Disclaimer: See last chapter.

Information

The air chilled rapidly as soon as the sun started to set. At first there wasn't an issue, but as the mountains covered up the sun, Whisper noticed that Violet was starting to shiver more and more frequently. Shadow didn't seem to have an issue, and neither did Knuckles. Although really he was muscular enough that even if he did shiver Whisper wouldn't have noticed it.

Eventually it got to the point that Violet couldn't keep talking and walking at the same time, and that was when Whisper put her foot down. "We'll rest here for the night," she said quietly, her tone forcing them to listen to her. Knuckles nodded instantly to his credit, and Shadow took a bit to glance over at Violet before he ceded to her ideas.

Violet nodded, her body shivering lightly. Cyan and Orange surrounded her a bit, trying to warm her up. Whisper was honestly surprised it took her this long before she got cold. The large jacket that she'd been wearing on the mountain seemed almost too warm for here. Whisper took out the emergency tent, once again finding its use for the...third? Fourth? She'd been using it a lot. The entire trip in the desert most likely would find it used by all, although it was only designed for one person, or maybe two.

The wisps gave a cheer, except for Yellow who stayed out, and dove into the tent to energize it and to warm up for Violet.

Whisper could almost feel the heat rise off of it after Violet had dived into it. It would be warm enough there, especially with the majority of the wisps in it. Yellow was instead looking around, her curious eyes glancing every which way.

Knuckles sat down on the ground. "I was wondering when anyone would notice she was getting cold. Good kid, but she's too driven at times," he said.

"She compares herself to her mom and dad all the time," Whisper commented. "She hasn't yet learned to be her own person yet."

"Well, she's in the shadow of Tails," Knuckles shrugged. "Anyone would be overshadowed by that. The kid was a genius, and that was when he was her age."

"She's not exactly a dull stick either," Whisper answered. "She figured out her dad's passwords within a month of him leaving. She figured out the nature of Chaos and the Master Emerald with barely any information."

"Really?" Knuckles asked, his glee unhidden. It was such an odd look on him that Whisper had to do a double take. "I was hoping someone would figure it out. A temporal-spacial anchor is rare."

"Is that why the Floating Island floats?" Shadow asked, his voice barely hiding the sarcasm.

Knuckles rolled his eyes. "No one calls it that anymore. We just call it Angel Island now."

"Speaking of, how are you going to get back? You're still the guardian," Whisper asked.

"It's easy enough to summon a quick wind up from the ground now. I used to not be able to do that. But out here in the deserts? It's not going to bother anyone. It's why I made the island invisible out here. Far as anyone else knows, it's far out at sea."

"That's where GUN thought it was," Whisper said.

"It's where GUN will continue to think it is," Shadow answered. "The last thing we want is GUN getting their hands on the Master Emerald."

"No, the last thing we need is Timeroot getting it," Knuckles revised. "Seriously, they're bad news."

"What are they?" Shadow asked. "You mentioned it before."

"Timeroot is...hmm...how to explain this..." Knuckles started. "I've been watching them for a while, ever since they reappeared here. Actually...they reappeared here around twelve years ago," he said, staring at Whisper meaningfully. "The instant Eggman died."

"You think he could command them? One last final act?" Shadow asked.

Knuckles shook his head, "No. Absolutely not. They were terrified of him. After all, there's only three people who had known time control powers. Eggman, who had the Time Stones. Sonic, who could use them. And Silver, who can use the chaos emeralds to setup a temporary temporal anchor and force his native time to be the local time, and that's if he doesn't use a Time Stone," he explained.

Shadow and Whisper blinked at him. "Wait, what?" Shadow asked.

"Time be silly thing!" Yellow chirped from the corner. She dove into the ground and started to act like a sandworm. Whisper let her continue to act silly. It was good to have some relief.

