Chapter Text
“So… um… tell the others I’m sorry. Especially Whisper. She’s gonna take it really hard,” Tangle did her best to keep her words steady as she felt the metal virus crawling against her skin, the zombots trying to claw through her tail blockade.
“Sure thing. Thanks for everything,” Sonic assured her before embracing her. Tangle desperately wished to hold onto him forever. God, this was probably the first physical contact Sonic has had since he got infected. It might be her last.
But she couldn’t drag him down, drag her friends down. They needed him uninfected if they had any chance of surviving this nightmare. She was oddly comforted to still be able to feel the wet tears rolling down her cheek. A reassurance she wasn’t gone just yet and wouldn’t be gone for long. As long as she had hope in her friends. In Whisper.
“Alright! Alright! Get moving!” Tangle pushed the hedgehog off of her, turning her face away. She couldn’t stomach to see his face, probably still filled with guilt and dread as the metal virus continued to take her.
“Tangle…”
“I’ve told you. I’ve got this! GO!” With those last words, Sonic ran off, back to the ship, back to protect her friends. To protect Whisper.
She sniffed, wiping her tears.
“Let’s go then!” She declared as the zombots began slipping through the barrier made by her own tail. She began duking out punches and kicks at the crowd of familiar but zombified faces.
“You might as well turn back! You used to be my neighbors! You know I won’t let you past!”
Her neighbors, she was supposed to be a hero, a protector for them. Sure, they had saved a decent chunk of survivors, but so many of the people she loved and adored were infected. If she hadn’t let her guard down when she came here, hadn’t expected to find the people she trusted to be okay and uninfected, perhaps Jewel wouldn’t have infected her. Maybe she wouldn’t be disappointing her friends by failing to come back safely. Disappointing Whisper.
Every regret she had, it came back to her best friend. The once solitary wolf, who was traumatized from so much loss, that she closed herself off to everyone. But Tangle, in all her stupid optimism, made her open her shell and become friends. Promised her that she wouldn’t have to worry about losing her. Now Tangle had gone and done just that. Let Whisper lose her.
She thought back on what she told Sonic. She was sorry, deeply sorry for hurting Whisper.
But… she knew she wished she could’ve said something else. If she was braver- no selfish. Whisper would already be devastated from losing her friend, whatever silly confessions Tangle withheld weren’t important. They wouldn’t change anything. It'd just let Whisper know Tangle was a coward who was never truly honest with her.
Tangle heard the roar of an engine and let her head angle just enough to see the rising shuttle without taking her sight off the relentless zombots.
She closed her eyes and smiled.
“Don’t keep me waiting too long…”
They wouldn’t fail her. Whisper wouldn’t fail her. She never did.
She swung a fist into the face of a grey zombot.
“Hey! I’m not done yet! Yee!” She felt the sudden, infected coldness reach her back, spreading up her spine.
“Oh, that’s unpleasant!” She wondered if that’s how Sonic felt 24/7, constantly fighting off the metallic plague. She couldn’t stop herself from imagining Whisper feeling this same horrid sensation, the image of her losing control of her body, her flesh enveloped by sickening steel.
“C-c’mon! I’m s-still standing!” She cried out against the zombots, against virus that began wrapping around her arms and legs faster and faster.
“Still fighting!” She felt the virus creep across her skull, the metal casing heavy on her brow. As she punched and punched the zombots, she saw her hands envelop almost entirely in a glimmer shine.
“Whisper, I’m so sorry,” her voice echoed in her mind as the virus crept through her neurons, rewiring them into Eggman’s wretched programming.
“I’m sorry for abandoning you, I’m sorry for promising I would never let you get hurt again.”
A blue zombot approached her slowly, directly in front of her. She wasn’t aggressive. Like she knew that the threat would be gone momentarily.
“I’m sorry for being too scared to tell you the truth. To tell you how much you really mean to me.”
“Still-” Her voice cut itself off, as did her fist, just shy of the blue zombots face. In the last second her mind was her own, she made her final apology for the mistake she’d regret the most.
“I’m sorry that I fell in love with you.”