...do we, Whisper of the Resistance?" she asked slowly, turning to the wolf.

How had the badger known her? She wasn't nearly as well known this time. Yes, she'd been infamous as the 'Guardian Angel' back during the era of the Resistance, but ever since it'd become the Restoration...and not to mention her quest to eliminate Mimic.

Twenty three years later, very few people should have even heard of her, let alone know who she was by face.

Unless she'd just screwed up her quest to end Mimic's influence. That was always a possibility. She had been missing for twenty three years...did that mean that Mimic had been able to have influence for the full twenty three years!?

"Who hired you?" the badger asked. "I am Helen O'Chao," she introduced herself. "I am wondering what it took to hire someone like you out to this pitiful town. And if I could top them," she said. That was the most mercenary talk that Whisper had heard, and this lady didn't know her very well. Knew her well enough to know the name and face, but not her type? Weird.

"I'm honestly wondering why you came out here in the first place if you knew it was a trap," Shadow's calm voice said from the bottom of the fire escape. He was sitting down, as if unbothered by the twenty foot fall in front of him.

"Few people have the gumption to raid one of my warehouses and then interrogate one of my warehouse bosses. You'd be surprised, Shadow the Hedgehog," Helen said, looking up at him.

"Don't look at me. This isn't my show. It's hers," Shadow said, pointing to Whisper.

"Why," Whisper asked quietly. "Why threaten the mayor for anything?" she asked.

Helen blinked, before she threw her back and laughed. "Oh honey, if you only knew. Still as much of a 'guardian angel' as you were back then. But if you knew, you'd be firing that wispon of yours at him, not at me."

"Lady Helen's the greatest effort to restore the peace in Green Hill since Sonic!" the man beside her said. The raccoon slowly got out of the sedan, realizing that maybe there was a way to get out of this diplomatically.

If there was, then Whisper didn't quite see it yet. "Then tell me," Whisper said. Helen tilted her head, before she sat down on the wreckage of the van.

"Perhaps it is the best time for story time. The rain, the storm, the police sirens as they come to collect their money...perhaps it is best."

Wait. What?

"Collect their money?" Shadow asked, his eyes narrowing. Whisper could see the reds showing out now, ominous glows in the darkened twilight of the evening.

"Oh yes, haven't you heard? The Mayor was in charge of it all. See, it all started around shortly before Eggman attacked here to start. The police were already starting to fall into their pockets."

"Whose?"

Helen shrugged. "Lots of people. The nobility. The rich. The influential. Those of the shadowed darkness, looming overhead above everybody's lives and lies. Those of the mafia, the mob, every shadow organization in the islands. Soon, even before Eggman attacked, it was never 'is justice served'. It was 'how rich are you? Who do you know? What are your connections?'. And it all started."

Whisper narrowed her eyes. How did that lead to drugs and acting as a shadow agent?

"Then Eggman attacked. Suddenly, the police force were outmanned, outgunned, by robots. Sonic came, and he broke all the rules. There was no nobility with him. No rich. No poor. All were equal. And Green Hill started to balance again. But all peace times are not meant to be. Given enough time, those who buried themselves in the woodwork came out, and started buying them up again. They bought the positions they filled, ensuring that only those they knew could benefit from it. Everyone else started to sink. And now you can see around it.

"Look around, Shadow the Hedgehog. Look around, Whisper the Guardian Angel. Notice how this alley is clean, when most of the others are dirty? The building next to us, here, is where the Mayor's second mistress lives. She complained once, about the uncleanliness in an alleyway of all things! Now this place is spotless. Meanwhile, three blocks down is the slums and those who can't afford the higher rents. Look through their alleys, through their dumpsters."

"And yet you sell to them," Whisper's voice cut through Helen's words like a needle to a balloon. "Yet you force them to be retainers to you. I don't see anything that says you're better," she said.

"Oof, I felt that one from here!" Orange snuck in.

Helen chuckled. "Oh, I admit, I'm no saint myself. We all have our vices, Angel, and mine happens to be greed," she said, jumping off of the broken van. "Greed and Pride. And a little Wrath, if I had to be honest," she said, bending down a bit.

Whisper saw her hands take from her coat a small thing of powder, and in an instant she had breathed it in, and Whisper could tell her eyes widened and reddened. She was using her own stuff?

Her danger sense went off as she jumped backwards, just in time as Helen's hands, now claws with nails that threatened to rend her limb from limb, slammed down onto the concrete. "I thought you were the big bad wolf for a moment!" Helen shouted, her voice hoarse and low, as if she'd aged twenty years in a day. Her face was crazed, small foam coming from her mouth and nose and eyes.

"Okay, this got freaky! Where's the police!?" Orange shouted. That was a good idea. Where were they? They should have heard Whisper's shots...

Whisper darted back to the street, her boots clacking against the hard concrete just as Helen jumped and landed where she'd been a moment later. Her hands weren't hands anymore, eldritch style tentacles like those books that Tangle liked to read and then stare up in the middle of the night with her eyes wide open.

Helen's shoes had been eradicated, small puffs of mist coming off her legs instead. Was she floating?

Whisper heard sirens start heading her way, and sighed in relief. She dodged to the side, rolling as she went trying to make sure she wasn't hit. She leveled the wispon, glad that Orange had yet to disimbue herself, and took a shot.

It was an armshot, not that whatever it was that Helen transformed into cared. It took the shot easy, and gave a menacing giggle as it stalked towards her. "Fire at the wolf!" she heard a shout, ending in a small scream of pain. Her eyes looked up to the top of the rooftops, seeing dozens of people, islanders and more, level their own guns at her. This was not going to be easy.

Shadow lived up to his name as an engine of destruction. The thing that Helen had become was now chasing him, and his hoverskates lit up in the rainy night as it chased him. Whisper was hearing sirens closer and closer, and she bolted back for the safety of the kill zone called Drug Alley as shots rained down close to her.

She hid in the remnants of the broken down van. "Okay, Whisper, I know what you're thinking, but I don't think we can take all of them." Orange said as she disimbued herself from the wispon. Bullets showered the van in a hail of sparks as the people on the rooftops, islanders or human, took their shots at the broken van.

"No, no we can't," Whisper agreed. When the amount of bullets seemed to slow down, Whisper rushed out, heading for the sedan in the corner. The driver's seat was empty, and was filled a moment later.

"Do you even know how to drive this thing?" Orange asked. Whisper shook her head, but it wasn't the time for that. The bullets came down again, focused on the sedan. Darn, they'd seen her go from one to the other. She was hoping they hadn't.

The keys were still here. From the alleyway, around the broken van, she could see the lights of Shadow's shoes as he fled from Helen. She turned it over, hoping against hope that it would work. She could freely admit that this was ill-planned, but honestly, who plans for something to go this wrong?

Surprisingly the car started. Immediately she put it out of park, flooring the accelerator. It had a lot of power behind it she could feel, and it battered aside the broken van as if it was nothing. The lights from Shadow's shoes sparked in front of her, and she slammed on the brakes just as Helen, or the thing that Helen had transformed into, slammed into the front of the car.

"Accelerate, accelerate!" Orange cried.

She wasn't looking at the monster. She was looking at the sirens coming right at them, and Whisper turned, opening the door to get out of the sedan as fast as she could.

Two seconds later the sedan and the monster Helen had both been hit by the police car going as fast as it could, slamming both of them into a nearby building.

The chapter title becomes a bit of a running theme, I've noticed. Updating a day early as I won't be able to tomorrow.

Until Next Time!