Chapter 2
Being a hero wasn’t all it was hyped up to be.
Before, it was nice. She just screwed around, saved a few lives, beat the crap out of some robots. All fun and games.
Now though? These bastards we’re trying to control her. Just like everyone else.
“…Nah, we’re good.”
That took Lanolin by surprise. “Excuse me?”
“You got wool stuck in your ears? The answer’s no.”
Lanolin rested her face in her hands. “Surge…”
Surge scoffed and turned towards the door. “I’m willing to play nice, but all I need is Kit, I’m not interested in your team.”
Tangle used her tail to block the exit, and surge turned back to glare at her.
“You tryin to start something, stripes?” She growled through gritted teeth.
Whisper began moving in front of her partner to protect her, but Tangle put a hand on her shoulder to reassure her.
“Nah, but this is a seriously cool opportunity! The Diamond Cutters are a volunteer group, so you can leave if you don’t like it, but you’d be a super useful addition!”
Lanolin nodded in agreement. “Truthfully, we could use someone with your speed and Kit’s power. And like Tangle said, it’s entirely up to you whether or not you want to stay or how long.”
Surge glanced at Whisper. “And you're all cool with this, huh?”
“…I’m just accepting it to keep my eye on you.”
Lanolin decided to intercept there. “And that goes into the second reason we want you on the team.”
She got up from the shoddy makeshift desk and made her way in front of Surge. “We don’t know if we can trust you, and before you say anything we have good reasons not to. But if we lied to you about that then we’d be hypocrites, so I’m telling you our right, this is a trust exercise. Join, and prove yourself as genuine, and any previous offenses you’ve committed will be forgotten. We want you to prove yourself to us as much as you want to.”
Surge glared at the sheep. So that’s what this was all about. Nothing more than a way to watch and control her. Just like Starline, like everyone she’s ever met. And yet…
They told her what their intentions were. To prove she could trust them or something…
“Drippy, you and I are going outside to talk about this. We’ll be back.”
Kit shot up at the mention of his name, quickly making his way past the Diamond Cutters to meet Surge outside of the tent.
She was fuming, pissed at the Diamond Cutters and their holier than thou, better than you crap. They were just as bad as Sonic.
Telling her the truth about how they were playing her, acting like that would make her trust them more.
What self righteous pieces of shit.
“Ma’am?” Kit dared to ask.
She was mumbling to herself, clearly even angrier than she usually was. “Who the hell do those bastards think they are? Acting like I should trust ‘em all of a sudden simply because they told me they were playing me, I mean what the hell is that kind of logic!”
“Well, maybe we could use this to our advantage?”
Surge turned to face him, confusion plastered on her face. “…how?”
“We want to gain their trust, right? Well if they’re willing to announce their own plans to us, let’s take advantage. Joining the Diamond Cutters will get them to trust us faster, know all their secrets, and then we can leave this place even faster.”
Surge opened her mouth to argue, but stopped herself. Sure she couldn’t stand these nerds, but getting pissed off and wasting an opportunity like this? To get close, learn all they could, prove they were ‘real heroes’ or whatever they wanted to see out of the two misfits.
Surge had to concede, her partner had a point. “Yeah, you're right Drippy, no point in getting all pissed for them being idiots right? Good thing I asked, I was going to tell them to fuck off.”
She ruffled his hair, getting a rare genuine smile out of the blue fennec.
“Well let’s go tell the bozos we just really want to be a part of their little friendship team, right?”
Surge smiled maliciously, and Kit nodded back.
They made their way back to the makeshift office.
Tangle and Whisper were talking, with Tangle sitting on the desk in much the same way Surge was. Lanolin sat back down and continued whatever paperwork she was doing before, clearly annoyed with Tangle’s antics but not shooing her like she did Surge.
Damn favoritism.
“Alright y'all,” Surge began, making a big deal out of her return. “Kit and I talked, and we want to join your la- uh, your team.”
