Memories of Enigma

==Overview==
Vihn Kasigira is a spaniel boy from Liberty City, a developing hub business and modern industrialism when he is struck by a wisp, absorbing the being. But this is no ordinary wisp, the inter-dimensional creature takes permanent rest in the boy, granting him permanent wind abilities and dragging him into a world of shady scientific research and an extraterrestrial conspiracy. To the spaniel's chagrin, the world is flooded by more of these wisps, infecting more and more people, some of which who lash out and cause chaos. This makes Vihn a target of the government. Vihn must take refuge and discover both why the alien beings have inhabited his planet and save those affected and driven mad by the wisps before the same fate befalls him.
==Included Characters==
Vihn Kasigira
Amasis Khnum
Bliss Babbage
Heath Iliad 
== Memories of Enigma ==
=== Chapter I - Steel Breeze ===
Liberty City was painted with light and darkness. The tall,
steel structures of the business district leaned overhead, casting their façade
onto the busy streets below while the suburbs baked in the sun. Their only
respites were the stubby trees spread judiciously throughout the urban living
spaces and a thick breeze that careened from the hills and ridges northward. Summertime
haze rose from the dark, glimmering cement and the afternoon drudged along in
the lazy heat.
Suddenly, with
a click and high, metal wail, a screen door broke the silence. A pink hat and
pair of floppy, blond ears emerged from the abode. This boy, a teenage spaniel,
traversed from the quaint front steps to the sidewalk with a ripped piece of
notebook paper in hand. As he walked along the road, the streets were
completely bare, at least in this neighborhood.
“Hmm, it must be a Sunday”, the Mobian dog thought.
Without school, it was hard to
keep up with which day was which, especially since most days were far too hot
for plans. Today was different though. A high pressure-system made a walk to
the city far more bearable.
The spaniel had made it to the
first block outside of his street. It was there that the crackling, thin road
crossed the smooth, well-manicured boulevard leading into the main section of
Liberty City. He stood at the crosswalk for a moment, waiting for a handful of
cars to speed along and clear a path.
In the distance, the whirring of
a police siren resonated until and echoed from Liberty. The city itself wasn’t
exactly the kindest or safest, so the pink-garbed spaniel shrugged it off. But
the ear-piercing alarm grew louder and louder. It was almost as if a herd of
cops were racing down main street.
“They’d better not be chasing them down here.”
The pink-garbed canine sighed,
dreading the thought of having to deal with the secondhand results of criminal
activity.
His mental disdain was ripped
away though, as just before the spaniel took his first step on the pavement, a
wave of jet-black coupes blasted down Main Street. He recoiled back in shock,
but before the dog could even think, they had already flown out of sight. The
boy took off his oversized hat and fanned the smoky, charcoal-reeking air.
He peered down the avenue in wonder, “Well.”
His
aggravation at the careless, death-wishing drivers left him speechless. In
fact, the whole block was quiet now. Even the sirens had faded away.
After a moment, the rattled
Mobian shrugged off the near death-experience and took another step, only to be
greeted by a bright-green blast of light and pain. With a loud grunt, the dog
twisted and rocketed back. His lower body fell onto a stranger’s yard, but the
rest of him collapsed on solid sidewalk. It was all a blur, but after a moment
his chest and left arm throbbing in a dull ache.
As he staggered and tried to
regain his footing, another set of silent, black cars drove down the street
slowing for a bit. While the windows were tinted, the spaniel could tell that
the passengers were eyeing him, but after an awkward moment, the cars sped off
the same. Then, a familiar voice called out to him.
“Oh, Vihn! Oh man, is everything ok?”
Even with the
acute ringing and blurry, concussed vision, Vihn could recognize that purple
figure and accent anywhere. It was a classmate of his, Amasis Khnum wearing
what looked like a Middle-Eastern shawl and glyph-like jewelry, or maybe his
head was messing with him.
“Erg, I think I’m fine. Everything just; what are-”
The purple acquaintance cut him off there.
“I can’t even understand you. Come on, I must get you some
help.”
Before he
could think, Vihn was suddenly being dragged by the arm into a nearby car. His
vision cleared a bit more and realized that the jackal was frantically speeding
to Liberty. The rattled spaniel didn’t have time to think whether the jackal
had a license or not. 
