Lost and Found

Chapter 1 - Lost

She had lost everything.

Well. Perhaps that wasn't exactly true: she still had everyone's Wisps, supporting her as she stumbled through the shadows of a war-torn world, murmuring gentle encouragement and telling her it wasn't her fault. Whisper did not believe them.

Blue had curled up on her shoulder, desolately staring ahead and not having said a single word since she rescued them from Eggman's facility, keeping quiet as she went to their base to pick up the prototype Wispon Slinger had been so proud of, keeping quiet even as they trudged over broken roads and past cities with no final destination in mind. They had been Mimic's Wisp, and Whisper figured the betrayal of the Diamond Cutters had hit hardest for this particular constituent of their now-small, damaged team. She thought diamonds were supposed to be unbreakable, unable to be shattered no matter the force that was applied to them. But clearly if the diamond had been cracked from the inside, the tear hidden away in its shiny facets and invisible to the naked eye, eventually enough pressure would destroy it, and Whisper was left with the memories of the broken pieces.

Fear kept her on the move. She had no idea what Mimic was planning, or if Eggman had somehow figured out she was still alive and was aiming to send an attack her way to dispose of her for good as well. At the thought of the dictator who was currently quickly on the rise of taking over the entire planet the fear got replaced by pure, burning anger and agony, before it simmered down and the fright took hold of her being once more, urging her to stay in motion no matter how intense the dizzying tiredness behind her eyelids got. She could not remember the last time she had slept.

The Wisps had asked her what she wanted to do, kind and supportive and nuzzling her face gently as she desperately tried not to let the tears fall. They had suggested joining the Resistance, but Whisper had shot the idea down immediately; she would never work with, never trust anyone again. Not after what had happened when she had let her guard down and fully gave her heart and soul to a group of people she thought she could all trust with her life. Now it was only her and the Wisps, ready to keep defying Eggman in their own way. She had stopped the small, wayward robot attack here and there already, though never staying long enough for the people she rescued to notice her or for members of the Resistance to show up. She convinced herself it was better this way.

Cyan shot up unexpectedly, ripping her away from her thoughts. There's someone fighting over there, in that clearing, the Wisp murmured, waving their little arm ahead. Now that Whisper focused as well, she could hear the sounds of grinding metal and crashes, though she could not yet see it in the dark of night and through the trees of the forest they were in. Looking for a vantage point where she would be invisible but still able to see the battle, she quickly asked Green to hover her up into the treeline, then quietly hopped closer to the area of interest as if she were a shadow herself. The Wisps quickly hid themselves in their containers that were lining her cape.

Leaning closer, mindful not to fall out of the tree and forcing herself to not think about that other time she was hiding in a tree, the day when everything had gone wrong, Whisper crouched down and peeked out from the leaves to see what was going on. Her eyes laid on a grey-furred hedgehog, though this one looked nothing like what she had seen of Sonic. While Sonic's quills had been flowing sleekly from the back of his head, these one's defiantly sprung up from his brow instead, five in total, as if they wanted to defy gravity itself. However she could see he also had two quills similar to Sonic, though definitely longer than the Blue Blur's. All in all he looked nothing like any hedgehog she had ever laid eyes on before.

The hedgehog was currently surrounded by at least three dozen robots, and Whisper could have sworn there were more lurking just outside her view. The amount of shrapnel and twitching machinery that littered the clearing told her the battle had been going on for a while already. The hedgehog did not seem afraid by how outnumbered he was, though, effortlessly lifting up a handful of robots with some blue-coloured aura that seemed to come from his hands, before making a throwing motion that sent the robots on their way, crashing against the ground and trees. Was that telekinesis? At the thought of psychic powers her mind irrevocably drifted to Claire, whose powers unknowingly had saved her life, and she grabbed the tree branch she was on for support as she suppressed a sob.

