Restoration HQ, 2 Days Since The Forest

Sonic didn't know what to think.

He's always been the hero, always saved the day. Right now though, everything seemed to be going wrong, and Sonic felt like something drastic needed to happen, or everyone would break.

When Sonic and the team found the broken remains of the wispon, Sonic couldn't believe it. He scoured the entire forest for hours before he finally had to admit that Whisper wasn't in there. While Sonic tried to stay optimistic, all the evidence pointed to Whisper being the ash and scorch mark next to her wispon. The worst part was that it was entirely possible, as Eggman had recently stolen the Red Chaos Emerald, and Sonic knew that the powers of that emerald would be perfectly suited to do the job.

After he finally gave up searching for Whisper, the rest of the group just seemed to snap. Lanolin hasn't been seen outside of her room since they've come back to HQ, seemingly blaming herself for both Tangle and Whisper. Tails had been in shock for almost the entire first day, not too good with the idea of death, especially of one of their friends. Mimic also seemed to just lock himself in his room, making gauges in the walls with his knife in anger.

And they weren't the only ones affected.

When Sonic gave the news to Jewel, he could almost hear the crack in her psyche as she burst into tears, the pain of losing Whisper on top of everything else being too much for her. She wasn't exactly a good friend of Whisper's, but she was possibly the one who interacted with her the most outside of the Neo Diamond Cutters.

After her breakdown, she immediately called all hands on deck, getting into contact with anyone she could to help with the problem. She even tried to contact Surge and Kit, who were technically still Diamond Cutters. Several people responded, including Amy and Knuckles, and now Restoration HQ was packed with several members who usually wouldn't be around.

When Amy and Knuckles heard the news, they were flabbergasted. Especially Amy, who seemed to take Tangle's betrayal and Whisper's death hard. She wasn't amazing friends with either, but they were her friends, regardless.

Before they even got a chance to breathe however, Eggman ended up stealing the Green Chaos Emerald from GUN, in a large operation using the unknown islander, who's name was revealed in camera footage as Alcurine, and Dark Tangle. That seemed to get Team Dark involved, but they were doing their own thing and no one at the Restoration knew where they were.

Sonic wouldn't admit it, but he got the sense that the Restoration were starting to be reminded of the war. No one knew where Eggman was, and he had apparently cloaked his location so that the Chaos Emeralds couldn't be traced back to where he was. He just kept doing hit and run tactics, and with each Chaos Emerald he acquired, more and more badniks started to attack, and occupy, random villages, pulling the Restoration's focus in a bunch of different directions. Members in the Restoration were starting to liken Alcurine and Dark Tangle as Eggman's new Infinite, which was making everybody scared, and far more reluctant to face off against them.

Sonic wasn't exactly happy when he heard that members were starting to refer to Tangle as Infinite 2.0, but he very sadly couldn't blame them. While she luckily didn't have anything nearly as dangerous as the Phantom Ruby, her skill with wielding the Chaos Emeralds powers were starting to become scarily effective. And while the Alcurine girl wasn't nearly as versatile as Tangle was, her apparent martial art's skills combined with the Blue Chaos Emerald was also a terrifying combination. If Sonic had to put at least one bright side to the whole awful situation, it would be that Eggman hasn't brought back out his Morality Ray to shoot anyone with.

Sonic sighed, covering his face with his hand. Things were getting bad. The group needed a miracle, or else something was gonna snap.

Sonic walked over to the main conference room, which had turned into more of a war room, to see that Amy and a clearly distressed Jewel were currently going over some kind of plan to help another occupied village. He turned and saw Knuckles sitting quietly in the corner, looking thoughtful.

Sonic walked over to him. "Hey Knuc. any headway on sensing the emeralds?" Sonic asked, trying to put on a smile. Knuckles looked at him, his thoughtful look immediately replaced with frustration, which Sonic very unfortunately could relate with. "No. whatever Eggman's using to shield himself from traditional scanners is also messing with my regular senses. And…" He started, before pausing.

