Chapter 5
Surge and Kit trailed a ways behind the trio of Diamond Cutters as they stalked the halls of the old Eggman base, not quite abandoned but clearly not used very often. Cobwebs occasionally lined the scaffolding of the long hallway they trekked through.
Eggman’s stylized face was still everywhere, despite the lack of his usual armada in the base itself. He either thought the force guarding the outside of the base was mighty enough or simply didn’t care enough to defend the base should it be compromised. Odd considering the resistance they met outside wasn’t exactly small, weak but still constituted a small army.
Surge didn’t really think about any of that though, she was still fuming. Emotions she didn’t quite understand swirling around in her chest. She didn’t know why she reacted the odd way she did in such close proximity to her sheep boss, but she did know she despised the almost… well to be honest Surge couldn’t glean the expression on Whisper’s face, something along the lines of confusion and understanding? The damned wolf was hard to read on the best days and Surge wasn’t having one of those. Tangle was worse, she could see what the damn Lemur was thinking as clear as day. An understanding, like she saw something beneath the surface the Tenrec didn’t want anyone to see. Or at least what she thought was understanding, Surge knew for a fact that whatever she thought she saw was bullshit, just the green speed demon being taken off guard. Whatever mercy or compassion the two saw was just a fluke, she’d be ready to knock the lights out of the damn sheep if she ever tried intimidating her like that again.
Surge’s heart sputtered thinking about the moment. This must be… rage! Some kind of spite she’s never felt before, stopping her heart and making her face flush, uncomfortably so. How dare she try to intimidate her, Surge the fucking Tenrec, in front of anyone! Yeah, this was hate!
The worst one was Kit though. He looked at her differently. The others didn’t matter. They were a means to an end, but she wondered what Kit thought. Did he think she was weak? Like she didn’t want to hurt that bitch for daring to touch her! Like-!
An ear grating voice interrupted her internal rant.
“Is it just me or is it really dark in here? Like, creepy dark?” The previously mentioned Lemur spoke up, clearly distressed at walking around a dark abandoned base.
“It’s likely running off backup power,” Lanolin suggested, leading the way. “Seems like it’s got enough juice to keep the lights on, maybe in case Eggman had to come back in a hurry?”
“I don’t like this.” The wolf sniper mumbled under her mask, Surge only being able to discern any words due to the communicator in her ear. “We’ve been walking for minutes and nothing… who designs something like this?”
“Maybe he made it for Sonic?” Tangle replied jokingly, leaning on her girlfriend's shoulder. “This would be a five second jog for him!”
While Whisper giggled at her girlfriend's bad jokes, laughing more at the attempt to make her feel better rather than the joke itself, Surge sighed quietly enough that only the Fennec next to her noticed. She could’ve made this a five second jog, but no, she had to stick with the group, work as a team. These bozos just showed her down. They always talked about ‘Sonic would do this’ or ‘Sonic could clean this up in a few seconds’ but wouldn’t let her, the new and improved Sonic, do any of that! All because they had slight trust issues? Like come on they were letting their problems get in the way of her actually being able to competently complete missions.
After another minute of walking, the trio stopped at a split path forward, both leading opposite directions. They were discussing how to move forward before the troublesome duo finally caught up.
“What’s the hold up? I thought this was urgent!” The moody green Tenrec questioned, getting impatient despite just joining the conversation.
“We’re deciding where to go.” Whisper grumbled out, only for Surge to roll her eyes.
“What we can’t split up? There are two ways forward and five of us, me and Drippy will go right and you three can go left, split up whoever works together best!”
Whisper actually didn’t respond, seeing some decent merit in the plan, though truthfully Surge was just trying to get alone so she could try and find the sleazeball they were looking for and quiet him before they could get any of the truth out of him.
“But we have no idea what could be ahead, we would be a lot safer all together.” Tangle brought up, against the idea of splitting the team.
“Well we can handle ourselves stripes, and I’m sure you wouldn’t be alive if your little group couldn’t either, so I’m sure we can all handle a little alone time.”
“Enough.” Lanolin butted in, finally coming to a conclusion on the plan. “Surge has a point, we may be on limited time and covering more ground is a necessity.” Surge smiled condescendingly. “But Tangle’s right too, we don’t know what’s ahead of us. So, while we are splitting up, you and Kit aren’t going on your own, Kit you Whisper and Tangle go left. Surge and I will take the right.”
“WHAT?” An incredulous Surge and Whisper both blurted out at the same time, one substantially quieter than the other. The two shared an angry glance, and Whisper walked over to her leader's side.
