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It had been about a week since Surge and Kit burst onto the scene at Restoration HQ. Under the guise of finally reforming, they ingratiated themselves with the rest of the cast and got in close with the Diamond Cutters though not without some bristling between members. Surge, for her part, enjoyed every moment their glares landed on her while Kit very much did not.
"Ma'am, I really think you should be more careful. It won't end well if we fully antagonize them this deep behind their lines. Not yet at least," Kit gave his advice from the bottom bunk of their dorm.
"Relax, Drippy," Surge kicked her feet up over the bottom edge of the top bunk. "These softies won't do anything no matter what we do to them. As long as we keep up our 'uguu so sowwy' act whenever we annoy them, it'll be smooth sailing." She said this with the smug confidence of someone who had already tested their theory the hard way.
"Th-that's true, but I've seen the way one of them has been staring at you. I don't know what she's thinking, but it's obvious she's sizing you up."
"Look, man. They can stare as much as they like. The longer they focus on us, the better our 'partner' can get his work done in secret. Besides," she snapped her fingers twice discharging electricity from them. "None of these chumps could keep up with me even if they wanted. They try, we pound them."
"O-okay. You're probably right." Kit slumped over in his bunk causing a few of the bed springs to squeak.
Surge could hear this slight shift in position and peered over the edge to look at her bunkmate. "Hey, don't worry," her voice audibly softened. "At worst, I'll still be alive. Then we can raise hell and get out of here together. Deal?" Her hand appeared outstretched in front of the fennec.
"Yes, ma'am." His grim expression lightened somewhat as he reached out in response.
The tenrec capitalized on his slowness by delivering a swift high five. She stuck out her tongue at the bewildered Kit until he loosened up enough to let out his own little chuckle. "Trust the process. We'll get out of here juuust fine."
knock knock knock
The noises came from the entrance door. The duo whirled their heads towards its direction. No other sounds came from behind it. "Wh-who is it?" Kit inquired.
A short pause.
knock knock knock
"For the love of..." Surge sighed. She jumped off the top bed and landed on her feet with a thud. "If it ain't room service, we don't want it!" She swung the door open fast enough for Kit to feel the breeze. Behind it was the perpetrator of Kit's earlier anxieties standing with the light of the hallway shadowing her.
"...We need to talk." The wolf's voice was as infuriatingly quiet as ever. Despite clearly not being happy standing where she was, her facial expression was oddly neutral. Cold, calculating. Very unlike earlier threats she levied which were raw and furious. She was planning something, and Surge hated that.
"No greeting? No 'good evening?' 'Good afternoon?' Not even a cheeky 'good morning?' Didn't think they let people as rude as you in here." Frankly, Surge came to despise this girl. She hadn't made a single move since they exchanged taunts a week ago when the duo arrived. All that fire and for what? Nothing. In fact, that's all she got in return for this round of taunting: nothing.
Whisper's face held its characteristic stillness and hadn't let a twitch show anywhere. She presumably wore her field clothes underneath her cloak which she had drawn to to conceal the whole of her upper body. Surge's eyes caught themselves on the barrel of her Variable Wispon poking out the bottom to her side. Whatever the wolf came to talk about, it wasn't friendly. Maybe there was hope yet.
The silence still bugged Surge enough to relent first. "Whatever it is, it can't be that important if the rest of your little circus troupe ain't here to back you up. Just say what you need to say here and scurry on back to your hole."
"No." Her response was immediate. She grabbed the doorknob and locked eyes (eyelids?) with the tenrec. "I need to talk with you. Privately."
Surge flinched backwards slightly before a grin slowly began creeping across her face. Whatever she was planning started to seem more exciting. "Privately, huh? One on one? Mano a mano? Sounds serious." She looked back at Kit and decided to press further. "I'm sure if it's that important, you should tell it to both of us. Right, Drippy?"
The little blue fennec had been shooting daggers at Whisper since she appeared in the doorway. Even if he had heard what Surge asked him, it would've been in agreement with what she wanted. The wolf remained unfazed. "...No. Just us. One on one." She leaned in closer to the tenrec and a ghost of a furrow appeared on her brow. The weapon attached to her hip rattled as if jangling keys.
One more push. "And if I say no?" Surge's face sported a wide, crazed smile.
