Disclaimer: See first chapter.

Nadir

"Grab the wolf!" Whisper heard the shouts. There was too much sound, too much sound everywhere. The cop car had crashed, a giant hammer against the monster of Helen and the sedan that she'd tried to get out of there with. Her side was flaring with pain. It felt like something had been jammed into her.

"Whisper! Seriously, get up! The police are gunning after you now too!" Orange was screaming into her ear. She couldn't tell, couldn't feel. The explosions had sent her flying back, and now she only heard the echo and whispers of a thousand steel crunches.

Her instincts were telling her to get away, but there was nothing left. Police were starting to surround them, and the gangs and them were all training their guns on her. Shadow was...where was Shadow? Why couldn't she focus?

"Put your weapon on the ground!" she was shouted at. "Someone kill the wisp!" she heard.

That forced her mind to focus. Wisp. Orange. Her friend. The longest friend she'd had. "Why!? What did I do to you!? I haven't done anything!" she was shouting. Whisper grabbed her as the first electro bullet went through her space, and immediately where she was had been filled with the sounds of a dozen bullets going through.

Shadow appeared next to her. "Grab on!" he shouted, holding onto her arm before he sped out of the way out of the bullets. She felt her arm joint protest the movement, but she got her feet under her quickly enough. Her side wasn't nearly as quiet, but she didn't have time to process it.

"Orange! Here!" she shouted, pulling out one of the wisp canisters.

"Oh right! Good thinking!" Orange said as she imbued herself into the canister. Whisper ignored the cries of the police around her, Shadow doing an excellent job of dodging the shots and keeping her alive. A bullet scraped against her knee, but she stifled the urge to cry out.

"Damn it Faker, I need the Chaos Emerald right about now," Shadow was whispering, trying to maneuver in between the police cars. Behind them were even more vehicles, some of them with islanders hanging out and taking potshots at them. Shadow skated in between them, trying to dodge everything that came his way. But the line of cars was too long, and he couldn't build up enough speed trying to dodge everything. Another bullet hit her arm, and she let out an agonized hiss. "Shit!" Shadow said as he glanced back. A loud crash came around as Helen jumped onto one of the cars, her claws digging into the roof.

There was another roar, a louder one, a deep bass that threatened to rend her from ear to ear. But it was one that she recognized, vaguely. Somewhere, deep down, far behind her.

Her wispon was imbued with cyan energy. "Fire at will!" Cyan shouted into her ear. Whisper grimaced, pulling it off of her back and firing randomly towards the police vehicles. There was a loud roar as Helen was hit by the laser, and several vehicles were thrown about by the monster she'd become, starting to chase them.

"Keep firing, keep firing!" Shadow was saying. "You can get into shock later!" he said. Whisper wasn't sure what he was talking about. Shock? She wasn't going into shock. She'd been hit twice, sure, but that wasn't as bad as she could have been. He was doing a reasonably good job avoiding everything, actually.

The low bass turned louder, and even through the night rain, Whisper could make out the shape of the Tornado, a familiar orange fox head at the pilot's seat. For a moment, she was back in time, where they'd finished whatever assignment they had, and Tails would wave at them before landing.

The Tornado fired some three dozen missiles into where Helen was, lighting up dozens of cars and islanders. They exploded violently, sending shards of metal everywhere, and Whisper winced. Hopefully that didn't actually kill anyone-

Shadow jumped up, bringing her along for the ride as the Tornado passed under them. It wasn't Tails, but had a similar fox shaped head. Right, Violet! His...daughter. That was still weird to her...

Her thigh got hit again, and she sprawled out onto the Tornado's wings. "I got this!" Blue yelled before he imbued the Tornado itself. A large blue block suddenly came out from underneath it, blocking most of the bullets and the scratches of the monster Helen. How could she jump even this high!? Better yet, how was Blue blocking them!?

It was only thirty feet, but that was still twenty feet higher than what Whisper could do! Shadow could do it, he'd just done it, but he'd also had a long head start-

"Getting us out of here!" Violet shouted, reaching down for a small lever. "Hold on and don't let go!" she said, pulling it back. Whisper felt acceleration overtake her body, and if it wasn't for Violet's warning she would have been flung off. Whisper looked down to see her shoes had pink spikes coming from them, making sure that she stayed on. Pink?

