Chapter Text
The instinct to start something, anything, everywhere, was like static cling. Ready to leap off at a moment’s notice - no way to make it hurt the right people. It was how she’d been made, and yet.
“Hey. You’re hungry, right?” Surge prodded her fennec partner. Kit barely moved his head, hard at work with his latest job. Making sure everything in sight was normal.
The podunk town they’d wandered into was stuck permanently in fall, same as the forest around it. Something about an old Eggman machine, fires, and benefits to tourism according to the old tanuki geezer they’d passed on the way in. All she’d asked for was the town’s name, but then she’d heard something that made her need to hold still and wait it out.
“I can wait to eat,” Kit answered, muffled by the high collar of his red sweater.
“Don’t try to give me the runaround, Drippy.”
The whole place was set down a long stretch of hilly road, with no real twists or turns. At the head of the hill she could make out a couple kids getting ready to ride down the slope in a wagon. Further down, she could see a dingy diner with tall windows that gave her a good look at the place’s guts and everyone inside it.
A couple dozen people, maybe.
She could do that.
Surge changed course, hood up with her quills down, fists stuffed into her pockets. Kit followed no matter how he felt, because he had to.
“... Yes.” Kit admitted. “I’m hungry.”
“Good. You’re the birthday boy again, then.”
“Alright, ma’am.”
It was hard to imagine why anyone might want to take a trip this far out into the countryside, criminal records notwithstanding. Everyone inside glanced up when a bell jingled, the two strangers obviously taking up attention. Surge wiped her feet on the mat after seeing Kit do so, noting the way things got that little bit quieter. She headed for an empty booth near the exit.
With her hood up it was too hard to tell if the lingering feeling of eyes on her was real or just another part of how agitated she’d been all day so she tried not to think about it, staring at the menus without taking anything in.
She was pretty hungry, too, actually. She usually was.
Surge looked up when Kit tapped the table, taking note of the old bear woman that had come by to take their orders. She was about as broad as the tiny table they were crammed under together, with grey streaks in her fur and a pin that said she’d been working here for twenty years.
“Long ass time,” Surge mumbled without thinking.
“Can I have the chocolate chip waffles?” Kit asked loudly. “With hashbrowns too, please?”
Right. This part was practiced, at least kind of. Surge smiled. “You’re gonna turn into a chocolate chip at this rate, kiddo. He’ll get the regular ones. And I’ll have, uhh…”
Oh. Oh, wow, that was a lot of options.
“But ma’am…” Kit’s pleading look wasn’t very good, but folks tended to ignore his uncanny eyes and bad smile because he was young. Same couldn’t be said for her, of course. “It’s my birthday. Pretty please?”
“Well goodness gracious!” Mama bear gasped, delighted. Hook, like, sinker. “Aren’t you a precious little thing?”
“N-not really.” Kit’s smile wilted.
“Oh, yes, of course not. You’re getting all big and strong now, right?” Mama bear chuckled. “Tell you what. Why don’t you get the regular waffles this time, and I’ll bring out a sundae later, on the house. Birthday boys deserve a special treat, don’t you think?”
“A sundae?” Kit looked to her. Like the day of the week? Probably a desert or something, based on what people usually brought him for this routine. Whatever, they weren’t paying for any of it, let alone the ‘sundae’.
“Sure, kid. Go nuts.” Surge reached over and ruffled his head, leaving it a static-ridden mess.
That part wasn’t practiced, but given all the extra weight she’d been forcing him to pull these past couple months, getting a little more physical with him felt alright. “And I’ll have uh… two of your biggest burgers, or somethin’. Put me in a coma, see if I care.”
Mama bear chuckled again. It wasn’t quite grating, but it was a near thing. “You got it, honeydew.”
The turnaround on their drinks and food was faster than Surge’d expected. Looked like it was just the bear and another cook behind the counter. A big buffalo who apparently needed some reassurance about something. Suddenly she could make out all the scrapes and scratches in the thick lacquer along the wooden countertops and floors. Chips in some of the glasses. The volume level had smoothed out after nothing went wrong, or maybe that wasn’t right. It still felt like something was watching her.
Surge twitched, leaning back and kicking her feet up over Kit’s legs. The kid flinched slightly, then kept tearing up his waffles with a knife and fork. Golden-brown, ooey-gooey goodness absolutely drowned those waffles. It was kinda nice, seeing him go to town like that.