Tangle seemed like the only person genuinely excited. Lanolin simply nodded, and Whisper turned to face away from Surge, clearly upset.
“Woo hoo! More team members!” Tangle shouted, raising her hands in the air.
The green Tenrec cringed internally. She really hoped she wasn’t going to regret this.
“Uh, yeah, whoo. I was uh, real inspired by the opportunity! Wanted to prove myself and gain your trust.” Surge completely lied through her teeth. But that’s what all these hero types wanted to hear, probably.
“…Really?” Lanolin drew out the word.
“Yep, it’s really inspiring seeing you guys work together.”
Lanolin and whisper shared a glance. “Right…”
Heh, she definitely nailed it.
“So what’s our first mission? Smashing egg robots, destroying a base! C’mon, I’m ready!”
Lanolin put up a hand. “We don’t just go on missions all the time you know. We need to focus on repairing the restoration. Now if you-“
Surge cut her off by slamming the desk, causing Tangle to jump and Whisper to flinch, reaching a hand for her Wispon. But Surge didn’t care about those two.
“That’s all I’ve been doing this whole time!” Surge glared at her new leader. Lanolin for her part didn’t even flinch. “You're not seriously telling me I’m going back to doing the same boring janitorial crap I was before?! What the hell's even the point of joining your little club then!”
Lanolin stared her down for a moment, being one of the few people who dared too. Surge didn’t back down, and Lanolin broke the pseudo staring contest with an exasperated sigh.
“Fine,” she started, fishing for a piece of paper beneath her desk. “I have one mission for you to do, though Kit won’t be joining you, he is far too valuable to the cleanup crew.”
Surge scoffed, but acquiesced. “Fine, you good with that kid?”
Kit did not look at all fine with that, but nodded anyway to appease his older partner. Surge didn’t even notice his discomfort.
“Well, let’s get on with it! I’m dying to see some action!”
Lanolin let out an odd smile, before turning to look at Tangle.
“Tangle, do you remember that mission Im having you do tomorrow.”
“Oh, yep! What about it?”
Lanolin cast a smug glance at Surge. “Looks like you're getting a new assistant.”
_______________________________________
“This fuckin sucks.”
Surge had been complaining consistently for the last half an hour as she helped Tangle lug medical supplies, food, and water back and forth between the Restorations reserves and the transportation trucks bringing in supplies. If she knew this was the mission Lanolin was setting her up to do, she’d have just kept cleaning the damn ruined building.
“Eh it’s not so bad!” Tangle replied, using her tail to carry heavy boxes, only struggling a little bit. “You said you didn’t want to keep cleaning up rubble right?”
“I meant actually doing something important!” She yelled while setting down a box of some medical crap she couldn’t care less about. “I went from janitor to physical laborer. I’m not like you bozos, you’ve got a Sonic tier fighter and I’m carrying around bandages and kid snacks!”
Tangle stopped beside her as she set down her own boxes. “But… this is important!” The lemur swept her arms around, trying to convey something to the grumpy speedster. “These people need this food and equipment, what could possibly be more important than that?”
Surge laughed loud enough to gain the attention of a few resistance members walking past. “Oh please, maybe for you losers all you can do is be glorified delivery drivers, but I was made to replace Sonic! I’m meant for better things! Being a real hero!”
Tangle rested her hands on her hips, trying to figure out what would be best to say next. “You know being a hero isn’t all about beating things up and saving people right? Sometimes you have to stop and do a little work you don’t want to!”
“Oh really? Then tell me, why the hell isn’t Sonic here? He doesn’t seem to give a damn about this menial crap!”
“Sonic does help out every once and a while, but he’s always here or there. You on the other hand joined us full time, which means you signed up to help out in every way a hero does, including moving supplies.”
“Tch, whatever, sounds to me like you're coping for being useless otherwise.”
The normally upbeat Lemur opened her mouth to reply back, but quickly closed it to avoid screaming. She had to remind herself internally that’s exactly what the punk wanted.