There were a few more dozen shots thrown at them, but they all plinked off the blue cubic barrier that Blue had put up. A moment later he disimbued himself from the Tornado, floating idly by despite the wind and acceleration. "Where are we heading!?" Violet shouted.

"Back to Sonic's to regroup!" Shadow commanded. He turned to Whisper. "You didn't stir up the hornets nest, you just focused it on us. This was going to happen sooner or later," he said.

Why was he talking like she was about to pass out. She wasn't going to fall asleep anytime soon. She blinked, making sure that all of the wisps were accounted for. Pink, Blue Cyan...Green was above them. Or was he imbuing the Tornado, making sure they didn't fall? It was hard to think, but he was there. Orange was in the capsule...it was too hard to think...

She found herself in a bed two seconds later with Amy fussing over her. "She's awake! Grab some of the painkillers!" Amy was shouting. Whisper stared at her. She didn't need painkillers, what was going on? The pink hedgehog turned back to her, "You're hurt bad, Whisper. One of the mirrors lodged itself into your stomach. You may not have even noticed." That sounded like something that she'd notice.

Whisper stared at her in disbelief, before she looked down. There was no mirror in her anymore, but she could see the white bandage surrounding where her stomach was. It was still bleeding through.

Oh, that's why he said not to go into shock.

She didn't see any of the wisps around, and while that was both unusual and more than slightly alarming, it was also hard for her to think about the repercussions of that. Her mask was off, she knew that much, so even if they were around she probably couldn't understand them like she normally could. Her head was fuzzy, like it was stuffed full of cotton.

Whisper tossed her head back just as Shadow walked in, his hands full of some kind of medicine box. Amy glanced at it, "You didn't need the entire thing Shadow. I just asked for the painkillers, because the ones Whisper's on are probably going to end here soon." Were they? She felt a flash flood through her abdomen suddenly, like a sword edge that had been dulled down a bit, but still there.

"I couldn't find anything just labeled 'painkillers' so I took the box," Shadow explained. Amy gave him an unimpressed glare, as if not sure he was joking or not. She rolled her eyes as she grabbed it.

Amy opened the box, turning it around to show him. "They're labeled, Shadow. We have kids here, and I needed to teach them what not to use," Amy explained, grabbing a few boxes of some kind of pills. Whisper couldn't see, but she pushed her head up anyways. Orange came up from behind the pillow, snarking at her angrily.

Oops. She'd gone and laid her head on Orange instead of the pillow. She'd have to come up with some way to apologize.

"Right. Whisper, take this and this," Amy said, handing over a small pill and a glass of water. "You should be fine in about a week or two," she smiled as she walked out.

Whisper waited until she was out. "Two weeks for this?" she asked, pointing at the wound. "I can't wait for two weeks. And give me my translator, the wisps are going to get irritated."

Shadow narrowed his eyes. "They already are," he muttered, handing her an earpiece. With a sigh she used one hand to clip it on.

"...And of course that's when you decided to lay your head down, seriously! Next time give a wisp some warning!" Orange was shouting. "Seriously, the others are going to be very upset! Mostly at me, but a bit at you! Actually all at me, considering what they're up to right now...". Whisper felt it hard to think, but somehow the alarm was raised in her head. What had they done...?

"I'm fine," Whisper said, forcing herself up. "Violet's fixed the Tornado, right? We can get out of here." Her throat was dry and parched, and Amy grabbed a small glass and poured it gently down her throat. Whisper gave her a glare, before grabbing it and drinking what she could. She wasn't some baby. Amy gave a hearty chuckle.

Shadow shook his head. "We can't. There was already an angry hornets nest stirred up, but you're the kid with the stick who made it angry. And the wisps...well, they didn't help."

There was no sound of rain coming from outside. Had the storm ended while she was asleep? It must have, if she couldn't hear it. "How bad is it looking?" she asked.

"Honestly, this would have been a full Restoration gathering," Shadow admitted. "Green Hill's under full lockdown, everyone knows the police, the judicial system, and the gangs are working together now."

"How do they know the police and the system are working with them?"

"How do you think? Helen Drally was a suspect in a few murder cases, with near perfect evidence against her. Even if she didn't, they had hundreds of other crimes against her. The district attorney didn't bother trying to go to conviction, just let her walk away free a moment later."

