Chapter Text
Disclaimer: See first chapter.
Epilogue
Tangle wasn't sure what to believe. A strange clock had shunted Whisper twenty three years to the future? That was an odd story for Whisper to come up with in only a few moments.
Worst part was the wisps actually agreed with her, and there were plenty of Whisper's story that didn't make sense. Like where'd she get the nega-wisp. And weren't those dangerous?
Or the yellow wisp who was awesome. Seriously, Tangle didn't know if she was just seeing things or what but the wisp could pretty much drill through anything and was going to be her best buddy for years and years and maybe if she ever was able to steal Whisper's translator again then she'd get to talk to them and that would be awesome!
The last thing that Tangle had done was put in the battery. She just wanted to turn on the computer, but then the wires all connected up to the weird computer thing. She thought something more was going to happen.
Instead Whisper caught it, and nothing happened. There was no flicker, there was no quick rush of anything. It was as if Whisper hadn't even left. And yet her cloak was ripped apart, as if she'd been in a massive battle, she had two more canisters, both of which looked far better than her usual did, and most importantly she was missing rations.
Oh and Silver was there. Tangle wasn't honestly surprised by that one, the hedgehog came and went more times than Sonic did on chili dog day.
Lanolin was still waiting in the car for them, and it was odd to see that Whisper almost cried looking at the sheep again. When Lanolin sent a questioning look to Tangle, all Tangle could do was shrug. She had no idea what the wolf was doing anymore. Silver followed them, but every time Tangle tried to ask him something all he did was shrug with some sick knowing smile.
And there was the fact that Whisper had stopped talking about tracking Mimic for the entire trip. That was odd too. It was if someone had replaced Whisper, and yet the wisps wouldn't have answered to her if it was someone that wasn't her.
It looked like her. It talked like her. In Tangle's mind, that was her, just...a bit different. That was fine. A boring Whisper was a boring Whisper, and a bored Tangle was a dangerous one.
Also the fact that Whisper took the wheel from Lanolin and was a far better driver than Tangle or Lanolin could ever think. "You think she got into something she shouldn't have?" Lanolin asked after a moment. Whisper had been driving for a few hours, and seemingly knew exactly where she was going despite the fact that Tangle knew she had been asleep when going through this area last.
"I don't think so. Cyan, did Whisper get into anything?" Tangle whispered to the cyan wisp next to her. The wisp took one of her tentacles, or appendages...what were those things called? Wispicles? Yeah, wispicles. And slapped it on their face, before slapping Tangle's face. Silver laughed.
And that was odd now wasn't it?
Whisper only slowed down near one blank area where no one was around. It looked like a dirt hill, to Tangle's mind. There was some grass, but it was mostly just pure red dirt everywhere. "The van's not supposed to go this off-road," Lanolin complained quietly.
Whisper continued to say nothing, before she stepped on the gas again and they were flying down some of those hills.
"I didn't think we came this way did we?" Tangle asked Lanolin after a while. Whisper had finally found the road, and the trip was surprisingly peaceful. If Lanolin had been driving then Tangle had no doubt the drive would have been stressful at its best.
The less said about Tangle's driving, the better.
Lanolin shook her head. "Alright Whisper, what's going on? You've been acting funny," Tangle asked. "It's making me worried."
"You don't need to worry. Everything is okay now."
She'd said that, too. 'Everything is okay now.' As if everything wasn't okay earlier? Tangle looked over at Green, expecting the same universal 'I don't know' shrug only to find that they were acting rather peaceful, just slightly hovering from side to side. She looked over at Silver. "I don't know if they're okay now, but they will be. She'll see to that," he answered.
Actually all of the wisps seemed rather tired. Tangle could understand Cyan, because they'd powered up one of the docs computers for a while. But the others? All they'd done was float around. Well, no, Green had done his hover thing...
The Restoration building was coming up rather fast, surprisingly. It had taken them days to get out to Eggman's old base, but Whisper had done the drive in just under ten hours. "Did you know these shortcuts?" Tangle asked.
"Tangle, we've only been on the road for nine and a half hours. No, I didn't," Lanolin answered sternly. "If I had, that would have made this trip much faster."