It took a few minutes to
traverse through the daily traffic, but the vehicle finally parked. With the
click of the car doors, the spaniel was dragged in the doors of a compact
medical clinic. Within seconds, neuropraxia set in once more, and Vihn
collapsed on the plush carpet. The entire waiting room was aghast and staff
rushed to the duo’s side as Amasis struggled to help up his schoolmate. The
nurses and crew hoisted the unconscious dog onto a pad and wheeled him down the
long corridor of examination rooms. Amasis ran along as well, being the only
witness to Vihn’s fall.
At the end of the corridor,
however, one of the staffers, a tall elephant with neatly manicured tusks
turned around, halting the jackal in his tracks. As he pressed the button, he
muttered:
“The emergency hall is reserved
for patients and staff only. Wait here. We’ll bring him out once he’s revived.”
“But, I saw what happened, I can,”
The elephant
cut the jackal-boy off
“It’s a liability. Sorry.”
The Large,
brass doors parted and the nurses pushed the unconscious spaniel in. the doors
parted once more as the group descended. Amasis sighed, a bit disheartened and
worried about the fate of his friend.  He
looked up and started to turn back around, and as his shoulder turned, he saw
that same elephant holding a phone and typing on it. Not a modern,
corporate issue phone either. It was some cheap flip phone.
Amasis furled his brow, but walked back to the waiting room.
As he stepped away, he turned to look at that elevator door. With apprehension
and one final gaze, he closed the door and placed himself on a nearby couch.
The lack of clarity was almost saddening.
=== Chapter II - Cold Air ===
The
curtains were drawn to an absolute shut. The ghostly, pale lights of the
surrounding monitors glazed the dark laboratory. Dimly lit silhouettes of a
wide variety of Mobians gathered around a semi-circle of tables, each clicking
and typing away in their own individual projects.
Suddenly,
a large series of digital beeps resounded from the computer room’s hallway.
Various mechanisms on the front of the metal door clicked and spun and after
nearly ten seconds of puzzling, the contraption quickly collapsed to the side. The
researches flinched as natural light flooded into the quiet space. Looking
towards the hallway, the fellow scientists were greeted by a tall blue sheep
and a glass, boxy backdrop of scurrying clouds.
The
convoluted door instantaneously, yet daintily slid back into place. What was
once a clear, lucid figure faded into the ghostly gleam; leaving only the shape
of jewelry-laden ears, an afro, and a leather-coated figure. The dim shadow
moved and took seat near the front of the chamber. As it unzipped a bag and
pulled out various devices, a feminine voice pierced the uncomfortable silence:
“How’re we doing here?”
An
energetic monkey swiveled around, unearthing his own tablet from an unsightly
pile of paperwork, throwing a handful of forms hither and yonder. As the boy
entered a passcode on the device, he began speaking as he shuffled through a
seemingly infinite list of software and applications.
“The bot-guided automobiles and
agents we’ve put in Liberty and Paraiba haven’t picked up much until yesterday.
There was one in Liberty suburbs that we got a trail on, but if you look here”,
he said pointing to a complex pattern atop a map program, “The half-life trail
just sort of faded away at this point.”
The
fashionable shadow raised an eyebrow.
“Did the dash-cams catch the
moment it ‘faded off’?”
The
other scientist pressed a button at the bottom of the screen, the tone in his
voice shifting into a mood of slight disgrace.
“Err, unfortunately we didn’t
quite catch it, it was far too fast for our equipment. The wisp had to travel
over a hill. We even sent over a few units to block the next intersection, but
it must have known. We got outsmarted by a one-foot tall alien”
The
monkey’s voice trailed off into disappointment. Like watching his favorite team
blow a clean pass, it was a bit sad to watch AI built with his own two hands
fail at their one job.
Sped
up, thermal footage looped on the tablet of a bright white trail, everything
around was dull and gray, practically impossible to see. It was clear that they
were picking up something, but the path
just vanished, fading into the black of the footage.
The boy
bit his lip, and looked down. While he expected some sort of reproach, or even
a passive-aggressive jab at his machinery’s screw-up the woman reached down,
turning the display off. She smiled at her colleague and rubbed his shoulders
instead.
“Don’t beat yourself up, Heath. While
we don’t have this specimen, we still got a lot of intel from the chase. We now
know that at least some of them have intelligence at least parring that of a
Mobian. These aren’t mindless creatures we’re dealing with.”
The
monkey looked up.
“So, Bliss, does that-“
With a
slight snicker, Heath was cut off.
“Yes, that means I’m not mad.
You did what you could for now. This just means we’re going to have to be more
creative in our approach now. We’ll worry about that in a bit, but for now,
just stay positive. We won’t get anywhere sulking.”