Sonic just gestured for him to continue, and Knuckles closed his eyes. "And whatever seems to be doing it is making me think dark thoughts whenever I feel I'm getting close. Like, the darker whispers in the back of my head start to become more prominent and the good thoughts start to get harder to hear. It makes me think that whatever the morality ray thing is, it can also be used in an area instead of just as a pure laser shot." Knuckles said ominously, which just made Sonic feel worse. "Great, so not only are we in danger of getting shot by the thing, it can also affect senses and whole areas now?" Sonic snapped, which made Knuckles look up at him in surprise.

"Sonic, you alright?" Knuckles asked, to which Sonic sighed, calming down. "No Knuckles, I'm really not. When Tangle first got hit, I thought of it as just an inconvenience. Another one of Egg head's plans, we'll stop it no problem!" Sonic said, in a mock of his own optimism, before he sighed again.

"And then Tangle joined Eggman, and suddenly it started to hit home that this was a bit more serious than usual. Whisper has a breakdown. Mimic told me he had suicidal thoughts. But still, I went in with the expectation that we would solve all this and hey, even come out better then we started with Mimic. Then Whisper…" Sonic paused. "Well, that put things into perspective I guess. Now everyone is calling Tangle Eggman's new Infinite, we're all a few steps from breaking, and Eggman almost has all the Chaos Emeralds now, and we don't even know where he is." Sonic vented. Knuckles only looked at him with an understanding expression.

"I just… I don't know what to do." Sonic admitted quietly. Knuckles looked at him, before chuckling. Sonic looked at him, a bit insulted. "I just never knew I'd see the day where Sonic the Hedgehog admitted that he didn't know what to do." he said, still smiling.

Sonic gave an affronted look, before he also smiled. "You're not gonna let this keep me down, huh?" He said. Knuckles gave a wink. "Of course not. I may not be the best at giving advice, but you're the last person who would need it. All I can say is that you'll win the day, like you always do." Knuckles said.

Sonic kept his smile up, but looked away, lost in his thoughts. Just like Tangle, heh. They're both right, we didn't lose during the Metal Virus, this is nothing compared to that.

Sonic was about to make a snappy comeback, when suddenly one of the Restoration members ran into the conference room, looking winded. Everyone inside turned to him. "*huff, U-uh, Director, Sonic, rest of you, you're all gonna wanna come out to see this!" he said hurriedly, before running out again.

Sonic looked at knuckles, a bit weirded out and also concerned. They all seemed to walk out of the conference room, before entering the lounge. Sonic stopped in total shock.

Standing in the middle was Silver, who Sonic had heard went back to his own time barely a week ago. More shockingly was Blaze, who seemed to be right next to him, looking around a tad self consciously. But while Sonic had given them a cursory glance, he only had his eyes on one person standing there.

Whisper.

Whisper looked around, realizing they were in the HQ lounge. She turned around and saw Sonic staring at her in disbelief. Whisper was a tad confused, but she did supposedly disappear. She decided to smile warily at him, and the rest of the group behind him.

"Hello." She said quietly, also self consciously.

Sonic smiled warmly, but before he could say anything, Jewel zipped right past him, crashing into Whisper. Jewel was hugging Whisper tightly, crying silent tears. Whisper tensed up, but realized that just this once she should make an exception. She leaned into the hug, whispering quietly to Jewel.

Sonic turned around, and saw Amy with her hands on her mouth, also silently crying tears of joy. Even Knuckles looked a bit misty eyed.

Sonic turned back to the trio, seeing Blaze staring at the whole exchange with visible confusion, while Silver also looked like he was about to bawl his eyes out at the touching scene.

Finally, Whisper had enough physical interaction. "Jewel, can you please let me go?' She asked kindly. Jewel seemed to realize that it was Whisper she was holding tightly and bawling her eyes out too. She quickly released her. "Sorry, I know how much you don't like physical touch, but-"

Whisper held up her hand. "No, it's ok. You all thought I was dead, didn't you?" She asked quietly, with a mirthful expression. Jewel just silently nodded, looking like she still couldn't believe her eyes.

Sonic chuckled, before piping up. "All of us? Nah, never doubted you for a moment." He said. Amy shot him a glare, which also seemed to clear her tears. "Say what? You were one of the people to declare her dead!" She said with obviously fake incredulousness.

Sonic just rubbed the back of his head. "Heh, yeah, ok. So maybe I thought it was a bit dicey there." he admitted with a chuckle. Knuckles just rolled his eyes.

