Disclaimer: See first chapter.
Dawn
Whisper glanced over at the computer screen. The purple frenzied aura over the word will had disappeared, leaving it permanently engraved and carved into her mind. It was carved into the wall as well, leaving a small imprint.
But while the water flowing through was no longer turning purple ever since she had freed the purple wisp, it would probably take days, or even weeks before Spiral Hill returned to a sense of normalcy. That still didn't answer the question though of what it was that Dr. Henderson was trying to do. This was his lab, she knew, based on the white tiles and various other scientific instruments that only Tails would truly be interested in.
The wisps were mainly off talking to Purple, trying to get her to open up. It was going to be slow going, Whisper knew, after anyone with the amount of trauma that she thought was inflicted on the wisp.
The files on the computer were set by date, starting nearly twenty years ago. Had this wisp been captive for that long!? She knew the wisps were old, but...wow. She opened the first file that she could find.
It didn't open. Corrupted, the operating system reported. Whisper growled as she went to the second one. Fortunately, this one opened.
'5th day of Project Frenzy; I have acquired a white wisp that many say assisted Sonic during his time on Planet Wisp and when Dr. Eggman's theme park was open. She seemed...normal.
I have attached her attributes and test results here. While I don't have any of the translators that the Resistance or Restoration have, she and I have come to an agreement. A nod for yes, a shake for no. She seems intent on figuring out what caused the existence of the purple wisps. The 'Nega-Wisps' according to Dr. Eggman's notes.
I have told her that I will use her to figure out what caused them, and from there figure out the methodology to return them to normal.'
So far it seemed okay and clear. There was a picture attached of a white wisp and a young man, much younger than the man upstairs that she'd killed, around in the lab. It seemed...not happy, but not berserk.
The third and fourth files also drew up blanks. The fifth opened.
'90th day of Project Frenzy. I have eliminated most other variables, and believe that it is pure unadulterated chaos and anger that transforms a white wisp into the Nega-Wisp. It is more than just draining, although Sierra seems to be okay with it.
That also means that I must transform myself. Sierra and I can not use the 'wisp bond', so it means I must use alternate means. Sierra is aware that this will likely cause her indescribable pain, let alone the weight on my own willpower.
I have taken to inscribing the word on the wall behind her, as a reminder to herself and myself why we do what we do.'
Whisper felt her heart pound. This wasn't just a journal of what happened, this was closer to an apocalyptic log more than anything.
The sixth and seventh also didn't open, which Whisper wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing yet. The eighth did, and with horrified eyes she read on.
'400th day of Project Frenzy. It took me a very long time, but I managed to force the transformation of a white wisp into a Nega-Wisp. Most of that time was me searching various ways to inflict mental pain on myself, hoping to reflect it back onto Sierra. Physical pain worked best, I realized.
I wish I could stay clinical, but already Sierra's aura is starting to affect me. Will. I must have the Willpower to do what must be done. Now that Sierra is transformed, I must have more subjects. I must remain sane, in order to now turn her back.
Spiral Hill is just down the mountain. I'm sure I could hire a few subjects from there.'
Whisper took a deep breath. Good, he hadn't gone into detail. She swallowed briefly, before clicking on the next few logs. Most of them didn't open, and the ones that did were from further and further out. Their date of creation didn't match the days that were in the logs.
Some were from day eight hundred. Others, twelve hundred, although created only two days apart. He was being driven mad by working so closely with Sierra, the purple wisp.
'Day 2114 of Project Frenzy; Spiral Hill ain't sendin' no more subjects. So I guess I just gotta go down there and take over the rest. Come on, I just wan' Sierra back.'
'Day 5345 of Project Frenzy; A'ight. Spiral Hill ain't no more no mo. Thas' fine, but the subject's still be needin' testing. So I hooked Sierra up to this whittle machine. See, it drains her aura, means I think more like me ol'self. And puts it in the water. They be gettin' angry, and I be gettin' me results! Best. Plans. Ever.'
'Day 6829; Who am I, now? Who was Sierra? Aight. I'll be honest; I dun care. See, the wispies all tired out now, all the time. That tiredness goin' to the water. We be fixin' them in time. Course, the copper's came 'round a few weeks ago, and they got me just so...mad.