“Lanolin, you realize what you're doing right? You two will be alone!”
The sheep laid a comforting hand on the girl's shoulder. “I know, but this way both teams get a heavy hitter.”
Whisper went to say something again but Lanolin cut her off. “I know that’s not what you meant but I’ll be fine, trust me.”
While the two were having their conversation, Surge and Kit were having their own discussion.
“Ma’am, this is bad, how are we going to get alone if we’re separated!” He whispered louder than Surge would’ve liked, but luckily no one heard.
“I know, I know.” She conceded, leaning down to rest her hand on his shoulder. “We gotta play along though, first moment we get we rush the slimeball ok? We just gotta take the first chance we got.”
Kit nodded, still unsure but not willing to disobey a direct order. The two nodded at each other.
“Fine, let’s just hurry up.” Surge spurted out, surprising the other three. “Sooner we get this done the better.”
“Well, alright then.” Lanolin replied pleasantly surprised, expecting more resistance from the two. “Let’s get started then.”
_______________________________________
The walk though the base was awkward at best. Surge was leading the two, both out of a pent up need to rush forward and leave the much slower sheep behind but also not wanting to follow her after her little display outside the base.
Lanolin observed the walkway much closer, slowing down the green speedster to check doors or rooms they came across, though never finding anything of importance, much to the chagrin of her impatient companion.
Finally, someone broke the silence.
“You're not usually this quiet.” Lanolin commented while trying to access some computers hooked up to the wall, though ultimately getting nowhere. She sighed “I guess the computers don’t get power on whatever back up generator is set up.”
“Drippy probably could figure it out.” Surge sneered out. “But guess I’m stuck with you.”
Lanolin groaned and rubbed her hand down her face. “Listen if this is about before-“
“Save it.” Surge pointedly stuck her head up in the other direction. “Don’t wanna hear it.”
The sheep gave up on the computer and the two continued forward, moving to the next room.
“I meant what I said you know.” Lanolin started again, walking into another room to seek out anything that she could use to locate the prison area. “I want you on my team, but not if you’re gonna run off and put us in danger.”
Surge scoffed from her spot in the room's entrance, acting like a makeshift guard while her boss snooped around. “And why is that, huh? Why do you want me on your team so bad? And not just the crap you told me on my first day I want the whole thing.”
Lanolin gave up on her search and proceeded back to the hallway. “There’s a lot.”
“We got all day fluff brain.”
Lanolin gave her an odd look.
“Ok fine, I’ll brainstorm a better nickname.”
Lanolin gave an honest to Gaia chuckle and something in Surge did a somersault. She didn’t even know the sheep could do that!
“Well, to be honest, we need a heavy hitter.” Lanolin stopped at the next doorway. “Our first mission we had Sonic on our team, and we later almost recruited Silver. I think this team just needs someone who can hit hard and take a hit just as hard, and with you there’s the package deal of Kit, he’s smart and strong. Like tech savvy right? We could use you two.”
“So you want to use us cause we’re strong, right? At least your freakin honest about it.”
Lanolin stopped in place. “That… isn’t what I meant… I mean you two have skills we need.”
Surge just let out a noise between a chuckle and a snort. “Somebody always needs our powers, or our strength, you're all the same. Eggman, Starline, Sonic, all of you.”
Lanolin stopped and Surge walked a few steps forward before realizing her companion had stopped as well and turned around. Lanolin walked straight up to her, face to face, but with a touch of caution and gentleness in her demeanor this time.
“I didn’t mean it that way. I know you’ve been through some things. I don’t know the extent but I’ve been briefed. I don’t want to use you. You want to do better, learn to be a hero, right? I want to help with that. You're strong, and I want you to find a place to use that strength to do good.”
Surge felt her face heat up a little, but ignored it. “Why? What’s in it for you?”
“… you remember Duo? He was a part of the Diamond Cutters when you first joined the restoration.”
Oh she remembered him alright, the creep mimic. Though she had to act like she didn’t know that.
“Oh yeah him, uh, barely knew him, why?”
“I’m sure you heard he was Mimic the whole time, playing us… me like a fiddle.”
She sighed and looked off to the side. “I trusted him, took his side when I shouldn’t have, almost tore my team apart. I made a bad choice in a bad situation and he used me for it. But everytime I think of his face I think of the bright eyed and bushy tailed kid walking into my doors looking to make a ‘difference’. I felt like an idiot once he got revealed.”
Surge almost had the decency to feel bad about her part in this. “How exactly is any of this my problem?”
