Tangle and Whisper found themselves stranded in the middle of Central City, separated from their entire squad with the exception of each other. Stranded in a city overrun by a wave of enemies even larger than the first one that had attacked the city. It was just them, a small rag tag team of soldiers, and a whole army of robots right on their doorstep.
The entire squad was forced to retreat to the very edge of the city, as it was the only section of the city that wasn't under the Empire's control. And with there only being one spot left to conquer, every single trooper from the Empire who were currently invading the city grouped up to gang up on the sole survivors and take the final chunk of the city for their own.
But the Empire were being smart, they marched toward their destination with a light pink-ish shield with hexagon patterns protecting them from any sort of incoming artillery. And there weren't nearly enough people on the Alliance's side to just jump into the shield and fight the hordes themselves. They were, quite literally, out of options.
"Artillery guns, machine guns, my Wisps, nothing is even coming close to penetrating their shield." moaned Whisper, losing hope and giving into despair.
"Agh, don't give up just yet Whisper!" replied Tangle, trying to lift up some spirits. "We'll think of something, I'm sure of it. But we need to act fast, they're starting to get close."
The Empire's forces were approximately about 2 and a half miles away from where the Alliance was, so they still had a little bit of time to plan their resistance. Tangle and Whisper observed their enemies from the balcony of a really tall building very similar to the spire in Graffiti City. Not only to see what exactly they were dealing with, but also using that information to think of some sort of strategy to successfully fight back and free the city.
"Have a you found anything, Whisper?" inquired Tangle.
"Nothing but a sea of robots." sighed Whisper. She then zoomed in on a large, peculiar object that was shaped like an old school video game console, but much larger.
"Wait, what's that?!" said Whisper after discovering said object.
"What's what?" asked Tangle, her interest instantly peaking.
"There's some sort of...box like thing in the center of the group." informed Whisper. "Could that possibly be the shield generator?"
"If we sneak in there undetected, we could destroy it, knocking down their shield and letting our big guns light 'em up!" said Tangle who's expression grew happier and more optimistic throughout the sentence. "But...how are we gonna get past all of them?" Tangle's optimism quickly diminished as she realized that actually getting to the generator would be harder than she thought.
"I could do it." responded Whisper calmly, turning to Tangle. "I could sneak by everybody and take out their shield. But it would have to be just me, I need you to stay with the soldiers in case things go South."
"Aw, I would love to go with you." whined Tangle. "But yeah, if they wind up reaching us, I'm the only hope they got. And besides, I'm a little too rowdy and we would easily get caught."
There was a long pause between the two as Whisper prepared herself for the objective. Tangle began rubbing the back of her head nervously, feeling worried for her comrade and dear friend.
"I'm just worried about you. I'm not sure if you're gonna make it back, and what would I do if I didn't? You're my partner."
"I'll be alright, don't worry." assured Whisper who came dangerously close to cracking a smile. "I've been involved in several espionage missions, I think I can sneak past a few mindless machines."
"Espionage? Like some sort of spy or mercenary or sumtin'? That's so cool! I didn't know that about you!" cheered Tangle.
"I'd...rather not talk about it. I shouldn't have even brought it up." snapped Whisper, gritting her teeth together in anger.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I just thought it was interes--" replied Tangle who had felt guilty about what she had just said after Whisper snapped back.
"Don't worry about it. Just let me move along with this stupid mission already!" growled Whisper before leaping off of the balcony and heading off toward the approaching androids.
Tangle had felt confused and concerned about Whisper's reactions. She had no idea why she responded the way that she did, but she did begin to feel pretty guilty afterwards. Maybe she had brought back some trauma that she had successfully buried within her mind and forgot about it. Whatever it was, she had angered Whisper quite a bit. Enough to make her impulsively snap at Tangle for something that had seemed so simple to her.
After that interesting interaction between the two, Whisper sneaked alongside the Empire's forces, sneaking behind the rubble and debris that surrounded them. After some quiet trekking, Whisper finally came close to the androids as she sat behind a building beside them and let the shield wash over her.
Whisper was able to keep herself hidden pretty well behind all of that rubble. However, when she tried to get up a little bit to get a better look at where the generator was, she accidentally kicked some nearby pebbles, causing a slight bit of noise.
The noise, as hardly noticeable as it was, was picked up by one of the androids, alerting it enough to walk over to where the sound came from. Whisper nearly panicked but was able to keep her cool and she used her cape to wrap it around her body, blending herself within the environment around her. Her dark grey cape blended in well with the rubble and smoke that laid around her.
The android couldn't detect anything that was living, so it stepped off and rejoined his mechanical brethren. After a few seconds, Whisper slowly removed the cape from around her body and she now had direct eye contact with the shield generator.
