Chapter Text
>Be the mutant.
Oh jeeze, which one? Given the freakishly unpredictable nature of troll biology, you’re sorta spoiled for choice. Well, let’s just give this guy a try and hope he’s the one you want.
You are now KARKAT VANTAS and you are TERRIFIED and/or FURIOUS.
Upon stepping outside of your hive about ten seconds ago, you saw the ships. At first, it surprised you that you could see them, all the way up there in orbit. But then you realized that, duh, of course they’d be really big: they’re going to be carrying tens, if not hundreds, of millions of trolls off to various training sites across the empire.
You know (or, sorry, thought you knew) that you hatched with the youngest brood on this sweep’s recruitment lists, a fact you received courtesy of another mutant asshole who you at one point (that is, about eleven seconds ago) believed to be something resembling your friend. He had claimed that this meant that the recruitment ships would not arrive until a night or two after your eighth Wriggling Day, at the earliest. Guess that was a crock of shit.
You spend a several long minutes staring up at the distant, faintly luminescent shapes, floating in a sea of disconnected but utterly enraged thought. Two sweeps ago, you might have started shouting or otherwise flipping out pointlessly. You’ve matured a lot in the interim.
Not that this makes you any less incoherently angry, of course, just quieter.
You finally manage to collect yourself and do the quick switch from retarded, time-wasting Past You to relatively sane Current You who understands that it’s really fucking stupid to stand around gawking like a wiggler when sickle-edged death is lurking, at most, a night or two away. You dash back into your hive, ignoring your lusus’s screech and ducking under his flailing claws. He snaps and hisses as you dart past, but you ignore him, closing and locking the reinforced door to the stairway behind you. You take the stairs three at a time as he pounds on it angrily. There’s no time for pointless custodial strife that he would need to calm down, and you don’t think you could make it through the goodbye that he deserves, anyway.
You leap up the last few steps into your room and hurl yourself into your chair, waking your computer from its inactivity with a few pounds at the keyboard. Trollian pops up with a cheery ping and you only just resist the urge to smash your speakers for the unwarranted gleefulness of their greeting. A quick glance over your trollslum confirms your pessimistic expectations: only four of your contacts are online, and there’s no way in hell Vriska or the hemofascist are going to be helpful.
You move your cursor over the third illuminated name on the list and let it hover there for a few seconds, black on teal.
...
Nah. Fuck it. No way she’d help you, either, personal ... arrangements or no. Probably just spend the whole time doing her weird legislacerator crap or completely refuse to take you seriously and spend the whole time trying, for the millionth time, to ferret out your blood color or something. You might as well get this over and let him know that you’ve finally figured out what he did.
carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling twinArmageddons [TA]CG: SOLLUX CAPTOR
TA: oh hey KK, what2 up?
CG: UH UH. NO. FUCK YOU, YOU TRAITOROUS BASTARD. YOU DON’T GET TO SAY THAT LIKE WE’RE STILL FRIENDS OR SOMETHING.
TA: what?
CG: OH COME ON. I MIGHT NOT HAVE YOUR FREAKISH, TWO-TONE, OCULAR BULLSHIT, BUT I DO HAVE A WORKING SET OF EYES. HOW LONG DID YOU REALLY EXPECT THIS TO CARRY ON AFTER THE SHIPS ARRIVED?
TA: 2hiip2?
TA: what the fuck are you talkiing about?
TA: your wriiggliing day ii2nt for liike another full 2ea2on.
CG: HA FUCKING HA.
CG: WHAT, DID YOU DO THIS AS A JOKE OR SOMETHING? MABYE YOU THOUGHT YOU’D PLAY A TRICK ON THE DIM-WITTED PATSY WHO THOUGHT YOU WERE HIS FRIEND? IS THIS ABOUT MY BLOOD, OR WHAT?
CG: I JUST DON’T
CG: WHATEVER. IT DOESN’T MATTER.
CG: WELL DONE, I GUESS. SPIDERBITCH WOULD BE ENVIOUS AT THE FINESSE OF YOUR BETRAYAL, YOU TWISTED ASSHOLE.
TA: okay two things.
TA: fiir2tly ii have no iidea about any of thii2 2hiit youre 2pewiing, ii diidnt do anythiing two you and ii dont care about your blood color.
TA: 2eriiou2ly ii thought we dealt wiith thii2 2weep2 ago.
TA: 2econdly the 2hiip2 2houldnt be here for another uh 2iixty one niight2, ii ju2t checked liike a miinute ago.
CG: REALLY?
TA: ye2 really, maybe more liike two miinute2 ii gue22.
CG: THAT ISN’T WHAT I MEANT.
CG: BUT, OKAY, NEVER MIND. JUST DO ME A FAVOR, THEN. GO OVER TO THE WINDOW, LOOK UP AT THE SKY, AND TELL ME THAT I’M HALLUCINATING.
TA: you know ii cant 2ee the 2ky from any of my wiindow2.
TA: and why 2hould ii do anythiing for you anyway?
TA: ii mean ii thought ii had weiird mood 2wiing2 but youre beatiing me pretty ea2iily there all of a 2udden.
CG: FINE, I’LL APOLOGIZE IF IT MAKES YOU FEEL BETTER, BUT JUST GET UP TO THE ROOF OF YOUR WEIRD, STACKED-GRUBCAKE-STYLE HIVE AND TELL ME WHAT YOU SEE.
TA: that2 a pretty 2hiitty apology.
CG: YEAH, WELL, TOO BAD. IF I LIVE TO THE END OF THE PERIGEE, I MIGHT GIVE YOU A BETTER ONE, BUT I DON’T SEE EITHER OF THOSE THINGS HAPPENING.
TA: ii 2tiill dont know what youre 2o worriied about.
TA: TZ told me about that tiime 2he got you two flarp wiith her, 2he 2aiid you diid really well and 2he doe2nt iimpre22 ea2iily.
CG: UGH. AND HERE I WAS, THINKING THAT YOU COULDN’T POSSIBLY DO ANYTHING THAT WOULD MAKE WAITING FOR DEATH AT THE HANDS OF THE RECRUITERMINATORS ANY MORE UNPLEASANT, BUT THERE YOU GO, EXCEEDING MY EXPECTATIONS ONCE AGAIN.
CG: ANYWAY, WE BOTH KNOW THAT DOESN’T COUNT.
TA: ii wa2 ju2t tryiing two make you feel better.
CG: YEAH, CONGRATULATIONS, MY EXPANDING AND CONTRACTING CIRCULATORY MUSCLE IS SUFFUSED WITH JOY AND CONFIDENCE AT THE REMINDER OF MY OWN UNMATCHED BRILLIANCE AND SKILL.
CG: NOW GET UP TO YOUR ROOF AND TELL ME WHAT YOU SEE.
TA: fiine, thii2 better be worthwhiile KK.
twinArmageddons [TA] ceased trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG]
Well, that was ... actually sorta reassuring, in its own way. Obviously, you’re still going to die, probably rather horribly, but at least it won’t be due to a betrayal, just incompetence. You can live with that.
Die with that.
Whatever.