| Written by: | Ian Flynn |
| Year: | Two |
| Set Between: | Infection and Crisis City |
| Issue Count: | 4 |
After the excitement of fighting against Neo Metal Sonic with the Restoration, Tangle the Lemur is bored out of her mind in her peaceful hometown. However, excitement soon finds her when she hears a ruckus outside Jewel's museum. Jewel panics, afraid that the Babylon Rogues have come back, but Tangle finds out it's Sonic the Hedgehog being chased and shot at by... Whisper the Wolf?
Tangle catches up with Sonic, who explains that Eggman put a mind-control chip in Whisper's mask. Tangle engages Whisper and manages to remove her mask, but Whisper then uses it to reveal that the "Sonic" she was chasing is actually an imposter. Tangle invites Whisper to Jewel's museum so she can explain what's going on, and Whisper obliges.
Whisper explains that the "Sonic" she was chasing is a shapeshifting mercenary named Mimic who took on Sonic's form and started causing trouble. Whisper, who was hunting Mimic anyway for some reason, caught on and started trailing him. Tangle sees this as a call to adventure and jumps at it, eventually convincing Whisper to let her come along and help. Just then, Mimic leaves a note on the museum door, inviting Whisper to put an end to their chase once and for all.
The invite leads Tangle and Whisper to an abandoned Eggman base. They manage to infiltrate the base, but Mimic disguises himself as Jewel and uses her voice, and then Whisper's appearance, to trick Tangle and lock her in a safe. He then uses Tangle's appearance and tries to trick Whisper, but Whisper doesn't fall for it and manages to get the upper hand. Before she can crush Mimic, however, Mimic tells her about the safe and the bombs he rigged in the lab.
Forced to choose between saving her friend and finally bringing Mimic to justice, Whisper runs off to find Tangle. She cuts Tangle out of the safe, but with the bombs starting to explode, Tangle pushes both of them right back inside. The safe protects them from the explosions, and Whisper tells Tangle to go home. Tangle is upset because she screwed up, but Whisper tells her it's because she doesn't want to lose another friend that she wants Tangle to leave. Tangle tells Whisper to tell her exactly what's going on between her and Mimic, and Whisper starts to tell about her past.
In the past, she was part of an anti-Eggman mercenary group called the Diamond Cutters. A lot of their operations revolved around sabotaging and destroying Eggman bases to help break the stranglehold on the world he established while he had Sonic locked up. However, on their last mission together, Mimic betrayed them to Eggman, and everyone but Whisper was killed. Mimic managed to convince Eggman that he had killed them all, but Whisper's later actions revealed his deception, and now Eggman has demanded that Mimic finish what he started.
Tangle, now understanding Whisper's pain, comes up with a plan to beat Mimic at his own game. Knowing that he would have to come back to find solid proof of Whisper's demise, they leave Mimic a message of their own: "We end this where we started."
"Where we started" is the former home base of the Diamond Cutters, and the attack starts with a bunch of robots that are quickly shot down by Whisper. Whisper reveals those are just decoys, and Mimic would be entering the base now. Tangle takes the cue and enters the base herself, where she finds Sonic, who claims he came to help. Tangle leads him to the trap they had planned, which turns out to be a replay of Mimic's former comrades. The "Sonic" that was there was Mimic, and this time, Tangle wasn't fooled by his shapeshifting.
Tangle asks why Mimic would betray his friends, and Mimic reveals they weren't friends to him, just a means to an end. The two of them fight, with Whisper eventually entering the fray. Between the two of them, Mimic is defeated and enwrapped in Tangle's tail. Whisper is prepared to give him the finishing shot, but Tangle talks her down.
They turn Mimic over to Tails, who traps him in an escape-proof chamber. Mimic vows that he'll escape, but Tangle reminds him that if he escapes, Eggman might find him and eliminate him for failing his mission and letting a bunch of badniks get destroyed. With Mimic locked away and Whisper having successfully avenged her team, Tangle and Whisper go their separate ways, promising to meet up again someday.
Tropes featured in this miniseries
- Arc Villain: Mimic is the main antagonist for this miniseries, with Eggman as more of a Greater-Scope Villain.
- Apologetic Attacker: Tangle, both times. The first is when she attacks Whisper, who she mistakenly believes is being mind-controlled. The second is when she and Mimic clash in the old Diamond Cutters base, with Mimic provoking her into attacking, which she apologizes for punching Mimic who has taken Jewel's appearance.
- Bluff the Imposter: After being tricked by Mimic several times, Tangle finally manages to turn the tables by pretending to be fooled by his impersonation of Sonic to lure him into a trap.
- Bombproof Appliance: Mimic rigged the entire Eggman base with bombs. With no way to escape, Tangle places herself and Whisper into the same safe Mimic trapped her in, despite her Claustrophobia. It proves effective, protecting them both from the impending explosion.
- Boom, Headshot!: Averted. When Mimic is finally caught, Whisper prepares to blow his brains out, but Tangle stops her.
- Break the Cutie: The flashback shows that Whisper had a much brighter personality before Mimic's betrayal turned her into what she is in the present.
- The Cameo: A horse and a porcupine based on Charley Parkhearse and Sequoia Loganberry from Tangle & Whisper penciler/inker Evan Stanley's planned original story, Ensouled, show up on the first page of issue #1.
- Claustrophobia: Enclosure in small spaces is revealed to be Tangle's worst nightmare, and the one thing the otherwise-fearless lemur is truly scared of. Mimic unknowingly triggers her phobia when he locks her in a safe, and she even hesitates to put Whisper's mask on out of fear. It's hinted this isn't the first time she has been in this situation.
