Disclaimer: See first chapter.

Journeys

The sun was strange at the higher altitudes. Whisper knew that it was effectively early morning, but it should have been high latitudes that had the sun still being down at eight in the morning. Instead she and Violet were waking up at seven to an entirely still dark skyline.

The hotel at least offered breakfast, and was high end enough to have special wisp biscuits. Pink in particular was enjoying them, although Whisper caught Lavender sneaking a few extra. The wolf wasn't going to say anything.

It was warm inside the hotel at all hours of the day, so it was a shock when they finally left the warm confines to the near blizzard outside. There was no sign of Shadow around, having teleported Surge and Kit. Not that Whisper was sad about sending Surge back. The less time she spent around the tenrec, the better.

They might've gone back to their little shack higher in the mountain range, or they may have stayed at some other places. Or in some other room.

Violet was wearing the big snow jacket again, complete with a hood that hid most of her face. It wasn't the type of hood that led people to believe she was hiding something, but rather the type that scrunched in that barely let her see out. The type that said, 'why am I walking in a blizzard'?

Whisper had just tossed down her mask and called it a day. Her cloak kept her warm enough to not freeze, even though the temperatures were astonishingly cold.

The road leading down the mountains to Fern Valley had dozens of signs saying 'beware of ice'. Whisper could believe it, as even though the sky was dark with the cold black clouds above them. She saw small shiny patches on the side and on the pavement, the pavement slowly moving away from actual road to the dirt road that she was more familiar with.

"How long to Fern Valley?" Violet asked. Her sleeves were limp and lifeless. She'd probably brought her arms in to keep them warmer inside the jacket. That's what Whisper would have done, if she needed to.

But honestly? While it was cold and freezing, it was hardly anything new. She'd done this before, both with the Neo Diamond Cutters and the originals. "Not sure," she answered. "Could be anywhere between a few hours or a few days."

The snow started coming down harder, a few flakes landing on the tip of Violet's nose. The temperature starting dropping again. "I think we should have waited until the blizzard was over..." Violet murmured.

"They didn't tell us the blizzard was even going on," Whisper corrected. The hotel people had plenty of opportunities too. It was as if what happened outside of their own little world didn't concern them.

Maybe it didn't. Maybe that was what was wrong with this place; everyone was concerned about themselves more than the others. Truthfully, she'd seen those signs since long before her own time, so that was nothing new.

"Where do you think Metal Sonic went?"

"Why do you want to know that?" Cyan asked as she popped out of her canister. "Ooh, brr, it's chilly out here."

"We are in the middle of a blizzard," Whisper stated simply. Cyan nodded, as if the chill didn't actually bother her and she was just saying it to make conversation.

"I want to know because he's so interesting! I mean, he's one of Eggman's robots from years ago, and yet he works for the side of good now!"

He didn't, of course. He fought on the side of Eggman. Seeing the man was dead, he was still using it for his last wish; to make sure that no one was ever seen as great as he'd been. The man's ego had been astounding, and it was no surprise to Whisper that he was using the loyalty of essentially his greatest creation and his second greatest creation, depending on if Sage considered herself a creation, to ensure it.

"He doesn't," Whisper corrected. "Eggman's last wish on his deathbed was to make sure that no one was ever seen as 'great' as he was."

"Oh," Violet said simply. As smart as the girl was, it took some circular logic, and not everyone was as good at that. "Why was he here then? That Dr. Hopper was in no way a threat to Eggman's ego. He'd probably let the little rabbit keep going on for a bit before shutting him down."

Whisper shuddered. That was in fact exactly what Eggman had done to Starline. Kept him around for entertainment, and the moment that Starline thought that Eggman was a dunce that he showed his true colors. They'd found the journal that truly showed what happened to Starline, and it wasn't pretty.

The mad duck was most definitely dead. That didn't stop Surge from being an ass though, so in Whisper's mind it was just one more egomaniac gone.

The world could use a lot less of them.

"Shadow mentioned that he was here to look for a source of quakes and other shaking," Whisper recalled. It was an off-handed remark that the only reason Whisper was listening was because it was Shadow saying it. The dark hedgehog almost never spoke if he could help it.

Although he'd lightened up a lot in the last twenty three years. There were still remnants of the dark and 'edgy', according to Green, persona still in there, but it had softened remarkably. He'd probably been a lot worse right after Rouge and Omega had died.

Not that Whisper would blame him for that particular thing. She remembered what she'd been like after the first Diamond Cutters had been...after they were gone. The wisps didn't like to think of that time, but she knew they recalled their origins with near perfect clarity, and like most wisps thought that the time they had with them was the best part about it.

She wished she could be that happy about things. Instead here she was in the snow, with a wind that was threatening to knock her off a mountain, with a violet fox and a blue metal hedgehog walking right beside each other and wait what.

