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Whisper's eyes woke up without her even realizing she'd gone to sleep. She was still outside, and there was a slight white sheen to the desert, as if it had tried to freeze, realized that it didn't have enough water to freeze, and instead ended just making things harder.

Her back was killing her. Her shoulder injuries from where she'd visited Surge, and the stomach injuries from everywhere else were making themselves known to her. She really should just sleep in the tent next time.

She was the first one awake. Knuckles was next to her now, his eyes shut and his breathing rhythmic. Surprisingly even Shadow was asleep, his head tilted back as if staring at the moon and ARK, now long gone throughout the sky.

The big surprise was Sonic the Hedgehog himself next to Knuckles. There was a brace over his leg, as if ready for travel despite that Whisper would be most adamantly opposed to Sonic hurting himself like that.

The tent was still up, although it didn't have a white sheen over it, but rather had nearly iced over entirely. Whisper forced herself up, trying to withhold the groan.

She did make sure to lean against the tent to get rid of the sand in her boots and at the bottom of her coat and tail. Her tail was absolutely filled to the brim with sand.

There was a small sound that came from one of the other three, and Whisper wasn't sure who. She glanced at each of their eyes, seeing Shadow's still shut ones, Sonic's green eyes, and Knuckles eyelids...

Oh, Sonic was awake. Whisper blinked, before looking up towards the sky. It was still dark out. "Yeah yeah, laugh it up. I can wake up early too," he groaned out as he forced himself up. She noticed that his usual crutch had the end replaced with a simple folding claw. Keep pressure on the sand when pushing down, and if it got pushed into sand that it would be easy to retrieve it again, as the end that held the sand would simply fold away.

"You have kids. I'm not surprised, from what I hear," Whisper answered. It was a common theme from what she saw when she was a child.

"They aren't that bad. Although it is nice on those days that they have cartoons to watch instead of begging dad to get their favorite toy from their siblings," Sonic said with a chuckle. Whisper noticed that despite his obvious limp, it seemed somewhat softer on the cold sand.

"What are you doing here? I thought Knuckles was going to tell you not to," Whisper said.

Sonic shrugged. "He did, but by then we'd already been aboard the Tornado 2 for a few hours. You got the original Tornado. Speaking of, where is it?" He asked, his head tilted as if asking an obvious question with an even more obvious answer.

"Somewhere in the mountains," Whisper answered. What she didn't tell him was 'somewhere in the mountains split in half with one of the wings missing, a good chunk of the fuselage seeming eaten and only about half a fuel tank.

The Time Eater had ripped into the Tornado.

"Broken and in pieces right?" Sonic joked. When Whisper stayed silent, he ended up chuckling quietly. "Hasn't been the first time, and won't be the last. That plane's been an actual ship of Theseus for a long time. Only reason we can call it the Tornado is because of the red paint!"

Oh good, he wasn't mad. "You didn't answer the question."

"Nah, I suppose I didn't. We could have turned around. Green Hill was getting a bit hot in there, with GUN on one side and the gangs on the other. Most of my neighbors went and did the same thing as we did. Some went to Central City, others to Westopolis...it's been a mess. We'll come back when it gets cleaned up, as it usually does."

"So Amy and the kids are up on Angel Island?"

"Yeah. Knuckles built a kind of a cabin up there for guests. Far away from the Master Emerald, of course. Mata's been banned from summoning for the duration. We don't know how it would react to the Master Emerald," Sonic explained.

"Probably not well," Knuckles' voice called out. Oh, he was awake too, Whisper noticed. "It acts as a temporal anchor, so it wouldn't surprise me if it was either harder or easier for her."

"Not to mention those ghosts in Sandopolis."

"Those guys? They're easy enough, just light up the ruins and they go away," Knuckles said, waving his hand.

"Yeah, you try telling that to an eight year old," Sonic said. "Or to a twelve year old, too."

"You weren't twelve for that."

"Yes I was," Sonic retorted.

"No you weren't. You were in your early teens. Fifteen at the earliest."

