Chapter 4
The first Eggpawn Surge crushed never even saw it coming. She delivered a diving kick to its head, crumpiling the bot inward.
That immediately got the attention of the horde in front of her. Immediately the rotund robots turned their attention towards the green Tenrec and raised their weapons.
“So Drippy, wanna see who can send the most bots to the scrapyard?” Surge didn’t even need to look behind her to know the blue fennec had followed her. It’s just how they worked after all.
Kit’s backpack released four streams of water, suspending him in the air as he stared hatefully at the opposing army silently. Surge chuckled, taking his silence as an answer.
“I’ll keep count then!” She grinned manically, before rushing forward.
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“-wait!” Lanolin barely got the word out before Surge rushed forward towards the guards of the base. Kit followed close behind, dropping all pretense of following the plan.
Whisper growled. “I told you she wouldn’t listen to anything you ordered!”
“I know, I know,” the sheep sighed in response. The two had talked before the mission about Surge and Kit’s potential insubordination, and Lanolin had wished to put some trust into their green teammate and hope she would make the right decision. She hated being proven wrong.
“Well, we’ve dealt with this before, it’s like having another Sonic on our team!” Tangle attempted to calm the situation down, referencing the first time the team had gone on a mission and her and Sonic ran off ahead. While Lanolin just shrugged, Whisper was fuming. Tangle had gotten over her overzealousness, she doubted Surge would do the same.
The sound of metal being crushed and crackles of electricity caught their attention. Surge was boasting loudly to Kit about something before the two charged the horde of bots head on.
“We can deal with that later,” Lanolin started, stepping forward. “Right now we’re going to have to work with what we’ve got.”
She turned back to give Whisper a glance. “I need you to provide supporting fire, cover those two and make sure they don’t get themselves killed.
Whisper nodded, clearly upset but not willing to disobey an order.
Lanolin turned back to survey the woods surrounding the artificial plateau. “Meanwhile Tangle and I are going to use the cover to sneak around, get to their back lines and take out the long range bots.”
With a plan set the three nodded at each other and set off, trying to make the best of a bad situation.
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Surge was loving this.
This is what she was made for. Not cleanup, nor moving useless crap, no, she was made for destroying.
Helping people was nice, she certainly enjoyed the praise. Fighting was what she loved most however.
“You buckets of bolts don’t hold a candle to me!” Surge cackled as she split a badnik down the middle with a kick. A spear wielding pawn rushed her thinking it had an opening, only for the speedster to dodge out of the way and deliver a back hand, decapitating the machine. She grabbed the spear before it could even begin to fall and tossed it like a javelin towards two more approaching bots, shiksa bobbing them. She tilted her head to the side slightly to avoid a blaster bolt from a far off pawn with some sort of arm cannon. It was destroyed by Kit’s water tentacles soon after.
She gave the kid a quick glance, seeing him effortlessly tearing through waves of enemies with his hydro powers. While she was having fun, he was taking this very seriously. Well whatever, that was his main function after all.
Her attention was diverted when a blue beam of light shot something behind her. Her momentary distraction was almost taken advantage of by some random bot, which was quickly destroyed by the shot. Her face split in a cruel grin. She wondered how her ‘guardian angel’ felt about having to cover her, save her life.
Surge wasn’t in any danger of course, she healed quick after all. It’s why she wasn’t taking this too seriously, but the sniper covering her didn’t know that. There was a cruel joke somewhere in there about how she was currently forcing someone who hated her to save her life, but she was having too much fun with the carnage in front of her to focus on that bozo.
She had some scrap metal to pile up.
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“What is she doing out there?” Tangle asked while peering over her bush cover at Surge playing around with the badnik horde she was fighting. She wasn’t even trying.
Lanolin was fuming, she was upset about Surge rushing forward, but now she was just playing around, potentially putting all of their lives in danger? That’s where she drew the line.
“She’ll be lucky if she’s still allowed in the restoration after I’m through with her.” The Diamond cutters leader spat out through gritted teeth.
“I don’t blame you,” Tangle began, following behind her. “But I was the same way! Just don’t be too rash.”
“Oh it’s me being rash that’s the problem!” Lanolin tried to keep her voice down but had trouble when staying calm when it came to the well being of her team. “I’m not getting us all exposed!”
“Well… yeah ok fair… but would you rather give them a chance, or risk them turning into villains again?”
That… was a rather fair point Lanolin conceded. She took a deep breath, and thought this out. She was still mad, had every right to be as well, but she had dealt with this kind of thing before. And Surge was much better on their side rather than against them.
Tangle didn’t always act like it, but she was smart, well at least when it came to sympathizing with people. She had to give her props there.
“Let’s just get this over with, then I’ll figure out how to deal with those two.”
Tangle nodded, following her lead.
They continued running from bush to bush, using the cover like a predator stalking its prey, getting into the perfect position to strike.
Surge was clearly still toying with the bots. Seemingly waiting till the last possible second to dodge an attack and counter, rarely going on the offensive. She was having fun.
Kit was taking the fight a bit more seriously. He was bowling through the crowds like a wrecking ball. Wherever Surge wasn’t focusing on, he was there. Whether on purpose or subconsciously, he would cover all her blind spots. The two of them probably could do a lot more damage, if the Tenrec didn’t value her own fun over the mission’s success.
Finally the two worked their way around the robotic force and took positions, ready to flank the long range pawns.
