"The worst thing about being a lone survivor is... the memories that survive with you. If it were only possible to make your mind a complete blank. But you can't. And the people you love are more frightening ghosts than anything your imagination could come up with. And you can't out run them."

-Scott Bernard, Robotech, The Invid Invasion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj6HvIIFdoI

Art by: https://www.deviantart.com/solaris-stane

Title inspired by: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roi6LfS01ok

"Whisper frantically sprinted up to the door with her orange Wisp and found it way too silence when she pounded on it. Trying to regain her cool, she insisted to her Wisp that it was obviously soundproofed but barely believed herself. She blasted where the door should've bisected but ran out of charge way too fast. However, her Wisp came up to her and suggests their last resort: Color Power.

It was something Mobians could generally handle but not for long and not without considerable strain on the body. But any risk was worth it for Whisper as she let Orange imbue themself into her body and gave her strength to grab both halves of the steel door. With a mighty heave, she slowly but surely opened the doors with every tooth gritted and both eyes wide open like never before.

Once she'd get in, Whisper would help even the odds for the Diamond Cutters with a surprise attack. They'd nab Mimic and maybe even get him to take them straight to Eggman himself. It was a fantasy she told herself with every grunt and move of the door. When the horizontal secondary doors opened up in response to the break-in, Whisper lifted her head up high to look ahead and find her friends.

At least... what was left of them.

Her eyes found the room dimly lit from the many ceiling lights that were caught up in the laser crossfire. Her gaze adjusted while lowering to find a select amount of surviving Shadow Androids that had something or other broken on them. They were glitching but functional enough to recognize a fourth Diamond Cutter they hadn't detected until now.

Then she found the floor littered with their comrades torn to scrap metal.

And Clair.

Slinger.

Smithy.

Whisper felt the world fall out from under her when she saw their wounds and her body become numb. She wanted to call out to them but her breathing alone had become too shaky in borderline hyperventilation. Just clinging to bisected doors was all she could do to keep from falling over.

“…no…”

They were dead.

“…please…”

Mimic actually betrayed them.

“…why…”

She… failed them.

Orange Wisp had exited her body if only to process the carnage themself. They saw the other three Wisps on the floor, worn out from how much firepower they had to provide, and rushed towards them. They could barely float up when a number of Shadow Androids stepped up towards them, clearly hoping to finish the job.

The sight of this caused Whisper to snap back to reality just enough. Her teeth clenched and her brow knit into something way too tight. Wolves like her learned to tone their voice to a hush on a consistent basis in order to maintain stealth be it in hiding or giving ideas during battle.

The feral scream that Whisper bellowed out threw it all to the wind while she sprint straight for the surviving robots. It was enough to get the Shadow Androids’ attention from the Wisps.

Whether it’d be enough to defeat them… barely mattered."

Many thanks to Solaris-Stane for a stylish depiction of how Whisper reacted to the betrayal their cam feeds showed us. I also headcanon that outside of game mechanics, Mobians without individual powers can use Color Power but only for short bursts.