"You won't." That damn unwavering stubbornness would get on her nerves if Surge didn't respect it so much. If only her face actually emoted.
"Aight. Kit?" She turned back towards the fennec sitting on the bed. He snapped out of his anger-fueled trance and gave his full attention to her. "Hold down the fort. Me and Bright Eye over here are gonna go for a walk."
"B-but ma'am-" he started.
"Don't worry. It'll just be a little girl talk. I'll be back before you know it." A small zap of blue electricity shone in her eyes before immediately dissipating.
"Yes, ma'am." Kit's expression darkened as he turned away from the door.
"Now then," her gaze fell on the blonde wolf. "Lead the way."
Whisper still said nothing as her cloak swished when turning around. A hand stuck out from underneath the cloak only to give a short "follow me" gesture without any other flourishes. Her body language suggested she had everything under control and Surge could not wait to prove her wrong.
The two of them walked in plain sight through the atrium of the Restoration's main complex. They couldn't have been more of a mismatch if they tried. Whisper hunched forward and walked briskly as if trying not to attract attention. Maybe she would've been successful had there not been a neon green and yellow gremlin following behind flashing her chompers at all the passersby.
"So where are we headed anyways? Where could possibly be more private than my room?" They had already walked for three minutes before she asked this question.
"Anywhere. The rooms are bugged," Whisper stated matter-of-factly.
Surge's eyes widened along with her smile fading. "Are they really?"
"No."
This bitch. It was impossible for her to tell if Whisper was joking or attempting to get under her skin. That ambiguity helped it dig further than the wolf probably expected. "Cool. Cool," she huffed. "So where are we going then?"
Whisper stopped. "...We're here."
The sign above the door they stood next to read "Wispon Training Center." A small LCD panel on the outside designated the room as closed until tomorrow. Surge tilted her head in confusion. "But I don't use those alien blasters. That's your schtick."
"Unneeded." The wolf punched in numbers on the keypad beside the door. Surge tried to see what they were, but only caught on halfway through and missed it. A click sounded from the latch on the door and it swung open effortlessly as Whisper tugged on the handle. "Come in."
The room itself was far larger than the outside would have it seem. The ceiling stretched to roughly ten times Surge's standing height and spanned at least forty yards away from the entrance door. The floor was painted with white distance markers and opposite the entrance were several decommissioned Badniks stuck onto metal rods protruding from large pillars. They all varied in which model of robot they used along with elevation and yardage from the lines on the floor. Surge let out an impressed whistle, its echo being swallowed by the cavernous facility. "Sweet digs you got here. Serious stuff. And here I thought you guys were all about trust exercises and hugs."
The door closed behind her and the latch clicked shut. "Not entirely wrong," Whisper hummed. "There will be exercise." She shifted her mask from hanging off her profile to fully covering her face. The lights around the eye glowed a harsh teal and whirred softly.
Surge turned to face the now-masked wolf with fighting spirit burning in her eyes. "Ominous! You got a knack for the theatrics." She punched one of her fists into the other's open palm. "So, what do we call this then?"
Whisper shuffled underneath her cloak. Her Variable Wispon clattered loudly as she did so, instantly drawing the tenrec's attention towards it and creating an expectant look in her eyes. "Initiation." Her other hand held a large pellet that she quickly spiked into the floor releasing a large cloud of smoke and sparks.
The cloud expanded faster than Surge expected and she became enveloped in it. A sharp inhale out of surprise cause her to choke on some of its particles. Only twenty seconds had passed, but she was over it after the first five. After a small shout of exertion, she discharged energy in a short range around her fading the dust away in an instant. The wolf was nowhere to be seen. "Hey, Squinty! I think you meant to say this is 'hazing,' not initiation!"
The expansive room said nothing in response. It was split into two distinct halves: where the trainees sat and where the targets were. While there were some boxy structures to experiment with how changes in height could affect accuracy, there was nowhere to hide on the trainee side. Which meant Whisper had to be hiding somewhere among the targets. Pillars tall and short stuck out of the ground for the targets' anchoring rods to emerge from. Surge probably could've busted them all down with a flurry of kicks, but she decided to indulge in the thrill of the hunt. Just this once of course.