Whisper just smiled indulgently. She had to silently admit though, it was nice knowing how much the people around her cared about her. She looked around, noticing some specific absences. "Where's Lanolin? And Mimic?" She asked, realizing just how crazy her life had gotten if she was wondering where Mimic was with anything less than righteous fury.

Jewel and Sonic exchanged glances that immediately told Whisper there was a problem. She didn't know about Lanolin, but she immediately assumed that Mimic had gone evil again sometime since she was missing. Whisper wishes she could say she was surprised, but she really wasn't. It was only a matter of time after all.

Still, the thought of Mimic being evil again made Whisper feel something she wasn't expecting. Melancholy. The thought of losing the nice Mimic made Whisper feel sad. That was certainly a new experience for her. Guess there was a first time for everything.

Suddenly, a dog islander literally dragged in Lanolin, who was struggling to get out of his grip. He then quickly sped around her before pushing her into the lounge. She looked furious. But before she could say something, she looked up and saw Whisper, and she froze. Tears started to pool at the corners of her eyes.

Whisper looked at Lanolin a bit horrified. She looked awful. Her clothes were unwashed and old, as if she had been wearing them for a while without ever taking them off. Her eyes were extremely bloodshot, as if she had been crying for days straight. She looked extremely unkept and even dirty, as if she herself never took a shower in all the time Whisper was gone. Whisper also noticed that Lanolin's knuckles were also heavily bruised, as if she had been hitting something repeatedly.

"Whisper…?" Lanolin asked, making Whisper wince with how raspy Lanolin sounded, as if she hadn't spoken for days. Whisper nodded slowly. "Yes." She, just loud enough for Lanolin to hear.

Lanolin fully broke down in tears, looking like she wanted to rush to Whisper, but seemed to have more self control then Jewel. Whisper felt really uncomfortable about it, but she went over to Lanolin and pulled her into a hug.

"I'm a terrible leader, I failed you, I don't deserve to be the leader, I don't deserve to even be on team, I-" Lanoline started rambling, before Whisper actually shushed her. "No, It wasn't your fault. I don't blame you."

Lanolin kept rambling through her sobs to Whisper, who kept comforting her. Meanwhile, Sonic went over to Silver and Blaze, who were both starting to look vaguely uncomfortable. "So, why are you two here?" He asked.

They both explained to him about Silver coming back from another bad future, and how Blaze has been sensing trouble but was warned to stay away. By the time they finished explaining everything, Lanolin composed herself and Whisper helped her get out of her failure spiral.

Sonic turned back to Whisper, who was looking pretty frazzled by this point. "He so uh, I know you might not want another person crying into your shoulder, but Mimic has been gauging his room's walls and the Restoration cleaners are not happy about it." he said, smiling cheerfully.

Whisper seemed to do a double take at the mention of Mimic, but after a moment, her eyes softened. "Seems like something I need to address. If you would excuse me?" She asked with a smile. Sonic just laughed and gestured her away with a bow.

Whisper left the room, and Sonic decided to let Amy talk to Blaze and Silver. He just watched the proceedings, smiling cheerfully. Suddenly, Knuckles walked over to him and elbowed him.

"So, you still feel lost?" Knuckles said, a slight grin on his face. Sonic just laughed. "Yeah, I do. But I certainly feel far better about it now." He said cheerfully.

Suddenly, Tails ran into the room, holding his Miles Electric excitedly. "I've found them!" He shouted to the group, making everyone turn to him in shock. He didn't seem to care though, quickly looking back to his screen. "I've been tracing Tangle's and Alcurine's most likely routes from where they seemed to come from and where they seemed to fly off to. I sent a drone after the route, and it finally came across an Egg base that we've never explored before. I've got them!" he said loudly and excitedly, waving his Miles Electric in the air."

Sonic sped over to his side, ruffling the fur on his head. "You really did, huh? Good job buddy!" He said cheerfully.

Sonic looked at the rest of the group, which already seemed to convene with Jewel to discuss strategy. He looked at the doorway that Whisper just left through. His grin only grew wider.

He may not be ready for anything. But he would be damned if he gave into despair now. At times like this, he was reminded why he was a hero.

He had a job to do.