Disclaimer: See first chapter.

Frenzy

The adventurous grin on Lavender's face quickly disappeared once the Tornado got up to speed. The wind was blowing past Whisper's face, and it was only because her ears were tilted backwards to prevent the wind from blowing into them.

"Is this all this is? Cyan was going on and on about how it was the best feeling ever," Lavender said.

Whisper chuckled under her breath. Shadow gave them a quick look. "Yes, this is all it is," he said, his voice echoing across the radio.

Fern Valley wasn't far, according to the global maps that Whisper had access to. And seeing as how we were generally going in the same direction, and Shadow could pilot the Tornado, Violet and Whisper would take off into the Valley and Shadow would catch up after he'd met up with Knuckles, who was on Angel Island.

Which was probably floating over the desert next door to it. Or somewhere close by, apparently the island could be invisible if Knuckles wanted it to be.

"Oh. Can I go back in then?" Lavender asked. Whisper nodded, opening up her coat just enough that the nega-wisp could see the other canisters. She once again stayed away from the one that had been marked as hers, and instead went into Blue's. Whisper knocked on Green's just gently, telling him that the Tornado was without wisp alerts.

He didn't come out, so Whisper figured that he was busy with...something. What it was the wisps actually did in their canisters, she didn't know. She'd thought it was one wisp to one canister, but they'd quickly disproven that particular theory when they went and had a party in one.

She glanced over the maps in the co-pilot's seat again, just making sure that she was where they thought they were. Tails, too, had apparently vanished after he'd gone to Fern Valley, using that as a jumping off point to get into the desert.

Belle's records told them at least that much. The Babylonian on the clock thing that had brought her here had been difficult to translate, apparently. Shadow had given her the rundown on it, but it was a rare dialect that only had one previous known occurrence. And that had been after she'd run through every other language.

Including that one cybernetic language Sonic, Amy, and Tails had found on the Starfall islands. And a few in the ancient echidna, which apparently were the easiest to translate because Knuckles had, at some point between her original time and now, given the Restoration complete access to all of his files on the translations.

Which meant that she was still stuck here, trying to find a way back rather than using the same method that got her here to go back.

Violet nudged the control stick a bit, and Whisper felt the plane turn gently to avoid a strong gust of wind. She was a better pilot that Whisper had given her credit for. Then again, so had Tails been, and he'd been even younger when Sonic had given him the plane.

"Clear skies and gusts of wind, that sounds about right," Violet said over the radio. She hit the control stick again, this time turning to the other side. "Anyone know any good sea shanties?"

"We're not at sea," Shadow answered, glowering at her.

"No, but rhythm's the same. And rhythm can do a lot to keep up spirits and focus! I mean, how does Whisper do it when she has to sit around for a while?"

"You mean when she tries to be a sniper?" Shadow snarked.

Whisper sent him a glare. 'Try' to be a sniper implied that she wasn't one. Just because she hasn't done it for some time didn't mean that she didn't consider herself one. "I think she's pretty good! I mean, she managed to go up against that Helen person right?"

"By up against, you mean ran away from?" Shadow asked. "Though that is really the only thing to do against a force like that."

Whisper felt the back of her neck start to tingle, and the fur there started to rise. Something was wrong, she knew it, but she wasn't sure what. "Something's wrong," she announced.

That shut both Violet and Shadow up, and they both immediately started scanning the skies for something. "I can't see anything," Shadow said.

"Nothing's coming up on radar. Or lidar. Or anything else, not even on that chaos emerald tracker."

"There's a chaos emerald tracker in there?" Shadow asked.

Violet tilted her head. "Yes? There's no instructions to it, but Dad was always good at making sure that anyone could handle his equipment."

That was a lie, and Whisper knew it. Tails had to explain himself to Tangle and Sonic all the time. No, Violet was just smart.

Whisper tapped on Orange's canister harder than a bit usual, telling her it was urgent. She came out, her eyes looking around sleepily. "Yeah? What?" she asked.

"Something's wrong. Not sure what."

Orange's eyes looked around, and she hovered a few feet up above the Tornado. Her eyes widened a moment later. "Yeah, you have a problem. Evasive actions Violet!" Orange sputtered.