They didn't last long. I took one of their guns, a nice little shotput with 'Patrick' written on the side. Patrick, stupid name for a shotgun. Nah, it's mah Paddywhacka now. See, Paddies? Cops? Ha, I'm hilarious. Machine's still on tickin', and wispie's still bein' drained.'
Years. Years and years of being drained, endlessly, tirelessly. "It's not something we want to know, is it?" Blue asked, hovering next to her ear. Whisper startled for a moment, before she realized that most of the wisps were hovering over her shoulder. Purple wasn't, instead looking over the floors with a despondent curiosity.
"No. It's not," Whisper agreed.
"Is it something that-" Pink started, before the other wisps turned on him with a shouted 'No!' Whisper wasn't feeling in the laughing mood, but she still forced a small chuckle. They were trying, at least.
It was just sad she didn't have much to laugh about, these days. "What will you do?" Whisper quietly went over to the Purple wisp, sitting down on the ground next to her.
"I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I want to do stuff, but I can't. I can't. I just can't...I can't give anymore."
"It's going to be okay. I have a spare, if you want to come with. The others like you, at least," Whisper said, holding up her jacket to show the empty canister she had.
"I don't know."
"That's alright. Do you remember your name, Sierra?" Whisper tried.
"That...was my name once. Ages ago. Years ago. Before the pain. Before the pain. Before the loneliness. Before the pain. I'm not her, anymore."
"What would you prefer to be called? Violet?" Whisper asked. It would be confusing having two Violet's around but it wouldn't be the first time she'd had to differentiate between two people with the same name.
Purple shook her head. "I don't know. Not Violet. Not Sierra. I'm none of them, now. I can't come with, not anymore. Too alone, too much, too much..." she muttered.
"How about we take you down to the city. It's not far from here. You don't need to do anything. Between Blue and Green you can just ride down," Whisper nodded.
"That...sounds nice. I'm tired. So tired. I don't know. Too much, too much pain, so tired..."
"What if we use the canister you were already in? It's already yours," Green asked as he knocked it carelessly to the ground, off the machine. "Whisper only has six, but five of them are ours. Oh, I know! You can come by and visit!"
Did the canisters actually work like that? Whisper wasn't sure. Again, the more she worked with the wisps the more she realized that she actually had no idea what they were doing half the time. And the more she worked with them the more she realized that they didn't have any ideas either.
"Visit? I'd like visit. Pain! Too much pain..." Purple said, huddling into herself. Blue hovered down, and gently pushed Purple forward into Whisper's chest.
"Open your jacket. Any canister except the empty one. I have an idea," Blue suggested. Whisper blinked, but nodded as she opened her jacket to show all six canisters. Purple's eyes widened as she was pushed by Blue into Green's canister. Immediately Green dove in with her.
Followed by Blue, and then by Cyan. "How many of you can fit in one of these?" Whisper eventually asked, her eyes in disbelief. She'd always thought it was one to one. One wisp, one canister, and that was it. That was all. But no, they go ahead and pull something like this.
"Most of us, actually. Benefits of being a mostly pure energy being," Pink answered with a shit-eating grin. "Don't worry though, we'll stay out here. You should head back to Jewel and Violet."
Whisper glanced at the now clean water, making its way back to the city. She had no doubt that it was already starting to move back up, based on how quick Jewel came back up. "Yes. We should," she muttered.
She bent down to grab the empty canister, just in case she wanted a spare of a spare. She slid it into her jacket, narrowing her eyes as she realized she'd have to find another magnetic button that held the canisters in place.
The pathway back was just as harrowing as it was down, even though it was obviously much brighter. Without Purple radiating the aura, things looked much...better. There was less anger, Whisper felt, and much less tiredness and depression. She didn't know much about nega-wisps, as Dr. Henderson had called them, but she knew who she could ask.
Sonic, mostly. He was the only one with actual experience with wisps that she could contact. Otherwise the other experts on wisps were herself or Tails. Or Amy, she supposed, seeing as how Amy was the one that negotiated with them to create the wispons in the first place.
The mansion was still dark and dreary as she walked out of the back door, her mask down on her face. The sun was staring to peek off of the horizon. It must have been hours since she was last seen down there.
She idly reached up for the radio, breathing a small sigh as only silence answered her. Right, there was something about Spiral Hill that was still keeping communications locked in. She hadn't solved that part yet.
By the time Whisper reached the mills, the sun was less than a quarter of the way up, but definitely getting there. She tried the radio again, this time hearing some amount of static. "This is Whisper," she muttered.
