Ancient Ruins
"Oh my Gaia finally!" Tangle said, approaching the Yellow Chaos Emerald. When Eggman told her that the Yellow Emerald was protected in some way, she didn't think that meant a bunch of traps in an ancient ruin! In fact, it got so bad she almost dropped the White Chaos Emerald Dr. Eggman lent her for this mission. Luckily, she could have a stable grip when she wanted to, but still.
Tangle heard some beeping noises and turned back to look at Metal Sonic. She could have sworn those noises were a form of laughing at her, but she couldn't prove it, so she just narrowed her eyes at him.
When she was assigned this mission, Metal Sonic was also assigned to help her, just like how A. got Sage. Personally, Tangle actually preferred Metal Sonic, that weird virtual child kinda gave her the creeps. Not that Metal Sonic wasn't creepy in his own way, but at least he had a physical body to interact with. And although she couldn't understand him exactly, she did find out through body language that Metal was actually incredibly sassy.
They became fast buddies.
Tangle looked back and slowly approached the Chaos Emerald, which seemed to be set unto a stone altar in the middle of a very conspicuous stone circle. It just screamed TRAP! To Tangle. Still though, despite how annoying most of the traps were, Tangle couldn't deny that the rush of adrenaline every time her and Metal had to escape some kind of death pit felt undeniably amazing. Honestly, that was what she lived for. Hell, it was what she betrayed her friends for.
After reaching the stone circle, Tangle decided that actually stepping into range of the Chaos Emerald to pick it up was a horrible idea. So instead, she used her tail to reach over and grab the emerald. She quickly slinged it back to her hand, which seemed to be the right call as spikes appeared all around the emerald, jutting from the ground. Tangle had to allow herself a smug smile, She wasn't anywhere inside the circle when the spikes came out.
She casually tread back to Metal, who gave her a thumbs up, before they both came out the way they came in. After a couple of minutes walking through recently disarmed, (and activated) traps, they were finally able to walk out of the old stone temple to the surrounding ruins. Tangle looked over at Metal, before reaching a closed fist out to him. Metal stared at the fist for a moment, before he reciprocated and fist bumped Tangle. Tangle's grin grew wider.
"Whew! That's what I'm talking about!" Tangle shouted loudly, "Another Chaos Emerald down!" She said cheerfully.
Suddenly, Metal seemed to reach out and pull Tangle to the side. She yelped in surprise, but then she saw why. There was a small wisp laser burn scorched into one of the ruin's behind where she was originally standing.
Someone had just tried to snipe her through the trees.
Tangle was a mite shocked, before she started grinning again. There's only one person who could pull off a shot like that. Tangle had to admit, she was excited to see how she measured up to Whisper.
Tangle quickly looked at Metal. "Yo, you handle whoever came to stop us. Except Whisper, she's mine." Tangle said, her grin turning into something dark. Metal nodded in understanding, before blasting off through the trees.
Tangle started looking at which direction the shot must've come from, before another one seemed to blast out from behind two specific trees. Got you, Tangle thought, before quickly jumping out of the way. After the shot seemed to barely graze the side of her face, she used her tail to punch where Whisper probably was.
Whisper saw the tail coming, but only had enough time to pull out Green's umbrella as a mock shield before it crashed against her. Whisper went sailing backwards into a clearing. After landing painfully in the dirt, she quickly shot back up. Whisper then quickly shook off the shock on her arms, before assessing her surroundings.
I don't remember Tangle being that strong, Whisper thought, but maybe she just never gave Tangle credit for her tail's strength. After all, it could punch through metal robots when she put her mind to it. In fact, Whisper couldn't remember if she and Tangle had so much as an honest sparring match. but she couldn't just turn tail and run based on the unknown.
She slowly looked around the small clearing trying to ascertain where Tangle could come from. It was a small clearing for a forest, but wide enough for a proper fight for when Tangle came out of the trees. She put her mask on properly, seeing as extra face covering couldn't possibly hurt.
Suddenly, she heard a branch snap, before jump rolling forward. Where she just was standing was suddenly smashed down on by Tangle's tail holding a large tree branch. It seemed to leave a noticeable impression in the dirt, and Whisper started to think that she might be in trouble. Whisper suddenly realized that she might legitimately be outmatched against Tangle without realizing it.
