Disclaimer: See first chapter.

Silence

Whisper did find out the limit of the water purifying tablets on the strange purple...water. She was fairly certain it was water, at least. It acted like it, even if the properties that it held were obviously of not just water.

One gallon. One tablet was supposed to be good for two to four gallons. Any more than one gallon, and the tablet would quite literally do nothing. It would fizz and pop and foam, but the purple liquid at the end would still be purple and glowing.

The one gallon jug that Jewel had though, was crystal clear. As was all the water that Violet and the Tornado had on them. And she only had a few tablets left.

"I'm going to take this to Central City, or the Restoration. See if we can't determine what this is," Shadow said, grabbing one of the small glasses filled with the glowing purple stuff. He lidded it, turning it over to make sure it wouldn't flow over. Whisper nodded, and the wisps braced themselves as they felt the wash of chaos energy before he disappeared.

Jewel was a bit more alive now, even just as much as an hour after getting some actual water. Her cheeks were still gaunt and she looked hollowed out, but her eyes were open and taking in information again with the reminder that she had been the leader of the Restoration at one point.

Whisper tapped the radio on her mask again. "Violet, can you bring the Tornado around? Just taxi it through the city," Whisper asked.

"Sure. I think I have your location...are the streets clear or they pretty scuffled?"

"They're..." Whisper thought back to it, about the hundreds of potholes and sinkholes she had to jump over, the parked cars she simply walked around but the Tornado had no choice but to go through, "available."

"...You know what, I don't like that hesitancy, I'm going to try to do a low flight. Dad would've been able to without a problem..." Violet muttered as Whisper heard the startup of the Tornado.

"Who...who was that...? Tails is here...?" Jewel's voice barely managed to get out. Pink was in the bathroom, his 'back' being rubbed by Green and Blue. Cyan was laughing at him and Orange stuck around with Whisper.

"No, not Tails," Whisper clarified. Jewel gave an uncomfortable sigh. "His daughter."

"Tails...has a kid...?"

"Jewel has a translator, right? Because if not, can you ask her what that's supposed to mean!? Tails has had kids for twelve years. She couldn't have been out of it for over twelve years!"

"No, she doesn't. She commissioned Tails for the project, but he never pulled it off before...this," Whisper said. "Tails has two. Violet and Mata. You don't remember...?" Whisper asked.

"No...communication. Been cut for years. Air travel's only way in or out..." Jewel muttered. "We have...had nothing..."

That couldn't be right. Belle...someone should have noticed something! Whisper tapped the radio on her mask, changing it to the main Restoration radio frequency. "Belle?" she asked.

Nothing. Not even static. It was just...dead air. Whisper reached up and changed it to the Tornado's again. "Violet?" she asked.

"Yeah? Sorry, low flying's hard at the best of times," Violet shouted. Whisper winced as her voice exploded into her ears. "Be there in five! Ten...minutes. Maybe less. Maybe more. Not sure."

Whisper changed the frequency again, this time to Shadow's personal. "Shadow," she said again, trying to get something through. Sure enough, it was just pure nothing again. As if it didn't exist.

"And no one noticed?" Whisper asked. Jewel shook her head, and the wolf was hard to not notice that the beetle winced as she did.

"None. And then...everyone just...stopped. Stopped caring. They'd go to work, and then just stand there for a few hours. A few people that could muster up the energy to go shopping did what they could. But then the trucks stopped coming one day to refill the grocery stores. The cars...were just parked. And then left."

"It sounds like the start of a zombie movie. Did the people die and then come back to life? Hold on, Green's better at this than I am," Orange whispered. Whisper shot her a look, and Orange had the forethought to appear sheepish.

"Every day, things just got worse. And then...people stopped leaving their houses. The healthy ones went first, disappearing for days at a time. The ones who drank a lot of soda and such were normal...until they ran out. Then they, too, vanished inside," Jewel said softly. "I tried to leave more than once. But all the roads out of here were blocked by downed trees, and whenever someone tried to get out through other methods, like bikes or walking, they were pushed back by fences or by 'private property'."

"I have the feeling I'm not going to like this. I'm going to go help Pink get that stuff out of him..." Orange muttered, rocketing over to the bathroom. Whisper caught the feel of a sick Pink on the edge of her eyesight, and rolled her eyes. Hopefully he'd learn, but she kind of doubted it.

"Trapped," Whisper summarized.

"Trapped," Jewel repeated. "With no way out. No escape."

There was a loud roaring sound that steadily became louder until it was right outside before it quieted down to nothing. Whisper heard Violet's voice on the outside. "What happened to this place...?" she asked.

"Violet," Whisper called out. It was about as loud as a normal person talking. "In here," she finished. She hated to yell, especially in this place when it was so quiet already. Fortunately, the fox's ears were sharp enough to pinpoint it, and within a minute walked behind everything to see the older Jewel on the couch.