“Twenty years,” Surge muttered.
“Whuh?”
“Twenty years. ‘S a long time, y’know?”
He nodded slightly. “I suppose so, ma’am.”
Surge looked away, letting her claws dig deep into the back of her neck. “You think we’re gonna… y’know, make it that far?”
Through her legs she could feel the kid tense briefly, then relax. When she looked back his face was placid and careful. He’d been doing something like that a lot, lately. Maybe for her sake? She couldn’t figure it out. “Aren’t you already twenty?”
“No, I- Uh, probably?” Gaia below, what a nuisance. Stuttering like she wasn’t one of the most powerful things the planet had ever seen. “I’m sayin, you think we got another twenty years in us?”
“Of course we do, ma’am. We’re practically indestructible.”
Technically true at best, and Surge would know. Their short term plans involved going up against the only things out there that could really kill them-- or put them out of commission, in the hedgehog’s case. Dying would be preferred between the two, but that wasn’t really the point. Their long term plans were that… they’d figure it out when they got there.
Having to slow down thanks to all the problems with her head had given her time to think about what that was supposed to look like, and she’d come back with a disturbingly blank image.
When Surge thought about the future it was all carnage and tireless work. A vague sense of ease that would take the place of everything she felt now; the hypothetical release and relief that she’d been so close to with Sonic’s throat in her hands, right before the dynamo cage gave out and put her like she was now.
There weren’t any grey streaks or pins.
Kit wasn’t even always there.
“Does it ever look like something to you?” Surge asked, eying her partner.
“The future?”
“Yeah. ‘After’.”
He went quiet. Kit held his silverware tight and really seemed to think about it. Maybe he never had before. Wouldn’t surprise her, if she thought about it a little more. Starline made sure her happiness and junk was all the kid ever wanted.
“... We’re together.”
“That’s it?”
He looked at her like she was everything. It made her feel good. Mostly. “Well. I don’t really know what the world will look like if one side or the other wins. Or if more aliens come from space, or we have to go between different dimensions to fight. But I know that I’ll always be there for you, ma’am! We’ll be together.”
“What if we’re-”
Something moved in the corner of her eye.
To mama bear hovering at the edge of the table, it’d look like Surge had just been spooked pretty bad. To Surge, she’d come fractions of an inch from hitting the old lady’s outstretched arm hard enough to break it. The wooden backing of the booth creaked under the tenrec’s palm, redirecting the force. A splinter line formed under her hand, metal rings heightening the sound.
Mama bear blinked, recovering first. “Oh!... Sorry bout that. Thought you’d heard me coming.”
A number of cruel thoughts formed faster than Surge could manage them. Fight or flight was hard to come down from quickly with everything put into her. Maybe impossible with people staring at her, waiting for her to do something wrong again.
Kit spoke loudly, as kids did. “Is that the sundae?”
Just barely not on the table yet, there was a silver platter and a thing you put over fancy food to hide it. Mama bear smiled, trying for reassuring. Pitiful. “That’s right, honeydrop.”
The cover came off. Underneath were a few different colored ice cream scoops in a big, fancy glass bowl with bananas, cherries, and what Surge guessed was chocolate drizzle mixed around.
“For the birthday boy,” the old lady said. “And I brought an extra spoon, just in case you felt like sharing.” She winked at her. Surge nodded like she got whatever secret joke they were supposed to be sharing.
Kit offered her the other spoon, waiting until they were alone again to talk. “What were you about to say, ma’am? ‘What if we’...?”
Surge stared at him and the spoon for a bit before shaking her head, jabbing the metal back into its ice-creamy home. “Forget it.”
“M-ma'am?”
“I said forget it!” Surge clenched a fist, then released. “Wasn’t important. Now eat your damn ice cream.”
Kit let it go. He always did. Always would, maybe.
Her eyes drifted out the window. The buffalo chef had stepped outside to sweep leaves off the porch, keeping it tidy. With the way this town was stuck in fall, that had to be a daily chore. They’d never be done sweeping off those leaves.
Every moron in this town would be sweeping leaves for the rest of their stupid lives. Until the world upended itself again, and then they’d go right back to it. Twenty years in one tiny town, doing the same thing day in and day out.
There had to be something she was missing.
“Hmm. Is that envy I detect?” Starline prodded, suddenly sitting across from her at the table. The man had seen better days.