“Ah yes, thank you!”
A smile
returned to Heath’s face as he returned to his seat.
As
Heath walked and swiveled back to his seat, Bliss dug further through her bag
even more, pulling out her own tablet and a twinkling, light blue gem. The
sheep cleared her throat, and the room of busybody scientists shifted attention.
When all eyes were on her, Bliss typed a command on her tablet, which switched
the display from the mobile device a large screen board at the front of the
laboratory. She pushed her chair aside and leaned against the wall.
“Now, through my own research and
expeditions, I’ve just found something big! It happened at home when a wisp
flashed by and approached me from outside of my office.”
A
key was pressed, and a blurry image of a shimmering, baby-blue blur expanded on
the screen.
“Funny thing is, that it swirled
and circled around my place for a while. The satellite at my house detected
that this thing orbited around the place many times over before I could go
outside and engage it. Apparently, it was there so long that the energy started
to manifest as weather. The whole place had dropped about ten degrees and the
windows were even iced over!”
A
walrus researcher lifted his hand and spoke out.
“What do you mean by ‘manifest’,
ma’am?”
Bliss
smirked, “As in, this thing was so powerful, that the neutral energy that it
naturally gave off from existing was enough to manipulate the temperature of
the place. It wasn’t even trying to cause anything, yet it’s fallout energy was
enough to alter its immediate environment.”
After
expanding a satellite chart of Bliss’s property, showing a drastic temperature
change in two hours, she clicked once more.
“I had observed it long enough,
and I captured the thing. It’s in Spinell lab C-4R right now under Russo’s and
my observation.”
The
next page depicted a choppy, live video feed of a byzantine, alien creature. It
was bright blue in some sort of mechanical pod. The creature itself was shaped
like a choppy snow cone, but it seemed at peace. It was odd for a being in
captivity to act this way, but the image showed a constant, reassuring smile
popping up on the wisp’s face every ten-or-so seconds.
“Since we got the funding for
this project, the C (confidential) lab that’s housing it is equipped with
weather-smart devices that neutralize the wisp’s innate power. It won’t be breaking
out.”
She
paused for a moment and let the video play, enthusiastically spouting
scientific jargon and terms that were probably only meaningful to those devoted
to high science as this group. After a good fifteen minutes, Bliss concluded
the presentation dealing with the wisp itself. She placed her tablet aside and
revealed a bright blue, tear shaped gem from her coat-pocket.
“Now, I took all of that
research and used this plus captured energy to develop this. It’s still in
testing, but this gem can safely scan, absorb, and display information gathered
from the wisp. With it, we can even utilize their power and harness the process
through machines. Imagine a weather machine, a device that keeps,”
Her
rant was cut off by a piercing ringtone, and her dedicated focus dissolved into
a flurry of impatience as she dug through her purse for her phone. After an
awkward exchange of eye contact between her colleagues, she finally uncovered
the device.
“Sorry guys, this is a
correspondent from Liberty at Doctor- “
Bliss’s
voice trailed off as she read the message and the energy in her body and voice
faded into a strange mixture of annoyance and gravity.
“Heath,” she said
matter-of-factly, “The cars you sent as a trap, can you show me footage of
that?”
Unsure
of what was running through Bliss’s mind, the monkey returned up to the front
of the room with his tablet. After flipping through files, the duo stared at
dashcam footage through a moderately poor neighborhood. There was a bright pink
flash near the side of the capture.
“Woah! There, pause there!”, the
sheep exclaimed.
Heath
rewound a bit and paused the video. While it was blurry, the footage depicted a
teenage dog with floppy, sand colored ears and large, pink hat. After gaping
for a moment, Bliss snatched the device from her monkey coworker.
“Hey, that’s!”
“Shut up for a second I have to
think!”
Bliss
pulled up the energetic trail map from when the wisp was being chased. From the
surrounding area and GPS position, the end of this trail and the point paused were
at the same place as this boy. A lump started to form in her throat.  She slowly handed the tablet back to Heath as
he puzzled, trying to figure out what his boss was so worked up over.
The
air was tense. The computers hummed and whirred, as if they took it upon itself
to try to break the darkness and silence of the lab. Their efforts were in
vain. The company, even Heath didn’t quite understand what was quite going on,
but nevertheless they were still scared to the edge of their seats. Finally, she
dropped her head.
“No. This is bad.”
