Chapter Text
Surge’s feet seem rooted to the asphalt of the roadway of the hanging bridge. Her fingers are balled into fists so hard that it’s painful. Small sparks of electricity dart over the rings on her fingers and in her ears, the surrounding streetlights flickering in and out against the clear night sky, reflecting off of the long tendrils of water that are suspended in the air in front of her.
Somewhere further along the bridge, and hidden behind a now abandoned truck, an explosion had blasted a hole into the side of the road, like some giant shark had bitten off a chunk of the bridge. Two people had almost fallen but Surge had reacted quickly and pulled them up to safety.
After soaking up the cheers and praise of the surrounding bystanders for her heroic deed, the green tenrec went to search for her missing companion Kitsunami who had been strangely absent during her rescue operation.
And now she knows why.
Surge feels her world crumble around her.
The blue fennec hovers next to the bridge, a couple of his hydro-coil tails wrapping around the main cable and some of the suspender steel ropes to keep him in the air. But that’s not what freezes Surge’s heart over.
No, what causes this reaction isn’t Kitsunami leaving her to play hero by herself.
It’s the timed explosive he’s holding.
She thinks she’s going to be sick. “You… planned this?!” Forcing the words out feels like pulling out barbed wire from her throat.
Kitsunami flinches at her harsh voice, looking at her in surprise. The explosive is encased in one of his watery tails for safety and up until now he had been studying it with a frown, disappointed that it hadn’t gone off.
Their eyes meet and the fennec looks nervous for a second but then, instead of his expression turning guilty, the kid smiles apologetically. Has the audacity to smile.
“It was supposed to be a surprise,” he says, giving the explosive another sour glance. “But this stupid thing malfunctioned.” He looks back at Surge with candor but the tenrec feels like her entire life had just been turned upside down. Again. “Sorry, it was supposed to take down the entire part of the bridge.”
“Y-you–” her voice quivers with repressed emotion, then cracks and she glares over her own weakness before directing it at the person who is supposed to be her friend. “You faked this?”
A horrifying thought sneaks into her head. In the past, had all the other incidents, all those accidents that conveniently happened whenever Surge and Kitsunami were nearby also been staged? Were all her heroics built on lies?
“I-it’s not fake!” the kid hurries to clarify. “I just want to make sure you have plenty of opportunities to be a hero.” The fennec seems fervent, clearly hoping Surge would praise him for his “genius” plan.
“The bursting dam… The buoys on that turtle island…,” Surge recounts some of the past accidents, blindly staring ahead, her knees feeling weak. “It was all… staged?” Her voice is thin and full of disbelief. Had even one of those instances been real?
“I-I wouldn’t say that,” Kitsunami argues, a little more nervous now as he catches on to the fact that something is amiss. “The danger is still real. Y-you don’t need to worry, Surge. Nobody needs to know abo–”
“SHUT UP!”
Surge’s explosive roar echoes into the night and through the rows of the abandoned cars. Kitsunami flinches, frightened into silence as he clutches his hands in front of his chest anxiously.
But Surge doesn’t care if she spooked the skittish fennec. The corners of her eyes start to burn and she blinks against it furiously. “You don’t get it!” she accuses Kitsunami. “It was supposed to be genuine!”
She hooks her cramping fingers into the sides of her head, raking through her fur. “None of this… None of this was ever real,” she mutters feverishly, a perverse, high-pitched chuckle building at the back of her throat that she has no control over. The sparks dancing on her fingers turn into small strings of lighting, the air around her thick and loaded with static.
Kitsunami reaches a hesitant hand towards her. “T-that’s not true. You’re still–”
“You turned us into frauds!” Surge screams at him, a surge of electricity gathering and unloading around her. The bulbs of nearby headlights and streetlamps burst around them with sharp pops, raining glass shards onto the pavement.
Kitsunami hastily drops himself onto the roadway, retreating his hydro tails from the steel suspenders to avoid getting shocked as the electricity climbs along the bridge. The defective explosive clatters onto the bridge beside him, entirely forgotten.
“All our accomplishments… it’s all built on lies.” She can’t hold back the tears gathering in her eyes now. She knows the kid is smart, that he can be deceitful. But towards her? They are supposed to be a team! A package deal! He’s supposed to be the only one she could trust to not try and manipulate her!
“Surge…” Kitsunami tries to approach her but Surge is having none of it. She sends some of the electricity surrounding her like a second skin his way and the little fennec jumps back with a yelp of alarm.
“Shove it!” she hisses, the hurt that grips her chest flowing over. She rips off the side mirror of the nearest car and chucks it at her so-called “friend”.