“What?” The word came out of her unbidden, the same way a person breathed. She couldn’t help looking at him.
Kit glanced her way. “I didn’t say anything, ma’am.”
Starline sneered. “All these fools… They’ll never be able to change anything. They don’t have the power, the will, or the good graces of fate and science.”
“Fat lot of good power did you,” Surge sneered back.
The kid’s spoon scraped against its fancy bowl.
“True enough.” Starline steepled his hands. “I created you, after all, and despite your gifts you’ve yet to achieve a single thing. My impact remains as minimal as yours.”
“I’m alive to do something about it,” Surge argued. “You ain’t.” He would never achieve anything. He couldn’t.
“Hah, this again? There is a difference between ‘death’ and ‘the end’. I am real to you, and that is more than enough for now.”
Surge took a big swig of cola, catching chunks of ice between her teeth. Kit grabbed at one of her pant legs. She looked back to the kid, setting her drink down. He knew. The doctor’s gloved hand covered hers, squeezing. She couldn’t move it.
“Don’t play coy, dear,” the doctor scolded. “Every day those freaks of nature are duking it out, becoming stronger, smarter, trickier for it. More full of themselves!” Venom slid into his voice and down her throat. “You have the power to change it. I gave it to you! Sculpted you for this. And here I find you playing at mundanity. As if you ever could.”
“It’s my life! I have time to do better. Be better!”
“Yes, and see how you’ve used months of freedom without anyone to direct you? You’re afraid even to be seen.”
“I-”
“Ma’am, please look at me. Please?”
She managed for a moment but the doctor’s hand cupped her cheek and forced her to look into his ragged eyes. Surge tried to lean away but only succeeded in squishing Kit against the booth. The cola spilled, glass still in her hand.
“Fragile, useless woman. The gap grows ever greater. Days will pass and you will never have anything to show for it.”
Manic energy swung from fear and avoidance to motion and fury. Surge screamed, chucking the glass at the doctor. He dodged it somehow but there was no stopping anything thrown that hard and that fast. By some miracle it only sailed to the far wall, exploding out in every direction.
She didn’t see how bad the damage to anyone was, eyes snapping to a burly weasel that rose from his seat fast enough to knock it back. A mother tucked her kid under a table. Starline clapped.
Kit got out from under her by propping himself up using tendrils of water, the kid’s voice coming from somewhere above and behind her. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
She was built like this. It wasn’t her fault, and yet -
Surge let off a couple thousand volts and tripped the diner’s breaker, nabbing Kit in the dark and shouldering out the exit at speed.
Cold air braced her as she bolted into the forest, weaving between thick trees and piles of fallen leaves, dismantled Eggman traps and rusty springs, not stopping until they were several miles deep.
Kit narrowed his eyes against the wind, trying his best to be ready just in case Surge tripped no matter how unlikely it was.
A lean-to forgotten by time came into sight as she slowed; old, rotting wood and bloated ditches carved by some machine years ago. Fragile, perhaps, but it’d kept them and their things safe from the rain last night.
Surge fell to her knees, unsteady.
Alarmed, Kit fulfilled his duties immediately. Watery tethers let him shoot between branches and terrain in the immediate area, ensuring isolation. He dared to put a hand on his superior’s back, attempting the kind of comfort she gave him from time to time.
“Ma’am? It’s just us out here.”
“Mnn.”
It’d been like this for a while, but he was starting to fear how far off her breaking point was.
The deceased doctor’s technology was fallible. Apparently the modified metal virus couldn’t keep up with the kind of damage Surge’s upper limits had inflicted on her own body. The regeneration was intact, but limited. Her mind was…
A week ago she’d torn off after a blue hedgehog that didn’t exist, streaking right off a cliff trying to throttle him. Kit had picked her out of the crevasse while she was unresponsive, going along with her afterwards when she pretended nothing had happened. Three days ago they’d pressed a wombat into a corner for a mugging when suddenly she insisted something was aiming a weapon at her head. Not all the episodes were major. Her most frequent one, she confessed, was just seeing black spots in her vision that she’d mistake for bugs sometimes.
Surge had a lot to be proud of. He was still proud of her. She was the reason they were free. But through pride or programming, she found it hard to trust him to de-escalate for her.
It just… felt like he was running out of ways to keep her safe.