"Don't tell me you made such a big deal out of this just to run and hide!" She slowly sauntered towards the target pillars with her hands behind her head. "Take your best shot! I'll even stand still for ya!" Her feet planted into a wide stance, even putting her hands on her hips and puffing out her chest as if to deflect a shot with it.
The silence persisted. Five seconds went by.
Then ten.
Then fifteen. It was a long wait. Maybe Whisper had a special move that took forever to charge?
Surge slouched in her pose out of impatie-
tink
A small blue crystal appeared from behind one of the obstructions. Its glimmer reflected in Surge's irises before being swallowed by the charge revving through them. "Gotcha." In half a second she covered the distance between her and the crystal, but could not find hide nor hair of the wolf. Just her dumb, stupid, laser mirror thing. "Where'd you run off to this time, Blondie?"
A shot rang out. It grazed past her left ear, almost close enough to give her a new piercing hole. Surge scanned the area around her while completely thrown off her game. Most people that fought her tended to do it out in the open and with nothing to lose. Dealing with one that could actually dodge and give her the slip was frustrating. Another laser passed in front of her face as it hit the floor leaving a minor scorch mark where it had impacted.
"Above me, huh?" Surge faced upwards and behind her to see the wolf perched atop one of the target's pillars. She tossed another one of her crystals up there and leapt over the side that separated her from the tenrec. "Hey! Where ya goin'? I thought wolves were supposed to be apex predators!"
Before she could close her mouth, a beam of cyan light bounced off the higher crystal to the lower, "decoy" one, until it narrowly grazed the tenrec's tail. Whisper made it down to the ground level without being harassed. "...Green." She softly ordered her Hover wisp to be ready to deploy at moment's notice. There was just enough time to do so before the tenrec converged on her location.
"Neat trick you got there!" Surge appeared inches away from the wolf's face with her mouth turned up into a twisted smile. Whisper attempted to aim the barrel directly at her face, but Surge fell on top of her in a grapple with the Variable Wispon between them. "I'm glad you got your gun back! I don't think I'd be having nearly as much fun without it!"
Whisper strained against the unnatural strength of the cybernetic tenrec, but hid it behind her mask. "...This is fun to you?"
"Oh come on, Snips. We both know how much you've been eyeing me since I got here. I bet you've been dying to take a swing at me." She pushed the wolf harder into the floor beneath. "Shame I'm gonna have to break your toy again and you with it!"
Whisper pulled the trigger on her weapon deploying its Hover power. A cushion of green energy rapidly inflated between them, smooshing the wolf a bit but launching Surge directly into the air. With the opportunity made, she quickly cycled canisters to her Rocket wisp and trained a shot right at the tenrec's midsection.
It was impossible for Surge to dodge with nothing to leverage off of. She could see the barrel of Whisper's gun glow a bright orange and she covered her face. Whatever happened next, she would have to endure instead of running away. A brightly colored ball of energy soared through the air in a straight line and directly into Surge's stomach. The shockwave coming from the small explosion rattled the Badnik target dummies Surge was suspended next to.
The tenrec flopped onto the ground in a heap, struggling to hold herself up as she recovered. She wasn't majorly hurt, but trying to breathe after getting the wind knocked out of you was a problem no matter who it was. Three clicks came from some direction behind her within the forest of columns. "Y'know..." she grunted as she managed to get one foot flat on the ground. "If I had known you could fight like this, I would've let you keep your little pets the first time. You got style."
The silence returned. As much as she hated waiting, Surge took advantage of this little reprieve to get her lungs back in working order. She dusted away the small burn marks on her shirt and pants before returning her attention back in the wolf's vague direction. "Would it kill ya to watch the threads? I don't exactly have spares on hand. Maybe we can get some new clothes together after I'm done zappin' that armor off of ya."
A small metal clattering came from exactly behind her. She quickly whirled her head to face in its direction, but hesitated. When did she get over there? How did- Heels turned to bolt in its direction. Nah, she just juked me. I got her now. In nearly a single stride, she landed at the source of the noise along with its perpetrators.
One green and one orange Wisp were floating at eye level, no wolf in sight. "What the- When the hell did you get here?!" The Wisps said nothing except give her looks as menacing as they could manage for plushie-shaped aliens. Devoid of anything else to look at, Surge checked all her directions. Left, right, up, and finally down. On the floor laid a small metal canister; the same as the ones Whisper loaded into her Wispon. Shit.