Whisper unclipped her seatbelt to look behind her, seeing the large mass of black undulating around. "Time Eater!" she shouted as loud as she could.

"Where!?" Shadow asked. Violet pushed a button and immediately a glass canopy came over her and Whisper, deadening the sound of the wind. "Why did you not do that before!?"

"Because I like the wind?" Violet answered. She grabbed the stick and tossed it downwards. Shadow reached into a pocket, grabbing one of the chaos emeralds. His other hand had a large orange or yellow light glowing, a chaos spear being formed.

"Whisper, tell me where it is from here! I can't see it!" Shadow shouted. The wolfess kept her eyes on it. It was following them, darting after them with surprising alacrity.

"Eleven, above," Whisper said. She knocked on Cyan's canister and each of the wisps came out instead, rather than only Cyan.

"You have reached Cyan the wisp message, please leave a note after the Time Eater!?" Cyan cried out, her eyes widening instantly. "Pink, Pink, I'm sorry I'll have to do it later!"

"I'm not holding that one against you Cyan!" Pink screamed as soon as he came out.

"Cyan, imbue, Shadow needs a tracker!" Whisper explained. The wisp immediately nodded and ducked into the wispon. There was almost no room with the canopy on with all the wisps in there.

Lavender looked over the Time Eater, somehow able to see it. "Huh. That thing looks weird. Why are you all freaked out?"

"It's called the Time Eater," Whisper explained.

"It basically eats time and time travelers and eats their existence," Orange admitted a moment later.

"Oh. That sounds...bad."

That was one way to put it. "Violet, open the canopy, I need to aim for Shadow," Whisper said. The fox gave her a quick look before nodding and opened the canopy again.

Immediately the wind started to blow through, and Whisper held her ground. It was threatening to blow her away, but right now she needed the room more than anything. "Follow," she said, aiming the wispon towards the still incoming Time Eater. The worst part was that despite the small dive that Violet was putting them in, it was still getting closer. Which meant it was faster than the Tornado.

It ignored the Cyan laser, which was surprising because it hadn't done that last time. "It's not doing anything?" Cyan asked. Whisper shook her head, keeping the wispon still. She was using it for another marker, to assist Shadow.

He hurled the chaos spear towards the marker, right along the line where the Cyan laser was going. "Get out of here!" he shouted, as if yelling would have done anything. Maybe if it was a dog, or an animal. Not some...she wasn't sure what it was actually. Eldritch thing?

The spear went straight through the Time Eater, not even bothering to displace it. "That didn't do anything..." Whisper murmured. But it had affected it so much worse last time that it had happened. "Orange, Green, Blue, any ideas?"

"Not asking me huh? I see how it is," Pink responded by tossing his head up. He tapped the wispon a moment later, switching over from Cyan, and Whisper felt the small pink spike projectiles being shot out towards it.

Less accurate than the laser, but it would give Cyan a chance to recharge, not that Whisper thought she needed it, and it would still show the general path. But much like the laser and the spear, the individual spikes didn't seem to be doing anything.

"Nothing against you Pink," Whisper claimed. "But most ideas you have are crazy."

"She's not wrong..." Cyan whispered towards them.

The other three wisps were talking amongst themselves. "We got nothing. Everything we do just isn't working," Orange said. Shadow was still on the wings, throwing chaos spear after chaos spear.

"I have one," Violet said. "I have no idea what's going on, and I can't see it, but it's obviously got you two freaked out. So...hold on tight!" She pulled at another switch, and a small panel opened up with a lever. She grabbed it and pulled it all the way back.

Whisper felt the Tornado subtly shift underneath them, and the wind started to batter at her. Shadow stopped throwing chaos spears for now, instead focused on staying solely on the Tornado's wings. There was a hum of energy being put out...underneath them?

Tails had installed a rocket booster at one point, hadn't he?

Whisper stopped firing, putting the wispon onto her back as the Tornado accelerated, far beyond anything that she thought it could do. It wasn't just fast now, it was as fast as the wind it got its name from. The Time Eater was left in the dust, the black massless...thing behind them.