"Whisper?" Violet's voice came through clear. Orange and Pink hovered very close by. "Awesome, yeah Jewel that fixed it!" she shouted off to the beetle.
Had she done something to fix the communications? That was good timing, all things considered. "You fixed things?" she asked.
"Yeah, between Jewel and myself we managed to jury rig at least something. She thinks a lot of the maintenance hasn't been done recently so everything's falling apart."
"I have news on that front."
"So does Shadow. Apparently the tests could only determine some kind of energy imbued within the water, rather than a chemical. The fact the tablets could cure it was only because they were made with the same energies the wisps give off."
They were? Whisper had no idea. Judging on how both Orange and Pink were looking at each other and shrugging, they had no idea either. "Yes. A Purple wisp was held captive at Henderson's mansion."
"Say what!? Hold on, Jewel, Jewel! Apparently a Purple wisp was behind it!"
Whisper could barely hear Jewel's voice in the background. "What? But Purple wisps aren't here! The last of them went back to Planet Wisp like twenty years ago!"
"I'll tell more when I get back," Whisper said, going through the same fence that she'd already made a hole in. "Just the hill now." She glanced down over the hillside, the sun starting to appear over the mountains. Spiral Hill was starting to wake up already, she could tell. People were walking out of their houses or buildings, some of them blinking the sun out of their eyes. Most were in some state of starvation, some were in better condition than others.
Whisper jumped down one hill, and cautiously fell down to the one below it. Going down was much, much easier than going up. "Pink?" she asked. The pink wisp grinned as he imbued her gloves, small spikes making sure that she wouldn't lose her grip. "Thanks," she muttered.
With Pink's assistance, and Orange to make sure that no one was randomly sneaking up on her, she fell slowly to the ground down the cliff. Despite the fact the villagers had called it a hill, it was much more of a cliff.
Small places jutted out of the cliff, the same ones that she'd used to jump up there in the first place, and she was thankful that they were there even more than before. Climbing up was easy, climbing down was much, much harder.
By the time the sun had reached over the horizon, probably around eight if she had to guess, she had reached the bottom. Why her mask had everything except a clock, she didn't know. The original Diamond Cutters had watches that they synced before each mission, but she hadn't worn hers in...well, ages.
She certainly hadn't been wearing it back at the beginning of all this.
Whisper took a moment to reorient herself with her mental maps, following the creek back to the town proper. It was a startling shade of blue, nearly crystal clear too. The last figments of the nega-wisps energy had seemingly faded.
Spiral Hill was still the non-maintained mess that it had been earlier. There were still dozens of potholes and sinkholes all over the place, and cars just parked haphazardly. But where before it looked like a zombie movie had rolled through the city, now it was...still like a zombie movie, but at the end of one.
Some Islanders were walking about, blinking the sleep out of their eyes. Most of them were looking like it had been a long, rough nap rather than whatever it had been. They didn't know. They were sluggish, slow. And yet, there was a subtle 'waking up' to them that made Whisper realize that Spiral Hill wasn't going to take months or years to recover. Islanders were strong-willed, and it showed.
The fact that it had been 'cured' so fast made Whisper wonder if that was just luck, or if Spiral Hill had so many more people nowadays. Back when she and Tangle visited here there was a small hodgepodge, but already there were twice as many people just walking the streets.
She passed the store that she'd broken into, the one that held the dead mouse. Pink disimbued himself from her gloves, shuddering into Whisper's arms as they passed. He had been the one to find her, after all.
Out front there was another person, a hedgehog, casually sweeping the glass up. He looked like he'd seen far too much, and was too gaunt to have spent much time upright. And yet he was trying, struggling, to whistle a happy tune as he worked.
The more that things break, Whisper knew, the more that they tried to fix things.
Jewel's museum was still in one piece, thankfully, although the door had been fixed. This time there was a small piece of paper on the front, saying 'It's unlocked! Just knock!'
"You'd think that she wouldn't tell us to knock. When we knock, we use hammers!" Pink exclaimed with a smirk. "Or spikes! Or spiked hammers! Actually, why can't we imbue the wispon with multiple of us? Did Smithy ever explain it?"
"No. He didn't. I don't," Whisper admitted. She didn't bother knocking, instead just opening the door cautiously. It was still dark and damp, with her boots knocking some water out of the carpets.