"Then Tails would have been eleven. He was eight. I remember that specifically, because I held a small birthday party for him in Ice Cap!"

"Is that why you guys took so long getting out of there? I thought you just froze."

"As astonishing as this conversation is, we should probably start moving soon," Shadow's voice called out, interrupting both red and blue.

"I'll go wake up Vio," Sonic said as he forced himself up. "How hard are the wisps to wake up?" He asked Whisper as he passed.

"Not hard," she answered, giving a soft whistle. Immediately all of the wisps lined up in front of her, Lavender and Yellow slightly off center and tilted downwards. Yellow was off looking everywhere except at Whisper, and Lavender was staring at the other wisps as if trying to emulate them.

Cyan was saluting, Orange was staring upwards as she'd been awake for hours, Green and Blue were trying their hardest to be upside down, and Pink had saluted and somehow spiked himself on his own spikes. How that was possible, Whisper didn't even want to think about.

"Oh hey those two are new. Hi, I'm Sonic the Hedgehog!" Sonic said, looking at both Lavender and Yellow. "I haven't seen a nega-wisp in a long time."

Lavender went up to him, slightly flying around him as if trying to taste the air near him. "You...I remember you."

"Yeah?"

"Yes. You ran from the implosion of impossibility. Bestowed with our power, you managed to outrun the inevitable."

Sonic looked her up and down. "So you were a white wisp. How's Yacker doing, he still going on about word salads?"

Lavender gave a trill. "He does, when he's bored. He's off in one of the wisp gardens outside Spagonia, constantly traveling between them."

"Wait, white wisps can communicate!?" Cyan immediately popped up. "Orange, that's unfair! How come we don't get cool stuff like being able to talk however far we are from the others!"

"Would you want to be a white?" Orange retorted.

"No," Cyan said instantly. "I get so much more fun as a cyan. I can go zoom zoom!"

"Yay zoom zoom!" Yellow cheered as she dove into the ground, coming up like some kind of sand dolphin.

"Oh that ain't zoom zoom. I can show you zoom zoom!" Cyan shouted, before she went into her full laser, starting to speed around like a Sonic on his first pot of espresso and coffee. Ever.

"Hey, Vio, you awake?" Sonic asked as he lightly tapped the flap. "We're about ready out here."

Whisper heard a small groan before the vixen answered it, poking her head out of the flap. She had small black bags under her half-lidded eyes, as if she didn't get much sleep last night. "You okay Vio?" Sonic asked.

Violet turned to Whisper. "Yeah, just got distracted by them chatting and looking at the wispon. Think I stayed up too late..." she said, glancing around at everyone around before she pulled back in, presumably to change for the day.

Sonic rolled his eyes. "Yeah, that tracks. Not the first time that's happened either. But hey, at least this time it was on Whisper's gear and not Tails or my old stuff. Progress!"

Whisper was also honestly waiting for when Violet would see that her dad was right there. Or at least, one of them. Instead she walked out a few minutes later with a small shirt and some simple pants, yawning wide. "Morning..." She muttered, sitting down on the sand a second later.

Whisper took the time to quickly peek in, seeing that the tent was in near pristine condition. The variable wispon was on its side, looking brand new. Almost better than when Whisper herself was taking care of it. Had she waxed it and shined it? Whisper grabbed it quickly, before pushing the button on the side that would make the tent fold into itself.

By the time it finished, a process which took only a few seconds, Violet had her eyes closed and was leaning against Sonic. "Did she fall asleep again?" Whisper asked.

"We weren't chatting that long. She spent most of the night looking at the wispon. Also, did you know that the energy reservoir was almost filled up?" Orange asked as he leaned over to Whisper's ears.

"So she did this to herself, then?" Shadow asked. "I'll carry her."

Sonic grinned, before he carefully pushed lightly on her shoulder. "Come on Vio. It's wake up time. Your mom is threatening to make meatloaf for dinner," he said gently.

Immediately Violet's eyes opened wide. "Mom, no!" She shouted, before she heard the quiet chuckling from Knuckles. "Very funny Dad," she muttered with more than a hint of sarcasm.