Whisper didn't turn into the usual exit. In fact she seemed to miss it by a surprisingly large amount, before she went off-roading again, into a hidden door that Tangle had no idea existed and who knew her girlfriend was this cool!?
"How'd you know this was here!?" Tangle's eyes lit up as the secret door opened up. There were a few of the old soldiers there, but once they saw who it was they let down their arms. "I had no idea this was here!" Tangle could imagine her eyes were stars.
"This is usually where I park it, but I go around. There's an entrance down here?" Lanolin asked as she looked behind them. "Whisper, how did you know?"
"Shadow mentioned it."
"Right, because you just so casually go off on adventures with Shadow. That's totally you," Tangle murmured. She wasn't sure how much of her sarcasm poured through, but she was hoping it was enough. Shadow and Whisper almost never got along.
Mostly because Shadow didn't care, and Whisper was still going through PTSD with the Shadow robots. Which...in hindsight to Tangle, kind of made perfect sense as to why they didn't really get along.
Whisper pulled up into a spot, as Lanolin tensed. "This is the usual spot isn't it?" Tangle asked.
"Yeah, I just never thought Whisper noticed..."
"I notice a lot of things," Whisper murmured under her breath. Tangle and Lanolin shared another glance.
"Alright, what's really going on? Is this some kind of surprise party? Come on, tell me! I'll act surprised, who are we surprising!? Is it Tails? Silver?" Tangle started, trying to act not worried. Silver simply laughed in the back. "Okay, so probably not you!" Tangle shouted to the hedgehog in the back, making him laugh only harder.
"No surprises. I need to talk with Jewel."
Lanolin was busy packing stuff up. Silver stayed behind to help her, his pyschokinesis making things go much faster. That just left Whisper and Tangle to head off for the debriefing. The sheep should have been there, but by now it was obvious that something was wrong with Whisper, and Tangle wanted it figured out. If she could just ask the wisps!
They were still chirping to each other, and the new yellow one was looking around with super wide eyes, as was the nega-wisp. When had Whisper gotten a nega-wisp? She'd thought that all of them had disappeared.
The Restoration looked as it always did. Hundreds of islanders around every corner. Tangle could hear Belle whistling a happy tune from her workshop, and although Whisper stopped to listen, she moved onwards to Jewel's desk all the same.
"Whoa, hey Diamond Cutters! Whisper, you know you have a nega-wisp following you?" Sonic called out from the top. In one of his hands was a chili dog, the steam still freshly rising.
"Her name is Lavender," Whisper said. Tangle stared at her for a moment, before turning to the nega-wisp.
"You have a name!? You can name yourselves and you never told me oh come on this was going to be perfect I could all call you by super awesome names and everyone would be 'Tangle who you talking to' and I'm like 'My best wispy friends in the world!'"
Orange said something, and Whisper cracked a sad smile. Yellow did...something, and Tangle felt an overwhelming sense of curiosity, confusion, and anxiety. Which was weird because right now she hadn't been feeling any of those things!
"Huh. Just wanted to let you know," Sonic shrugged, before he rested his back on the railing and ate his chili dog.
The door to Jewel's desk was open, as it usually was during the daytime. The usual massive amounts of paper sat around her, but the bug didn't seem too worried about it, casually grabbing pieces of paper, reading over them, and putting them into another pile or signing them.
"Neo Diamond Cutters, reporting back from Eggman outpost I don't remember which one!" Tangle announced as they walked in.
"Eggman outpost five-A," Jewel said without a shred of hesitation. "Welcome back. Lanolin still packing up?"
"Yeah, Whisper's been acting a bit off-" Tangle started to whisper before Whisper took off her mask and handed it onto the desk.
"Um...Whisper?" Jewel asked.
"Watch. And bring along...Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Blaze if she's here, Shadow, Rouge, Omega...Belle too."
Cyan gave a soft chirp.
"It needs to be done. The future must be changed, but things still have to be done the right way. Silver said as much. I'm not leaving Violet and Mata to nonexistence."
"Who's that?" Tangle asked Jewel after a moment. The beetle glanced at her and shrugged. "First she's mentioned it to me..."