She pulled up her wispon, facing it towards Dark Tangle, who was confidently striding into the clearing. Whisper could see the smug grin on Dark Tangle's face. Tangle seemed to have changed her normal jumpsuit out for one that was in Eggman colors with his insignia embroidered on the front. Whisper also noticed that Tangle was currently holding two Chaos Emeralds, the yellow and the white one.
"You know, my old self never would have admitted this, but I always did wonder who was the stronger one between us." Dark Tangle said, slowly changing her stance into a fighting stance. She seemed to look at the emeralds in her hands before throwing them in a pouch Whisper hadn't noticed, before throwing the pouch into the ground behind her. She looked back up at Whisper, her face clearly conveying the message 'just you and me'. Before she fully went into a defensive stance.
For just a moment, Whisper wanted to throw her wispon down as well so that they could have an old-fashioned fight, but she didn't let the idea sway her. She had a job to do, and that was saving Tangle.
They both stood silent, watching eachother quietly. Suddenly, Whisper pulled up her wispon with Pink to shoot several glowing saws Dark Tangle's way. She saw Tangle's grin widen, before Tangle grabbed some branches from trees, ripped them off, and threw them into the blades. While she was doing that, she also seemed to rush in straight to Whisper, probably to get some proper attacks in. Whisper wasn't going to let her. Her wispon quickly changed into hammer mode, using it to both try to hit Tangle and defend from her attacks.
Tangle seemed to be preferring to use kicks more than punches, so Whisper quickly aimed for the legs, hitting them and putting Tangle off balance, before she went in to hit her in the stomach with the hammer head. She could hear Tangle's "ooph!" before Whisper felt something grab at her legs. She looked down, only to see Tangle's tail wrapped around her left leg. Whisper suddenly went flying through the air, only for the tail to use her leg to pull her back down to earth, hard.
She smashed down against the ground, her back taking the most damage, although Whisper was seeing stars regardless. She slowly stood back up, only to see Tangle's boot about to connect with her face. Her eyes widened while her hands automatically used the wispon as a makeshift shield. Whisper was able to block the kick, but it seemed to only be a distraction as Tangle hit the back of Whisper's head using the end of her tail, which was in a fist shape. Whisper yelped in pain, her face pushed straight forward. Whisper only had time to glance up before Tangle's actual fist cracked against Whisper's face mask. The damage was mitigated somewhat by the mask, but Whisper still felt it, regardless.
Whisper quickly used Orange to blow fire at Tangle, who was forced back to not get burned. Whisper took a second to just breathe, while staring at Tangle to make sure she didn't try anything. The fire made Tangle's grin look positively manic.
When did she get so strong!? Whisper thought in not a small amount of shock. Did Whisper really just never bother to notice how skilled Tangle was? Even with the mask on, Dark Tangle still seemed to just sense her shock, regardless.
"HA! Impressed? Guess you never realized how skilled I had gotten after the first time we captured Mimic together. While nearly losing to him wasn't my proudest moment, I did take something he said to heart… 'Your skilled, with some training you'd be formidable.' My old version may not have liked him all that much, but even she could see the wisdom in the words. So that's what I did, trained. When no one was looking. I also think I did it to impress you, honestly. How ironic is that? Because now I'm using these skills to beat you." Dark Tangle said, with the same manic smile.
Whisper couldn't afford to get distracted, but she still felt a pang in her heart when she heard that. Something she was completely unaware about Tangle until it was literally used against her. Whisper finally deactivated her fire, before once again turning her wispon into hammer mode. She could clearly see the look on Tangle's face that said 'ready for round two?' before Tangle once again rushed in.
This time, Whisper took the initiative to swing her hammer in a wide arc at Tangle once she was in range. Tangle was able to dodge under it easily enough, but it was just a distraction so Whisper could get a solid kick in. It seemed to connect with Tangle's face as she ducked, and Tangle went sailing backward. Whisper took the chance to attempt to hammer down on Tangle to hopefully knock her out, but before she could get the chance, Tangle used her tail as a kind of springboard to quickly bounce back and kick Whisper in the face. The distracting kick, and resulting close range, allowed Tangle to wrench Whisper's wispon out of her hands, before using it to try to hit Whisper across the face. However, the hammer automatically shut off when Blue flew out of the weapon quickly. That didn't matter much much to Tangle though, who just used it as a regular blunt weapon to smash across Whsiper's face. Whisper was once again knocked to the ground, and Tangle just threw the wispon away, out of Whisper's range to reach.