She grabbed her Variable Wispon and loaded it up with the rocket Wisp. After she was ready, she aimed her sights down on the generator and just as she was about to pull the trigger, an android noticed her and a fee of them turned their attention to Whisper. She then quickly launched a rocket into the generator, destroying it, and ultimately taking out their shield, now leaving them defenseless to the Alliance's massive artillery cannons.
As Whisper ran off and fired back at any enemy chasing after her, the Alliance were ready to unleash hell onto the Empire's army. These cannons were absolutely massive stationary guns that fired a massive plasma bomb into the air and causing a deadly amount of damage wherever it lands. The Empire's invasion was depleted more and more by the minute, thankfully. The Alliance needed to catch a break for once.
But that break was shortly over as the two Arachnomechs that were a part of this attack began to fire missiles back at the Alliance's artillery, even destroying a couple of the guns. Just when the Alliance thought they were in the clear, their only hopes of combating the opposition were growing depleted.
"Shit! I gotta do something!" growled Tangle with determination. "Our guns are getting destroyed by those big spider things by the minute. Time to show them who's boss."
Tangle clamped her fist inside her hand and used her tail to propel herself on top of a building. She ran across the many buildings that were either heavily damaged, or completely destroyed, so her parkour across them proved to be quite challenging.
Eventually she made her way to the Arachnomechs, jumping right on top of the first one she saw. While trying to keep her balance and pay attention to the other Arachnomech at the same time, Tangle wrapped her tail around the androids' laser cannon, forcing to uncontrollably fire it. She then started using her strength to force the Arachnomech to turn toward the other one, causing the one Arachnomech to fire at the other one and destroying it.
The Arachnomech fell straight down onto the ground below, Whisper was right underneath of it and was forced to jump out of the way right at the last second. Fortunately, all of the robots that were chasing her were crushed. Whisper looked up toward Tangle, sighed and shook her head before returning to battle.
Tangle still had her tail wrapped around the mech's cannon, but instead of aiming it at other androids, she decided to rip it right of its cybernetic socket. Tangle, with the gun still in her tail's grasp, began to swing her tail around, eventually getting faster. After some spinning, Tangle had enough power to hurl the cannon right into the Arachnomech's eye, causing it to get knocked back a little bit.
"Whisper!" shouted Tangle, prompting Whisper to finish the android off.
Whisper then fired another rocket at the partially blinded Arachnomech, finally destroying it. And with the two huge machines now out of the way, the Alliance could take a breather and no longer worry about their artillery being destroyed.
Tangle turned straight toward Whisper, "So ya ready for that hug yet?"
Whisper gave a non verbal disapproval to Tangle's request, simply shaking her head slightly.
"Ah, suit yourself then." shrugged Tangle. "I'll get you one of these days!"
The two returned to fighting the threats that still approached the edge of the city. They fought together, side by side, successfully eliminating any threat that came between them and the rest of the Alliance. Pretty soon, a particularly large explosion occured right in front of Tangle and Whisper, big enough to knock the two on their feet.
"Well that was quite the explosion." wowed Tangle as she gazed upon the massive blast. "Did that come from one of our guns?"
"Not quite." said a familiar voice as it was soon revealed to be a napalm strike from Blaze the Cat herself. She slowly flew down to join her two allies to gather some information on the battle at hand.
"Yooo, it's Blaze!" gawked Tangle in a dorky manner as if she were Blaze's biggest fan.
"And Silver!" groaned Silver as he also flew down to join the rest of his team.
"Yeah hello, whatever--So Blaze! What'cha doing here?" asked Tangle who was leaping for joy.
"We heard there was a disturbance in Central City so we came to investigate." responded Blaze.
"But it seems like you've taken care of it pretty well!" cheered Silver. "Too bad the same can't be said for most of the planet."
"How bad has it gotten?" concerned Tangle.
"Quite bad." responded Blaze with an equal amount of concern. "Damn near the entire planet is under Eggman's control. The Alliance is all split up and separated all across the planet. Me and Silver are damn lucky that we've stood side by side throughout this whole thing."
"Sounds like me and Whisper." said Tangle. "We haven't left each other's side since this whole thing began, and while the situation could be so much better, there's no doubt we'd be dead if we weren't looking out for each other."
Whisper cracked a slight smile that she tried her best to hide. Luckily, nobody saw it.
"But even with your guys's bond, you're not gonna make it much farther with how bad everything's been going, and how it's getting worse." groaned Silver with clear despair and depression in his voice.
"About that, there's word going around that Eggman has begun building a world of his own. If we don't act sooner, the planet will completely under his control. It will become his world." said Blaze.
"Ah, don't worry you guys!" cheered Tangle, trying to boost everyone's morale. "I know we're gonna come out on top once again. I get that the circumstances are a little crazier this time around, but I've just got this feeling...this gut feeling that somehow, some way, we'll pull a win out of our ass and defeat Eggman once and for all."
"Y'know...your enthusiasm reminds me of Sonic." said Blaze with a optimistic smile, before it became a hopeless frown again. "If only he were here with us..."