“Leave,” she orders him, glowering and chest heaving.
Foolishly, the fennec stays in place, panic slowly creeping into his magenta eyes. “B-but, ...”
“Are you deaf? I said leave!” she bellows more loudly, ripping out the car’s door and throwing it at him. Kitsunami barely manages to duck underneath it, shielding his head with his hands.
When he gets up again, he takes a hesitant step back, blank horror written all over his face.
“Fuck off already!” Surge yells even louder and finally her traitorous friend listens, turning tail and summoning his hydro tails to swiftly propel himself away.
“And don’t come back!” Surge yells after him, putting every last ounce of hatred into the words. “I never want to see you again you p-piece of …. y-you p-p-piece of-” Tears flowing freely now and voice broken by gasps for air, Surge falls to her knees, her arms hanging limply by her side.
The betrayal seems to have ripped a hole into her insides like the explosion had done to the bridge. Is there anyone on this Gaia-forsaken planet that isn’t trying to deceive her? That doesn’t use her like a damn pawn?
Surge gets to her feet, curling up her fingers into shaking fists. With another roar, she lashes out at her surroundings, electricity surging around her and aiding her in her destructive efforts as if supporting her cause.
Railings bend and break underneath her kicks, car hoods crinkle like paper in her grip as she trashes her surroundings in a blind rage. At some point, one of the vertical suspenders snaps, causing the entire bridge to groan ominously, but Surge doesn’t pay it any attention. Why should she care?
Why is everything she builds up around her always falling apart? What did she ever do to the world to deserve everything getting taken from her over and over?
Distracted in her misery, Surge doesn’t notice the two humans approaching until one tackles her, knocking her over entirely. Her cheek hits the asphalt hard and she struggles wildly as her arms are painfully restrained to her back.
Thrashing around like a wild animal, she catches a glimpse of the uniform of the people who hold her down. A logo spelling “GUN”.
The feds.
Great. Just great.
“Hng, get off me!” she hisses, baring her sharp teeth at the nearest guy. When he doesn’t relent, she sends a zap of electricity his way. With a cry of pain, the human man jolts away, his grip loosening and Surge immediately shoves him off, jumping to her feet.
As the dazed soldier slowly rolls from side to side on the ground, groaning in pain while the distinct smell of burning comes off of him, Surge notices that his buddy is hurriedly speaking into a communicator, his eyes behind the visor never leaving the tenrec.
“...requesting immediate assistance,” Surge hears the tail-end of his words. “This is a code red emergency on Radical Highway. I repeat, this is a code– ACK.” The soldier cries out in pain as Surge zaps the communicator which causes him to drop it. The device crackles pitifully before giving out entirely. Nursing the hand that had been holding the communicator, the soldier takes a careful step back before drawing his gun. “Don’t move! You are under arrest,” he commands but to Surge he couldn’t look less intimidating if he tried.
Fast as lightning she zig-zags towards him, leaving a trail of electricity in her wake. A shot goes off but she knows she’s moving too fast and erratic for him to track her movement. In a blur of yellow and green Surge rams her knee into the GUN soldier’s face, causing the man to get knocked away and land on his back.
With a burst of satisfaction, a crooked, mocking grin contorts her face, straining the wet trails on her cheeks from her shed tears. “Heh, that all you got?” She doesn’t care anymore that she once made it her mission to help people. Nothing matters anymore. Beating up some wannabe feds at least gives her the satisfaction of letting out steam and forgetting about Kit.
Movement in the corner of her eye. Surge’s eyes are drawn toward the other soldier trying to get back on his feet. Yeah, she’d rather ram her fists into some faces than think about the Kitsunami any longer.
“Oh, you wanna go for a second round?” she almost purrs, prowling toward the soldier with lightning dancing around her earrings and hands as she cracks her knuckles.
Suddenly, a sizzling green spear strikes the asphalt in front of her, almost hitting her foot, before dissipating into nothing. Surge stops in place and snaps up her head to the origin of the spear, towards one of the main cables of the bridge where a dark silhouette stands against the night sky, rimmed white from the light of the broken moon.
Mobian body. Large head quills so distinct that they can only belong to a hedgehog. A very specific one.
Sonic.
“You,” she spits out, voice dripping with disdain and a long and drawn-out growl beginning to roll at the back of her throat. The rage crashing over Surge is immediate and all-consuming, burning her insides and pulling a red veil over her vision. With everything else falling apart around her, she could at least get rid of Sonic. See how the world deals with people like Eggman without him there. No more “Sonic Cycle”. No more half-assed heroics. When the world inevitably gets plunged into chaos, she’ll watch it all unfold.