Tangle was just about to stomp down on Whisper's stomach, but when she went in to do it, Whisper quickly swept her legs out from under her, making Tangle lose her balance. Tangle's momentary confusion allowed Whisper to use both of her legs to double kick Tangle in the stomach and away from her. Tangle was the one to sprawl on the ground this time, while Whisper quickly leapt up to see where her wispon landed. She turned and saw it was a bit to the left of her, so she quickly jumped over to it, grabbed it, and rolled over away from where the wispon had landed. By the time she finished, Tangle had already gotten back up, although she was clearly holding her stomach in pain.
Both of them were breathing heavily and painfully. Looking like going any longer would be a mistake. But Whisper had something that Dark Tangle currently didn't, the resolve to save her friend. Unfortunately, Dark Tangle could also see the pure determination in Whisper's eyes and knew that eventually she was going to get the better of Tangle. Even if she didn't, Whisper only had to stall long enough for the rest of the Diamond Cutters to get to this clearing after dealing with Metal Sonic. She had run out of options. So she did something she didn't want to, she quickly pulled over the Chaos Emeralds she had stored away before the battle began.
Whisper could see what she was attempting to do, and she quickly levied her wispon to get a shot on Dark Tangle before she used one of the emerald's powers. Sadly, she was just a tad too slow before Tangle had the White Chaos Emerald in her hand. Tangle quickly jumped out of the way of the laser blast that Whisper had set to stun, before she connected with the chaos energy that the White Emerald had. A white glow started to surround her, and Tangle looked revitalized, as if she was never hurt in the first place.
Before Whisper realized it, a transparent wave of white energy rammed into her, slamming her into a tree behind her. Before she could properly get her bearings after the unexpected attack, she felt herself be wrapped up by Tangle's tail, which was still glowing white, and felt herself being thrown out of the clearing. The last thing she saw before getting knocked out was her losing her wispon in the air before she felt the ground.
Tangle watched Whisper fly away, a weak grin on her face. The white glow soon flickered off of her a moment later, and all the pain of the fight came rushing back, resulting in her doubling over and grimacing. No matter how much Tangle wanted to say she won that fight, she knew that Whisper got too many good licks in to be considered a proper victory. Besides, she cheated and used the Chaos Emerald, so at best this would be considered a draw.
Tangle slowly limped out of the forest, hand on the satchel holding the two emeralds, she vowed that she would get another chance to fight Whisper, and no matter the outcome, win or lose, it would be a fair fight.
Once Tangle reached the edge of the forest, she started to hear the remnants of a battle. When she finally cleared the forest, she saw Metal Sonic be brought down by Sonic. There were clear dents and breaks in Metal's armor, and he was missing an arm. Sadly, Sonic and the rest of the group who joined him didn't seem to be much worse for wear.
The rest of the group noticed her limping out of the forest, and surrounded her. "Game's over Tangle. Just come quietly with the emeralds and I promise no one will hurt you." Sonic said, only sounding slightly winded.
Tangle looked at each member of the group, Mimic with his knife out in a defensive stance, Lanolin pointing her wispon at Tangle, Tails pointing some kind of arm laser her way, and Sonic, standing at a simultaneously relaxed and tense pose. Tangle very quietly grabbed the Yellow Chaos Emerald from her satchel, before smiling.
"You know, I've always wanted to do this…" she said, enjoying the confused look on the surrounding group's faces, before she felt the click of connected chaos energy. She then quickly held up the Yellow Emerald above her head.
"Chaos CONTROL!" She shouted.
A yellow glow seemed to surround her before everything just slowed. Time still seemed to be moving, as the group very slowly reacted to her announcement, but not fast enough for it to matter. She quickly ran over to Metal Sonic, grabbed him, and hightailed it out of there to their hidden Egg-Mobile that Eggman lent them. Once she reached it, the glow faded and time seemed to start moving at a regular pace again. Luckily, she was already in the air before anyone else noticed them, already speeding back to T Base.
She looked over at Metal, who was still conscious, although clearly in a bad state, giving her a look.
"Aw come on. I know it isn't real but I just couldn't resist! I've always wanted to say that." Tangle said cheerfully, although she didn't laugh because it would physically hurt.