Two shots whizzed overhead. They came in the direction she first assumed Whisper to be in. Surge ducked just in time to not get domed due to barely hearing and reacting to their charge up noise. She followed the trail the laser left in its wake to where it began: another one of those damn crystals. Quickly glancing about, she could see all three of them surrounding her; one in front, one to her left, and one high above. Whisper was somewhere beyond this weird, bank-shot shield she had made for herself. Surge had been played again, and she knew it.
"I take it back. Your style sucks. Hiding behind your toys and even using your little buddies as decoys? You're a coward, Wolf-Tits!" Out of all the silences so far, this one lasted the shortest. Two shots emerged from somewhere behind cover hitting the crystals above her and to her left. Being far enough away, Surge was able to dodge them on reaction. "Ooh~ Which one of those struck the nerve? Was it Wolf-Tits? I'm gonna go with Wolf-Tits."
In the middle of her taunting, she looked at the tracers the lasers left behind and sprinted over to where they converged. She couldn't have gotten far. Not without them, Surge's mind raced. In her peripheral vision she could see those two Wisps, now audibly jeering her. I'll catch her this time. She thought she managed to outsmart Whisper this time, but annoyingly the wolf was prepared. Her Wispon glowed blue and morphed roughly into the shape of a over-sized sledgehammer. Surge slammed her hands down over the weapon to get Whisper to back down.
"You ever play 'Sumo'? I've heard I'm really good at it." Only a small portion of Surge's smile remained. She managed a shove into Whisper's guard that caused her boots to lose traction on the ground and skid a short distance. Sparks crackled to life from her palms. "You're lucky I'm on the up and up. I woulda fried you by now."
Whisper's masked face seemed to look Surge more directly in the eye. Its robotic expression, despite how cool it looked, was really beginning to piss her off. "...Try it."
The first real response to one of her taunts caused Surge to widen her eyes in surprise. Taking advantage of this brief opening, Whisper deactivated her Wispon and ducked low. Surge, still pushing, lost her balance and careened forward, tumbling over the wolf like a boulder in the road. She heard a few clicks coming from the gun as she braced herself for a somersault. Catching herself and raising up into a kneel, Surge turned towards the one who tripped her ready for another go.
Somehow, the wolf had already closed the gap between where she was and where the tenrec fell. The barrel of her Wispon aimed right at Surge's center of mass and released a blast of pink energy. She didn't react fast enough to brace for it and the disc planted its flat side onto her chest. Nothing happened right away until she started tilting to the right. Then she kept tilting. Upside down. Now right side up. Upside down again. She was cartwheeling fast. Whatever blur the world had become, she could still make out the impression of Whisper shoving her boot into her stomach and kicking her away.
Surge flew out of the target area and back onto the floor where the trainees would stand. The kick made her fall onto her back and the remaining energy from the Wisp shot continued to spin her, turning the partially lit ceiling of the room into a gray, soupy mess. She wasn't hurt all all in the exchange, but she was thoroughly humiliated, disoriented, and in utter disbelief.
Once her eyes settled back down, she pounded her fist into the tile floor and silently seethed. Damn it! Every time I'm right on top of her, she slips away. How the hell does she keep doing that!? She brought herself upright onto her knees, still battling the intense dizziness inflicted upon her by the pink Wisp. Think, Surge! You're faster, stronger, and have more stamina than her. All you gotta do is-
Her eyes finally refocused and she saw the wolf in question standing out in the open. The green and orange Wisps were joined by the pink one holding two of its little tentacles together and pumping them as if appealing to the crowd. Whisper still had her mask equipped and her head faced the now conscious Surge. The aliens were so confident in themselves. They applauded themselves. Laughed too! They were mocking her.
"Y'know what? I'm over it," she calmly said aloud.
Surge punched her fists together. A large cloud of electric charge filled the air around her flickering the lights throughout the whole training hall. Her eyes shone permanently in her signature electric blue and her face scowled with rage. She was now in what she affectionately called "Overdrive" and was ready to end this charade. The three free Wisps huddled in fear behind Whisper who quietly crouched down and readied her weapon. The corner of Surge's mouth twitched upwards for a fraction of a second before suppressing the urge to admire her opponent.