It was massless though. That was the problem. Sonic had said that it could effectively turn itself massless or not, and it needed to have mass in order to affect anything. In other words, they had been firing too early. Of course she had to remember that now.

"Whoo! This is what a rocket's all about!" Orange shouted, her face in the wind as she kept pace with the Tornado.

"Ha, nothing can catch us now!" Violet shouted, glee more than evident on her face as she reveled in the speed of her dad's creation. "I doubt even Sonic could keep up with us!"

"He could," Shadow answered instantly. "I can. We only doubled our speed," he said. Despite the chilling tone, there wasn't any heat behind it, and it did nothing to dull Violet's enjoyment. Or Orange's, for that matter.

Whisper turned her head at the perfect second. Out of the corner of her eye, a portal had popped up, rushing to them...perpendicular. "Violet, dodge!" Whisper warned as she stood up.

"Can't! Any harsh turns is going to make the Tornado shatter!" Violet answered as she hurriedly looked towards where Whisper was looking towards.

It took only a fraction of a second. The Time Eater slammed itself with full force and full mass into the Tornado, and there was a large snapping and crunching sound. The plane flipped over instantly, throwing Whisper out. Shadow was still magnetized on, and he threw out his hand as if to catch her, despite already being ten feet away.

"Green!" Whisper said. The Time Eater crunched onto the Tornado, something that she didn't think was possible, as the hover wisp quickly imbued himself into the wispon. It created a makeshift parachute, allowing Whisper to slowly glide down the airways. She felt her shoulder get yanked as she decelerated too quickly. She'd be sore for a day or two.

Her eyes were more focused on the Tornado though. The Tornado was going down fast, heading for the top of the mountains nearby. The Time Eater was on top of it, somehow its jaws working on the fuselage. "Orange, Blue!" Whisper called out instantly. Hopefully they could understand her plan, because she barely even had a plan let alone be able to articulate it-

The Time Eater was pushed off by another chaos spear from Shadow, just as a blue block appeared underneath the chassis. Orange imbued himself into the rocket booster, increasing its speed from simply ridiculously fast to ludicrous. But with one wing gone, it went into a death spiral...and stayed level.

It bounced off of Blue's blocks, constantly hitting and cracking on each one as it went, Orange's power boost keeping it relatively stable. Hopefully long enough for Violet to regain some kind of control, and she was just...hovering...

She looked down. Thirty feet. It'd hurt, but the Tornado needed it more. "Green, go back to the Tornado, keep them upwards. I'll be fine," Whisper commanded. The green wispon gave a small chitter of concern before heading out to the breaking down plane.

The Time Eater had been pushed off by the chaos spear, but was now rapidly closing in on her as fast as she was the ground and snow.

She prepped herself for landing just as the Time Eater's claws would have got her, and she slammed into the snow, going surprisingly deep. She let out a groan as her legs hit upon impact; hopefully she didn't break those too, otherwise this was going to be a short trip-

"Laser!" Cyan's voice called out as she shot herself at the Time Eater. The snow seemed to block the thing from chasing after her, and instead got a Cyan wisp to its body, pushing it off to the side.

"Pink, help me up," Whisper asked as her hands slid off the smooth snow hill she'd created. She needed to get to the surface, fast. The pink wisp gave a mock salute, before imbuing her gloves. It was good that he'd gone for the gloves, because her legs weren't going to be working for a while but it was mild, probably just a major bruise.

Honestly falling from thirty feet into snow was the best case scenario. The snow peak left her vision as she pulled herself up the final bit. Cyan was doing her best to keep the Time Eater off, and Lavender wasn't really...wasn't really capable of doing much. The Tornado was out of her view now, hopefully having been able to level off.

As soon as the Time Eater saw her it moved away from the annoying wisp and hurtled itself towards her. "Pink, wispon!" Whisper said as she tried to aim. She pulled up her wispon.

Then her heart filled with joy, ecstasy, and complete agony over and over. The tortures of betrayal, of revenge, of having everything she worked for ripped away from her time and again. Her mind went to Mimic, and how close she'd been to outing him with Silver. How close she'd been to killing Eggman years earlier, and yet been talked out of by a six year old girl.