"It doesn't sound like Restoration members. Who are they, Whisper?" Jewel asked, surprisingly kindly.
"Friends," Whisper answered instantly. Tangle rolled her eyes. Now of course Whisper was going to be live up to her name and be quiet.
"Alright...but what's the mask for?" Jewel said, still just as confused as Tangle was feeling.
In response Whisper grabbed it, and opened up a small port just under the ear. "Grab the projector, underneath your desk," she said quietly. Tangle blinked. The mask had a recording option? Why hadn't she known!? She could have taken so many selfies with it!
Jewel reached under her desk for a small projector, and it took a moment to find the right connector for it. Whatever one it was, Tangle couldn't identify it, but Jewel found and set it to play on the wall.
The film that followed was by far the most horrific story that Tangle had ever seen. And what was more...she knew that almost every second of it had happened.
Waking up twenty three years later. Heading back to the Restoration. Seeing Shadow, the same as he was now, next to an older Belle. Although that movie streaming service sounded like a neat idea.
Seeing Sonic disabled like that, and having four kids. Okay, two of which were his, and two were Tails'. And honestly, she could see Tails and Blaze get together. They didn't spend much time with each other...yet...but now that Tangle knew she was totally going to ship them to no end. Crackship? Sure! Anchors aweigh!
Green Hill was...brutal. But seeing Violet, Tails' daughter pilot the Tornado like that...adventure was in her blood. Tangle knew it! And then Spiral Hill, and Jewel was terrible at hiding the tears down her face as she stared at an older version of herself.
Finding Lavender, and killing Old Man Henderson...she knew Whisper had killed before. She never liked to, and would never lie when Tangle asked, but she had. It was just surprising how brutal and quick it actually was. That was less than one night! And then Surge and Kit had done well for themselves. They weren't in the Restoration right now, they'd just been chased out not long ago, but they'd be back. Eventually. This just kinda proved it.
Seeing the Time Eater though...that spooked something in Tangle's bones, and she wasn't sure what. There was so much information flowing through here, it wasn't a surprise when Sonic and Tails walked in, followed by Rouge and Amy. The film kept playing.
Finding Fern Valley, the talks on Chaos. It was amusing to see the looks of confusion on the newcomers faces as they faced information flooding in the same way that Tangle would have done had she not watched the previous bits. Her question though was where was she in this?
Speaking of, where was Tails in all this, or Silver? The silver hedgehog had followed them in, and was watching playfully from the back. Then there was the Zerotime thing.
Tangle wasn't sure what to think of all that nonsense. And there was a lot of nonsense there. Things that could just shoot some kind of rapid aging raybeam or something? That must have been fun, for everyone else. The palace of ever changing nightmares being chased by said everchanging nightmare. How was Whisper still sane if she managed to go through all this?
Finding out Eggman died in a few years was neat. Sonic almost walked out when he saw that...Mata? The cat. Had brought him back, but she managed to hold him back in as the in-film Sonic and Tails started to have an argument.
Also, Tails was surprisingly handsome in the future? When that would happen Tangle didn't know, but she caught Rouge giving him more than her usual side eye. Even Amy was looking impressed, but she was also looking at her older self and nodding. Tangle would have to agree; the pink hedgehog aged gracefully.
Her own image though. That was terrifying. She could imagine why Jewel was practically crying during her section. Seeing her gaunt face looking back, and then...the Time Eater. And the Enforcers. And the Time Eater.
And then White Space. "Oh hey I remember that!" Sonic finally piped up. Immediately he got shushed by about ten different voices from the back. Tangle looked to see a bunch of the other office assistants and workers in the back, munching on popcorn.
She used her tail to grab one from Bob. She doubted he'd notice, as it was still rather full, and she started munching on it.
White Space, and the Time Eater. The Final Color Blaster which only made Tangle want more of the translators so that way she could totally be awesome with it and just blast everyone away and be super cool!
And then...that weird place. In the future. Where nothing was answered but everything was answered and Tangle wasn't sure how. She felt that things were right in her bones, but she wasn't sure how she knew that?