She turned to stare. When had Metal Sonic joined them? "What are you doing here?" Whisper asked. She knocked on Cyan's canister, forgetting the wisp was already there. The wisp gave her a quick raspberry before diving into the circuits on her mask.

"He just came out of the snow. I think he slept out here," Violet offered.

The metal hedgehog didn't shake his head or nod, or any other human-like gesture. Instead he merely spoke directly into Whisper's ear, "I had come out here to find the source of the quakes. It does not bode well to leave a job unfinished."

"He's here for the same thing as us," Whisper summarized. Violet gave a small leap, throwing her arm into the sky before she landed, her shoes almost losing traction on the now icy dirt. She didn't fall, but Whisper could tell it was a close thing.

"Could...I...could I use your mask to talk to him!?" Violet said, appearing next to Whisper. Her original declaration was a very adamant 'No' but she thought about it a bit more. It couldn't really hurt.

"Not to mention I want to talk more and you're so quiet right now it's boring!" Cyan commented into her ear. Orange popped out of her canister, glaring at the cyan wisp.

Whisper rolled her eyes, before she reached one hand behind her head, undoing the buckle on the mask. It fell into her hand gently, and immediately the cold infected her face. It really was a bit chilly, wasn't it?

She handed it over to Violet, who was grinning and shaking in near excitement. "Cyan, don't translate every word," Whisper said. "Especially curse words."

"No, no, translate those, especially those!" Violet said as she grasped for the fox-esque mask. It fit her face near perfectly as she buckled it on, having to take down her hood for it. "Wow. This is...incredible," she murmured.

It had a half dozen features and only a few of them were known by someone who wasn't wearing it every day. Visual clarity was only one part of it, as was the wisp translator. "It's weird to see you without the mask," Orange said.

Blue and Green popped out, followed a moment by Pink and Lavender. "Everyone else was out, so I figured I'd come out too," Lavender answered without prompting. Whisper nodded.

She hung back a bit as Violet and Metal Sonic started talking. Mostly it was simple things, but it was obvious that Metal Sonic wasn't taking into account Violet's age with his answers, based on her responses.

Whisper had almost forgotten that Violet was just as smart as Tails, even if she didn't know it. The girl wasn't nearly the same. Even though they had been similar ages, Tails four years younger, they acted...kind of differently.

Tails was the kind of person to hold too much responsibility onto himself, and sometimes he catastrophized so much in his mind that he froze up, and it was only action that let his mind wander again. The Metal Virus had been a lot for him, and the Grand Prix as well, with his EX-Gear having been sabotaged...no eight or twelve year old should have that much burden on himself.

"They're kinda similar, aren't they?" Orange asked. Whisper glanced up at her. "Metal Sonic and Violet, I mean."

"How so?"

One was a robotic blue hedgehog modeled after her adoptive father, and the other was a violet fox who was born to two people that Whisper was only mostly sure hadn't even spoken to each other in her time.

"One wants to do good, that's Violet. The other just doesn't want to besmirch an evil's mind. And yet...they have the same earnest thoughts. Look at Metal, right now," Orange said. Whisper glanced at him.

The robot was walking along, just like all the other times. And it took a few moments before she got it; Metal Sonic was moving exactly as Sonic did. His arms were moving in the exact same way that Sonic's did when he was trying not to brag about an impressive achievement.

"He claims only his personality matrix was designed off of Sonic, but I think it's more than that," Orange said. "Not that I have any proof, mind."

"And you don't know computers."

"And I don't know computers that well. Blue, what's the chance of Metal Sonic being more related to Sonic than we thought, based upon narrative dissonance?"

Blue glanced at her. "Narrative dissonance isn't a thing, Orange. What you're talking about is narrative cognition, which is being aware you're in a narrative."

"So that thing you have," Pink summarized. "Not that we are, of course."

Blue rolled his eye. "Fine, just for that I won't mention it. At all. Good luck prying it out of me!" He blew a raspberry, a distinctively Pink or Cyan maneuver, before he flew off into the small grasses off to the side. Orange and Pink flew with him, trying to needle him for all of those things.

Whisper gave them barely a glance. As much as it lifted her spirits to see the wisps acting like the world didn't matter to them, it was exhausting at times.

"What was that all about?" Lavender asked. "I don't remember any mention of any of that before."

"Blue thinks we're in a story," Whisper explained. "Personally it's how I think he comes to terms with being flung twenty three years."

"That is a long time for a mortal."

"Mortal?" Whisper asked. Wisps almost never said the word. To hear it from Lavender, a white wisp turned violet or purple, was...different.

"Sorry, it's a force of habit. Dr. Henderson and I were working on it. Before he figured out how to create the purple frenzy. Some of the white wisps just referred to those that died as mortals."