"Silver's knowledge of time travel is rather...incomplete. I asked him, once, how he manages it. He uses a form of chaos control not to warp around in space, but to warp around in time. You could do the same thing, Shadow, if you pushed a bit further, but I don't recommend it. Especially right now."

"Because the Timeroot."

"Exactly," Knuckles agreed. "The Timeroot somehow knew that Silver's power wasn't going to be working for this time period. And Eggman was dead. The only other person who could use the Time Stones would have been Sonic, and well, his leg was shattered. He wouldn't be running for awhile."

"Who are they, though?"

"The beginning of all things," Knuckles tried to explain. "They were here when the Ancients, those on the Starfall Islands, came here. They used the power of the Master Emerald and the Time Stones to 'skip' periods of time, bouncing around the time stream. Then someone, millennia ago, took the Time Stones from them, and followed it up with stealing the Master Emerald."

"This is sounding more like a bad conspiracy theory," Whisper noted.

The echidna shrugged. "Not wrong, I guess. See, what they want is their stuff back. The Time Stones, and the Master Emerald. And they're willing to destroy the world for it, using every possible thing they can."

"Which would allow them to skip through time," Shadow said. "Why would that be so bad? I have a feeling there's an explanation for that."

"Anyone messing with time is a bad idea," Knuckles said. "Particularly if they're from a civilization that makes habit of...well, they kill a lot of people. I saw their commander's desk when I snuck in once. Tried to hurt him but it didn't work out."

"You should have tried to kill."

"I try not to. Gets lonely enough on my island," Knuckles shrugged. "One of the first targets? Sonic. Which would mean-"

"Oh crap. That would mean that Eggman would have won at the very beginning," Shadow's eyes widened. Knuckles nodded. "South Island. When Eggman took it over. Westside Island. Angel Island..."

"He wouldn't have taken over Angel Island. He would've just grabbed the Master Emerald and left me to die in the falling," Knuckles answered. "But yes, their goal was chaos. Literal."

"They want the chaos emeralds?" Whisper asked.

"No, surprisingly. They can't do anything with the Chaos Emeralds. Only the Master, and the Time Stones. Which are, of course, locked on Little Planet, they won't be going anywhere for a long time."

"Why it called Little Planet? Planet be not small!" Yellow chirruped before she dove back down. She drilled back up and threatened to land on Whisper's shoulder, before the wolf caught her easily and held her in place for a moment. Another second later, Whisper set her down, letting her drill down back under the ground with a quick 'brbrbrbr' drill sound.

That came from her mouth.

"But why would they take Tangle, though?" Whisper asked. "And Tails? They would know that would just spark Shadow or Sonic to go against them."

"They aren't worried about Sonic or Shadow," Knuckles shrugged. "They're worried about the only other person whose still been time traveling recently, the one person who has the thing that could erase them from existence chasing her."

Whisper's eyes widened. "They're worried about me. And the Time Eater."

"Precisely. The Time Stones and the Master act as a shield against the Time Eater, but they found out rapidly what happens when those protections are taken from them. They know one is here, so they keep all who enter away from their main city, just in case they're the ones the Time Eater is chasing."

"They're homicidal, they're worried about the Time Eater, and they can travel through time," Shadow summarized. "Any other really bad ideas?"

"Hmm...no, I think that's all," Knuckles said. "I think I saw a note about resurrection, but that's impossible."

"Unless it's Mata," Shadow said, "then it's quite common. But she's in Green Hill."

Knuckles froze for a moment. "She's...where?"

"In Green Hill. With Sonic and Amy," Shadow said.

Knuckles turned to the Angel Island somewhere above him. "Shoot, I need to go tell him not to come..."

"There's some disaster happening right now, isn't there?" Whisper wasn't sure if that was Blue, Green, or Shadow. She strongly suspected Shadow because the other two were in the tent, but she didn't doubt that they'd come out specifically to comment on things like that.