"You uh...you don't look so good," Violet said softly. Whisper felt a hand smack her forehead, realizing it was her own. Jewel gave a light giggle before she gave a sad cough.

"I know. It looks worse than it is thanks to Whisper."

"And um...no offense, but you..." Violet stated softly, taking a few steps back. Whisper blinked before she realized it. Jewel...hadn't been able to take a bath yet. Or a shower. And with only one gallon of purified water, it definitely wasn't enough to give her a good cleaning.

"Hygiene's been...low priority," Jewel answered softly. "I am Jewel, the former director of the Restoration," she introduced herself.

"Violet Prower, daughter of Tails and Blaze," Violet answered with a grin. Jewel blinked at her, before she turned entirely to Whisper, confusing more than eminent on her face.

"It surprised me too," Whisper answered. Jewel gave a nod, before she turned back to Violet, and then back to Whisper.

"Why's it so dark in here? I can make out shapes but that's it," Violet complained a moment later.

"Electricity's been out for a while," Jewel answered. She gave a soft cough afterwards, and Whisper calmly put more of the purified water in a cup for her.

"Where are the wisps?"

"Pink did something stupid," Whisper answered honestly. "He's in the bathroom now. How much food did you bring in the Tornado?"

"Food? Uh...I think something like five day's worth. When you mentioned possibly going to Fern Valley or the King's River I packed a few extra day's worth. Only a bit of water, but I packed a bunch of those water tablets that Mr. Sonic had lying around."

"I remember those," Jewel said softly. "After you...disappeared," she said, turning to Whisper, "I made everyone carry at least a few of them."

"Yeah, Mom and Mr. Sonic took a bunch with them. I remembered to take a few, just in case," Violet said. Whisper nodded. That was good, they could probably use a few to help out a bit more, but they definitely wouldn't have enough for everyone in Spiral Hill. No, what they needed to do was to track the source.

But how to do that? The Tornado might have had the schematics and blueprints for how Spiral Hill was laid out. It wasn't a large major city, so it probably only had one or two sources of water. Considering this, it was likely just one. It seemed to be sourced in the water, maybe there was something added there?

To do that, she'd have to look upstream. She supposed she could just find the nearest river and then keep going until it wasn't purple anymore, but that may take a while.

The second option was to find anything nearby that could possibly be dumping something. It wasn't unheard of for other corporations, in her time it was all Eggman all the time, to dump random things in the rivers to carry it out to the ocean. She'd had to stop smugglers using the rivers more than once as part of the Diamond Cutters.

The third option she had was to wait for Shadow. He was faster than her, as much as he was an ass about it, and could look a bit faster than her. Not to mention he had the authority as a newly reinstated government agent. But most companies and things like that were either used to underhanded methods, or used to more...overt methods.

Third was out, as Shadow had no way of knowing what they're situation was like. She had no way of contacting him, probably even with the Tornado's booster. She'd try it anyways.

Second was a possibility, as was first. Especially if it was a natural source. But Whisper doubted it was a natural source, unless something somewhere had gone horribly, terribly, wrong. And for the natural source, too, she had to figure out what it was that causing it.

That one led more credence to the third, waiting for Shadow. But it may take days to get the tests back, even if he found a particularly good lab. And most governments took weeks even when they did find something.

"Jewel, what's the closest water supply?" Whisper asked suddenly. Violet and Jewel had been talking to each other quietly, before both of their ears or antennae jumped to attention. She hadn't been thinking that long, had she?

"Um...closest? Probably Mill Creek. It's a small river that runs by the old mills, hence its name. All of that is considered that 'private property' though," Jewel said, coughing gently.

"Where does Spiral Hill get its water?"

"Aquifer," Violet answered. "I can see where you're going with that. The creek feeds into the aquifer, but it's generally right beneath Spiral Hill. Follow it up and find the source."

Right, Violet was just as smart as Tails was. Whisper would have to remember that.

"...Yes," Whisper said. Violet gave a small fist pump.

"We tried that," Jewel muttered. "It didn't seem to go anywhere. The creek is property of Old Man Henderson, up on the hill. He's...crazy, but not crazy enough to let people, especially me, walk around without a gun to their back."

A single person? Whisper could handle that. She was a sniper, after all. She could see a single person coming faster than most. "I'll check it out anyways," Whisper answered. She gave a short two note whistle, and immediately all five wisps lined up in front of her. Cyan even gave a small salute, and Pink was looking much...well, much more pink. Rather than a mix of pink and green that he'd been showing before. "Get it all out of your system?" she asked.

"For the most part. What's the plan boss!" Pink said, trying to copy Cyan but not quite having the same appendages to be able to. Cyan held up a small note card with an seven on it. Whisper would have to ask what that was all about at some point...