"No, that's what it means, but I've never heard a wisp say it before."

Lavender nodded. "Most of the time we shouldn't. We die too, we aren't immortal. Just...very old. Did you know that wisps can tell approximately how old other wisps are just from a glance?"

"I had a similar feeling," Whisper said, nodding. The Diamond Cutters already had their wisps when she joined and she met with Orange for the first time, but Smithy had often told the story of how the wisps had come to them.

They had just recently saved a small town from one of Eggman's random mechs, long before the Resistance was formed. They did it through cunning and intelligence, and more than a hint of strength and ferocity. The wisps had been impressed, and approached them all directly.

Then the Resistance had been formed, right as Eggman started his attack on a global scale. Other wisps saw what the ones that joined the Diamond Cutters were doing, and shared the plans to create weapons that utilized their own unique characteristics. Those became the wispons.

"They're old," Lavender said. "Very old. I'd say just short of the Mother honestly, maybe in the first or second brood."

"Mother?"

"The Mother Wisp. The one who...well, created us all, or gave birth to. No one's really sure, and she never speaks of it. There was a time when she was a violet wisp too, but then...well, Sonic beat it out of her."

Sonic beat her? The originator of all wisps, and by far, according to what she could piece together, the most powerful of them all? Whisper had no doubt he had to go super for it, and she'd seen first hand what Super Sonic and Super Silver could do.

"I wasn't there. I'm from the fortieth thousand brood. About...-" Lavender started, before Green came out of the snow, and held out an obvious sign of not saying anything. "I'm not supposed to say?"

"Nope! We're keeping how old we are a secret! You can tell her your age though, that won't do a thing!" Green said, before he turned to Whisper. "You don't mind if I keep things secret right?"

Whisper shook her head. "As long as it doesn't come back to attack us."

"It shouldn't."

"Then no, I don't mind," Whisper acknowledged. She had secrets too, although they were unlikely to ever bother her now. Twenty three years was a long time for a secret to die. It'd be hypocritical if she started to demand to know all the wisps' secrets.

"And that's why she's the greatest," Green nodded. "Much better than the other guy Blue was with. That's Mimic, in case you forgot."

"No, I remember," Lavender clarified. "You said he was a kind of shape shifting octopus?"

"He is," Whisper said. Her hand crunched down on her glove as she clenched her fist. That was still a thing she needed to see. Was he still out there, or had Eggman's downfall led to his own? He'd infiltrated the Restoration, but Jewel had somehow figured it out instantly.

Lanolin was fooled, but anyone who reminded the sheep of that particular trait was promptly glared at. Whisper remembered when it came to light that Duo, a new cat had joined the Diamond Cutters. She had recognized him instantly, but gathering the evidence for it...that took a long time. Especially because Lanolin didn't want to take her word for it.

It was something that Whisper should have blamed her for, but somehow the wolf didn't. Whether that was because of some other global disaster that had promptly struck the Restoration, or because she knew firsthand just how hard it was to believe anyone could be Mimic.

She still carried a fire in her heart for the day she'd find Mimic gone in the world.

Metal Sonic and Violet had stopped abruptly, and the fox was taking a look at some of the metal hedgehog's workings in his torso. "Whisper, do you think we can wait a few minutes?" Violet asked.

The wolf glanced around. They'd made pretty good time, about halfway down the mountain. The blizzard had started to recede a bit, so now it was simply a gentle snowfall. The ground was covered in it, but it looked like it wasn't sticking, based on the green grasses off to the side.

"A few minutes," Whisper said. She'd made it this far, and now she was finally on her way to where Tangle supposedly was. Or it would be another red herring.

In truth, this was actually a fairly normal adventure so far. Yes, they'd had accidents, yes she'd almost been eaten by a Time Eater of all things, but in general, she had a goal and she stuck to it.

Compare that to the tales that Amy told of Little Planet and Sonic's 'dazzling rescue' of her. Which was less dazzling and more 'eye-rolling'.

Not that Whisper was there for that. She'd been on the other side of the planet, untouched by Eggman until that final push, or when Dark Gaia had struck.

Or when Eggman had destroyed half the moon. Or, according to the notes that Whisper had access to as part of the Diamond Cutters, almost destroyed time. Twice.

He was a big proponent of time travel, it seemed. He'd used some form of it three times. Little Planet, 'Solaris', whatever that was, and one time with the Time Eater.

Most of the time Eggman's plots didn't affect her actual hometown. It was probably buried in rubble by now, if Whisper was honest. It was the landing point in which he'd attacked that continent during his takeover.

"Alright, you should be good to go now. Any resistance?" Violet asked as she pushed away a screwdriver, shaking out the cold from her hands. Metal Sonic twisted a bit, his legs moving a lot like Sonic did when he was stretching, only slightly more robotically.