"Ha ha, success!" Sonic cheered. "Word of advice, never let Amy cook meatloaf. Also, the less said about Blaze's cooking, the better."

"She burned water. Dad and I never quite figured out how..." Violet muttered. "Also, Mr. Sonic? What are you doing here?"

"Ooh, back to the Mr. Sonic. Oh well, good while it lasted," Sonic grinned. "We didn't get Knuckles message about not coming here until late last night, so the rest of the family's up on Angel Island."

"I'm not ready to be picked up yet!"

Shadow tilted his head. "I get it's dangerous, but we had no intention."

Knuckles nodded. "Your dad, Sonic that is, and I had a long talk about it. I still don't understand, but that's between him and me. He sees no reason that you couldn't stay and travel with us."

"Yep. You've made it this far. Your mom and dad would be proud of you. And as one of your dads, I can say I am," Sonic said with a smile. "There comes a time in everyone's life when they have to learn to let their kid do what is objectively the wrong thing."

Objectively? That was a bit harsh, Whisper thought. Orange and Cyan winced above him.

"Objectively!?" Violet said with more than a hint of offense. "How is it 'objectively' the wrong thing to do! You fought Eggman when you were younger than me!"

"That's the issue," Sonic answered. "We knew that we shouldn't have, but we were the only ones who could. You at least, have a choice."

"Well there was that Dr. Hopps guy in Snowdrift..."

"Wasn't he the movie villain of that one movie?" Knuckles asked. "I feel like I recognize the name."

"You're thinking of Dr. Hare," Shadow answered. How he was able to answer with as much to go on as 'that one movie', Whisper didn't know. "Not a bad movie, but not one of the better ones."

"Look at this way," Whisper commented, "at least he's still allowing you to go."

Violet relaxed a bit and looked a little less offended, but just a little. "I know. So...breakfast?" She asked, as Knuckles pulled out a small fruit, similar to a mango. She caught it easily as he tossed it to her, before he tossed a few others to everyone else.

Whisper grabbed hers easily, staring at it for a moment. It wasn't a mango, not really, but it held a similar shape and color. But where mangoes were generally soft on the outside, this one was rock hard, as if it wasn't edible yet. She watched as Knuckles punched his, the spurs on his hands digging deep into it, before he held it to his mouth and let the juice flow in.

"What is this?" Violet asked.

"Some kind of Angel Island fruit. Knuckles doesn't like calling them angel fruits, but that's kind of what they are," Sonic grinned, barely hobbling out of the way as Knuckles threatened to hit his arm. "A meal in a fruit. Pretty much everything you need, really."

"How do we open them?"

"Anyway you can, really," Sonic said, punching his with lightning quickness. Whisper blinked; Sonic could actually still move as fast, if not faster than he could when he was younger. He was just disabled in his legs...but his arms were still just as fast. He reached behind him to his spines, running the fruit down one. It split open easily.

Shadow simply snapped his fingers, and the fruit opened. Whisper rolled her eyes; that was just showing off. The wisps though let out small 'oohs' and 'ahhs', gently clapping after the fruit was fully cut open. Shadow glared at them.

"Here," Whisper said, grabbing the variable wispon and letting the fruit set on the sand. "Cyan?" She asked politely, waiting for the wisp to give her a fake salute before imbuing the wispon.

She really should have checked before trying to ask one of the wisps to imbue it, but this was an environment where it would be safe even if it did backfire. If something bad would happen, better it happen now than when she needed it most to not happen.

The weapon felt slightly different, if she had to be honest. Slightly lighter. The cyan laser emitted from the front, and Whisper felt her turn up the energy, turning it from a harmless laser, similar to a laser pointer, to an actual fully functional destruction beam.

Which she was using to cut a fruit open. She'd used Cyan for worse purposes, and Orange had once imbued a car so it wasn't as if she was the only reckless one.