There
was one more pause. Bliss hastily packed her things once more and ran out of
the laboratory. She took the elevator down that would lead into the parking
garage of the facility, leaving the staff to look at each other, scratching
their heads at the whole fiasco. It was quiet once more, but after a fearful
minute of thought and reflection, the team eventually returned to their own
work. It would be what Bliss would want them to do anyway.
=== Chapter III - Whispers ===
Perhaps it was the rhythmic tinge of a heart monitor or the drug-numbed
pain of being smashed by a moving vehicle. Either way, Vihn was in a muffled,
yet agonizing stupor. He slowly craned his neck and moved to the right. While
his vision was blurred, he could make out a few nondescript IV bags branching
together to the needle in his arm. On his left, there was a hat and his two
discarded shirts. Even in a depressant-induced trance, he could tell that he
may be up the creek without a paddle.
As he returned to an idle position and closed his eyes, the
floodgates of that proverbial creek busted wide open. With a loud bang, a pair
of swinging doors slammed against the wall with two figures approaching from
this entryway. One looked like an elephant and the other, a personified snow
cone.
“Here he
is, ma’am.”
“What’s
his status? Is he glowing? Is he conscious? Alive? In control?”
The
elephant looked at this snow cone, er, ewe woman for a moment. “Sheep… Spaniel…,”
he thought “dysfunctional family, I guess.”
“So, Ms.
Babbage, do you know this boy?”
“Yeah,
the EMS guy called me here, so I came as soon as possible.”
The doctor tilted his head a bit.
“I
called his emergency contact in his phone, his parents I guess, but there was
no answer. How’d you know then?”
“Uh, I
was friends with the rescue guy. He’s a family friend that knew both of us.”
Did the doctor believe her? Maybe he wouldn’t question how
she could be an emergency contact. To her favor, the doctor seemed to be on
board, simply nodding his head and scribbling something on a clipboard. He
flipped to a back page and read a few notes left from the nurses and the
emergency crew that took him in. He also glanced at Vihn’s vital statistics on
a small monitor nearby.
“So, the
good news with this boy is that he’s awake now. He’s a bit groggy at the
moment, but he’ll get over it soon. Other than that, he’s one of the luckiest
car crash victims that’s been wheeled through this hospital.”
The afro’d sheep looked up.
“Hmm,
what do you mean?”
“The guy
driving the car must have either braked right before he hit the guy or a
guardian angel flung him out the way instead, because there’s no broken bones,
internal bleeding, nothing.”
“So, how
long are you going to keep him?”
The elephant doctor was baffled by the woman’s lack of
concern. After all, this was some kind of god-sent miracle. There’s no way this
spaniel just ended up unconscious and bruised after getting slammed by an SUV.
Or maybe she’s just anxious. That could always be an option.
“If
everything is okay then, doctor, could I get some alone time with him? I just
want to talk to him a bit once he wakes up all the way.”
“Uh, sure”, the elephant replied. There wasn’t really much else he could do in
the way of treatment. Vihn’s recovery was going pretty well, after all.
“Sure,
just give a heads up when you’re done.”
Bliss
smiled. “Will do.”
As
the doctor exited the room, the blue sheep’s friendly smile suddenly melted
into a stone-cold glower. She kept her eyes on the swinging doors for a moment
after his departure, and after a few seconds of silence, she approached the
blond spaniel.
Bliss looked down at the boy, almost creepily for a few more
minutes. He had already fallen back to sleep, so there was no recourse or
awkward glance her way.
“Hmm, nothing,” the snow cone-head murmured to herself. There
was no visible or immediately detectable sign of wisp energy on this child,
despite what the readings from the car traps read. Searching for more clues,
Bliss pulled a complex remote from an inner coat pocket and pointed the device
at Vihn.
After a sharp click of a button, a sine wave tone hummed from
the device and her phone vibrated in response. With cell in one hand and remote
in the other, her eyes scanned a large wall of text and graphs. While the data
would be complete mumbo-jumbo to most observers, Bliss’s eyes seemed to mechanically
follow the important parts of the reading, as if they were programmed on a set
path. If Heath was good at one thing, it was writing and explaining a brand new
data-system.
Her thoughts began to unfurl.
“So the
wisp energy is still in him, but there’s not really any adverse side effects. Did
the wisp just kind of disappear when it hit him? Can a being of energy die from
trauma? Nothing…”
Suddenly, a loud snore escaped from Vihn. Waking him up and
scaring the bejesus out of the scientist lady. Bliss had jumped back out of
fear, for as he exhaled, a powerful gust of wind pulsed in the air and rattled
the room a bit.  The sheep’s phone dinged
once more, but she had dropped the device.