Admittedly that girl was Cream, and Whisper had no need to push the violence of killing onto a six year old, even second hand. She was already broken, no need to break another soul.

But that broken soul was still broken, still fractured, and as much as it pissed her off she buried it under years of work and professionalism. Until now.

All she saw was death, betrayal, and the constant agony of existence. The Time Eater was attempting to eat her? She'd show it. She was Whisper, the last remainder of the old Diamond Cutters, the one that tied the Neo Diamond Cutters together, and she was not about to let some overgrown purple monstrosity get the better of her!

Her gloves came off, and the claws came out. Its claws tried to feast on her, but to do so it required to have mass, and mass she could use to utterly break everything it had.

Her jaws were used, her wispon long forgotten, her claws and feet were every weapon she had ever needed. It didn't bleed, but that didn't mean she couldn't kill it.

Even as it tried to puncture her own purple aura, it could barely even touch her, let alone hurt her. So what if her arms were bleeding, so what if her stomach wound was bleeding again? So what if the scars she got from Old Man Henderson reopened? All that mattered was that the Time Eater was dead.

"...isper!" a voice called out. She didn't know whose. She didn't care who's. She was going to kill them all, she was going to hurt them as much as she was hurting, she would show them the pain of true agony, inflicted over hundreds of years!

Her target was flying away now, and she let out a mirthless howl. How dare it. How dare it chase after her, and then not even finish the damn job.

"...per! Please!"

She turned around to the voice, the purple aura clouding her eyes and mind. She saw only things. An orange light, unfocused and impossible. It hovered there, as if mocking her inability to fly after her target. A green light next to her.

"Whisper, keep hold! Lavender, stop empowering her!"

"I don't know how!"

She reached up with one of her claws, noticing it was nearly as long as her arm. Her body was a weapon, wasn't it? Even impossible lights were no match for her. She wanted to smack it down, to bring it down to her level-

A green lightning burst from somewhere blasted into her side, straight through the aura. Her muscles seized, and the aura stopped, seeping back into her body. She couldn't move now. She fell into the snow, face first.

Although...that wasn't entirely a bad thing, that she couldn't move. Memories flooded her, Whisper, of who she was and what she'd been. Lavender had...imbued her. She'd never been imbued by a nega-wisp before, heck, most of the other wisps couldn't imbue her even if she wanted it. Too much of her life had been painful, and the wisps had to share memories and emotions, and even then only a small percentage of Islanders could be imbued safely.

The fact that Sonic was one and she wasn't pained her sometimes. "You back in your right mind yet or I gotta blast ya again? Trust me, I'm thinking of doing it anyways," a cold hard voice said. She felt a boot push her over, and her eyes narrowed.

A green islander, not much taller than her, with black splotches on her head and arms. She had spikes, similar to Sonic, but with a mean streak a mile wide. She had a small scarf wrapped around her neck, and despite the time difference looked...almost identical. A few more lines, a few more gray hairs at best.

Surge. She'd been in these mountains, and Whisper had the most unfortunate luck to run into her. "You can't talk yet, can you? Your wisp buddies ran the instant I showed up. Not that I blame 'em. All 'cept little Brave here," Surge said, scowling and pointing towards Lavender. "She's new."

Whisper couldn't move or growl. And she wanted nothing more than to show that Lavender's frenzy was only a chained part, but that she could unleash it at anytime. Although that feeling...she had felt unbeatable. Impossibly powerful. Now wonder Henderson had gone insane, knowing he felt like that at any time.

"Come on," Surge said, reaching down with one hand and pulling her up. She rested Whisper on her shoulder, with one hand towards the wispon as she dragged it towards her, somehow. "These mountains are dangerous at the best of times. Heh, I bet Kit has the fire going already, the softy."

"...Why...?" Whisper formed out. She had so many questions. Why was Surge helping her, why was Surge out here, why did she look like nothing had happened, where was Violet and Shadow, and the Tornado? Orange and Green had come back, but they'd only do that if people were safe, or so she'd hoped.

