Disclaimer: See first chapter.
Knuckles
The earth rose and the grasses were killed as it formed into small forms. Slowly features were being added. Legs, arms, an obvious head. "What are those things!?" Violet asked as she jumped backwards towards Fern Valley. "Metal!? We're gonna need some help!" She called out, hoping that the robot was still within hearing distance.
Whisper knocked on all of the containers for the wisps. "Trouble!" She said with only a word. Immediately the wisps took the golems into view as they started to roll into balls, surging towards Whisper and Violet.
One was knocked off course by Blue, and Green tried to make one miss by hovering it just as it jumped over a hill. There were five of the things Whisper counted. "Green! Protect Violet!" She suggested.
Immediately Violet was whisked into the air, standing on top of a small green cloud. "I got her Whisper!" Green shouted.
One problem solved. Three more were surging for her, and the other two were starting to turn around. "Orange!" She called out, firing towards the ground to fling herself up. Two of them collided where she'd been, and instead of collapsing, they bounced off each other.
They had a hard shell, too, it seemed. "Get a hold of Shadow!" Whisper said towards Violet. She gripped into her belt on the radio, flinging it towards Green and Violet. Hopefully she'd catch it, but Whisper didn't have enough time to check.
"Blue!" Whisper said as the wispon changed from the sniper shot to the hammer. Yellow gave a careening cheer, and Whisper felt herself suddenly start to have a lot more fun as she dove into the ground. They might have problems because of that.
The golems ignored the lasers from Cyan, or the pockets of force that Orange gave out on her own. The last one jumped over a hill, aiming towards the still-in-the-air Whisper. In an instant she knocked it straight up, well away from the ground.
Blue couldn't hurt them, Cyan couldn't hurt them, Orange couldn't hurt them, Pink probably wouldn't and Green was busy. Lavender couldn't unless..."Lavender, not the best time but want to try?" Whisper asked, pointing to the variable wispon as she landed.
The nega-wisp shook her head in obvious fear as two of the golems started rolling towards her faster.
Whisper was about to call for Blue when Yellow gave another careening shout, this time of determination and unbridled fury. She dove out of the ground, and through one of the golems, cutting it in half, and imbued herself into the variable wispon.
With each form change, the wispon shifted and manipulated itself to the best choice for each wisp. There were many that Whisper didn't know, and she'd only been able to convince her five friends that it was okay to try. But Yellow wanted to try.
The plates shifted and cracked. Smithy was a genius, Whisper knew, but it was an entirely different thing to realize it when it became a giant drill. And based on how Whisper knew the wispon worked, she pulled back and stabbed it just into the golem that was about to savagely wreck her day.
Immediately the wispon dug through it, and Whisper felt her body pull with it. The golems were just dirt, animated by technology or...something else. She didn't want to think about that. But they were still just dirt.
And Yellow? Yellow was a drill. Yellow dug through dirt like it was sand. And could probably dig through sand too. And probably through lava, if she really wanted to. That might end up with burning her, honestly, but Yellow could probably do it.
The golem burst into dirt, an explosion of ground matter that was honestly more surprising than her digging all the way through it. The variable wispon spun in place, and the other golems turned, uncurling from their balls. Now uncurled, they stood nearly ten feet tall with balls of dirt and mud for hands that were nearly half their size.
Whisper noted that Green hovered Violet just a few feet higher. The girl had caught the radio without a problem, but getting it to work was another. "Cyan," Whisper warned. The cyan wisp gave her a glance, before looking up towards Violet and the radio, and blasted herself towards it.
"Blue," Whisper muttered, another plan forming in her head. Yellow wanted to go, a small sound of rushing and digging, aggressive and yet fun-loving. Yellow was probably too young to know that this was actually life-threatening for her, if she got hit.
That's why her best bet was to not get hit.
One massive hand tried to slam down on her, only to be paused by Blue's cube. Whisper took the opportunity to slam the drill wispon through its body like a sword, and in an instant it collapsed, the dirt coming out of its stomach as if she'd disemboweled it. Despite it being made of dirt and mud.