“You ready?” Tangle asked, winding her tail like a spring and motioning to the Sheep.
“Let’s do this.” Lanolin nodded resolutely, though a part of her had to admit she was a little nervous.
Tangle held her arms out and Lanolin (rather embarrassingly she had to admit) let the Lemur grab hold of her. She then pushed her tail against a tree, building up force.
“So can I call it Sheep bomb?” Tangle asked. She had insisted if the trio did any form of team ups she would be allowed to call it something ‘cool’.
“No.” Lanolin replied dryly, her only response a grumbled “ah come on!” from the Lemur.
Tangle then stopped pushing against the tree, and the two went soaring through the foliage above the entire long range infantry group before them.
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“SHEEP BOMB!”
Surge’s attention was quickly diverted from curb stomping her most recent robotic victim to the sound of a shrill scream behind her. She turned just in time to see a large explosion from the back of the badnik horde. The sound was almost deafening even from her distance.
“Was that… the boss and stripes?” She had to admit, she was kind of impressed. That was pretty rad!
Maybe the stick up her ass sheep had more than the daredevil speedster gave her credit for! Oh yeah and the Lemur was there too, she guessed.
The two were actually doing work on the mechanical bozos, but she wasnt getting outshone that easily!
Surge started to take this brawl a bit more seriously, speeding up so she wouldn’t get left behind by these c-listers.
One bot after the other went down before her, being shredded by her speed and electric might. A kick here, turn around and punch there, she was a walking disaster. A living weapon.
It’s what she was made to be.
Finally she ripped the last bot in half, separating its torso from its legs. She reveled in the carnage, and was genuinely upset at the anticlimactic end.
Tangle and Lanolin finished up clearing the back like, and after a pat on the back the Diamond Cutters leader turned her attention squarely on the overzealous speedster.
“Surge!” She barked out while making her way over to the unconcerned Tenrec.
“Yeah boss?” She replied with a twisted grin. “Here to tell me how good I did?”
The sheep, undeterred, marched face to face with her. “You disobeyed my orders, ran off without my permission and screwed around on a very serious operation!”
Surge had the audacity to laugh in her face. “Serious? Listen wool brain if these cannon fodder bots are a problem for you maybe you should get off the front lines! Clearly this is too tough for a pencil pusher like you.”
“Do you not take anything seriously?” Lanolin replied incredulously. She gestured around herself. “These are Eggman's forces we’re talking about, this is life or death.”
“Oh life or death fodder? You can’t be serious, I’ve wrecked shop with the Egghead and sent him running and crying more than once, he’s a pushover, and so is his army of scrap metal!”
The sheep took her by genuine surprise and grabbed her by the collar and pulled her even closer. Surge couldn’t even get pissed with how oddly impressed she felt just by someone not being scared of what she might do to them if they so much as looked at her wrong. Her stomach did an odd flip at the proximity and intensity at which Lanolin performed the action.
She chalked it up to her being surprised, and didn’t want to linger on the strange feeling for too long.
“I understand where you're coming from,” Her tone was dead serious, in a way Surge had never heard coming from her before. “You're used to only looking after yourself and Kit, you're both tough, but now you're on a team. I want you on my team because I think you can prove yourselves. Prove that you and Kit are genuine in your attempts to be good. But I’m not letting you stay on my team if you don’t learn to follow my orders, learn to care about the people around you. I think you can do a lot of good, genuinely, I want to believe in you. But if you ever run off in my operation, if you ever screw around and put my people in danger ever again? I don’t care how fast or strong you are, I will put you down. Got it?”
Surge had to hand it to her, she made a damn good intimidating speech when she wanted to.
Lanolin let her go and took a step back, and only then did Surge realize her heart was beating extremely fast. Which was odd, she wasn’t scared, despite her threats the sheep couldn’t hurt her if she tried. That didn’t stop her heart from beating so fast she thought it might burst from her chest.
She… really didn’t know how to respond to any of that, especially with the way her body was involuntarily reacting. The hell was wrong with her?
Whisper finally made her down the hill, giving the Tenrec an odd look before looking back at her leader. “We’re all clear.”
“Good.” She replied, nodding with a smile. She looked back at Surge and Kit who had protectively joined his older companion once the sheep had let her go. “I’m giving you another chance, follow my orders, and let’s get going, we’ve got a base to clear.”
She didn’t wait for a response before turning around and walking towards the opening. Whisper joined her but Tangle lingered around for a moment, staring at Surge.
“What, got something to say?” The pissed off punk hurled out with as much vitriol as she could muster.
“Just… surprised you let her do that.” She admitted, seemingly unsure of how to react.
“Shut up.” Even Surge couldn’t muster any more energy into her response, seemingly drained despite being full of energy just moments ago.
She stormed past her, pissed but not with her usual attitude. She hated the weird way she submitted to her new boss’s orders. Hated the way that damn sniper eyed her, like a predator smelling weakness. The way Tangle acted like she had seen a new side to her teammate, acting like she knew something new about her. The way they all stared at her, their judgmental gaze turned from hatred or tolerance too… she didn’t even know what. She couldn’t discern what she really read on their faces.
She did know she despised it. Something about the way she felt made her want to beat it off all of their faces.
The worst part was she could feel a small part of herself want to look deeper, figure out what they were thinking as they cast their gaze upon her.
She absolutely fucking hated it.