"Gotta hand it to ya, Whiskers," she refused to acknowledge her actual name. "Your little carnival act was amusing, but the show's over." Two bolts of stray lightning shot to either side of the tenrec, cracking the tile and leaving small scorch marks where they hit the floor. She clenched both of her fists and tucked them into her sides before squatting low. "Any last words before I beat them outta ya?"
Whisper stayed silent. Her stance widened as she held up her Wispon, ready to fire. The tenrec stared down the barrel, a dull cyan glow thrumming within it. This would be the last shot Surge would allow her to take. Winner takes all.
A smile broke through despite Surge's rage. The wolf's headstrong nature resonated with her. In the face of total destruction, she looked it dead in the eye and told it to find out. Coils of energy pulsed through the quills of her ponytail as she tensed, ready to charge. "Didn't think so," she snarled.
Whisper fired the starter pistol. In a flash of light, the Surge sprinted full tilt into the path of the laser. She kept a low profile and weaved her head expertly around the beam while keeping her straight path. The world around her had slowed to a crawl. The wolf was stuck in her firing position and suffering from the recoil. There was nowhere to run. Surge stretched her hand out, ready to smash that smug mug into the ground along with that stupid mask.
Twenty more feet. It was over. She had won.
Fifteen feet. Why did the wolf not look surprised at all? She hadn't even twitched.
Ten feet. The ground was really close all of a sudden. Was she falling?
Seven feet. Her chin was only inches from-
CRACK!
Surge hit the floor hard. The impact with the ground rattled her skull and gnashed her teeth. A hot spot on the back of her head sizzled with pain. Did she get shot there? She was kept conscious due to her Overdrive, but every second she stayed down caused her to lose more juice. Her limbs fought against her; they wobbled like pudding. Move, damn it! Just a little more and I-
A huge weight crushed her back. Whisper had swapped to the blue Wisp capsule and spawned a huge cube to incapacitate the tenrec. Whatever energy she had left dissipated from her ears and the crackling around her ended. Whisper quickly dissolved the cube and jumped onto Surge's back, grabbing both her wrists in one hand and holding the cutting edge of a knife to the side of her throat. "...Don't move." Despite the lack of volume, the wolf's voice commanded attention from the downed cyborg.
In her bleary awareness, Surge noticed the knife and her mind called back to their first fight. Whisper resorted to using a shard of her broken Wispon in an effort to shank her. That ferocity, that intensity, that unrestrained desire to inflict harm on another person no matter how it happened. She could feel that again and an insane giddiness bubbled up from inside her. There were only two words that fit this situation, "Finish it."
Without hesitation, the wolf pulled the knife-wielding arm back and plunged it into the back of the tenrec's neck. The world went red. Warm liquid could be felt trickling into her lungs, drowning her as she bled out. End of the line. It wasn't a good run, but what a way to go out....
...Or at least that's how Surge expected it to go. The knife was still pressed into her neck but nothing was punctured or bruised. It never even broke skin. It bared down with the force of an unsharpened pencil straight from the box and made a tinny spring noise as the wolf removed it from between her vertebrae. It was a trick knife.
"...Sloppy." It was slight, very slight, but Surge could detect some snark in Whisper's tone.
"What?" She wanted to sound angrier, but could only manage dumbfounded confusion.
"It was an interesting spar, but ultimately... sloppy." That word again. Why did it make Surge feel so disappointed to hear it? Whisper took her weight off of the tenrec's back and released her wrists, allowing her to get up on her own. The best she managed to do was get on all fours to turn around only to fall back on her butt in exhaustion.
"You mean... that was just practice?" She looked up at the victor. Her mask had been pulled aside revealing the cold yet neutral expression from earlier. All five of her Wisp friends floated next to her giving stares all across the spectrum of anger and pride. None of them looked even close to being out of stamina and yet here Surge was, the unstoppable battery, tuckered out on the floor.
"More like payback."
"Payback for-" Their first fight flashed through her mind again. "Ooohhhh. Never took you for the vindictive type." She regained enough of her energy to flash a toothy smirk.