“I can’t take it anymore.” Surge slurred out.
“I don’t think it was that bad,” Kit hedged optimistic. “They might talk about what happened but the damage wasn’t very-”
“Not that!” The tenrec’s head whipped to him, sparks in her eyes. “I don’t give a damn about that stupid town and all the stupid people in it! My head! I’m sayin’ I’m sick of this.” She climbed to her feet and loomed over him.
“Sick of…?”
The sparks guttered out. Surge’s grimace became firmer as she started pacing instead. “Sick of me. Keep screwing everything up for us. Never gonna be good enough to kill Sonic or Eggman if I’m stuck livin’ like this.”
There had likely been all sorts of notes and theories about their development in Starline’s first base. Which he’d destroyed thoroughly without Surge’s say so. It had kept those details out of the enemy’s hands, but it also meant they were without any easy resources to troubleshoot.
After Surge woke up, she’d told him he’d done a good job. Made the right call. But it felt like she was just saying that. Maybe because there wasn’t a way to change what’d happened.
Surge spoke into the open air, eyes focused. “I’m done screwin’ around. We’re gonna bust up Eggman bases until we find something that can fix me or we force him to fix me.”
It was a terrible idea. Kit knew as much instantly. She probably did too, on some level. But if she was dead set on taking action, it’d have to be on him to direct it better. That was his role.
“We can’t trust anyone else to solve the problem,” Kit reminded her. “And bio-mechanical lifeforms aren’t his specialty. It’s more likely that we’d only find more weapons made for machines.”
“He’ll figure it out if his life is on the line!”
“Or he’ll outsmart us like he outsmarted doctor Starline.”
“Pft, that quack was a pushover. You ‘n me are tougher than his pride and joy! We already beat Metal Sonic and we’ve been scrappin supers since day whatever. He tries anything, we shake and bake him!” Surge pounded her fists together, lightning arcing between them.
Her confidence ballooned the pride in him. It was a nice thought, working together like that.
But nice thoughts weren’t important yet.
Kit ducked his shoulders down, making for the big bag of stolen goods they’d gathered. Tucked between some warm clothes was the tablet he’d been using. He reached down the high collar of his sweater, tugging up a bead chain pendant that hid away a small data drive for safekeeping.
“I st-still don’t think we should do that.” Kit was still smiling despite himself. “Because there’s another way we can get to some of Starline’s notes.”
“What’s your games gotta do with it?” She wrapped an arm around his side and tugged him closer, looking at the tablet screen with him.
“I don’t just have games on here, ma’am.” He’d more or less stopped playing those, actually, since they drained battery faster and he was pretty sure having her charge it twice a day would be annoying. Kit navigated the directory to a bunch of rich text format files. “Remember when I hooked up all of home base’s power to you? While I was doing that I also downloaded everything I could get access to on a spare drive.”
Her hand squeezed his shoulder tighter. Too tight to be comfortable, but he wasn’t going to say anything. “You didn’t tell me that.”
“I d-didn’t want to disappoint you,” Kit admitted. His smile evaporated, cold fury brought to the forefront. “Starline was a selectively paranoid person. His blind spots were very exploitable, but I haven’t had a lot of success figuring out his ciphers yet, and not everything I obtained was made to work with the word processors I have on hand, so-”
“So he’s been finding ways to piss you off beyond the grave too.”
Kit nodded. It wasn’t right that Starline still had this hold over them. Surge rubbed his shoulder. “There are other projects on here. Things besides us. But most importantly, other bases.”
Surge squatted, getting eye level with the tablet like that would help her understand it better. She turned her eyes on him. “How many?”
“At least two. All I have is the location of one.”
“Then we’ve got a plan.”
That, more than anything, was why he’d been keeping the information to himself. He didn’t know anything about the base. About what they’d find there, or what else Starline had been doing. It was entirely possible Eggman had already reclaimed the base, or that they’d find something else like them. Even if Surge hadn’t been struggling so much lately, she’d have wanted to rush in. A bigger target on their backs was one thing, but what if there were dangers there neither of them could take?
If only he was a bit smarter. Or braver.
At least if he was braver, he wouldn’t have to think as hard about how wrong it was going to go.
“Alright,” Surge grabbed their stuff and slung it over her shoulders, crouching with hands behind her to let him piggyback. “No time to lose.”
“Yes ma’am.”