Lanolin waved her down. “I’m getting there. I really didn’t think I’d ever let anyone join the cutters again, I thought I’d have trust issues forever. And then you know what happens?”
“This loud, annoying, dumbass green Tenrec shows up, can’t lie to save her ass, and suddenly Jewel wants me to be the one to help rehabilitate her! Me! Who just screwed up by letting in one of the most dangerous Mobians on the planet into my team! I thought I was losing it. I looked at your records and thought you were a lost cause.”
Surge was about to rebuttal, but it seemed like Lanolin had just paused for dramatic effect. “But, I don’t know, maybe because you are so blunt and couldn’t lie even if you had too, or maybe all the reports of a green electric blur making a genuine effort to save people and stop crimes popping up recently, or maybe I just need to prove to myself that I can make a good call and make a good decision for my team but I wanted to trust you. If I’m being honest I needed to trust you. After Duo, Mimic, whatever, I needed to make a decision on someone, to prove I could be a good leader, get good people on my side. And while you are far from good, you're trying, and maybe while I redeem myself for screwing up I can help you redeem yourself.”
Surges' heart skipped a beat when she said she ‘needed’ to trust her. Something in her… reacted to that. Maybe she liked being needed. Maybe she wanted to be someone Lanolin could trust.
Lanolin reached out her hand to shake. “I guess what I’m trying to say is I need the opposite of Mimic, I need somebody who couldn’t pretend to like me even if I gave them a million dollars.”
Surge laughed at that. “So what you're saying is you need a hard hitter and someone you can trust to not stab you in the back? Why not just rely on Stripes and Sunshine?”
“They’re… I can trust them, but they’re often too busy sucking face to always be there. You need to prove yourself, I’m giving you that chance. You’ll need to always be there if you want to be the hero you claim to be. And I need to find someone I can trust enough to do that.”
Surge contemplated the offer, and shook her boss's hand. “Well, you need a new trustworthy teammate, and I need a way to prove how trustworthy I am, is that right? We both need someone out of the other, better than it being a one way street I guess.”
Surge didn’t like the pain that pierced her heart thinking about how she was already planning on breaking that trust by shutting Clutch up. One way or the other.
Just then their earpiece shot to life with a staticky noise, and Surge pulled her hand back like she had been caught stealing from the cookie jar, looking quite embarrassed.
Lanolin for her part didn’t draw attention to it, reaching up to her ear to radio in. “This is Lanolin, come in. Over.”
Surge’s own radio picked up the response. “This is Whisper, we have the location of the target, over.”
Another radio crackle, and a voice Surge liked substantially more joined in. “I managed to log into one of the computer databases, I have a map here. Also the location of a prison area, might be where we’re looking for Clutch. Over.”
Surge let out a proud grin, she knew Kit could manage to get her his location. Now one of them just needed to get there before the others and have a little chat with slimeball.
She brought her own hand up to the communicator. “Good one drip! Where we headed then?”
A pause. “Surge you're supposed to say over, over.” Tangle chimed in.
“Shut up stripes.”
“…over?”
Luckily for her sanity Kit jumped in. “This place is structured oddly, but I think I have it figured out. Where are you two exactly? Over.”
Surge looked to Lanolin for help figuring their location out. “Is there a tracking device or something? Eggman would probably set something up to either track anyone inside… or maybe even security cameras? Over.”
“Hmm, doesn’t look like it. Even if there was one, it might not be in operation, maybe whatever systems control that aren’t operational in low power? You two are definitely heading the right direction however, our path led to a dead end and it looks like if you just continued straight from the path you were headed you’ll get there eventually. Over.”
“Thank you Kit, we’ll keep looking-“
Just then a siren began blaring throughout the facility, lighting the area in a harsh red as the emergency lights began flashing. Surge and Lanolin cast a glance at one another before Kit's voice came back on the comms.
“It looks like me logging into this computer might have sent Eggman some sort of warning, this isn’t automated, it seems like… wait the facility is being shut down! The automated defense systems are kicking in, the prison block is going to be shut off soon!”
“I can get there,” Surge adopted a runner's stance. “It’ll take just a sec!”
“Surge!” Lanolin had turned off her radio, now talking only to her. “We have no idea what’s over there, it could be dangerous!”
The tenrec just rolled her eyes. “Oh please I live off danger!”
Her boss crossed her arms and sent her a look.
“Don’t give me that, you said you wanted to trust me right? Well trust me then, I’ve got this.”