Small crystals glowed now as she passed them, where before they didn't glow at all. Had the nega-wisp's energy actually affected the rocks and gems in the museum? It had been energy based, and some were notorious for their sensitivity.
The entrance way to the back was exactly the same, but now Whisper could hear words being exchanged. "She's late already. I'm going out to search for her," Shadow's voice said.
"No, give her some more time. She said she was at the hill," Violet's voice called out.
"It does take a while for most people to climb down that hill, especially from Dr. Henderson's old place. Give her another twenty or thirty minutes," Jewel acquiesced.
Shadow let out a growl. "And what if she's hurt? You think she's going to tell us that?"
"I mean, you wouldn't, but we'd tell on you for you," Orange commented. Whisper rolled her eyes. "Come on, you know that we would. It'd be for your own good!"
"No, it wouldn't," Whisper told them instantly. Orange pouted, and Pink let out a nodding hum, as if she'd said something that he already knew and was agreeing with.
"I'm back," Whisper said as loud as she felt she could in the oppressive silence. Immediately she saw Shadow turn his head towards her. He'd just been hovering around the entrance to the living room, it seemed.
Jewel was still on the couch, looking much better already. It had taken Whisper only a few hours to...find the nega-wisp, but those few hours seem to have done her a world of good. Honestly, Whisper was kind of surprised the water system hadn't gone bad. Her body was still shallow and still showed the symptoms of possible starvation, but her eyes were alert, looking much more the commander that Whisper remembered.
Violet was...missing. But Whisper could hear sounds coming from the kitchen, and Pink and Orange went off to make sure that the vixen wasn't hurting herself on accident. Or at least, Whisper thought that's why they went. Maybe Pink went to cheer her on.
"Whisper!" Jewel said excited. Her wings starting fluttering, and she hid the wince pretty well before she sat back down on the couch. "Good to have you back."
"What all did you find?" Shadow asked instantly. "You said you'd tell us once you got back."
Whisper nodded. "It was...strange," she admitted slowly. "First, there was an old grocery store on the outskirts. The name had been washed off-"
"Probably Grocery Mart. It's a small chain, I think with only a few stores to its name. There was one near out there," Jewel murmured. Whisper nodded.
"The wisps and I went to check it out. We found a dead mouse trapped in the bathroom, looking as if she wasn't that old. The door had been locked. After final rites-"
Shadow raised an eyebrow. Jewel held up her hand. "It's a courtesy thing, Shadow. Suffice to say I know what it is, but I doubt that has anything with Henderson," Jewel commented. "Please continue, Whisper," she finished. There was the old commander voice. Somewhere, deep down, Whisper knew it was still there. Twenty three years was not enough for the beetle to lose it.
"Afterwards, we jumped the cliff, following the mill creek. Went through the mills property. The fences were still electrified."
"What does that matter?" Shadow asked, his eyes narrowed. "Unless...they were still maintained."
Whisper nodded. "Exactly. Then we got to the mansion. There were no lights on, nor any sign of anything living there."
"Henderson was a notorious recluse. I'm not surprised he had no vehicles or any sign at all. If he'd been hit by the same thing we had-"
"He hadn't," Whisper interrupted. "He was the one causing it. I followed the creek to his house, seeing that on the other side the water was pure and unaltered. Seeing that it happened after the water passed underneath an old stone bridge connected from the main house, I broke in."
Jewel winced. "I get the feeling I know where this is going..."
"Yes," Whisper said quietly. "There was no instant alarm, but there was one. Someone, I think it was him but he was so haggard I couldn't tell, then came into the room holding a shotgun. Calling it his 'paddywhacka'. The room was filled to the brim with trophy heads. Of Islanders."
Jewel gasped. Shadow gave the barest hint of a 'hm'. It didn't sound like it had surprised him at all. Then again, Shadow was smart enough to figure out what mostly had happened. "We crushed the gun, forcing him into a rage. He refused to tell me who he was, so I don't know if he was Henderson or not. I think it was, based on other information later on. A purple aura started to gather on him, making him immune to most of the wisp attacks."
"Purple? Frenzy?" Shadow asked. Violet gave a gasp as she walked into the room, holding a pan of surprisingly good looking muffins. How she'd made muffins in that kitchen, Whisper didn't know.