These golems were weird, Whisper noted absently.
One was knocked off balance by Orange, trying to blast it now that they'd uncurled. She couldn't do anything while they were in ball form, simply too much mass there, but now that they were standing up? Easy as pie.
It collapsed onto the ground, where it immediately started to coalesce back together. Whisper took the opportunity to slam the wispon into it, where it disintegrated for good.
The other two slammed their massive hands together, and Whisper almost sighed as they joined together. A mass of ground nearly thirty feet tall. Its legs were massive instead of its hands, And its feet were nearly ten feet wide. It slammed down with one blocky foot, trying to squish her.
Whisper hoped Yellow was up for one more. The wispon answered with an excited shout, one that made her feel light and airy, energized and ready to go. Yellow was good.
The wispon dug through its foot, through its legs and into its torso. Whisper held her breath, but Yellow and the variable wispon was causing some kind of bubble around her. She still felt small rocks trying to crush her legs, but it was only at the far end.
The drill went all the way to the top, where Whisper exploded out of its head. Had it been a living thing, she'd probably have been traumatized more than she was already.
Instead it fell to the ground, breaking into hundreds of pieces. Whisper jumped off at the last second. Yellow dis-imbued the variable wispon and gave off a happy chant. "Good yay!" She said, her voice translated as extremely high-pitched. "Me go brr!" Yellow said. Whisper nodded, an obvious smile on her face as she breathed heavily, trying to get herself under control again.
Green lowered Violet to the ground. "Thanks Green, and Cyan!" She said as she jumped off the green cloud. "What were these things?" She asked.
"No idea," Whisper answered. "But I had a feeling. Shadow already knows where we would be. Why would he need to ask?"
"Maybe he wanted to come visit?"
Whisper stared at her for a moment. "Yeah, I didn't think so either," Violet finished. "Just...trying to come up with something," she stated. "Still, was that normal for you? You seemed to know exactly what to do!"
Whisper shrugged. It seemed normal at the time. "I...know how to respond. To things such as threats and such."
"Wish I could," Violet murmured. "I always hear stories of Dad, both of them, to being heroes and doing amazing things. And I wanted to do that. I wanted to be like them all. And yet...here I was, the perfect opportunity, and I ended up just needing to be saved."
"Don't put yourself down. It took Whisper a long time to get as good as she is," Orange commented. "And the first thing you did wasn't try to help or run for cover; you ran for help. That wasn't running away, that was running away with the intention of coming back."
Violet kicked the ground a bit. "It doesn't feel that way. Feels like I'm a coward," she said. Whisper shook her head. She knew where Violet was coming from; most people did. When the time came for action, did they run or did they fight? Whisper fought, because she knew what would happen in her time if she ran; nothing. Sonic fought. Tails fought. Knuckles fought. Amy fought.
Mimic? He ran. Starline? Ran. Eggman? Honestly, Eggman would probably fight but for the purposes of this analogy in her mind she'd say he would run. "Not a coward," Whisper commented. "Not like Mimic. Not like Eggman."
Violet stared at her for a long moment. "They weren't cowards though. They didn't immediately run for help-"
"Yes they did," all the wisps said, minus Yellow and Lavender. Yellow was actually quite happy, drilling into the ground and coming back up a moment later, happy that she was of assistance. Lavender was trying to calm her down. "No, really," Pink said, "When the Eggmanland thing was blowing up, the first thing Eggman did was run away. Granted, that was also because wisp energy was blowing up around him and...well, it created a black hole."
"Yeah, that wasn't a fun time. Then we had to rescue Sonic from that. I think that was mostly the White's helping him though," Cyan kept going. "But yeah, not a coward. Heck, if you want we'll teach you how to fight!"
Alarms blared in Whisper's mind. "I don't think that's a good idea-" she started to say.
She was cut off by Violet agreeing instantly with the cyan wisp. "Yes! That sounds great! Teach me so that I don't have to just be held aloft by Green next time!"