“W-who
are you?” the spaniel groggily asked.
Bliss paused for a second to scramble for an excuse. Did it
still count as privacy invasion if the trespassed one was in a public place?
“My name
is Dr. Babbage, and I’m here to ask you a few questions. I can use your info to
help you heal up, okay?”
Vihn slowly blinked at the snow cone lady. She assumed that
was an affirmative gesture.
“So,”
she inquired, “Do you know where you are right now?”
“The
doctor’s.”
“Alright;
good, good. Do you know why you’re
at the doctors?”
Vihn muttered an indiscernible word-salad.
“Say
that again, please.”
“-…Crash.”
This didn’t answer Bliss’s question. Was he hit by a wisp or
a car? She probed further.
“So,
what, uh, color was the thing that hit you?”
Vihn had
to take a moment to answer this.
“Green?
Not really neon, but kind of darkish…”
This was all that Bliss needed to make her diagnosis. The
cars her team had set up were jet black, thus impossible to mistake for any
other color. With this knowledge in mind, she had to think fast. The hospital
wouldn’t just let her go, but how was she going to sneak this spaniel out of
here? She puzzled for a bit. As she kept thinking though, the color of Vihn’s
eyes churned and changed from a placid periwinkle to a menacing, galvanic
green.
Bliss gasped as she turned and saw the boy sitting up on the bed.
Something was odd about his movement. It was if his body was operating at a
slower framerate as the rest of the world. Either way, there was a sort of
fluid strength with his movement.
The spaniel finally pulled the IV out of his arm. His blood
clotted almost immediately for some reason.
“You…
Stay away!” His voice was considerably lower than normal, as if he jumped
several years in age.
Bliss backed up further, but the entranced dog simply stood
up and approached.
“You’re
the one who took Gliera and Sulomba, aren’t you?” Vihn looked down at a coat
pocket where the outline of her tear-cut gem.
“Give
her back, you fiend!”
The spaniel threw his hand out, as if striking with a palm,
and a blast of green energy erupted from his fingertips. The blade struck
Bliss, nearly missing her heart but striking the pocket where her gem was kept.
She was staggered a couple of feet, and she could feel a cold surge of energy
enter her body, but nothing else was harmed. Regardless, the woman was terrified,
and sprinted out of the room as fast as possible.
This angered Vihn, and suddenly, there were riptides and
blades of wind flying about, displacing and destroying everything that wasn’t
hooked or attached to the walls. Panicking, Bliss fled to one of these walls
and pulled the fire alarm, suddenly the other nurses, doctors, and patients
walked from their rooms.
After they saw the angry glowing spaniel though, their brisk
walk revved into dashing as soon as they looked him over. The hallway itself
was long, so Bliss was able to buy time until everyone was out. Something
inside of her told her she had to fight this wisp-possessed beast, but how?
Vihn eventually caught up with her
before, giving her no other option though. The spaniel lifted up his hand,
summoning a miniature storm at his fingertips. The trapped sheep closed her
eyes and help up her hands. Was this the end?
“No!” An
unfamiliar voice called out in her mind.
As the dog-boy launched the sharp
cloud of gales at Bliss, the entire room suddenly became cold and hazy. There
was a rush of emotion, what felt like a mix of dopamine and anger, through her
system. Both Vihn and his projectiles were frozen midair. The sheep was
trembling, completely in awe for a moment, but after a moment realized this was
her chance to escape. Sparing no more seconds, she picked herself from the
ground and ran from the room. She was almost near the door to outside freedom,
but as she looked back, she noticed that the fog was fading and Vihn’s
projectile had fallen to the ground and cracked.
She had stepped outside just in time, for the chilling field
had just faded from reality. The possessed spaniel must have awakened too, as
she saw angry currents of green energy breaking windows and ravaging through
the building. The wisp inside of him probably wasn’t smart enough to try
looking outside.
Bliss
ran to the car lot and frantically searched her pocket for a key fob, entering
her vehicle and driving away shortly after. She looked back as she exited the
hospital campus to notice that part of the hospital had collapsed on itself.
Bliss
sighed in relief. It was a fearful, tense, and stressed relief, but a relief
nonetheless.
“That… I’ve
got to stop that.” Her fear and anxiety started to form into antipathy.
Category:Austin Bison's Fanfics
Category:Original Characters
Category:Wisps
Category:Chapter-Based
Category:Sonic (series)