In The Egg Base

With Sonic leading the way, the group traversed the many metal rooms in the Egg base. Whisper decided to stay in the back of the group, keeping an eye on Mimic (Good Mimic?) and Dark Tangle. Mimic seemed to be keeping a very intense lookout for anything suspicious or dangerous, while Tangle was just bouncing around, looking anxious for action. Every time Whisper glanced over to Mimic again; she felt a twist in her gut. Mimic was acting just like he used to as the Diamond Cutters infiltrator. In fact, all he needed to do was transform into an Egg pawn and sneak into important areas, and Whisper wouldn't have been able to tell the difference between this mission and past missions of the original Diamond Cutters.

Well. With some key differences. Whisper thought to herself, grimacing. Whisper for one, would have never even entered these kinds of bases with the original Diamond Cutters, always hanging back and keeping a lookout for outside interference. Not that it mattered when…

Whisper once again grimaced to herself. That was the other key difference, who she was doing this with. Nothing wrong with Lanolin or Sonic, of course. Although she wishes she could say the same about Tangle, she currently wasn't herself. It just… wasn't the original team. And of course, Mimic.

Whisper looked at Mimic a tad harder at the thought. She truly didn't know what to think of a good Mimic. On one hand, she still couldn't forgive any version of Mimic for what he did. On the other hand, a part of her… A really small, quiet part of her, was desperately longing for the idea that maybe, just maybe, another person from her original team survived, even if it was this good version of Mimic by proxy. Whisper really wanted to squash that small hope, she should not be longing for this Mimic's continued existence, she should be wanting him locked up in the deepest prison she could think of, and she honestly still did.

But yet…

The thought of someone from her original team understanding her pain still quietly nagged at her mind. Until this point, Whisper never knew how desperately she wanted a single one of her original friends until Good Mimic became a thing. Her past team obviously meant the world to her, and the loss of them hurt every day, but the supposed reality of them all being gone, and Mimic being a monster, made it easy to ignore the longing, or to turn that feeling into cold rage at Mimic for doing what he did. Now that there was a version of Mimic that probably still considers Whisper his friend walking right in front of her…

Well. She almost wishes that the evil Mimic returned, at least anger was easier to deal with than hopeless longing. Whisper turned to look at her wisp canisters, all wisps safely secured incase Eggman tried something. She specifically looked at Blue's canister. She just hopes that maybe Blue could get proper closure with a Mimic who actually cares about him, then having to deal with the parting shots of a Mimic who never cared. That, at least, would be a bright side to this crazy situation. Although the other wisps might end up a bit jealous at the idea, they never exactly got to say proper goodbyes to the original team either.

After walking for a few more minutes, the group finally turned into a surprisingly long metal corridor. This alone wouldn't be a big deal, but to the group's surprise, there was a cat islander standing right in the middle of it, grinning at them all cheekily. She was a bit hard to see in the dark corridor, but Whisper immediately put her guard up anyway, because the islander was most definitely in a dark form. Too many coincidental similarities to Dark Tangle. Suddenly, the corridor flooded with bright lights, momentarily blinding the group.

Whisper then heard a loud bang, followed immediately by Dark Tangle cursing loudly, before she could properly see again. When she looked down the corridor, she saw that Tangle was getting dragged away by the Islander, who seemed to be stronger than she looked. Whisper was about to take aim before the Islander quickly pulled up a strange looking gun and pointed it to the group.

"None of you move! This thing may only have one charge, but I'm fairly sure I could hit any one of you in this cramped hallway!" She proclaimed loudly, "Just let me take the lemur and I'll walk away." She finished smugly, gesturing to Tangle

"Just let her do it guys, it sounds like it could be fun anyway" Tangle said, no longer bothering to resist.

"No chance." Sonic said, before revving himself up. "HA! Alright then, your mistake." The stranger said, before firing the gun. Sonic then realized he might've been too hasty, for it wasn't just a regular blast, but the purple-green laser that transformed both Mimic and Tangle.

It was once again heading straight for Whisper. She was unfortunately caught off guard by the sudden shot, so she was unprepared to move. Luckily, someone else was already moving when the gun was fired.

"WHISPER! LOOK OUT!" Mimic shouted, before shoving Whisper to the ground. By a very lucky chance, the gun was fired a bit too high, so when Whisper was pushed to the ground by Mimic, the laser went right over their heads.

While it was lucky that the blast missed them, it was also all the distraction the stranger needed to quickly drag away Tangle, (who wasn't bothering to resist). When Sonic hopped back up to give chase (after having dropped down to quickly dodge the laser), a large metal door suddenly slammed shut right at the end of the corridor, cutting off that pathway and their straightest shot to follow Tangle.

Mimic helped Whisper stand on her feet, which was the second weirdest experience Whisper has had in a while, right behind getting saved by Mimic, before all the lights in the corridor turned red with blaring alarms. Loud clunking sounds from above diverted the attention of the group, where they saw that large chutes had opened up, before dropping egg pawns into the corridor.