She glanced over at some of the people in the back, including Bob the Lynx who'd managed to grab some popcorn for this. She snuck her tail around everyone, making sure to poke him on the shoulder to get him to turn the other way as she snatched it from him.
"Alright, what did we just watch?" Sonic asked as soon as the 'film' ended. "Because uh, that's a lot of work for that. Good job to whoever put that in. Special effects were great, but man, that's not how Time Eaters act.
"It's from the future," Whisper said simply.
"You grab a Time Stone or something? Let me tell you, the future ain't worth messing around with."
"Play it from the start. He'll understand," Whisper said instantly. Jewel took a deep breath, and nodded, starting the recording from scratch again.
The second play through had much more discussion, and much more pausing. "Wait, how does this whole clock thing work? It can't just go to a set point," Tails asked.
"They explain it later on," Rouge answered. "Those odd figures in the future. Also, you and fire cat hm? Should we be trying to organize a date?" Rogue teased.
In Tangle's mind the answer was an immediate yes as she shook her head no. "This is future knowledge. We shouldn't have this," she said. "Whisper...I...feel bad that you went through all of that, but it's not going to happen now." She grabbed a few more pieces. Bob made the best popcorn. Imagine what she could do with the wisps! Could wisps make popcorn? Why couldn't they!?
Whisper stared up at her. "It will happen. Because I made a promise to some friends that I would make it better. I will undo all."
The determination in her words was surprisingly fulfilling. And it was near impossible for Tangle to be truly upset at her, because apparently she almost died like six times trying to free her future self from a prison.
"I wouldn't just wander into an ambush. Not if I didn't have any idea what lay on the other side," Rouge admonished her future self. "Well, I guess now we know not to send me to that mission whenever it pops up," she glanced at Jewel.
"Yes. We'll...this will take some time to get used to. And Tangle, where did you get popcorn?" Jewel asked her for a moment. Tangle had her tail push itself just above Sonic's head, before pointing to Bob the Lynx. Instantly the other office assistants took off running, Bob following.
"I knew Surge hated me but I didn't think she hated me that much," Sonic said as the story of what happened to his future leg popped in. "I'm surprised you couldn't also come up with some kind of robot leg for me," he turned to Tails.
"We came in before that, I was in prison apparently," Tails answered. "And Kit did that, remember?"
"I thought Sonic had a better mind for numbers than that," Amy admonished. "But running a household is quite hard."
"Especially with four kids. Yeesh. Tails, I thought I told you not to-" Sonic started.
"Sonic stop! I already know you don't need to, no, no talk of that here!" Tails cried out as he held his ears to his head.
"I was just going to say-"
"I don't want to hear it!"
Whisper just stared at the scenes of everyone and everything she'd gone through, before turning her eyes to the group in front of her. There was a smile on her face, as if she couldn't quite believe what was going on.
Tangle rolled up a chair next to her. "So...you miss this group?" she asked, leaning on the chair arms.
"Yes. Yes I did," Whisper answered softly. Then Belle joined in, and after the fourth time of rewatching it, thanks to Shadow coming in late, Tangle started to get tired.
People were filing out, and Jewel had started to do work as the projector kept playing. Whisper stayed there the entire time though, watching for those moments with Violet especially.
Tails, too, was there for a surprisingly long time, his ears perked up at the sciency bits that Tangle didn't have an ear for. But Whisper was here now, so she didn't have to worry about her doing something weird.
As she waved goodnight to everyone, she caught Tails muttering to himself. "Blaze huh...?"
Twenty three years later.
Whisper stood out on top of a cliff, the wind slowly pushing and pulling her cape out. Tangle was next to her, the same outfit looking surprisingly good on her.
"Alright Orange, Cyan. One last time checking the notes. This is where and when they're supposed to come in?" Whisper asked.
"Yep! We watched that thing hundreds of times, I'm not surprised if we could recite every bit by now!" Orange said quietly.
"Pink agrees with me. We should go in, blow the thing sky high, and be like 'hi there you remember us!?' Cyan cheered for her plan. Pink gave small pom poms on the end of his wispicles.
Tangle had given her the name. Apparently they didn't have one, as most wisps just called them 'wisp arms'. And so Tangle offered her nickname for them, and the name had just stuck.