"How do they know she did it?"

"Oh, that's an easy one. They saw her do it, and she was caught on live television. Sonic showed us the video last night, after the kids went to sleep," Orange said.

Whisper stared at Orange. "Seriously? And they did nothing?"

"Less than nothing," Shadow said. "Instead they blamed it on 'other derogatory elements'."

Whisper threw her head back, making sure and taking care to avoid Orange in case she wanted to land on the pillow again. "So we can't get out and now we're stuck," she summarized.

Shadow nodded. "Not...exactly. There's...the wisps to consider, too. Tails was working on a few things, but they're over at his main lab in the Mystic Ruins. About two hours away from Central City."

"Oh yeah, like that wormhole I mentioned! Did he ever finish it?" Orange asked.

"No, he didn't," Shadow shook his head. "Certainly tried, though."

"I was looking through his notes and I don't even know where to begin," another voice sounded out from the door. Shadow turned, allowing Whisper to see the small one tailed cat in the doorway. Last Whisper had seen her, she was doing some daredevil stunts in the Tornado. Violet.

"Give it time. He also had more training than you had."

"No he didn't! He was just that much smarter than I am," Violet said. "Sorry I didn't get there earlier, Whisper. I was trying to rush through it, but there are some things that just can't be rushed."

Whisper shrugged, hiding the wince as pain got sent up her right side. "You couldn't have known," Whisper said.

"Have you taken your pills yet?" Orange asked as she hovered over the small things. "You really should, Amy's reckoning those painkillers are wearing off. Especially if you're awake."

"I'll be fine, Gre-Orange," Whisper answered, correcting herself. It was hard to think, but there was...were they deliberately trying to keep what the wisps had done from her? "I can't think of a way out of this mess."

"Neither can the rest of us. We'll figure it out. We fought against Eggman at the height of his power. Something as simple as a corrupt government shouldn't be that big of an issue," Shadow answered. "I have some contacts out with GUN about the situation. Sooner or later we'll be getting something from them. Much sooner."

That was something, at least.

"What terrifies me," Whisper said, "is that all of you are avoiding the wisps. What happened?" she tried to sound more sure of herself, but considering that they didn't react she must have been more hurt than she thought. Violet tilted her head. Shadow looked at them with widened, panicked eyes.

"So...you want to know how bad it is? Or should I just try to be tactful?" Orange asked. Whisper was starting to feel sweat dropping from her face. She knew what the wisps could do if they were feeling...bored. There was a reason she made sure that Cyan limited the damage she could do. Cyan and Pink, together? That was just asking for trouble. She tried to turn to face the wisp, only to not be able to hide her wince as her right side protested every movement.

Those painkillers were wearing off, and Whisper wanted to know where Amy had gotten them because they were effective as anything. Especially with how her side was now throbbing painfully with every heart beat, and every breath felt like she was being stabbed in the lungs.

She reached blindly for the pill on the side, feeling it within her grasp. It was a tiny sphere, a kind of pill she'd never seen before but that didn't mean much.

She tossed it back, taking it dry instantly. She had to hide the wince as her throat worked to swallow it. She opened her eyes to see both Violet and Shadow staring at her. "What?" she asked.

"Uh...mostly I was waiting to see what you were going to do to try to stop the wisps...they've..." Violet started.

"Yeah, they're gone already," Orange announced. Whisper tilted her head. She knew that. "No, you didn't fall asleep. There's...a lot of havoc going on right now."

"Please don't tell me."

"Alright. I won't tell you that Cyan messed with every electronic item connected to the internet, and has already essentially created an economic crisis just within Green Hill. Nor will I mention that Pink went and shredded almost every vehicle's tires within range of Green Hill, including the police and the gang's. He's also annoying...well, just about everyone. It's hard to do anything when everything you touch suddenly has spikes. Blue is...well, he's blocking doors. That's it. The problem is that those doors are the doors out of here to keep us all in here."

Whisper whimpered.

"And Green is currently going around floating anyone and everything that looks at him funny to leave him off rooftops. This includes things like buildings, random passerby, and the occasional hill. Green Hill's getting a free renovation, wisp-style!"

"I'm glad that you don't have a red or yellow wisp, Whisper. Otherwise...we'd have more problems," Shadow said.

"I wasn't out that long," Whisper protested.