"Sonic said that Green Hill is becoming untenable. He wants to move Amy, Velocity, Thunder, and Mata to Angel Island for the time being, just in time for it to blow over," Knuckles said.

"Oh, tell him to bring a wispon! I want to learn how they're made!" Violet's voice called out, her head peeking out from the tent. Whisper sighed.

"Vio, I was about to tell them not to come at all," Knuckles said. "Not to bring more stuff with them."

"Besides, you can just learn from Whisper's," Shadow said, pointing to the variable wispon.

Violet's eyes turned to stars. Behind her, Whisper could barely see Orange and Cyan, arguing about something, Orange's flames from his jets warming up the tent. Next to them was Pink, who was nodding extremely fast towards Whisper, pointing to Violet.

A Pink plan was something to avoid at all costs. "Friends!" Yellow trilled, drilling into the tent from the other side. The material parted and sealed itself back up a moment later. Whisper wasn't sure how that one happened, but she blamed it on Tails.

Violet had expressed interest in the past to check out the variable wispon. And it's not like she could hurt it; Whisper had long since memorized how it worked and how it fit together, a puzzle without an edge.

"And aren't you supposed to be asleep?" Shadow turned to her. "It's fairly late."

"Could, but I listened in instead. Also, Cyan and Blue were betting on something but they didn't want to tell me what it was," Violet said.

Yes, it was probably best to ignore those two when they got started. Whisper glanced down at the variable wispon. It had been her lifesaver, it had been her life if she was being honest.

But...she'd trusted Violet with her life too. Tails had a penchant for explosives, not for weapons as a whole. He'd taken a few glances at the wispon, but hadn't really tried taking it apart the way that Smithy would have, if she'd had it when she first joined the Diamond Cutters.

She opened the tent just as smidgen, before carefully handing it over. "Be careful with it," she warned. Whether that was because she didn't want it to get hurt, or for Violet to get hurt, she wasn't sure.

She zipped it back up, and ignored the way that Shadow stared at her or that Knuckles was smirking. If Surge were here, she'd be doing that fake tear thing again, probably with some sarcastic remark.

Admittedly the tenrec had done nothing but give sarcastic remarks.

"What I want to know is what is the Timeroot. Why would they take Tails too? The kid hasn't done anything," Shadow asked.

Whisper gave him a stare. The 'kid'? It'd been years since anyone had referred to Tails like that. At least in her mind. And really, it was kind of obvious.

If they knew enough about things to know exactly when Eggman died, they'd know who Tails was. The genius was pretty much world renowned, and that was before the twenty three years skip she'd done.

Whisper had lived on the other side of the world, and she'd known exactly who Sonic and Tails were. Knuckles not as much, Shadow was iffy, Amy was new to her, but Sonic and Tails? Their exploits in Westside Islands, South Islands, and even Central City were known by everyone the world over.

It was hard to overstate just how famous the hedgehog was. And Tails was just as well known, if also because he was, as a kid, remarkably cute.

"Could be any number of reasons," Knuckles said. "I didn't see any sign of him, but that doesn't mean he wasn't there. Zerotime is a big city."

"Is that it's name? Zerotime?"

"Yeah. It's based off of one of their sayings. 'Zero Time is Local Time'. Basically it's the same as saying 'the biggest adventure starts with a single step' or one of those phrases."

"Now we're learning their phrases," Shadow said quietly. "How quaint."

"The first step to learn how to deal with an enemy is to learn about them. Learn about your enemy, and you need not fear how they fight."

Whisper could admit that was true. She glanced upwards towards where the stars were, and the Angel Island, invisible to her eyes. "Knuckles, didn't you say you needed to call Sonic?" She asked.

Knuckles blinked at her, before he shot upwards, and instantly Whisper felt a dull wind circle from him. He shot upwards at a rate that would make her jealous, and that's if she was using the wispon with Orange.

"Huh. You think he would have remembered that," Shadow said as he watched him fly upwards. "You'd also think he remembered that we traveled a few miles to get here," he finished.