"Follow the river."

"That's it? Come on, that can't be it. Seriously, that can't be it at all!" Cyan complained.

"No, no, there's something more. Notice her right foot, it's twitching a bit. There's another part to it," Orange said.

"I'm going to guess we're going to go up there and have to fight or take out some young man whose causing all of this suffering by...hold on, I don't know the trope name," Blue muttered.

"Probably just an old man who's cranky and lives up there and doesn't like anyone. Blue, not everything has to be related to a story," Green answered.

"No, but it's much more fun that way," Blue said, an obvious grin in his tone.

Whisper rolled her eyes. "Green has it," she said softly. Immediately the wisps gave a small cheer and either high fived Green, or considering he didn't have arms, smacked the tentacles or appendages floating underneath him. Wisp anatomy was weird.

"I still don't think you should," Violet said. "Come on, stick around, eat a bit. We have time," she said.

"No. Go, feed Jewel and get her strength up. We'll need records of the Restoration to try to restore power and stability to Spiral Hill," Whisper said. "Wait for Shadow here."

"But-"

Jewel held out her hand. "If Whisper wants to go, it's easier to just let her go. I learned that ages ago, and it's nice to see that even now some things haven't changed."

"It's only been a few weeks for me."

"And what a crazy few weeks those are..." Jewel said with a small smile. "Go. I'll help Ms. Prower," she finished. The wisps finished their cheering section, and dove into the five canisters she had on her jacket.

Whisper nodded, and walked out of the museum. It was near night time now, the perfect time to be stalking near impossible to find glowing purple liquid. The stars were out, but the moon was not, and it gave everything a dark glow. The Tornado was parked off to the side of the museum, locked up fairly tight. Whisper gave it a quick knock just to make sure.

She envisioned that she would look right behind her, and see an army of zombies slowly shambling towards her, and she shook out her head. She'd fought worse.

The Metal Virus, after all, was still in her memory. She wanted a zombie movie? She'd lived that one. If it hadn't been for Sonic and Silver, that one would've taken over everything. And according to Silver, it had in one timeline.

"Orange, any sign of the Time Eater," Whisper spoke forcefully once they were outside, back in the Silent City. The wisp came out, and gave everything a good look in every direction, shaking her head.

She hopped into the co-pilot's seat, turning on the mapping system. She was right there, she knew, and she blew up the map a bit so it was easier to find. Mill Creek was easy enough to find, the only small blue line that led to Spiral Hill and then didn't go anywhere, disappearing down into the aquifer as Violet had suggested.

North west. That was where the creek disappeared probably into the ground. That was where she'd have to go. She turned off the map, landing silently on the paved road outside Jewel's museum, and started to head towards the north west.

She was lucky that her mask had its own power source, which wasn't likely to go away anytime soon. It wasn't a single battery cell, but rather several of them hooked up together. Cyan could imbue herself into the mask if she so chose, but it was rare, and each cell was powered by the various wisp energy they let off just...hovering there.

Whisper had never been too sure of the engineering that had gone into it, but Tails had looked at it and said whoever had done it was a practical genius. He could take it apart and fix it, definitely, but making it from scratch? That would take an effort, even for him.

The silent city echoed with her footsteps, even as silent as she was trying to be. Her boots hit the concrete roughly, and harsh. The streets had gone even darker, the streetlights having faded even more. There were only a few on for every ten, as compared to Central City's ten for ten. And even those that were on were flickering, faded in their ability. The fact there was even power to some places at all...

The north west most point that she could find, according to her mental map, was just above a grocery store. The store was obvious, although it's red and blue paints were fading with time and weather. There were no lights on, but none of the windows were broken either. "Go in and look or keep going?" she asked the air.

The wisps hovered out. "I say we keep going. Best to keep on task, and all that," Orange offered.

"Heck no, we check it out! Come on, it'd be fun!" Pink and Cyan said at the same time. They turned to stare at each other, before they went to check it out anyways. Whisper turned to the other three.

"I mean, that kind of settled it right there. Cyan and Pink will just go off and do whatever they want...best to have them keep some form of backup," Blue muttered. Whisper agreed privately.

The doors were sealed shut, but a quick moment from Cyan made them open a second later just as Whisper and the other wisps got in. The aisles were near empty, small stale open bags of chips lay strewn around. A few boxes of some pastry that she knew from her own time were lying around, the pastry inside looking as if a day hadn't passed. She should probably look into the preservatives on that thing...

Most of the expired food had truly expired. The breads were long gone, piles of mold long having taken their place. The bottles of water were mostly turned over, and her boots hit the small puddles that had mostly already drained out. Colorful advertisements having faded from zero maintenance. And Jewel had lived in this kind of city!?