She had tried to instill the love of all life in all of them, which seemed to have succeeded based on the lack of deaths in Green Hill. "Why am I saving you, why do I care, why am I here?" Surge asked. Whisper felt a hand on her jaw, and Surge moved it as if she was a puppet. "Oh hi Ms. Surge, thank you so much for saving me, but I was overtaken with anger thanks to living my entire life."

"You're welcome Ms. Whisper, now before I throw you down a cliff why don't you explain to me-" Surge asked before she sighed for a long moment. "Kit would kill me if I didn't bring you in first. Darn kid's always getting in the way. Fine. Fine, that's why I saved you. Because Kit would be mad if I didn't," Surge explained. She gave a sigh and hefted Whisper over her shoulder, uncaring that it sent a net of pain through the wolfess.

Whisper couldn't feel much, but she felt the chill and the cold slowly embitter themselves to her. Surge was a surprisingly good climber, or maybe she was so used to snow that she wasn't fazed by it. Within minutes they'd gone over the hill that Whisper had seen earlier, and the peaks of the mountains were close by, a small trail of white showing where the wind took the snow and ran with it.

The snowpeaks weren't too far, and Whisper saw a small cabin built on top of the highest one with a small smokestack coming from the top.

To Whisper's relief, she saw the wreckage of the Tornado right outside it, which means that either Violet and Shadow were safe or that at least Shadow was, and Whisper knew he wouldn't let harm come to the vixen if he could help it. It looked bad, one entire wing gone and a good chunk of the fuselage, but at least it was here.

Whisper felt herself be dragged to the door, a small simple door that barely looked as if it had a lock. Surge didn't bother knocking, instead opening it easily with Whisper's wispon. "Kit. Brought back fresh meat~" Surge sang aloud.

The inside of the cabin was tiny, just a few beds in the corner, a table in the center, and a ladder that led down somewhere. "Seriously kid?" Surge asked when she looked around to see no one there. "You at least got the fire started," she said, looking at the small hearth across from them. It was much, much warmer inside than outside, and Whisper hadn't even realized how cold it had been.

"Surge! Down here in the kitchen!" Another voice, much younger and male, called out. The hydrokinetic fennec, Kit. Surge's partner, or Tails to her Sonic.

That was what Whisper had been told about them, at least. The last time she'd seen them, Surge and Kit had just been run out from the Restoration for infiltration and trying to bring it down from the inside.

"Of course you are," Surge said. Don't worry Wolfy, this won't hurt," she said, sliding down the ladder with ease. She still had Whisper on her shoulder, and it was obvious this wasn't her first time doing this.

The underground was much more lived in. Small papers were scattered around, and there was a large couch in front of a television. Behind it looked like a large screen, similar to a lot of Tails' labs.

Three chairs were already taken up, one by Shadow who didn't seem to be all that bothered by anything, nor did he look injured. Another was by Violet, who seemed unused to being in unusual areas. It also looked like her leg was in a small cast, and bandages on her chest and torso. The last chair held the blue fennec that she only vaguely recalled in her nightmares.

Kit.

His ears had grown even larger, almost all the way down to his waist now, but beyond that he looked almost identical to how he always had. She could see the small backpack of water that had been fused onto his back for his...hydrokinesis. At least, that's what he had claimed it was.

Right next door was a small kitchen, complete with smells that were surprisingly homely. "Oh, Whisper! Shadow mentioned you were out there, but I didn't expect Surge to take so long to find you," Kit said as he jumped off his chair.

"Take so long? I took like ten minutes. Fifteen, tops," Surge answered, throwing Whisper onto the couch. "Wolfy over there's still paralyzed. It'll hurt when her muscles unfreeze. I'm gonna go take a shower," she said, throwing her hands behind her head and walking out.

Shadow sipped some coffee, or something out of the mug in his hands. "I see that she hasn't changed much."

Violet gave him a look with wide eyes, as if wondering how he actually knew these people. Whisper didn't blame her. She certainly didn't want to know these people, and she actually did know them!

Kit laughed. "No, we can't really change much out here. It's why we're out here. To be invisible to everyone else," he said quietly with a sad smile.

Someone asked if Surge was going to show up. The answer is yes.

The answer is always yes.

Until Next Time!