- Continuity Nod: After seeing that the Shadow Androids were the ones who killed Whisper's former teammates, Tangle realizes that seeing Shadow aboard the ship before they fought Neo Metal Sonic must have been awkward. Whisper acknowledges it's not Shadow's fault.
- Cruel Mercy: After Mimic is beaten, Tangle convinces Whisper to have him imprisoned, living in shame of defeat, rather than killed. Tangle later warns Mimic to behave as Eggman can hunt him down if the doctor ever finds out he failed again.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Whisper versus Mimic disguised as Tangle in Issue #2. Despite several close calls, Whisper soon has Mimic at her mercy and is ready to finish him off until he reveals where he trapped Tangle. Knowing she can't kill him and save Tangle before his bombs go off, she's forced to let him go.
- Stored in Whisper's mask are a number of video logs, one of which shows her old team, the Diamond Cutters, utterly demolishing a whole legion of Badniks.
- Et Tu, Brute?: Mimic and Whisper were part of the Diamond Cutters, a band of mercenaries that had helped the Resistance during their war against Eggman. Mimic decided to switch sides with Eggman to survive, leading his allies to their doom in an ambush. Whisper survives because one of the other mercenaries warned her to stay at a distance, allowing her to escape when Mimic made his move. Mimic had convinced Eggman the job was done when he couldn't find Whisper, but is commanded to finish the job when he learned she was still alive. As Mimic was one of Whisper's allies, his betrayal is what led to her current characterization.
- When the Blue Cube Wisp learns about Mimic's betrayal, he abandons him and soon joins Whisper.
- Freak Out:
- In the first issue, Tangle steals Whisper's mask under the assumption that it's booby-trapped. Whisper briefly panics before composing herself and angrily demanding her mask back.
- A much more serious example happens to Tangle. When Mimic lures her to a safe and locks her inside, Tangle loses it and bangs on the door screaming to be let out before freezing stiff in terror. When Whisper comes to the rescue, Tangle crawls out of the safe looking as if she just saw a ghost.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Smithy the Lion, the Diamond Cutters' leader. Judging from what little is seen of him, he could have given Tails (who himself appears at the end of the miniseries) and Eggman a run for their money! Whisper even describes him as a "genius" while reminiscing about her late comrades.
- Jump Scare: Tangle gets one when Whisper shows her a video of Mimic (disguised as Sonic) putting on his Game Face while brandishing a knife.
- Let's You and Him Fight: Mimic, disguised as Sonic, manipulates Tangle into attacking Whisper to get the latter off his back. Tangle relents after Whisper explains what's going on.
- The Load: Tangle initially treats her team-up with Whisper as just another adventure. For the most part, it gets in the way since Whisper preferred to work alone. Once Tangle learns the truth of why Whisper is after Mimic in the first place, she takes things more seriously.
- Never Found the Body: Mimic was initially forced to track down Whisper because Eggman discovered she was still alive despite his claims to have finished her off. When Mimic claimed to have done his job right during this arc, Eggman forces him back to the site to make sure there's a corpse this time.
- Nightmare Face: Mimic revealing his Black Eyes of Crazy and Skeleton Motif while disguised as Sonic, Jewel, and Vector results in one of these each time.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: The "Guardian Angel" title wasn't Whisper's idea. People just called her that because she's always showing up to help, which is why Silver referred to her as such.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Usually aloof and quiet, Whisper is shown throughout this mini-series to be prone to getting angry or even yelling, either by her quest for revenge or the fear of losing someone close to her. During her encounter with Mimic, she is shown as extremely pissed, yet just struggling not to raise her voice.
- Out-of-Character Alert: Tangle realizes that "Whisper" is a fake because she's talking plainly and isn't carrying her Wispon but, by then, it's too late for her to prevent Mimic from kicking her into a safe.
- Properly Paranoid: One of Whisper's old teammates had told her to remain at a distance, suspicious about heir next target. This premonition saved her life when Mimic's betrayal costs everyone else their lives.
- Shapeshifter Swan Song: Mimic goes through one as he struggles in vain against Tangle's elastic tail.
- Shapeshifter Guilt Trip: Twice by Mimic.
- He pulls it first on Whisper, where he transforms into her deceased Diamond Cutter teammates, trying to pin their deaths on her. While she's stunned at first, Whisper immediately retaliates against him, though is forced to stop once Mimic informs her that Tangle is in danger.
- The second time, Mimic avoids being attacked by Tangle by quickly changing into Jewel, her best friend. This annoys Tangle, to hold her punch back, though apologizes for attacking Jewel while Mimic has taken on her appearance.
- Suddenly Shouting: Whisper finally talks in a voice louder than a whisper when she yells why she doesn't want Tangle involved in her mission.Whisper: I WON'T LOSE ANOTHER FRIEND! I CAN'T!
- Tragic Keepsake: Whisper's Cool Mask is her own but the recording stored, recounting her time with her old team and the events of Mimic's betrayal, serves as this. When Tangle asks why she kept such painful memories all this time, Whisper states its her way to "Never Forgive [Mimic's actions and] Never Forget [her friends]".
- What Measure Is a Mook?: Tangle compares trying to kill a living person like Mimic, evil as he is, to Eggman's Badniks, robots who can be destroyed to rescue the animals trapped inside. She stops Whisper from executing Mimic not because of the "If you kill him" trope, but because she would regret it later.
- You Monster!: After Mimic shows no remorse for his betrayal and dismisses Whisper and the Diamond Cutters as "a means to an end", an outraged Tangle sums him up accordingly:Tangle: YOU ARE THE WORST!