She made it to the back, into the refrigerated areas, and was grateful her mask had decided to kick in. There were a few gallons of what once was milk, long having gone bad. If it had more cream, it might've turned to cheese already. The whipping cream was simply butter, when she bothered to check that.

Most of the aisles were empty of everything, a few bags of flour and sugar left over. The flour was...well, rotten, in such a way that it had dozens of bugs in it. The sugar was much better, although it looked like ants had halfway gotten to one of the bags and then promptly just...left it alone. That was odd. "Anything?" Orange asked from the next aisle over. "I'm in the chip aisle and this place...ooh boy, even the bugs left this place alone."

"Rotten flour and some sugar. That's all."

"Ooh, look at this! Toys!" Green said, small toys still in their plastic hovered in midair. Most of them were basic non-islander dog toys, a few of them small kid toys such as metal cars. They weren't rusted, speaking to their making, but they were squeaking when Blue tried to play with them a bit.

Whisper looked over for Cyan and Pink, seeing Pink hovering near the bathrooms, barging his way into one. He knew they had handles, right? It couldn't be that hard for spikes to be able to do that...Whisper walked over anyways, giving him a small hand. The door was locked, and alarm bells pushed into Whisper's head. "Pink, get Blue," she murmured.

"Oi, Blue! We gots work to do!"

Blue hovered into the air, his eyes wide as he immediately imbued the wispon again. "I'm coming in," Whisper tried to announce. No one said anything that she heard, and so she slammed the hammer wispon into the door, knocking it straight into the back. "Ooh, good hit Blue," Pink said as he wandered in. "Oh...Oh no...Whisper!" Pink yelled.

Blue disimbued himself, probably hearing the panic in the pink wisp's voice, and ran towards the front where he'd left the toys. Whisper didn't blame him; if Pink was panicked, that usually meant a few bad things. She stalked in, her mask's night vision proving reliable and more than necessary.

There was a mouse islander on the sink, her hands barely raised. She looked gaunt and her skin tight. Whisper recognized the scent of death immediately. She'd just recently died after starving. She wasn't sure how long she'd have been gone though. "That's not good, right? She's not actually...dead, is she?" Pink asked. Whisper shook her head, lying blatantly.

"No. Go out front, I'll handle it," Whisper said. Pink nodded, flying out front and immediately yelling to the others about the 'not dead body in the back'. Orange would have to tell him, Whisper didn't really want to. She was worried that had some point she was going to have to come across something like this.

There was blood across the mirror, and Whisper could barely make it out. 'Water. Water'. She was hoping for water until the end. Yes, something was definitely wrong, if she didn't already know that. The mouse's eyes were open, and Whisper dragged her gloves down her eyelids, making it more apparent that she was simply resting, despite not breathing.

That was at least one death that occurred to all this. But how had this mouse survived all this long? For that matter, how long did Jewel? How had Jewel survived all this? She hadn't known that Violet was alive, so minimum twelve years.

"Alright, we need to get going. This is going to get worse, I fear," Whisper said as she walked out to the front. The wisps were on the ground, playing the various metal car toys. She'd have to buy a few when she got back to her time.

"They weren't...actually dead, were they?" Orange asked, whispering into Whisper's ears. The wolf shook her head, looking away, and the wisp realized what that meant. She floated down a bit. "I'm scared. Whisper...I don't like this future."

"I know. I plan to undo it."

"But how can we? We're just...normal. We aren't like Sonic, fanatics and adepts of Chaos. You can't go Super, you can't contact outside, or the future. We're just...wisps."

"I don't know either," Whisper admitted. The other four wisps were staring at her carefully. "But I plan to do everything I can to make sure of it."

"I'm with Orange. Who else is absolutely terrified," Blue said, surprisingly calm. That got a bunch of agreements from the others. "We're still with you all the way Whisper, but when you have an idea, let us know so that way we can either go 'oh right she's a genius' or 'we're going to die'."

"Hey, no dying on Whisper's plans. Mine, sure, hers, no!" Cyan yelled out. Whisper chuckled mirthlessly as she smashed one of the windows open rather than let Cyan drain herself. The wisps had kept arguing amongst themselves, telling each other about the faults of their own plans but none of the faults of hers.

She was being honest with them though. She really had no idea what she was doing. Just...step by step, she'd figure it out when she got Tangle back. Right now, she had to focus on that goal, more than anything. She could figure out how to undo everything after she could calm down and think.

Her boots almost splashed against the glowing purple creek, barely three feet wide, as it flowed into an underground storm drain. She'd found Mill Creek, then. She looked up as it flowed down a hill from a single house, built on top of it.

The wisps had followed her, keeping up their arguing. If anything, Whisper was agreeable to the sound. It was far too quiet otherwise, and even the sound of the running water did little to appease her.

Remember when I said Green Hill was this fic at its darkest? Ha...yeah, I lied.

Until Next Time.