"How long do you think it'll take for him to remember that's not where he parked the island?" Whisper asked.

"Islands can't be parked! Beep beep towing!" Yellow shouted as she dove underneath the tent again. Whisper made a mental note to make sure that Orange taught her what she needed to know. Maybe Lavender too, she was relatively well-spoken. Pink and Cyan...maybe, if she wanted to cause trouble. She'd prefer not to.

"Not long. He has some sixth sense about where the Master Emerald is. I think it's because he's been around it so long that he's become attuned to it," Shadow answered. Whisper nodded. Made as much sense as anything else in her life.

The desert air was starting to bite into her fur, but as she'd done for years she shrugged it off. Her fur was good enough to get through the cold without problems, even without moving for hours on end. Although she hadn't actually taken care of her fur in ages...she'd have to do that once she got back.

And to think that her goal was just a few days travel away. Once she rescued Tangle...and Tails...then she had no doubt that he could probably find some way to travel her back.

It seemed as if things were finally coming to a close. "What's got you so relaxed?" Shadow asked scornfully.

"We're close to the goal," Whisper answered. "A few days and a jailbreak."

"You're acting like it's easy."

"Jailbreaks aren't hard," Whisper shrugged. "Blue, Orange, and Cyan can see to it. Cyan for alarms, Orange to spot the weak points, and Blue for smashing."

Shadow stared at her. "You really are a walking arsenal with them, aren't you? I know that logically, but to see you just talk about them so...blase. Why do you they follow you?"

"They're friends."

"Friends," Shadow said, staring off in the distance. "I used to be the same way. Rouge for the alarms, Omega for the backup, and me for the infiltration directly. We never failed a single mission."

Whisper said nothing, instead sitting down on the cold hard sand. It felt like ice enveloping her legs, but like all snipers, she ignored it as best she could.

"And the one time they needed me to bail them out...Did I ever tell you about the mission?"

"No. And I didn't want to pry."

"Probably for the best. Time travel makes things difficult at the best of times. I was there, when the original Time Eater ate Sonic. I woke up in the white space, with the yellow chaos emerald in my hands."

"Sonic didn't mention much about it."

"For him, it was just another adventure. One of dozens. Between him and Tails, both of them, they figured out that restoring space time stability would require their speed and chaos auras. They wouldn't speak about it much, because why would they?"

Shadow continued, "The only thing I know is that I woke up with the yellow chaos emerald, and a distinct feeling that I shouldn't just give it away. Sonic explained it to me, before I battled him for it anyways. We saw worlds that Sonic had known from his previous adventures, somehow back on the ARK," he said, staring off towards the moon.

Whisper blinked, following his line of sight. There was the moon, still blown in half from way back when. Following it, not far from it, was the other 'moon' that she'd known all of her life. The space station ARK. "Did you see anything you shouldn't have?"

"A few. Worlds that didn't exist. A possible future, and knowledge of it thanks to Silver."

"It dragged in all things from the past, but nothing else?"

"Not as far as I saw. If Sonic did see something, he didn't say. I suspect that even when he started talking, he couldn't assist with most of the events, even if he had foreknowledge. They were just...spots. Areas similar to deja vu. 'Oh, I remember this from that one white space trip'."

That must be frustrating. To know that something was going to happen, but be unable to assist...she was going to be going through that too, wasn't she? She was going to know that Timeroot was going to be coming back, and they were going to appear the instant that Eggman died.

And they would go after the Master Emerald and the Time Stones, in order to go and change time again.

But obviously they wouldn't have succeeded, because then this time wouldn't be happening. Which meant that they succeeded...right? Whisper's head was starting to hurt from trying to figure out all of this time nonsense.

Just from her going into the future to a civilization based around time travel...they probably had some kind of tense trouble for that.