As Sonic grinds down the main cable of the bridge, only to jump off a couple of meters above her, Surge doesn’t wait for his feet to touch the road. Faster than eyes can track, she lunges herself at him, fist coiled and aiming for that face with its insufferable smile that he’s probably wearing right now.
She intercepts his arc and they collide with each other, but true to his speed, Sonic redirects her punch with his arm, guiding it away from his face. The duo hits the asphalt hard, small pieces of rubble digging into Surge’s fur and putting tiny tears into her clothes as she slides over the rough surface. She allows neither herself nor her adversary even a breath of respite, however.
Throwing another punch, her speed catches the hedgehog off-guard and her fist connects with the side of Sonic’s muzzle with a satisfying crack, knocking him down before he can properly get to his feet.
With no hesitation, Surge charges towards the hedgehog, hands wrapping around his throat, nothing but the urge to finally kill the reason she is even in this damn mess of a situation in the first place making her fingers twitch. Her earlier outburst, along with her exertion from the attack now, have left her drained and exhausted, but it should still be more than enough to squeeze until she can watch the light fade from his green eyes.
Glowing red irises stare up at her indignantly, looking more offended than scared for their owner’s life.
Surge’s eyes widen in shocked disbelief as the rage clouding her vision seems to fade a little, at least enough to properly look at her opponent for the first time: The aforementioned red eyes, black quills, broken only by red stripes. A white chest. “Y-you’re not Sonic,” she chokes out dumbfoundedly, her grip on the unknown hedgehog loosening as she sits back a little.
In the blink of an eye the strange hedgehog suddenly vanishes in a flash of bright blue light, but before Surge can even so much as wonder what happened or where he went, let alone fall forward from the body beneath her suddenly going missing, a boot strikes the back of her head so hard she gets thrown forward.
For the second time that night her face smashes into the asphalt and pain explodes in her face from the impact, enough for her to see stars for a moment.
Before she can shake off the daze, a knee digs into her back and her arms are mercilessly yanked back, held together at her wrists. Just like the first time she was held down, Surge writhes around, straining to look over her shoulder as she curses and spits at the black hedgehog to let her go, which he only reacts to with a deadpan look. She sends a zap of lightning his way, but it’s weaker now thanks to her sapped state and the stranger barely flinches upon being hit.
The hedgehog’s grip on her arms is strong and unrelenting and the fact that he barely reacted to her electricity makes Surge unreasonably angry. Cheek grazing painfully over the rough surface of the road, Surge cranes her neck around to get a good look at the dark hedgehog, only to be met with a stone-faced expression, despite his tawny muzzle already turning a dark shade of purple from where she punched him and his quills being ruffled and full of grit from rolling over the ground.
“Let me go! You’re not locking me up! I won’t let you!” she yells at him, fighting against her panic. Heart hammering in her chest, she struggles furtively as a twinge of fear creeps up her spine. She doesn’t want to be controlled by some organisation or narcissistic individual again. Never again.
“Stop resisting.” It’s the first words the hedgehog speaks other than some grunts and huffs. His voice is deep but smooth, pressed from the effort of holding her down yet also sounding annoyed and commanding authority in a way that has Surge wanting to smash the heel of her shoe into his face and kick in all his teeth in response.
She grits her teeth, but loathe she is to admit it, even if she could free herself now, she doesn’t see a way to escape without passing out first. Her body hurts from the fighting, her soul aches from the betrayal and exhaustion drags at her bones.
And yet, she wouldn’t allow herself to get taken into custody. She just couldn’t go through this again.
Frantically, she looks around in the hope of finding something to aid her, and it’s then that her attention catches on a small package lying on the ground only a couple of meters away from her.
The faulty explosive.
She can’t be a true hero. She can’t outwit nor outpower any of the people that coerce her into doing their bidding. She’s nothing. And if she has to be nothing, she’ll make sure everything around her turns into nothing as well.
Sparks start flitting over her fists and she can’t stop the maniac, desperate grin forcing itself onto her muzzle, showing two shiny rows of razor sharp teeth. The eyes of the dark hedgehog above her blink, then widen. Feeling like everything happens in slow motion she watches his pupils shrink to little more than small pinpricks as realization of what she’s about to do hits him.
It’s too late for him to prevent it, though. He can’t stop her as she flicks out a finger from her curled, restrained fists, pointing at the explosive and sending electricity its way.
Gotcha, asshole, she gloats silently in the split second before she hits her mark, glaring up at the dark hedgehog above with triumph.
Then everything turns into white nothingness.