Desperately trying to keep her thoughts away from her perished team she focused on the hedgehog once more. He seemed to have made a lot of leeway in his defence, the barrage of robots becoming less with every wave that was destroyed. The hedgehog seemed to become more confident with every successful deflection, whooping with enthusiasm as another gulf went down to his prowess. Though impressed, Whisper feared that his overconfidence would be his end, and thus she decided to stay a bit longer until she knew the hedgehog was safe. No-one else would die on her watch, not if she could do anything prevent it.

And indeed, Whisper saw a looming shadow creep closer out of the corner of her eye. Before the hedgehog could turn around, a huge battleship in the form of a purple pufferfish had risen behind him, readying its ammo to obliterate the nuisance that had destroyed its comrades. Grabbing her Wispon, Whisper wasted no time as Cyan readied themselves, as if they had read her mind. The hedgehog himself had no time to react, spinning around and crying out in surprise as the battleship aimed to fire its cannons, before crying out once more as a pure flash of cyan tore the entire thing cleanly in half. It fell out of the sky instantly, collapsing in pieces a bit wayward of the flabbergasted hedgehog. Cyan made their way back to her discreetly in the chaos, nestling themselves once again into their case in her coat.

Whisper pressed herself down on the branch more, hoping the hedgehog had not realised where exactly the cyan laser had come from. Alas, while luck had been on her side as she had saved the hedgehog's life it left her the moment he started looking around for his saviour. The hedgehog peeked up into the tree she was currently perched in, and Whisper could have sworn he was staring directly into her eyes. His own eyes were gold, and Whisper thought they managed to look both a bit childish and very mature simultaneously. The hedgehog stared a few seconds more, his eyes narrow and a frown clear on his face, before his intercom started to buzz. The unexpected noise nearly made Whisper jump and reveal her hiding place, grabbing the branch more to steady herself.

"Silver reporting in. The fight went out of order a little bit, but in this area the enemies have been cleared. Over." All the time he did not remove his eyes from the tree she was hiding in. The intercom buzzed more things that Whisper couldn't make out. So his name was Silver... it fitted him, she determined.

"I'll make my way back to HQ now. I'll see you guys in a bit. Over."

Silver looked at her perch for a few seconds more, still frowning, before he turned around and left the clearing. Whisper stayed in the tree for what felt like hours, not daring to move even though the hedgehog had long left, before she clambered down and continued her staggering throughout the world. Her body did not stop trembling until long afterwards.

-----

Amy had cried as he made his way back to Resistance HQ, sobbing desperately as she pulled him in a soul-crushing hug. Knowing that the grief she felt for Sonic was still as raw in her heart as the day they had lost him, and how everyone feared losing another one of their treasured friends to the madman currently ravaging their world, Silver had hugged her back just as hard, realising very well that this fight could have gone very wrong were it not for his mysterious saviour. That had been too close...

Getting the rest of the night off by order of Knuckles, Silver sat himself down on the crates in their storage room, sipping a glass of water (he hadn't dared to take anything else, resources were already scarce enough as they were, with the Resistance stuck in the middle of a war they were losing badly) and contemplating just what had happened during his battle. He had nearly been struck in his back, losing track of what happened behind him as the enemies fell in droves in the front. But his unexpected assailant had been struck down by what definitely had been a Wisp, which had saved his life for sure.

Looking at where the Wisp had approximately come from, which was one of the trees standing proudly around the clearing, Silver could have sworn he could see a person in there, though it had been too dark for him to make out any of their features. He had stayed for a little while, glaring at the tree while hoping that his saviour would come out and introduce themselves, but no such luck; the clearing stayed quiet and nothing had been revealed, and he had been called back to HQ before he could decide if he wanted to investigate more. But he was absolutely sure that there had been someone.

Silver decided that it was best for now to not tell his friends, with how little he had to go on. Well, he decided as his eyes grew tired and he got up to go to sleep, with the way things were going he could definitely use a guardian angel. Even though he still couldn't fully wrap his head around what exactly had happened, he knew for sure that he would see his saviour again.