She wished she had come up with that earlier. "Violet?" Whisper said, turning to look behind her.
Violet looked the same as Whisper had remembered her, although this one was wearing far darker clothes. "Yeah?" she asked, looking up from her phone. Whisper could see the application open that was reading the Sol Emerald's power supply. Even now, she was taking her guardian training seriously.
Hence why she was wearing dark clothing to a desert.
"You think you're ready for this?"
"No, but Mom thinks it'll be good learning, so I guess here I am," Violet murmured back. "I know you've shown me the movie a few times, but I'm still surprised each time."
"That we wanted you here?" Whisper asked.
"Honestly that one kinda surprises me too," Tangle offered, "because by all rights she's a kid and we're more than a little insane."
"We stopped Eggman for good. Long before his natural death," Whisper retorted.
"Yeah, and that was more dumb luck. I'm not one to discourage dumb luck, but it's not really something I like to lean on, you know?" Tangle said.
"It's not leaning on luck if you have a good idea of what's going to happen. That's just called preparation," Violet answered.
"Says the non-fire-fox."
"Just because I can't control fire doesn't mean I still can't burn you," Violet glared. "Aunt Whisper, Aunt Tangle's being mean again."
"Running to her right away? Come on, at least make it easy for me to get a hit in!"
"Think that the past you ever thought this was coming?" Blue asked above them. Whisper shook her head. It was far beyond anything in her wildest dreams.
She'd gotten everything. From stopping Eggman early, to giving Surge and Kit peace of mind and allowing them to get over their brainwashing and meet with their actual parents...who'd apparently been saved by the Guardian Angel more than a few times...to keeping Rouge and Omega alive and thus Shadow out of his funk, and more importantly to also let Belle out of just the Restoration.
And somehow, whether that by Rouge and Tangle's influence, which she was not blind to either of them trying to set them up, Blaze and Tails had gotten together anyways.
And with Zerotime no longer in local time, the chance of Blaze randomly disappearing for ten years or something absurd like that was no longer in the picture. And thus a Violet born of a guardian, learning to be one. That particular random chance was, according to Silver, not random at all.
And Mata, who had far more control over her powers than anything Whisper could have ever thought of. She'd come into them even earlier than she had in the other timeline, as Whisper had come to calling it. And guided by both of her parents, she was soaring over sands unknown.
Velocity and Thunder, too, were doing much better. Velocity was still a prankster, and often went running with his dad, the two of them having long races that went around the entirety of Green Hill. Thunder often went with them, being a few years younger, and wasn't quite to that speed yet, but what she didn't have in speed she made up in strength and stubbornness.
Old Man Henderson was helped by Tails and Whisper, making sure that his experiments didn't make things worse for him or Spiral Hill. There were not two Sierra's, but there was now no nega-wisp called Lavender. His experiments had turned out fruit when put on the right path, and Lavender was simply called Sierra now. A pure snow white wisp.
And with the future knowledge that Whisper had gleamed, Eggman was taken down lightly, with zero casualties on the side of the Restoration. Metal Sonic and Sage went their separate ways, with both of them knowing that their father's time was coming soon anyways. A few years later it truly had, and he passed peacefully, leaving Metal Sonic and Sage alone to continue their journeys.
"This is sandy place! I like rocky place, it over there!" Yellow chirped up from her canister. Whisper smiled, as she knocked gently on her canister. Yellow, too, had started to learn how to talk. Wisps didn't grow up naturally, it seemed, but rather learned from each other. Yellow had been on her own, and stuck in that newborn state for...Whisper didn't know. Green knew, but wasn't about to tell her. Whisper allowed them their privacy.
"It's really hot out here, and we've been out here forever," Violet complained lightly. "Please tell me that something is supposed to happen, and soon," she suggested to the world.
"Yeah, but how long is forever?" Tangle teased.
"However long it needs to be," Whisper answered, offering her hand to the two of them as the wisps went back in their capsule. Far off in the corner, the world shimmered, as where what was once sand a great large city appeared, the gates taller than even the tallest of trees. Time to free the only other person weighing her soul down.
FIN