"No, but they work fast," Shadow said. "They started this when you were knocked out two days ago. They haven't really stopped since."

"Uh...Is Blue gonna let me out?" Violet asked. Shadow looked out the window, before he shook his head. "Darn. I need to go work on the Tornado, else we might get...problems," she muttered before she left.

She was asleep for nearly two days? That...was probably going to be a major problem. She knew the wisps were the type who didn't take being bored well, and with her out for two days, she couldn't curb their more exuberant responses...

Shadow blinked for a long moment as a sound came from his...leg? Whisper wasn't sure, but the hedgehog reached down and pulled out a small phone. "Think you could tell Cyan to calm down a bit?" he asked sarcastically.

"At this point? No."

"Darn. Because right now Cyan and Pink are...well, suffice to say, causing some ruckus. They've called in the National Guard, most of GUN's training exercises, and I think a chao garden."

"Oh yeah, operation chao! I remember coming up with that one, but we never could figure out a good time to use it." Orange supplied.

Whisper gave the wisp a hard stare. The pain was starting to flitter out now, a still constant in the back of her mind. "Operation chao. Basically, special order in a huge amount of cute chao because everyone loves cute chao. Essentially, all the fighting would stop because everyone would be too adoring of the cute chao!"

Shadow sighed. "Get some rest. We'll...try to handle...whatever this is," Shadow said, waving his hand outside before he took a walk out the door, closing it gently.

Which room was she in, anyways? She didn't think they had a guest room. There was a small bed on the other wall, with a small blank white sheet hanging in the middle of it to act as a divider.

The side she was in had a desk filled with various pens and pencils, small equipment used for drafting. There was a large chest at the floor, and she could see a few stuffed animals pushed hurriedly off to the side. A large backpack lay next to the door with a few of them. Sticking out of it was Tails' Miles Electric.

She'd never worked with the device, honestly. Most of the time it was because Tangle was forbidden from it, as Tails rightfully was afraid that the lemur would do something like throw it in water to see how it floated. Of course, the fact it was on its third or fourth iteration was an ignored fact. As much as Tails liked to complain about it, he always liked rebuilding it from whatever havoc had happened to it.

This must be Violet's room, with Mata on the other side. There was a tiny backpack next to the desk, filled with books and filled out pages of homework. It looked very plain, asides from a poster on the wall featuring some attractive male fox.

"How bad is it, honestly? If they keep it up?" Whisper asked Orange suddenly.

"It's...well, so back on Planet Wisp we had these massive parties whenever we got enough of the mallow together. Massive tribal gatherings of every type of wisp. No violet's, for obvious reasons. Well, about three, maybe four hundred Earth years ago, something around there, we had this massive, massive one, bigger than any we've done before."

"Oh no."

"Ha! You can't even imagine it. Let's just say that half of the canyons on the planet were because of that party. It got so bad we got talked at by our planetary neighbors for messing with their radio communications!" Orange laughed. Whisper stared. "Oh, right, we had neighbors. Not anymore, our planet got captured but we set it free. I hope there's a crimson piloting it..."

"So it's bad?"

"It's about three quarters of that, yes. Maybe a bit more, maybe a bit less, but yeah they're making a mess. No one harms our Whisper and gets away with it."

She wasn't sure if she should be relieved or even more terrified. "I don't think they're getting away with it..." she said.

Orange looked out the window. "No, not anymore. Ooh, Pink found that Helen person."

Pink against Helen? Pink needed to get out of there right now, because she could do some serious damage-

"...And Pink won. Yeah they're not taking prisoners. Ooh boy."

"...How?"

"Oh, Pink tricked Helen to go up a building before suddenly sending dozens of spikes throughout the entire side of the wall, forcing her to jump off to land on a floor layered with them. Then Pink thought that wasn't enough, forcibly imbued Helen, and tossed her off the side."

...How terrifying were these wisps!? She knew the Resistance made a pact with them for protection but she hadn't realized that meant that protection from the wisps as well!

"I feel like I should apologize to everyone."

"You should. You ran off on your own. In most cities, what you did would be enough to get the ball rolling, which is what you wanted I think. But...Green Hill was more rotten than we were thinking."

"And now the others are...partying."