Whisper just knew that this was probably going to be a bad idea. But...she also knew that this trip was important to her, and it would help out a lot if she had at least a small amount of self-defense training. Maybe that's what she could authorize. Self-defense.
"Oh I know! I can use a wispon! Does the Restoration still have a bunch?" Violet turned to her, excited.
Whisper hadn't seen any while she was there, but that didn't mean they weren't. She shook her head, "Not that I know of," she answered.
"They were there! They were off in the corner though. They had a lot of dust on them, so I doubt they'd been imbued for ages. Red bursts, ivory lightning's...oh yeah!" Pink offered. "We could teach you a lot!"
If red flags could be even more red, it'd be the most red flag that Whisper could find times three. If both Pink and Cyan were excited for it, it was a bad idea. If all of the wisps seemed excited for it...well, even the temperance of Green and Blue had a limit.
"I can just ask Shadow next time I see him. That reminds me, I never did get through to him, but I know Angel Island is right up there, and that's where he said he was going," Violet said. "Too bad the Tornado was busted. I bet Dad could've fixed it..."
"Eh, don't hold it against yourself. We know where it is at least. I'm pretty sure your dad had it destroyed like five or six times during the first few years," Cyan said. Whisper wasn't sure if that was the best of ideas-
"Oh yeah! Like the time in Station Square, Eggman shot him down using this giant laser. Then it became the Tornado 2, and he had to rebuild that after the whole thing for the ARK!"
...Okay, maybe that was a good idea. Whisper shut her eyes. This was so far outside the boundaries of her normal control. "We should get going," she said quietly. Violet's ears twitched towards her, but mostly just kept talking with Pink and Cyan.
"Although reaching out to Shadow is still a good idea I think," Violet offered. "Any ideas, Whisper?" She asked directly. Whisper was only a foot in front of her, trying to get everyone to move.
The Doomsday Deserts weren't going to cross themselves.
"A few. There's an extra battery, built in. Push the red button in, that's the emergency override for the battery. It pulls in extra power, allowing it to double or triple its usual range," Whisper said. The mask had the same feature by default, charged by being so close to the wisps at almost all times.
Which always made Tangle give her a weird look, as if asking why she would bring along a normal radio at the same time as the radio in her mask.
Honestly it was because Tangle kept forgetting her own radio, but Whisper wasn't about to tell her that.
"Oh, right! Shadow?" Violet asked, pushing in the red button on the side. Whisper nodded, hearing it pulse out of her mask too.
The plains stretched out seemingly endlessly, with the grasses slowly turning visibly into sand later on. It was as if someone had simply hovered over an area, pointed to this spot and said, 'Desert starts here, goes to here'. What was worse is that Whisper was fairly certain that this didn't used to be desert, as proven by the tall wheat-like grasses that were all around.
Grass like that didn't end up near the desert if the desert was created naturally. At least, her mind told her so.
"Violet?" Shadow's voice called out through the radios. "What is it?"
"Violet?" Another voice said, much farther away than Shadow's. It was much, much more gruff and deep. It reminded Whisper of someone, but it wasn't quite the same. Then the thought hit her; he probably already made it to Angel Island. Which meant the voice belonged to Knuckles.
"We made it to the Plains outside the Doomsday Deserts," Violet answered, "and uh...we were attacked, basically, as soon as we told someone who claimed they were you. Used your voice and everything."
"Desert's not far from here," Knuckles' voice was quiet, almost silent. He must have been listening in.
"I know," Shadow's voice was also far away, before it became much louder. "Attacked by what?" He asked.
"Whisper called them golems. Basically dirt monsters-"
"Violet?" Knuckles' voice was suddenly much louder, much more clear. "This is your Uncle Knuckles, not sure if you remember that. You're close to the deserts, right? Stay there."
"Knuckles, wait-" Shadow's voice called out, much further away as suddenly the sound of rushing air came from the radios. Violet turned from her's, her confusion quite evident on her face as she looked towards Whisper.
The wisps were nodding to each other. "Oh right, so...uh, there's no easy way for us to teach you self-defense, or use a wispon-" Cyan started.