One quarter of the fruit open, she paused the laser and motioned for Violet to put her fruit down. Instantly she did and backed away as Whisper opened that one. "Feel different?" She asked as Cyan disimbued herself from the wispon.

"Yeah! It's a lot stronger now that I have more room in there. Seriously, I didn't even think about how cramped it was with all that leftover energy in there it was all just 'bwoosh' and 'bwish' and 'swoosh'-" Cyan started.

Whisper continued to ignore her as the wolfess moved to the fruits, giving one to Violet. She imitated Knuckles, and almost immediately regretted it.

It had the taste of pineapple, jazz music, and onion powder mixed into one. "What is this!?" Whisper said as she coughed some of it out. The juice was stuck to her tongue like some kind of slime, even though it was actual juice.

Knuckles laughed. "It does have a bit of a strong taste to it," he chuckled. Violet mimicked Whisper and had the same reaction, her face trying to make herself look both disgusted and refreshed at the same time.

"Ha!" Sonic said, snapping a picture with a phone. "I'll have to show that to Tails, he'd get a kick out of it. He had the same look on his face when he first tried one. Disgusting things."

"Grapes aren't ready all year round," Knuckles answered, as if that answered everything. In Whisper's mind, it just made it have more questions. "Onward then?" He asked.

Whisper nodded, forcing the rest of the stuff down. "Does it get better with time?" She asked as she kicked the hard fruit into the sand after she was done with as much as she could.

"No, not really. Just be glad that it doesn't affect canines as much as the stuff it tastes like does," Knuckles advised.

"It tasted like jazz, to me," Whisper shut her eyes. "But not the good kind either."

"Really?" Sonic asked from his position up front. "How does jazz music have a taste? And I happen to like jazz!"

"It's hard to describe," Whisper answered. "But it did."

"Okay, now this I gotta try," Orange said, flying back and grabbing the leftover fruit piece. Whisper walked ahead with the others.

The sand was still cold enough to be mostly solid, and their pace was limited by Sonic. And yet, Whisper felt at ease with the pace. It would take them some time, absolutely, but they would still be making progress.

She'd felt trapped at both Green Hill and Spiral Hill because they weren't making progress. Snowdrift, too. At least out here, and within the Fern Valley, they'd be getting somewhere.

"Oh dear Mother this is disgusting," Cyan offered from the back.

"How did Whisper taste jazz in this? I tasted country!" Blue commented.

Green was obviously next, "Hey, this is pretty good! Knuckles have any more?"

"I taste art. Like...all of the art. All of it, for all time," Pink murmured. "How'd you two get music? And Cyan, you didn't say what it tasted like!"

"I think Green was right, it wasn't half bad," Orange said quietly. "It was like a fruity nut. Mixed with water and juice. I feel kind of energized now. All agreements on not letting Yellow have some?"

"Want! I want! I want try!"

"No!" Five of the wisps shouted at once. Whisper chuckled under her breath. Lavender popped into her view next to her, hovering lightly above her head as she let out a large yawn.

"No offense, but I'm not going to try it," Lavender said quietly. "That's...not a problem, right?"

Whisper shook her head. "No, it's not. I wasn't expecting Knuckles to bring anything. Not a bad thing though, I only brought enough rations for two people and a few wisps."

"You always were on top of it," Knuckles said. "I bet you came forward with everything already accounted for."

Whisper felt her head heat up, but she shook her head. "Absolutely not. I had supplies, certainly, but no plan. My first plan was to radio back."

"So that was your voice we got," Shadow said from the front. "A few days before you showed up, the old radio signals went alive for the first time in years. When Belle heard Whisper's voice, she thought it was some kid trying to play a prank on us."

"I can see it," Sonic agreed. He was hobbling along at a surprisingly good clip, despite the rising heat as the sun rose on the far side. Whisper could actually see the city now.

And the city was astonishingly beautiful. Large white pillars of stone and sand rose out of the ground, topped with reflective blue and green paints, unchipped throughout the heat. Her nose could scent some water there, as well, something that she was glad they wouldn't have to worry about for long.

