Zib was on his way back to his office, when Surge ran past him. "SURGE WAIT, WHAT'S WRONG?!" Zib called after him, but Surge ignored him.

Nathaniel Zib, 25 years old, senior mission chief and chief of the Alpha-Team. He was like a mother figure to the whole team, sometimes even getting called "Mom" occasionally.

He always had to deal with the heroes insecurities. First Stormer when he was still a rookie, Furno during his trials and now Surge.
Surge definitely took spot number one.
Zib sighs and followed him. It's hard to see him crying like that, for most of the civilians know him as an energetic hero who is at times a bit reckless.

He has the whole team judging him critically, and then there are the other heroes, especially Grant.

Zib shook his head in annoyance. Yes, the young hero had a few behavior and fighting errors, but it doesn't solve them by pointing them out billions of times. He and the other younger heroes have only been official members of the team for a few years, and yet Surge, instead of growing more confident, just got more unsure of himself.
Zib sighed again.

Poor guy is normally energetic, a tad bit reckless and sometimes childish. "Too childish" in the words of Duncan Bulk... "Too reckless" in the words of Preston Stormer.

In normal citizen years, Surge would be considered as a child, with him being ten years old. But every person built at the Hero Factory is a grown up, the moment they're created. Acting like a child when you're a grown-up is something that isn't very often tolerated, unfortunately...
Another unfortunate thing is that Surge always hides his true emotions. Sure, everyone does. Rocka is probably the worst at hiding them. But while other's stay silent when getting judged, they still have some sort expression on their faces or in their eyes. Surge is just completely blank, let's the words get to him and then break down in his dorm. Zib heard him cry so many times by now, but every time Surge tells him he's fine.

The mission chief got to the dorms and knocked on Surge's door.

****

Surge was still sitting on the ground when someone knocked on his door. "Surge? What's wrong? Why did you run off like that earlier?" The hero looked up at that. That's Zib's voice. God damn it why now? "What do you want?" Surge replied, sounding more annoyed than he wanted. "Please Surge I'm worried! Open the door please?" Surge barely bothered wiping away the tear stains and got up. He hates it when Zib has that motherly worry tone in his voice. It always made him feel like he disappointed Zib in some way. He turned around and opened the door.

****

Zib stepped back when Surge opened the door. He looked up at his stained face. One good thing about his black tears is that it makes it impossible for him to lie that he didn't cry. The tears always left black lines on the sides of his face. But it also worried him. Surge is the only one known to have black tears. Some people thought he cries blood, because the blood the robots have is also black. But no, it's some unknown substance doctor's don't know about. No one did.

"What happened? Why were you crying?"
"Just the usual. It's nothing.."
Zib sighed. "Can I come in?" "Sure.." Surge answered reluctantly and let Zib in, closing the door behind them. Zib turned and looked at Surge. "Surge, you can't let this keep on. You have to tell them how you feel. Bottling up your emotions won't make your life better!" Surge narrowed his eyes at that. "I doubt that. Whenever I let out my anger for example, they tell me to get a better control over my feelings! I'm just doing what I'm being told! I don't think letting them out would make it better." "Hiding emotions can bring emotional problems. You've seen me! I hide my emotions, I get random laughing fits or breakdowns! I'm trying to help you Surge, if you would just listen-"
"THEN STOP TRYING TO HELP ME!!!" Surge yelled at him.
Zib fell silent at that. Surge is the last person to ever raise his voice.
Surge continued. "If I annoy you so much, then stop caring about me god damn it!" "Surge, you're not-!" "THAT'S WHAT EVERYONE SAYS! And yet I can clearly see their annoyance! Hell even Furno got annoyed with me earlier because of my core!" Just then Zib noticed Surge's core being purple instead of gold. "The Purple Quaza..." He muttered. "Oh I know. But it's probably just a different coloured Quaza and self destructive, but the myths are just myths, they can't be true." Zib looked up. "Surge, you don't know if it's true or not, no one does." "Is there any proof that it's true?" "No-" "Exactly! So all I can do is to not make a big drama out of this!"
Zib gave him a sad look. He's changing himself just so others can be happy with him being around. "You're changing so much Mark. Just so others are happy. Have you ever thought of your own happiness?" Surge stayed silent. Zib never uses the heroes first names unless they either messed up, or he wants a message to stick with them. He looked off to the side. "I'm happy when others are." He mumbled. Zib shook his head. "You're scared to make others UNhappy, so you stop doing everything that usually make you happy, in fear of the others getting angry." Surge flinched a bit. What Zib said is true, Surge was scared of others being unhappy.
"You need to think of yourself."
"Then people will call me selfish."
"You need to do what makes YOU happy."
"Then others call me childish."
"Surge please..."
The blue hero looked down. It sounded like Zib was going to cry. He hated that.
"Just, stop caring so much about me... Then you don't have to deal with this." "Surge-" "Please just... Leave me alone.." He hates saying that to his practical mom, but he didn't want Zib to deal with him even more.