"I think Knuckles coming down right now is taking her mind off of that," Whisper said quietly. The wisps glanced at her, before they looked around.
"You think he's coming here? Right now? How?" Violet asked. She scanned the sky, as if being able to see the red dot that was Knuckles. Whisper couldn't see it, until she zoomed in towards a particularly empty bit of sky.
It was near impossible to see. The sky was blue all around, and there were clouds seemingly everywhere, but there was one portion that was...quite closed off. As if the clouds pulled in one side, and immediately exited the other, leaving a very vague outline of Angel Island.
Whisper nodded towards the radio. The sound of rushing air was much more evident now, and Whisper could hear Shadow in the background trying to keep up with the Echidna.
"Because he's there," Whisper said, lifting up the wispon's scope just to make sure. It was hard to tell, but considering just how fast the red and black dots were coming down...Shadow must have used Chaos Control to get up there.
It would make sense he may not have known exactly where the island was at the time. But he'd been there before, so he could effectively teleport there. It was an odd moment of thought, Whisper knew.
Violet lifted her hand to head, peering over the endless abyss of plains and sand towards the sky. Somehow she could see Angel Island clearly, while Whisper...most definitely could not. She'd been adamant on that point.
Violet started running towards them, or where their point would end, and Whisper felt herself running to keep pace with her. The wisps fell behind for only a moment, before Cyan shot ahead, going at a hyperactive speed that only she could obtain. Orange was behind her, with Lavender and Yellow in the middle. Pink, Green, and Blue were the slowest, keeping pace with Whisper easily.
Just because they were the slowest didn't mean much when they were still just as fast as her. Violet was much faster than her, surprisingly.
Whisper had never actually tried to race her, had she? Violet wasn't as fast as Velocity, or as fast as Sonic was at his prime. But she was still quick, a bit faster than Tails was actually...Whisper felt the need to smack her head. Of course she was fast; she was the daughter of Blaze too. The cat princess who was notorious for being just as fast as Sonic.
She wasn't about to break any sound barriers, probably because she hadn't trained for that thing most of her life the way Sonic or Blaze had. But she was still almost as fast as Cyan or Orange.
The plains were making their way to the end, the red and black dots coming up quick. The sand was starting to become more noticeable, right when Cyan, Orange, and Violet stopped.
Shadow was hovering above them, nearly five or six hundred feet away from Whisper, with the jets on his shoes going full blast. Apparently he could hover with those. Whisper had thought he could actually have flown, so it was good to know he couldn't.
However...the red dot was no mere dot anymore.
Knuckles landed hard on the sand, his giant fist punching the ground. He'd...probably changed one of the most, in Whisper's mind. Jewel had looked much older, but beetle's generally aged well to begin with. Sonic and Amy looked more haggard, but they had four children to deal with and that would age anyone.
But Knuckles? He looked like he was in his prime, still. His face held no wrinkles, not an ounce of extra fat on him, and his body was trained and toned with the best of them. A mix of farm worker who worked out all the time and a bodybuilder who actually used the muscles they worked out for.
There was no amount of laugh lines on him, no sense that he smiled anymore than necessary. And yet Whisper saw the smile break out as he rushed Violet into a harsh hug. Whisper winced internally, aided by the feeling of the various wisps around her making the same winces.
Whisper couldn't hear what he was saying, but he was saying something. She rushed the last few feet.
"-You came out this far. Who's all with you? It's not Sonic, is it?" Knuckles was asking, his voice the same gruff and cold, and yet with a warmth that belied who it belonged to.
"No, just Whisper and the wisps," Violet was answering. She was wincing a bit.
"Oh, sorry about that! You used to love that when I did it to you. Guess I'm stronger now though than I was then," Knuckles laughed it off. Shadow dropped down just as Whisper made it to them. The red Echidna, whose dreadlocks or spines had barely changed in the twenty three years, gave her a look. "So it is you. I'm surprised."
Whisper took a few deep breaths, unable to say anything. "You do need to practice running more," Shadow said. "You did this back in Green Hill too."