Orange laughed, a high pitched emotional sound that filtered into Whisper's mind. "That's one way to put it!" The wisp settled down a bit, taking her place behind Whisper's cover. "Now come on, rest. You need it. I've studied a bit of Black's bombs to know when someone needs rest."

Orange had done what?

"Fine. Magenta then."

There was a magenta!?

A slight beat pulsed from where Orange was, and Whisper's ears slowly turned to it, as much as she tried to tune it out.

Her eyes opened up to see that the lights were off now, and there was sun coming in from the window. How long had she been asleep? How had Orange known to even do that!? That wasn't a normal power she had.

Whisper's throat was dry, and she looked down to see the bandage had been changed, and most of all wasn't bleeding now. She felt more energized than she had before, and slowly pushed herself up.

The sun was actually shining through the window. It cast an impressive light on the sheet, and through it Whisper could see a few things on the other side. Mostly small notebooks, but a large circle had been prepared in the center with a star like design.

Her bare feet hit the carpet, and she shuddered as she felt pressure for the first time in ages. Her boots were...somewhere. In the corner, she thought. Orange was no where around, and neither were the other wisps.

Honestly that fact scared her most of all.

Her shorts were still on, as was her bra. Her jacket, with all of the wisps containers, sat in the corner on top of her boots. Parts of it had been shredded during the fight, but it looks like someone had gone through and tried to fix it.

She shrugged it on, taking care to not aggravate her right side. She felt a million times better, as if she was fully healed, but knew that while she healed fast she was no Sonic. Just an islander. Her jacket on, and her dignity restored as much as possible, she opened the door to the outside world for the first time in...days. The air was chilly, compared to Mata and Violet's room.

Sonic was watching the TV in the main room, with Amy making what looked like sandwiches. Whisper could hear the kids playing outside. Shadow was nowhere to be seen. The wisps...still gone.

Amy looked up first. "Whisper! You're up! Oh that's a relief," she said, running up to her. "Sonic! She's up!" she yelled. Whisper winced.

The blue hedgehog was much less quick, having to grab his crutch before he hobbled up the stair to her. "Good to see you up and about! Come on, enjoy the day outside!"

"What's going on?"

"I'll let the kids each lunch," Amy said, smiling nervously as she hid behind the counter, her arms moving like pink blurs. Sonic stared at her.

"Coward," he said without an ounce of menacing. "It's...I'll admit, it's pretty bad, but once your wisps ran out of energy the town is...well, it's been in worse shape."

"Has it?"

"I've seen it after Eggman attacked," Sonic answered, "It's been in much worse shape."

Oh right, Green Hill had been where he'd struck first, wasn't it? "How much damage did they do?" Whisper asked lightly.

"Well, it looks bad, but Green Hill's pretty good at coming back from things like this. It was mostly just annoying everyone until it was realized that they had hacked the mayor's phoneline to call in GUN and the Guard. And used his credit card for the chao garden."

"Orange wasn't kidding?"

"Ha! No. Ordered a full on chao garden. Nearly four hundred chao, all volunteers, from the Mystic Ruins garden. They promptly took over one of the warehouses, incidentally the same one you ran through, and it's the newest chao garden," Sonic explained.

"So...we can leave?"

"Not yet," Sonic said. "GUN's doing a few things first. Oh, Amy!" Sonic called out. "Can you call GUN, tell them that Whisper's awake?" he asked. He turned back to her. "They wanted to talk to you about what you know and figured out. And as the leading member of the Restoration on site, because you were the only one out there, they get to default to you."

"That's not normal."

"Nah, most of the time Jewel, Amy, or Lanolin took care of it. A few times I had to, trust me they are not fun, but it's not like they can arrest you. Fixing a mistake you saw, that's kind of what the Restoration does."

"Does the name even have any pull, anymore?" Whisper asked, heading to sit down.

"It does to those that mean it," Sonic answered, following her down. "There are some that hid behind it, using it as a shield or like this, a crutch," he said, pointing to the stick in his hand, "And there are others that knew what it meant. To fix the wrongs we found, no matter who caused them, to be the leading cause of hope in the world."

Was she, though? How could she be the leading cause of hope when she herself had none?

I re-wrote nearly the entire middle section of this chapter. And I still don't like it. Would've liked more time to re-write everything, but I wrote myself into a major corner. Let's see how many people can figure it out!

Also, wisps are wisps.

Until next Time.