Lanolin contemplated the idea quickly, coming to a quick decision in the short time she had. Turning back on her coms, she gave her orders. “Surge will get to the prison block and retrieve either the target of any info on him, she can get in and out the fastest. Kit, what exactly are the defenses we’re dealing with? Over.”
“It… doesn’t say. Just a red flashing screen. Sorry.”
“That’s fine, we’ll just need to be careful, let’s get out of here.”
A variety of confirmations chimed in throughout the radio, and Surge gave Lanolin a cheeky grin before dashing off towards the prison block. Guess she didn’t need to stress out about reaching Clutch alone after all!
_______________________________________
Surge hated admitting the prison was a lot harder to find than she was hoping for.
She had encountered various dead ends when she accidentally took a wrong turn trying to find the prison block. And the Egghead’s defenses were no joke either, the automated turrets almost gave her a challenge!
She wondered how Lanolin and the others were faring. Kit was fine, he was as tough (if not tougher but she’d never admit that) as she was, but she felt a strange anxiety for her boss’s safety. She was competent and tough, but as Surge shredded another turret with a spin attack she wondered how the sheep was fairing. She didn’t have the benefit of being able to outrun the guns shooting at her.
She finally arrived at what she could only presume was the prison section Kit had directed her towards. The narrow corridor opened up to a wide circular room lined from floor to ceiling with glass holding cells. At the far side of the room was a large screen, currently off, though Eggman’s signature grinning logo was still front and center.
Surge reached into her ear to inform the others on her progress. “Hey, I’m at the prison, no sign of slimeball yet.”
Lanolin’s staticky voice came through. “Keep looking, if you can’t find him look for any clues he might have been here, or if he’s been transported anywhere else. Over.”
“On it, I’ll let you know if-“
A pained cough instantly caught her attention, and she shot her head to look in the direction of the cough. It came from one of the cells to her right, at a perfect angle so she couldn’t look inside.
“Surge? You stopped talking… what’s wrong?” Lanolin asked, sounding concerned.
“Might’ve found something, I’ll check it out.”
She shut off her comms and made her way over, and she found exactly what she was looking for.
Clutch the opossum. He had definitely seen better days. The bastard was tied down to a chair located in the center of the cell. He had a black eye, a literal one as opposed to his creepy soulless eyes, and his gold tooth was missing. His usually pristine white tux was torn and bloodied. He certainly hadn’t been thriving in the Eggheads' care.
He looked up and snarled. “Oh… it’s you, traitor.”
“Nice to see you too,” she spat out. “How’ve you been?”
He snarled. The mask of a kind business man long since abandoned. “I’m here because of you!” He tried to stand, but was held down by the chains wrapped around him and the chair. “If there’s one thing I can’t stand… it’s a traitor!”
“Yeah yeah slimeball. You might want to shut it, after all I’m the one saving you!”
“Surge, have you got anything?” Lanolin asked over the radio.
“Yeah, got the bastard right in front of me.” Surge confirmed. “He’s in a cell, I don’t see a key or anything. Did Kit say how long until this place gets shut down.”
A part of her forgot these comms reached everyone. Kit himself answered just a second later.
“It said five minutes ma’am, and that was about three minutes ago. You have two max!”
“Crap, might have to just break the glass.”
“…who are you,” Clutch questioned, before beginning to laugh. “No, there is no possible way, are you still with those Restoration clowns?”
Surge was glad her comms were off while he decided to say that. “Shut your mouth, or I’ll-“
“You’ll what?” He interrupted, a grin erupted on his face, with enough malice to rival even the Tenrecs cruelest. “You need to ‘save me’ don’t you? But I know your little secret!”
Surge growled, but before she could respond her comms started up again.
“Surge you need to get out now! You only have so much-“
The line cut out and was replaced with static inexplicably. Surge reached up to her ear to radio back.
“Hey you cut off.”
Nothing.
“Uh, hello? Anyone there?”
The door to the prison wing closed suddenly. Surge glanced back at it, cursing silently. Did Kit get the timing wrong? Or did something else trigger that?
Her answer came from the large screen at the far side of the room turning on, and a booming voice grating her ears.
“Well you're not the rat this trap was designed for, but I suppose you will have to do.”
She turned to give her attention to it fully, knowing from the distinct voice who it was before she even saw him.
“Hey there Egg Brain. Been a while.”
The massive screen was dominated by the rotund form of the world's most dangerous man.
“Not long enough you miserable rodent.” Eggman spat out. “But I do enjoy seeing you in this context. And I will have the pleasure of never seeing you again!”