Zib looked at Surge for a moment, before sighing and nodding slightly. He walked past him and out of the dorm.

****

Surge waited until Zib left, flopped onto his bed and put a pillow over his head to block out the noises from the outside. Why was he getting annoyed with Zib caring? He's normally glad when at least one person actually cares about him. So why did he hate it? Did he get so used to not being cared of, that it's weird when someone does?
Zib is right.
He IS changing.
Not exactly in a good way.
But he doesn't want others to be mad either.
"I'm happy when others are happy." He kept repeating to himself, like he's trying to convince himself that it's true. But it's not. When others are happy with him being around, he's normally unhappy. It's so frustrating...

A few das later, Surge started to isolate himself. Meaning in this case that he's avoiding any sort of interaction with the others. On missions he still does, but the rest of the time he ignores everyone else. The other heroes didn't seem bothered by it. Except Furno. Furno was genuinly confused on why Surge became so... silent. He tried talking to him, he got ignored. He tried to train alongside Surge, Surge pretends he didn't notice him. What is going on with that guy???
Furno tried to find a logical answer while he made his way to the training sphere, but he just couldn't think of anything. It annoyed him a bit on how much Surge can change at once. Why can't that guy stick to one personality? Furno sighed and went into the training and froze immediately.
Why is he on the ground?
Furno ran over.
Why is his core barely glowing?!
"SURGE!" Furno yelled and shook him. No reply. Not even a flinch. The red hero started to panic, picked him up and rushed out. He had to hurry if he wants Surge to make it. He ran to one of the elevators and waited impatiently for one to arrive. When one finally did, he got the ground floor and ran to mission control. Zib was there, fortunately, and looked up when Furno ran to him. "Get the Quaza chamber ready, Surge needs a Supercharge asap." Furno said while trying to catch his breath. Zib didn't need a second to understand and nodded. Furno took Surge to the chamber and came back. The chamber is shown on the large monitor with other stats on the smaller screens. Zib quickly looked it all over and starts the charging. Furno stood beside him as he watched. "What did he do?" Zib asked. "I don't know. He must've overtrained himself and passed out." Was Furno's answer. He knew way too well how that was, but his case wasn't as bad. He was still conscious after he drained himself too much.

Stormer joined them midway through recharge. "Furno, you were supposed to be at the training sphere, what happened?" Furno quickly explained what has happened. Stormer looked at Surge on the screen as he did so. "Guy has always been unpredictable. I never expected him to train that much at once." He said after Furno finished. "He just doesn't seem to be that type." Furno agreed with a nod. Zib stayed silent.

Why did you decide to train so much all of a sudden, Surge?... You know what can happen if you drain your core too much...

When recharge was finished, Surge was back up and running again, although he still didn't talk. He just nodded when Zib asked if he was feeling alright. Stormer told Furno to come to the training sphere with him and walked off. Furno looked at Surge one more time, although the blue hero didn't look back, before following him. Zib waited until they left and asked Surge again. "Are you sure you're okay?" Surge was silent for a bit. "Let me answer that question with another question. Don't heroes normally feel complete after their first Supercharge?" "Yeah?" Zib was a bit confused on what the connection to his question was. "Why isn't that the case by me?" Nevermind, connection found.
"Why do I still feel like, something is missing? Something that doesn't seem right? Why do I feel like my whole entire self isn't right?" Zib couldn't find an answer to that. "U-uh, maybe it'll pass after a few days? It's no the first time someone didn't feel complete right after recharge, but only a few days after."
Surge shook his head. "I don't know who I am. I don't know who I'm supposed to be." "Surge..." Zib didn't know what to say.
Suddenly, Surge grabbed him by the shoulders.
"Tell me, who am I? What kind of personality am I built with? What kind of hero am I? Tell me, what it is that I can't see?!! Tell me, who am I supposed to be!?!"
He yelled as the black tears started to run down his face again.