"That's Zerotime?" Shadow asked. He looked back to Knuckles, who nodded solemnly.

"Don't let its view take you in. It's a cesspool on the inside. But I have to admit, it looks nice from the outside."

"What all have these guys done again, asides from taking Tangle and Tails and keeping them locked up for...some reason," Sonic asked.

"According to GUN sources, they run a raiding trade throughout the area. Snowdrift and Mt. Mary's are just slightly out of their usual range, and on top of a mountain to boot. Not to mention they want to kill you," Shadow said.

"Well that's nothing new," Sonic shrugged. Violet stared at him like she was seeing a new person. "Wouldn't be the first time. That all?"

"Dragged through time, want the Master Emerald-" Knuckles started, getting a 'well we know why you're here now' from Sonic to the Echidna, "and the Time Stones so they can keep up their time jaunts. Which..."

"Ah, say no more, I get it," Sonic nodded. He turned back to Violet and Whisper. "Time travelers tend to destroy a lot of the areas around time when they go through it. Silver not included, because...you know, I don't actually know. But I've never seen White Space around the guy. Except that one time."

"That one time was also when the world was mostly destroyed," Shadow snarked. "So that's hardly unusual."

"Wait, how many people have tried to kill you!? You can't just be acting so nonchalant about it!" Violet retorted.

"A lot of people," Sonic admitted. "I kept you kids out of most of it, but more than once they came to the door wanting to hurt me in some way. Amy always took 'em out."

"Let's see, both I and Shadow did, Blaze did at one point, Silver..." Knuckles started to count off on his fingers.

Violet stared at him. "Then there's Eggman," he continued, without caring about her stare. "And Fang, Surge, Lanolin at one point..."

"Where is Lanolin?" Whisper asked. "No one mentioned her."

"She moved to Central City when the Restoration broke up, and Tangle disappeared," Shadow said. "She's currently leading a non-profit food delivery service for homeless shelters."

Whisper sighed. So at least one person was doing somewhat good in this world. What was next, that she had to go to jail or something because she attacked someone who she thought was Sonic?

"I half expected her to be in Zerotime honestly," Green muttered from behind her. "But seeing as how she hasn't really appeared much, you'd think she would have more importance."

"Or you can't judge importance by whether or not you interact with them!" Orange retorted. "This isn't a story, Green!"

"Seriously? That's a lot of people. Most of them friends. Also, Mom tried to kill you?" Violet asked.

Sonic shrugged. "Wouldn't be the first time. She was confused. Thought I was taking the Sol Emeralds, and considering how I know how guardians are with their emerald set, Knuckles, I knew that eventually it'd come to blows. And boy, did it. That was a hard fight."

"Yeah?" Shadow asked from the front. "Which was harder, Blaze or me?" He smirked, as if knowing that no matter the answer Sonic was trapped in a losing fight.

"That's easy. Tails," Sonic answered easily. Knuckles and Shadow stopped.

"Wait, Dad tried to hurt you!?"

"Hurt me? Yeah. See, there was this robot named Emerl, and it could copy fighting techniques," Sonic nodded. "We never tried to actually kill each other."

"Oh. What happened to him?"

"Emerl?" Sonic asked. "Got blown up."

"Not quite. Faker here needed to go fight him at max strength because he got all seven chaos emeralds. Eggman found the remains and created Gemerl, if you remember Cream."

"Yeah! Wait, that robot is the reason why Dad created those healing nanites?"

What. Tails had done what now!? She glanced towards Cyan, who had a look of ever increasing glee on her face. "No," Whisper said without inflection. Cyan stared at her, before growling and dropping her head.

"Yeah. That was a while before the Resistance, actually," Sonic answered.

The city of Zerotime was in front of them now, only by around a mile or two. The sun was high in the air, beating down on them through the Doomsday Deserts.

And yet, as Whisper watched the golden gates that showed her next destination, she couldn't wait to be home. This journey was starting to come to a close.

Another travelogue chapter. Can anyone tell I actually like writing these things?

Until Next Time!