"...There's a lot you don't know about me." Surge rolled her eyes at that line. The cheese was so rank it almost made her gag. "However, this fight was their idea, not mine." Whisper gestured to the Wisps that circled above her.
"What? Can you talk to them or something?"
"Since you had made yourself known at the Restoration, they wanted a rematch. To see what happens when you can't steal them away from me."
Did she just ignore my question? "So, what's the verdict?"
Whisper looked around at the Wisps. One by one they all nodded in approval after which they returned to looked at the downed tenrec. "They are all satisfied with getting one good strike in each. It was what we agreed on before."
"PAHAHAHAHA!" Surge's sudden laughter startled the Wisps yet Whisper remained still as ever. She wiped a tear she squeezed out from her eye. "Unbelievable. You had me dead to rights. If that knife was real, that'd be it. And you're just gonna throw that away for a little payback?"
A small but wry smile appeared on the wolf's face. It was difficult to place why, but Surge really wanted to punch it. Whisper swished her cloak open to reveal the Wisp canisters attached to it and the rainbow squad returned to their homes. A small metallic jingling could be heard as the cloak fell. Somehow, that sound never happened during their fight and now Surge had even more questions. "...There will be other opportunities."
This BITCH. Surge couldn't stifle her involuntary chuckle. She rubbed the back of her head, remembering the small patch of fur that had dried and cracked from the laser shot. "Oh yeah. What happened back there? How did that blast hit me from behind?"
Whisper said nothing and pointed towards the wall where entrance door was. Floating all by its lonesome was one of her ricochet crystals, right behind where Surge got ready to brutally tackle the wolf.
Her bewilderment went full tilt. "When the fuck did you put that there?"
"...From the very beginning."
That damn smoke bomb. "So you planned that shot from the start? Was everything on purpose?"
"No. I had no idea it would come back into play. The element of surprise is very fickle after all." Her smile widened. "I just got lucky."
Surge hung her head low and laughed softly. "Man, you are just something else, huh?" She looked back upwards and extended her hand. "I lost. Well played, Wolf-Tits."
"Whisper." The wolf clasped her hands with the tenrec's and lifted her onto her feet.
"You know what I meant, Wolf-Tits." Surge couldn't help but get the final barb in any way she could. "So does this mean we're cool?"
"No."
Surge was taken aback but intrigued. "Figures. That'd be too easy."
Whisper shot a look at Surge somewhere between anger and pity that drove the tenrec up the wall. "...I still can't trust you. Until proven otherwise, I still think you're planning something detrimental for the Restoration. Therefore, I'll-"
"-Be keeping your eye on me. Blah blah whatever." Surge took one zippy step towards the wolf, stopping inches from her face. She jabbed a finger into her chest. "Is that supposed to be intimidating? Cuz it AIN'T-"
Whisper swiftly grabbed the tenrec's wrist, twirling her around, and pressing it into her back. With her free hand, she unholstered her Wispon and shoved its barrel into the bottom of her chin. "...If you are planning anything, work on your CQC. Otherwise, this will happen again. Understand?"
THIS. BITCH. "Loud and clear." The wolf released Surge from her iron grip. Whatever combat tips they taught her were annoyingly effective, especially after what just went down.
The wolf punched in numbers on the keypad by the door unlocking it. Once again, Surge missed the digits. She opened the door and let both of them out before locking it behind them. Whisper turned towards the tenrec with that original, neutral stare. "...Enjoy your afternoon." She walked off in a random direction leaving Surge to herself.
'Enjoy your afternoon.' Who does she think she is? She could feel her hands shaking and looked down to see them. Staring at her open palms, she could see small jitters in their stillness. It was hard to place what emotion it was. Excitement? Fear? Some third thing? She settled on excitement for her own sanity. There's no way one mute wolf could scare her, right?
The door to the dorm swung open wildly, startling the fennec who had barely moved an inch from his position in his bunk. Upon seeing the tenrec, his face instantly brightened. "Y-you're back!" His eyes scanned wildly around her figure, noticing the minor scratches and scuffs on her clothes. "Wh-what happened to you?"
"Save it, Drippy. I'm fine." She brought a hand down over his head and ruffled the top of it. "Besides, I got something to tell you. Our little stay just got a whole lot more interestin'."