Whisper literally growled in frustration when she realized that they wouldn't be able to rescue Tangle anytime soon. Blue quickly imbued the wispon to turn it into a hammer, before Whisper started to smash egg pawns with it, (though not before noticing Mimic giving the hammer a weird look). Sonic also started to smash into the bots, while Lanolin started to fire her wispon at the largest groups.

Meanwhile, Alcurine was overjoyed her plan actually worked! Although it would've been nice if she actually landed that shot. She turned to look over at her 'prisoner' who simply had her arms crossed while sitting on the ground, bored. "Not gonna try to escape?" She asked, a tad confused.

"Why?" the lemur asked bluntly. "Feels like a waste of effort to me, especially if you didn't just shoot that laser first. You want me for something, and as long as it's interesting, I could stand to be dragged for a little while." she said, a slightly manic gleam shining in her eyes.

Alcurine just looked at her, before shrugging. "I promise what you're about to hear will certainly be something you haven't experienced before." She said, a bit sarcastically. The sarcasm seemed to go right over the lemur's head though, as she suddenly jumped up, looking excited. "Something new!? Well, what are you waiting for? Just lead the way and I'll follow miss… uh. What's your name? Mine's Tangle." Tangle said, gesturing wildly.

Alcurine looked at her in a mix of confusion and exasperation. However, she just went along with it anyway. "Uh, you can just call me A. My name is a bit hard to pronounce." Alcurine said, before leading the Tangle to Eggman.

After finally finishing off the rest of the egg pawns, Whisper and the rest of the group immediately started to run through room after room, trying to find a way to reach Tangle before she was officially captured.

Whisper would never admit it out loud, but she was starting to panic a bit. This situation felt just a bit too familiar for her liking, and several scenes of Tangle getting beaten to death by robots were starting to invade her head. Worse was that Mimic was looking at her with understanding, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking, and he most likely did. After all, it was his fault that she could even imagine these scenes so vividly. After turning one last corner, the group ended up in what looked like an observation room, with several large screens and speakers. A dead end. They were about to turn back the way they came when suddenly the screens flickered on, showing a live video feed of Eggman sitting in what Whisper assumed was a command center.

Whisper turned around, about to ignore the screens and Eggman's most likely boasting, before she heard a familiar voice through the speakers.

"So, this is where you were leading me? Kinda lame, I was expecting a prison block or something."

Whisper turned back to look at the screens and saw the stranger from before walk in alongside Tangle. Tangle wasn't even being dragged in, she just walked in completely relaxed. That started to send red flags through Whisper's mind. She wanted to run out and go searching for the command center right away, but she just couldn't move or look away.

"A prison block? No no my dear! Why would I ever do that to someone of your talents?" Eggman said cheerfully. "Why bother with that when I have a proposition for you?"

No.

"A proposition? Alright, let's hear it big man." Tangle said, a glimmer of excitement entering her eyes.

Stop.

"It's quite simple my dear! I just know how much you want excitement, entertainment, FUN! And let me tell you, there's nothing more exciting than fighting that rodent that you know as Sonic The Hedgehog." Eggman said, standing up joyfully, pulling up videos of his past battles against Sonic, all of them ranging from slightly exciting to epic world-shaking clashes. Tangle looked on with obvious excited interest.

Please, no.

"You could experience all that excitement as well! Just imagine it, fighting the Sonic! You would also get to help in plans to conquer the world! Get to fight new foes, measure yourself up against some of the greatest heroes the world has to offer!" Eggman said boisterously, gesturing to some of the more exciting battles.

Stop it.

"And all you have to do-" Eggman started, reaching his hand out to Tangle, "-Is to join me. Join the Eggman Empire, and help me conquer the world!"

STOP!

Whisper felt tears start to slide down her face. She made no move to wipe them away, eyes wide open and staring at the screen in front of her, everything else fading into background noise.

"That's it? Just join you? No catch?" Dark Tangle said suspiciously, not trusting the doctor. Eggman smiled widely, glancing straight at the camera that was streaming this all live. "Of course there's a catch! You have to fight all your friends! You might even have to kill them if you get the chance… The catch my dear…"

PLEASE, STOP!

Eggman stared straight at the camera, making Whisper feel like he was staring right at her.

"The catch is that you have to betray all your friends." He said slowly, deliberately, and sadistically.

Whisper felt like she couldn't breathe.

"Oh, that's it? HA!" Dark Tangle started laughing crazily. "Well, that's an easy choice then. They aren't my friends! So yeah, I think I'm going to play for the other team!" She said, wiping tears of laughter away from her eyes.

…I prefer to play for the winning team…

…It wasn't a difficult choice…

…Friendship is a weakness…

…They weren't my friends. They weren't even my comrades…

…Guess I'm not the only one who doesn't consider you their friend…

Whisper collapsed, screaming.