The last time Surge had put any real thought on Starline had been a while back in Resistance HQ, it was late at night and Surge had been blankly staring at the ceiling for a while, having trouble falling asleep.
"Uh Ma'am…" Surge heard from the bottom bunk, evidently Kit had been having trouble sleeping too.
"What Drippy?"
"Are you awake?"
Surge stared blankly at the ceiling and sighed "…No I'm just taking in my sleep."
"Oh okay…" Kit said, leading Surge to groan.
"I'm awake what do you want?"
"Do you think Starline could come back?"
Surge's pupils shrank a bit, but she quickly shook off any worries "A whole street of that weird city was dropped on his head, I don't even think we could come back from that."
"I guess…" Kit clearly was far from reassured by Surge's words "but what if he did?"
"Then we'll beat him down like before."
"But what if he came back and we… weren't together."
Surge peeked over the edge of her bunk to stare down at Kit "This better not be your way of saying you're ditching me."
"NO OF COURSE NOT MA'AM!" Kit spat out as a look of absolute terror overcame him and Surge couldn't help but cringe a bit at that.
"Hey! Hey! I was kidding! Now stop worrying and get yourself some rest."
"Yes ma'am." Kit muttered out, before almost instantly he fell asleep.
"Strange I was just in the middle of my climactic battle with the Doctor, there was a flash of light, and now I'm in this white void…" Starline pondered out loud before he noticed Surge "What are you staring at?" Surge tried to say something, anything, but at that moment her body barely could properly breathe let alone form anything resembling words. "I expect you to answer when I ask a question." Starline glared down Surge who finally managed to spit something out.
"N- no! You can't be here! You died!"
A hideous grin appeared on Starline's face "Oh did I? Fascinating." he walked towards Surge.
"NO! Get back! I'm warning you!" Surge wanted nothing more than to run, but the most she could force her legs to do was slowly back away a bit before she tripped over herself.
"Oh Surge…" Starline adjusted his hypno glove before he raised it towards the tenrec "I think you may need a… readjustment."
Surge closed her eyes, resigned to her fate, before she heard another voice call out "Leave her alone!" The tenrec opened her eyes to see Maria standing between her and Starline, Arms raised defensively.
Starline for his part stared for a moment before he quickly gained composure, by letting out a laugh at the display "I'm sorry, is this supposed to be impressive? Ah yes, the most impenetrable barrier, a sickly young girl." as if to prove Starline's point Maria began to tremble as she struggled to hold back a cough. "Well luckily for you I'm much more interested in investigating what this place is than toying with my creation for now." and with that, Starline wandered off.
"Are you alright?" Maria held out a hand only for Surge to brush it away.
Surge pulled herself up and glared down Starline for a moment before she finally said "…I'm fine." however that wasn't good enough for Maria.
"What did he mean by 'his creation'? Did he make you like my grandfather made Shadow?"
"HE DIDN'T MAKE ME!" Surge screamed out only to instantly regret it as she saw Maria flinch back "Trust me, he's nothing like your grandfather."
And without another word, Surge ran off and all Maria could do was worry "Oh Surge…"
"What was that back there?" Surge questioned herself as she ran aimlessly "I should have been able to pound Starline into the dirt, no sweat." That wasn't true Surge thought; she had needed Kit with her last time, but even then she should have at least tried, not just cower on the ground like a wimp.
As she turned away from her thoughts, Surge spied a new structure in the distance "Another castle… just like where I found Metal Sonic." Surge sped into the castle structure and quickly reached the top where, as she had guessed, she found a gate just like the one that had taken her to Metal Overlord. "Good, I could do with a punching bag right about now." the tenrec said as she ran into the vortex.
Surge landed in a large chamber and glanced around, off in the distance was what looked like an ancient altar with a pulsing semi-organic machine hung just over it. "What is this place…?" little did the tenrec know that she was inside the heart of the ARK's most dangerous creation, the Eclipse Cannon.
A pulse of energy echoed out of the cannon's core and condensed just above Surge as a ball of orange energy. A giant salamander with various cybernetic implants appeared, landing in the arena with enough force to knock Surge back several feet. This beast was the prototype of the ultimate life, the Biolizard. It roared at Surge, who responded in kind, "What the hell is that thing!?"
The Biolizard lunged at Surge to chomp her only for the tenrec to easily leap out of the way "Nice try, but you're just a little too slow!" she laughed as the lizard struggled to chase her, at most able to wiggle a bit to rotate itself.