Was she...fixing him? Even with the white scarf, it was odd seeing the robot as anything other than the killing machine it could have been. How Violet didn't see him like that, Whisper didn't know.

She grinned suddenly. "Of course you're welcome! That's what friends are for!" she said. Whisper blinked. Friends? That was fast, Violet.

The fox turned back to Whisper. "All done! He had some extra tension in the left leg ligament connecting to the hips. The joint had to be adjusted a bit. He says it's better now, so we can keep going."

Whisper blinked, before she nodded. Pink, Orange, and Blue were still playing in the reeds off to the side. The mountain was still going downwards, but Whisper could see the bottom now, and where Fern Valley got its name from.

It was practically a jungle, although snow-covered as it was at the moment. Tall trees struck out from the bottom, and the bottom of the ground was covered in hundreds of ferns. Most of the pathway was a light brown, almost a red, from the fallen leaves of the trees above.

"You can see the valley from here!" Green said quickly. "It's like seeing an ocean of green!"

"It's beautiful..." Lavender said, and Whisper got a distinct thought that her hue had lightened up a bit, before darkening once more. Was that because the wisp was finding her own dark thoughts, or was that something else?

Whisper took a few steps, and promptly slid down another ten or fifteen feet. The area here was slippery, and the snow wasn't helping, even as gentle as it was. "Watch your footing," she warned, right before Metal Sonic jumped down thirty feet, Violet trying to match his jumps one to one.

With a sigh, she checked her medicine bag. Good, she still had plenty of medical supplies, especially for when Violet was doing something like that.

She walked on in silence for a few minutes, satisfied with the one-way conversations that Violet was having with the robot, or the talks of Green to Lavender, or the furious attempts at 'getting' one another from the other three wisps off to the side.

"Lavender..." Whisper started after a moment. There was only so much of Green's poorly made attempts at flirting that she could take. She was fortunate enough to be able to tune most of it out, but the subtle jab at her own relationship troubles pierced that like a needle.

The lavender wisp immediately floated next to her, and Whisper almost thought that she'd say 'thank you' for getting her out of there. "How old are you? I know Green said not to tell me how old they are."

"Not very. Only about two, maybe three thousand years. Unless you mean into a violet wisp, that one's about eighteen or thirteen, maybe eight depending on which planet you're thinking of. Or less. Or more. Not long."

That wasn't confusing at all. Whisper nodded, before Lavender went back to Green. She said she was from the forty thousandth brood. That was...that was a lot. How many wisps were in a brood? Did they even think of terms like that?

Whisper's eyes peeled around, taking in the area around her. The mountain snow had kept going, but while it was a blizzard at the top, down here it was just a gentle snowfall. It curved over the rocks and edges, sometimes lying about where the edge actually was. More than once Violet slipped for a moment, only to catch herself a second later.

The grasses were tall here, too. Generally that meant there was no one for upkeep. Seemed they were native grasses as well, which meant that people didn't come this way to live and bring their own seeds of invasive species along with them. Was there anyone even living in this canyon?

There may not have been. Whisper couldn't recall seeing any houses, or any smokestacks that represented a house. Even Surge and Kit's place on the top had one of those.

Her boot crunched down on a hard surface, and not on the soft dirt that she'd been used to. Or the soft snow, rather. There was still a way down to the canyon floor, and the sun was barely over halfway through its daily trek. Or at least, as far as Whisper could tell based on its position, a dull gray slightly shining orb surrounded by other dull gray slightly shining clouds.

Pink, Orange, and Blue came out of the bushes, rustling gently as they passed. They were blabbing something, talking about something, but they were a cacophony and she couldn't make out what any one of them was saying. "Slow down," she commented.

"There's a what?" Green asked instantly.

Orange spoke up. "There's something big heading this way, and it's not a Time Eater you don't need to worry about that, you and Lavender did a lot of damage to it, but there's something big and it's heading right for us!"

Whisper nodded. "Violet, Metal Sonic-"

Violet was already dragging the blue hedgehog robot down to the ground, trying to get under any amount of cover they could find. There wasn't a lot to be found in the area, given they were out in the open. They hadn't quite reached the valley yet. "We heard!" Violet called back.

At first Whisper wanted to call Cyan back, to use her for scouting purposes, but Cyan was needed to help translate for Metal Sonic. Which meant Whisper was essentially down to Pink, Orange, Blue, and Green. Lavender wasn't the type, Whisper felt, to be shot out of a wispon. What would the variable wispon even change it to?

They'd have to test that. "Pink, imbue. We'll use you for scouting, Green, go upwards and see if you can't find it again. Keep an eye on it. Orange, scout at this level. Can you still see it?" Whisper asked.

Orange shook her head, just as the ground started to shake and rumble.

Another of those interim chapters.

Until Next Time!