"Whisper. Whisper," Pink said, hovering next to the wolf's ears. The surprise must have been obvious on her face. At least to Pink. "We are going to hire her for cooking. From now on. All the time. I watched her do it and I still have no idea."
Whisper's ear flicked him on one of his spikes. "In a moment. Debriefing," she muttered. He gave a slight 'sorry!' as he went hiding into his canister. "Frenzy," Whisper nodded towards Shadow. "We figured out that being surprised or some other emotion than anger would temporarily take the aura out of him."
"So the wisps bought me time to fix up his gun while they led him on. He seemed rather attached to it. I made it up enough that it looked like the real thing, and when the aura disappeared for the moment, I fired. The wispon, without wisp energy."
Jewel gave a sorrowed nod. "I figured that's where it was heading."
"Wait, I don't understand, what does that mean?" Violet asked, one of the warm muffins in her hands. Her mouth was full, but yet she could speak rather clearly. How she did that, Whisper didn't know, but she probably had plenty of practice at Sonic's house.
"It means she shot him. Head or heart?" Shadow asked, his head tilted, his gaze cold and calculating.
"Head," Whisper said. Shadow nodded.
"Sometimes it's the only thing that works," Shadow said ominously.
"Wait, Whisper killed someone!?"
"She didn't have much choice-" Jewel said.
"When you're pushed to the wall, Violet-" Shadow suggested.
"Yeah, she did," Orange commented bluntly. The wisp's voice carried through the heavy atmosphere. "And to be fair, I would've made that shot too if I had the chance. The guy was a psycho. And that's to say nothing of the nega-wisp's generation. He may have been a good man once, but not anymore," Orange finished.
"...Oh," Violet said, her face turning red. "I...I'm sorry for interrupting," she answered quietly.
"It's not something we like doing," Whisper said, her voice cutting through everyone else's words. "However, in the Resistance, there was no holding back. The Restoration there was, but we were fighting mostly robots. We didn't always fight only robots."
"Da- Mr. Sonic told me about Surge and Kit. And Starline."
Shadow nodded. "Three of many. The most dangerous ones were never the robots, but the ones made of flesh and blood. Even Metal Sonic, in his prime, wasn't the troublemaker that those three were."
"Whisper, continue?" Jewel asked. She munched on one of the muffins as well. She looked down at it with bright eyes. "How did you make these!?" she asked Violet with understandable surprise. Whisper had seen the kitchen.
She grabbed one of them too. Surprisingly warm and flaky, and one of the only ways she knew to stave off the inevitable self-loathing that a kill would bring to her. "Afterwards, we followed that path to the back of the house to the stone bridge. A long spiral staircase went straight down, where Henderson had set up a laboratory."
"There, we found a purple nega-wisp, her energy being drained to fuel the...odd purple energy that affected the water."
"But I don't get it. Purple was Frenzy, or so the Faker claims. How does Frenzy lead to...what, depression?" Shadow asked, turning to Jewel.
"It felt like a bad case, yes," she admitted. "Like I had no energy at all."
"When a nega-wisp has no energy, but energy is still being drained...what's left after a frenzy?" Whisper asked.
"All that's left is tiredness and pain..." Shadow came to the same conclusion a moment later. "And that energy was infecting the water," he muttered.
"Yes. I pulled up a few logs out of the computer. Most were corrupt. She was apparently a white wisp. And then over time, he inflicted pain and torment on her, at her will, to figure out how to turn nega-wisp's back into normal ones. At the same time, he was inflicting pain on himself too."
"That doesn't seem like that would work...What did you do with her? You didn't kill her too, did you?" the accusatory tone of Violet pierced into Whisper's heart.
She shook her head. "No, she and the other wisps are in the canisters," she said, gently knocking on one of them.
Immediately the air became colorful as the wisps filled the air, exception of Pink. He stayed in his own, although Whisper did notice that he came out to grab a muffin to go back in, like a child that was scolded. Cyan immediately leapt to the muffins, devouring them with an intensity that surprised everyone that wasn't Whisper or a wisp.
Blue and Green hovered nearby, with Purple...who wasn't purple anymore. No, the deep violet that she had been had changed to a much lighter shade.
"Lavender," Whisper said quietly as she identified the shade. The nega-wisp looked around, before using of her arms to point to herself with a questioning tilt. Whisper nodded. A broad grin appeared on her face as she appeared to take it in stride.
Until Next Time!