As she watched the Biolizard struggle, Surge heard a voice from above "This is a death sentence for every human being on Earth."
"Gramps?" Surge muttered as she recognized Gerald's voice, she glanced up to see a video of the professor chained up projected all around the arena.
"If my calculations are correct, the Space Colony ARK will impact the Earth in twenty-seven minutes and fifty-three seconds." Gerald stated with a disturbing lack of emotion in his voice "All of you will be destroyed, along with your beloved planet Earth."
"What the hell…?" as Surge was distracted, the Biolizard fired a ball of Chaos Energy towards her "Oh crap!" Surge leapt out of the way, clutching her shoulder as the ball had grazed her. The Biolizard fired several more shots at her, with the tenrec easily dodging each of them.
Its energy spent, the Biolizard collapsed "You seem to be wasting a lot of energy." Surge grinded on the cables attached to the lizard's mouth up to its life support device "I'm gonna punch this giant metal thing on your back!" One flurry of fists later, the device exploded as Surge leaped to safety and the Biolizard let out a shriek of pain.
"I plan to give you a taste of my revenge," two sets of wires protruded out of the Biolizard's back as the arena shook and Gerald continued "once all the seven Chaos Emeralds are collected. Once I initiate this program, it cannot be disabled." Purple bubbles of who knows what began to form on the wires and soon the Biolizard had a makeshift pair of hands.
"Ew, did you just grow arms?" Surge said as she fought back the urge to throw up "You think those will stop me?"
The Biolizard launched a punch at the tenrec, with Surge dodging out of the way, a shockwave pulsed out of the fist as it connected with the floor. Unfortunately for the prototype, said fist was now stuck in the floor and Surge was all too willing to take advantage of that.
Surge launched a flurry of punches on the arm until the bubbles burst, vaporizing the wires instantly, "I knew it'd pop." she laughed as the Biolizard squirmed in pain "Your weakness was pretty obvious." As the remaining bubbles floated down, she leaped across them to attack the life support unit again.
The Biolizard shrieked as its arm painfully regrew and once that was done, it slammed its fists on the floor and leaped to one of the chamber's walls. Cables launched out of the wall to plug into the life support device and pump Chaos Energy into it at an alarming rate.
"Stop squirming. I've already won." Surge said as the Biolizard shot more of the bubbles at her, which were easily dispatched by her spears "It's been fun. But I'm tired of looking at you." The lizard continued to fire bubbles at Surge until all of them were destroyed. Even without the bubbles the Biolizard still had one last trick up its nonexistent sleeves, as it held its arms over its life support unit and a massive ball of Chaos Energy soon formed.
"All of you ungrateful humans, who took everything away from me..." Gerald's words echoed out as the Biolizard shot the ball at Surge, however, just before the ball could hit the tenrec froze it with Chaos Control and launched a flurry of punches into it.
"Take this!" with one last kick before time resumed, the ball was launched right back at the Biolizard.
"Will feel my loss, and despair!" as the attack exploded on the Biolizard's life support system, the lizard cried out in pain and more bubbles were knocked out of it. Surge used the bubbles as stepping stones to dive towards the life support unit and with one final punch, the Biolizard let out its last scream of pain as the unit exploded.
"I'd take more than some overgrown lizard to beat me." Surge said as the Biolizard fell limp to the floor, with her landing soon after.
As the last bit of life left the monstrosity, Surge took one last look at the video of Gerald "Is there anything else you want to say?" another voice asked from off-camera.
"No..."
"Ready!"
She really wished she hadn't.
Back in White Space, Surge was lost in thought as she walked back, she didn't even notice that she had made her way back over to Sunset Heights where Maria and Gerald were.
"Surge is something wrong?" Maria asked, which shook the tenrec from her stupor.
Surge shook her head "Yeah I'm fine. I just had to beat up some big lizard your grandpa made."
"That would be the Biolizard." Gerald said with a mournful look cast across his face "It was the prototype I created before Shadow. Unfortunately, it was genetically flawed, and I was forced to put it in stasis and hope I could fix it one day."
"How in Gaia's name do you go from big lizard to hedgehog?" Surge asked.
"Heh it's a bit of a funny story actually, you see I went on an expedition to this floating island-"
"I wasn't actually expecting an answer Gramps."
"Oh, right sorry." Gerald apologized before he realized the other detail of the conversation "Wait, how did you know I made the Biolizard?"
"The arena had a bunch of screens with your face on them. Actually, you were also talking a lot about getting revenge and making people feel your loss and despair… or something like that." Surge explained, she had decided it would be best not to mention the last part of the video.