Then she got an idea.
“Fine,” Tangle replied, a grin now plastered on her face. “I guess you're no better than him then.”
That got the Tenrecs attention. “The hell did you just say?”
“I said you're no better than Sonic,” she turned around and walked back to the truck while talking. “He would’ve popped up, cleaned out this whole truck in five minutes tops, and never complained. We’re already ten minutes in and you're just sitting around doing nothing.”
Why that little…
“I could get twice the amount he could in five minutes!” She replied angrily while jumping back off the crate she was sitting on.
“Oh yeah? Prove it.” Tangle dared while looking back at her.
“Oh you son of a-“
Almost all the restoration trucks were emptied in under an hour due to Surge’s newfound motivation.
_______________________________________
“I don’t like this”
Lanolin’s ears barely picked up Whisper's mumble as the wolf stared out of the tent’s opening at her girlfriend trying to keep up with the pissed tenrec rushing boxes back and forth.
“What part?” The sheep replied as she finally finished the paperwork she was currently working on. Turns out having a plane crash into your building by Sonic the freaking Hedgehog and a group of civilians driving flying cars meant a lot of paperwork. Who knew!
“…Her.” The moody sniper replied, eyeing Surge as she bragged about how fast she had gotten things done to Tangle. Even from this distance she could imagine the Green girls voice grating her ears, as she went on and on about how great she was.
“Whisper, we talked about this.”
Lanolin reached for another piece of paperwork she needed to fill out beneath her desk. From the silence, she could tell the Whisper needed a moment to collect her thoughts.
“I’m still not happy about this.” She had made her way back over to Lanolin’s desk. “She clearly isn’t trustworthy.”
“No, but we should at the very least give her a chance.” Lanolin placed the paper on her desk but then diverted her full attention to the wolf. “Listen, almost half of the strongest freedom fighters on Sonic’s side have tried to kill him or even destroy the world before, and as much as I hate to stroke her ego Surge is definitely on the ‘strong’ list.”
“We both know she isn’t doing this to fight on his side!” Whisper raised her voice, but quickly calmed herself. “She isn’t doing this for the right reasons, I don’t know what her motives are but she’s obviously just out for something selfish.”
“I don’t disagree.” Lanolin admitted, leaning forward. “But we have the opportunity to help her. Tails didn’t know the full story, but Starline changed those two. Made them who they are now. They might not be on our side fully, they might be trying to use us, but maybe we can help them. Show them kindness. They’re two hurt kids shoved in a war they had no part in.”
“They’re hardly children.” Whisper groaned. “…fine, technically Kit is, but Surge is our age, and they’ve both done things that showed their innocence is long gone.”
“And it was stolen from them. We chose to fight, but they didn’t. They were told who to hate, what side they were on, and that they couldn’t be anything else. I know why you hate Surge, but she’s hurt, a lot more than we could possibly know. Maybe even more than those two realize. And that has caused them to do terrible things, and I’m not asking you to just forget that. Just give her a chance to redeem herself, if all she gets in life is hatred and hostility, she’ll have no reason to join the good side.”
Whisper got even more quiet than usual, contemplating. “… you better be right about them.”
As Whisper began to leave the tent, she heard Lanolin mutter one last thing.
“I hope I am.”
_______________________________________
“-And I’d love to see the blue bonehead do better than that!”
Tangle had been listening to Surge boast and brag about how amazing she was for the past five minutes, and started getting a little annoyed about 1 minute in. Self confidence was a good thing… but Tangle thought that Surge was really pushing it.
“Uh yeah, you did great!” Tangle might as well have been a cardboard cut out. It felt more like she was being talked too rather than being any meaningful part of the conversation.
“Well of course I did great!” Surge remarked, flashing the Lemur a shark toothed grin. “If it’s a competition against Sonic, I’ll always be the best.”
Tangle was just about to spout some excuse to leave, when her girlfriend suddenly appeared before her.