"Do you think I could save them?" Whisper asked suddenly. Shadow turned to look at her, his red eyes glaring out. He tilted his head, his spines following the movement. Easily. She always wondered how he did that. Sonic's were much more natural looking.

"Save who?"

"Rouge and Omega."

Shadow paused, looking up at the sky again. "It's..." He stopped for a long moment. A few seconds, then a minute. "I suppose it could work. I tried all kinds of things. Belle says I was inconsolable, having them taken again."

"What was the mission?" Whisper asked without hesitation. If she could help even one more she would do everything in her power. She may not have liked Rouge, and while she adored Omega she knew that he wasn't exactly the best of heroes to look up to.

Omega had weapons and he wasn't inconsiderate about firing them. If he had joined the Diamond Cutters, Whisper knew that he would have absolutely loved it on some of their missions, the missions where everything went wrong.

And yet she was still here.

"It was...before Eggman died. They had heard that he'd retrieved some jeweled scepter, not the one from Blaze's world, that had a darkness hidden inside. I told them not to go, that something was wrong with it. It seemed basic."

"What went wrong?"

"What didn't?" Shadow said without humor. He sat down on the sand next to her, and she noticed that he pumped out small flames out of his shoes, getting the sand out of them. "First, Eggman's base was set up in a cliff side. Without his face plastered over it. That was warning one. The second was that at first there was no protection. No robots, at all."

He glanced up, continuing a moment later. "We received Rouge's transmissions on the after action report. She thought it was curious, but obviously not worth protecting. She wouldn't have even done it if Eggman wasn't doing it, and it didn't have jewels in it. Mostly the second one. Omega went with to deal with any protections that did show up."

"It was the third room that they went into. Blank. And then the hallway behind them disappeared. Robots after robots starting pouring out, the scepter itself an obvious fake to Rouge's eyes. Omega took care of them all. Then the bigger ones."

"It was a trap for you," Whisper said. That was a similar enough fate to the Diamond Cutters. She knew what it was like; to go against an endless horde that kept growing in power. Seemingly no end to them.

"It was a trap for me. I knew it. They knew it too, once the Executioners started showing up. They were heavily armored, one of the only robots that I have difficulty with on my own.

"Eventually Omega ran out of ammunition. I thought he was endless, before then. Rouge was fighting well, but she's better at the singular enemies than the big ones. And she was doing her fair share too. But once Omega ran out...he ran in. Trying to buy time for Rouge to try to kick her way out.

"I was already using Chaos Control to get there faster. I knew the general area, only a few miles out. I could get there, bust in there."

Hadn't Shadow said previously that he hadn't been there, and that was why it had hurt so much? Whisper wondered if this part was idle thinking, idle wishing of what could have been.

"By the time I got there, Omega was destroyed. His shell was crushed by thousands of spikes, aiming to destroy him. Rouge...there was no door for me, but there was a pressure keeping me out, an invisible wall. She went back in to try to save Omega."

He was saying this without inflection, as if it was too painful for him to pay much attention to what he was saying. "She didn't last long either. She got the transmissions out, and that's when I got there. The walls were packed with hundreds of robots and robot parts. If they had survived for much longer, they would have been crushed just by the pressure."

"Why do you think you had a bad feeling about it?" Whisper asked. She hated asking him that, asking him to keep going into more detail. But the more detail she had, then maybe, just maybe...

She will undo it. Her eyes widened as the message proclaimed itself into her head. Will undo. It wasn't just individual words.

It was a sentence.

"Because I saw a report once, of that scepter out in Soleanna when Faker went there once. Something snapped in my head, and whatever it was the only thing I have left is a bad memory," Shadow answered.

Whisper nodded. Her mask had a recording function, and she'd had it going for the last several days. Ever since coming into the future, actually. She'd have to edit the rest out, but...maybe she could get this information to the right ones.

An invisible pressure urged her not to let the recording end, just yet.

Information, and for once, the name of an enemy.

Until Next Time!