Maria looked towards Gerald with fear in her eyes "Grandfather…?"
"I fear Surge may have seen something from my personal future."
Surge raised an eyebrow "Are you sure, you don't come across as the type to swear revenge on the world."
"People can change, sometimes… drastically." Gerald saw the concerned looks he was getting from the pair and quickly shifted tone "Although this is all mere hypothesis, it's equally likely that Surge just glimpsed an alternative timeline."
"Right…" Surge decided it would be best to go along with Gerald and switch subjects "Anyway, you wanted to ask me some questions?"
Gerald nodded "Yes about that starfish alien you mentioned earlier. Do you mean the alien known as Black Doom?"
"Yeah, I've been chasing down that creep the whole time I've been here. His smug voice just makes me want to smush him to a pulp!" Surge punched her palm with a determined look on her face.
Maria grimaced at Surge's words "That's a bit… gruesome."
"Yes, but when it comes to the likes of Black Doom I can't say I disagree." Gerald commented, although Surge paid little mind to either of the Robotniks.
"At least these new powers I've got are going to make this way more fun."
A flash of worry shot across Gerald's face "New powers…?" however before he could question further, Surge suddenly fell to her knees.
Maria was at Surge's side in an instant "Surge? Are you in pain?"
Surge clenched her teeth "No. That weird moon thing in the sky, I can feel it pulling at me. It's the same tingle as my new powers or whenever that starfish creep is near..." she explained as she pulled herself back up.
Gerald looked up at the moon "It is the power of Black Doom."
Both Maria and Surge looked at him confused "What are you talking about Gramps?" the tenrec asked.
Gerald sighed "I made a Faustian deal with that monster to create Shadow, now it seems that we all have to pay for my sins. Maria's illness couldn't be treated on Earth. I could better manage her condition on the ARK, even if her family didn't like the idea... I attempted to develop the 'ultimate lifeform' as a means to find a cure for Maria. My own experiments had reached their frustrating limits... so when that alien warlord reached out to me and offered the miracle of Chaos Control, I accepted. Through his DNA, the ultimate lifeform was born."
"Okay… what does that have to do with me?" Surge questioned and Gerald's answer sent chills into her very soul.
"It seems within your DNA is Black Doom's." before Surge could question further, Gerald explained "Black Doom wanted me to make the perfect warrior for him, and without Shadow, it seems he has moved on to another choice. So these new abilities are all part of his grand design. You two are linked by blood. As you grow in power, so does he. He will either take control of your mind and make you his ultimate weapon, or take over your body and be reborn in you."
Surge felt nothing but dread in that moment "N- no it can't be! How the hell is would that even be possible!?"
"I can explain that." the trio turned to see Dr. Starline approaching them.
"You!" Maria yelled out, which earned her a shocked glance from Gerald, "Grandfather this man was tormenting Surge earlier!"
Gerald glared down at the doctor "Who are you?"
"Let's say I'm a bit of a fan of your family, Professor Robotnik." Starline gave a little bow "Dr. Starline at your service. I designed Surge as a replacement for a particularly bothersome hedgehog, but unfortunately, I was unable to acquire the proper bio-data from said hedgehog, so I need to use an… alternative source.
A look of horror crossed Gerald's face as he realized what Starline meant "You didn't!"
Starline let out a small laugh as he said, "It was quite fortunate that your grandson kept a sample of Shadow's bio-data in the Egg Base I commandeered."
"Do you even realize what you have done!? You've turned this young woman into a vessel for a genocidal alien monster!" a vein on Gerald's head looked ready to burst as he yelled however his words got little more than a sigh out of Starline.
"True artists aren't appreciated in their time."
"Artist!?" Gerald looked about ready to throttle Starline himself "You're a madman!"
"Well, Professor you know what they said about taking one to know one." Starline let out another laugh only to be cut off by a bolt of electricity zapping his foot.
Surge pointed her still-smoking finger at the platypus "Starline… Get out of my sight or I'll remove you myself."
"Ah regained your bravado after your earlier slip-up?" more electricity sparked through the air as Surge growled "I'll take that as a yes." And with that, Starline took his leave.
Gerald readjusted his coat with a huff "I can't believe a man like that is considered a scientist." He looked down at Surge, who watched Starline disappear into the distance, "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine…" Surge clenched her fist "If you're right, Black Doom's a bigger idiot than I thought. No one controls me, Gramps. I'll take this power and use it as my own!"