“Whisper!” Tangle yelled a little too excitedly, hoping Surge just thought she was excited to see her and not excited to get away from the boasting loud mouth.
“I’m so happy to see you!” She hugged the wolf and whispered in her ear. “Please get me out of here she won’t stop bragging.”
“Hey sunshine,” Surge quickly pivoted from antagonizing the Lemur to her girlfriend. “Guess who’s the best damn member of the Diamond Cutters already? I’ll give you a guess, it’s the mean green speedster who just supplied your whole damn operation in under an hour! Not bad right?”
Whisper was about to argue, give Surge exactly what she wanted, a fight, but the sniper looked down at her pleading Girlfirend and thought back to what Lanolin said.
She’s just a hurt kid, who was forced to fight a war she never wanted to. Starline turned her into this, and as easy as it was to hate her, it technically wasn’t entirely her fault.
And oh boy did Whisper hate surge, with a passion. But maybe Lanolin was right about one thing…
She would never see the point in being a good guy if she treated her like a monster.
After all, she messed with Whisper more than Tangle or Lanolin because she knew she would get a rise out of her.
This was gonna suck, but she had to try. Plus it would prove she’s better than the annoying Tenrec.
“…good job.” Whisper mumbled to the surprise of both herself and the others. Surge just gave her a dumbfounded look, mouth slightly ajar, like her powers malfunctioned and she fried her own brain.
“Cmon Tangle, let’s go.” And with that, the quiet wolf dragged her stunned partner away from the equally as stunned Surge. Who just stood there for a few seconds like she was a computer rebooting.
Finally once her brain caught up with her body, she could only do the one thing that made sense in that scenario.
“What the fuck was that!”
_______________________________________
After having finished her chores (and trying to wrap her head around whatever game Whisper must have been playing on her) Surge sped back over to Kit’s cleanup area and lazed around him.
“-so I do all this work for the loser brigade, and this bitch looks me straight in the eye and says ‘good job’,” she replicated Whisper's speech with a scratchy, breathy impression. Very inaccurate in Kit’s opinion, but he felt as if that was the point. “And just fucks off! The hell are they trying to trick me with? Kindness? Who does that?!”
“… is that rhetorical, like your last question?” He lifted another piece of debris to reveal nothing beneath it. He hadn’t found anything all day, at least not anything salvageable. Who knows if there even was anything to find, this could be a wild goose chase to keep the fennec busy.
“I’m all ears drip,” Surge was laying down with her back against some half torn couch, arms raised up and resting on the back of her head. “I just want to make sure they aren’t playing me.”
“I doubt Whisper is being genuine,” he began, walking over to stand by Kit. “Perhaps the others told her to not argue with you? Or she may be trying to placate you.”
Surge growled and leaned forward, resting her arm on her knee and palm holding up her chin. “So just a load of crap all around, right? I seriously wish that bitch would just shoot at me or something instead, then I could beat her ass again and it would be entirely self defense! I’d be completely in the right, but no, she’s gotta take Sonic’s phony ass high road.”
“… surely this will make our mission easier, right?” Kit pondered.
Surge rolled her eyes. “Oh please, messing with squinty was the most fun I’ve had in this lame place! Now where am I going to get my entertainment?”
Well, she wouldn’t be Surge if she didn’t want to get some entertainment out of something, Kit thought to himself. He honestly might have been concerned if she took this news well.
“Surge… maybe we should just accept the victories where we can. You can… find other entertainment?” He asked hopefully.
Surge squinted her eyes as she thought on his proposition. Maybe he was right, maybe it would be best if she just took what she could and ran with it, made her job easier.
… Nah, sunshine was her one outlet in this whole place. If she wanted to play nice, then Surge would just get even more joy out of cracking her facade wide open.
A cruel grin broke out on her face.
“Nah!” She replied much to the younger one’s chagrin. “She’s just giving me a challenge! One I’m gonna enjoy beating.”
“Just you wait sunshine, I’m really gonna enjoy breaking that better than me facade now!”