"It wasn't that far of a run! It was barely five miles!" Violet protested. "I didn't realize...I'm sorry Whisper!"
Whisper held up one hand, her lungs burning. She could do this, she could make it. Five miles was still five miles, and considering that Violet did that in about five minutes...Whisper had had to sprint the entire way.
The fox girl wasn't even winded.
"I barely got anything from Shadow," Knuckles asked, looming over Whisper. "What's all going on?"
Whisper managed to get a few breaths in. "Saving Tangle and Tails. By saving Tails, we get Blaze out of the emerald chamber in Central City."
"Don't forget the Time Eater chasing her," Shadow supplied. Knuckles nodded, holding out one hand for Whisper to grab.
"You sound as if you're up hydrocity without the ability to swim," Knuckles commented. When he got a blank look from Whisper, the wisps, and everyone else there, he sighed. "Yeah, I need to workshop that one. Up a creek without a paddle? I think that's the saying."
"What's Angel Island doing there? Dad...Mr. Sonic, thought that it was out to the sea," Violet asked.
Knuckles nodded. "That's usually what I tell him when we do our yearly calls. But an island that flies can go anywhere the birds can. And does, often. I've been stopped here for a while though. The Master Emerald doesn't want to leave this spot for some reason," Knuckles said.
Violet's eyes lit up, and Knuckles had a small smirk. "Can you tell me more about the Master Emerald!? Please, please, please-"
"Maybe in a bit, Vio," Knuckles said easily. "So you're taking on the Timeroot huh?" He asked Whisper. "Can't say you're not brave. How do you know Tails and Tangle are here?"
Timeroot? Shadow and Whisper's eyes met each other. Knuckles knew who they were? They weren't ancient echidnas, were they? Whisper had read one of the records that said the tribes back then had been rather violent at the best of times.
"Blaze told her," Shadow commented. "In a dream, while at her house."
"Dreamwalking," Knuckles supplied. "Guess that's as good of an answer as any," he nodded. Shadow shot him an incredulous look. "What? It's a real thing. If Blaze is a guardian, of course she can do it. I can do it. I just don't like to."
"What do you mean that's an actual thing? That's preposterous!"
"Not...really?" Knuckles asked him. "It's a Guardian thing. The Sol Emeralds and the Master run off similar frequencies and abilities. Something about creation and all that. Dreamwalking is simply us calling out to close individuals in the dream worlds, bringing them to ours or us to theirs."
"...Gerald made no note of that," Shadow said quietly. That was the first time Whisper had ever heard him mention the name of his creator. The only reason she even knew the name was because Rouge had mentioned it offhandedly once, about two months before the fated mission where Whisper would end up here.
She never thought she would hear it from the actual black hedgehog himself.
"He wouldn't," Knuckles responded. "I doubt many Islanders know. I know Sonic or Tails didn't, until I brought it up one time."
The sun flashed out from underneath where Angel Island was, and another question popped up into Whisper's mind. "We should think about finding a place out of view," she said, "But who's watching the Master Emerald, if you're down here?"
"Chaos and Tikal. About fifteen years ago a few chao gathered around the Master, and Chaos came back out to play with them a bit. At first I was hesitant, but he seemed gentler than he had last time he broke out. And Tikal started to play with them too, or at least a spiritual version of her. They can watch over the Emerald for a while, although I don't like leaving it to them if I can help it," Knuckles said.
"Perfect! I can ask you so many questions!" Violet said, her eyes lighting up. Knuckles blinked, before he looked towards Shadow and Whisper, as if asking for help as the twelve year old grabbed onto him tight. The wisps nodded to each other, Cyan and Pink starting to do a small eulogy for the echidna.
Fun fact; Echida is the name of a monster from the Odyssey. And my writing app wants to capitalize it every time I put it down. Frustrating.
Also thinking of starting a patr e on. Not to release stories early like I've seen some other do, but rather to help others, give tips and tricks that I've found help me, small things that help me out as a writer, and for those that want to support me an author. Not sure if there's support or not for that.
Until Next Time!