Vengeance
GC: 1 KNOW WH3R3 YOU 4R3, VR1SK4
GC: YOU C4NT H1D3 FROM M3
AG: Of course not, Redglare. Wouldn't dreeeeeeeeam of it.
GC: DONT CALL M3 TH4T
GC: TH1S 1S NOT 4 G4M3
AG: Hahahahahahahaha. Everything's a game, my dear Redglare. Are you ready to come and get me?
GC: Y3S
AG: Do you think you can t8ke me this time? Think you're going to get... lucky? ;:::D
GC: LUCK DO3SN'T H4V3 4NYTH1NG TO DO W1TH 1T
GC: 1 4M S1MPLY GO1NG TO K1LL YOU :|
AG: Fuck, Terezi, it's like you don't have a sense of humor anymore!
GC: TH4TS B3C4US3 1 DONT
GC: YOU K1LL3D 1T
GC: L1K3 4LL TH3 R3ST
GC: 4ND NOW 1TS T1M3 TO P4Y FOR YOUR CR1M3S :|
AG: I'll be w8ing!
Terezi stood at the top of the massive structure her hive had become, a towering pinnacle on the Land of Thought and Flow. Her unseeing eyes stared out across the flickering green-gray landscape far below, and the pulsing green lights in the sky. Her nose picked out the familiar tang of green lacing the air, the sharp silhouettes of the mountains on the horizon, the ever-shifting rivers. She opened her mouth and tasted the minty hue of the sky.
She sighed. She did know where Vriska was. Of course she did. Some Seer of Mind she'd be if she couldn't predict someone as simple as Serket. But she had to be honest – it wasn't enough. She'd been chasing the girl for months, through this enormous graveyard of a session. Every time they met, they found themselves evenly matched, blow for blow. Every time a stalemate, until one or the other backed down to fight another day.
Terezi raised the hood of her god-tier costume, spreading her gossamer wings – a gift she owed, ironically, to the very prey she hunted – and leapt from the balcony. She soared across the landscape, lost in thought. If she could have Feferi, or Kanaya – fuck, even Karkat – to back her up, she knew she could take Vriska down. The Thief of Light might have all the luck, but against a Seer of Mind luck was practically worthless. And after all the bitch had done, her death couldn't help but be a just one. No immortality there.
Damn. She blinked away a tear. She shouldn't have thought about Karkat. His death was the most recent, and the pain was still raw. Vriska hadn't even given him a chance. Decapitated the boy with a slice of his own sickle. The scent of his blood, his candy-red blood he'd tried so hard to hide, still stung her nostrils. Shit.
She touched down on a mountaintop and, as if in a trance, opened an old chat log. The last conversation she'd had with Karkat.
CG: I'M GOING AFTER HER. ARE YOU COMING?
GC: K4RK4T, DONT B3 4N 1D1OT
GC: YOU KNOW YOU C4NT B34T H3R :[ LOOK WH4T SH3 D1D TO K4N4Y4.
CG: SOMEONE HAS TO. WE'RE THE LAST, WE CAN'T JUST RUN FOREVER.
CG: BESIDES, THIS SHITHIVE TIMELINE IS DOOMED ANYWAY. WE FUCKED UP. ARADIA ALREADY WENT BACK TO FIX IT. MIGHT AS WELL GO OUT WITH A BANG.
GC: … F1N3. BUT W41T FOR M3. TWO 4G41NST ON3 1S B3TT3R ODDS :]
CG: SURE.
He hadn't waited. She never knew why, but the idiot had sought the girl out on his own. By the time Terezi had gotten there, Vriska already had his blood all over her hands. Then she'd laughed, the coldest sound Terezi had ever heard, and simply flew away. Didn't even bother to kill Terezi, not then, not until later. Her mistake.
Trolls don't bury their dead. They don't have funerals. But Terezi had needed to honor her friend somehow. She'd taken him back to his planet, the Land of Pulse and Haze, and dropped him into one of the massive lakes of blood as gloriously red as his own.
She shook herself out of her reverie, and took to the skies again. This stalemate had to be broken. Justice had to be served.
Terezi soon found herself soaring over another world, an intricate crystalline landscape with a faint strain of ethereal music filling the air. The Land of Quartz and Melody. Aradia's planet. Damn her. Terezi sped up, hoping to spend as little time as possible here. She still hated the girl with a fiery passion, even though it'd been months since she'd vanished. Gone back in time to "fix" all this. Never mind what happened to those who were stuck in this timeline. If she'd stayed, helped – with the body of a robot and psychic powers rivaling god-tier, together with her time-twisting abilities... she could have turned the tide. She could have stopped the fight before it got this far. Terezi still remembered that conversation.
"Aradia, wait!"
The metal girl hadn't even turned around. "Do you have something to say, Pyrope?"
"Stay here. You can help. Tavros... Tavros is dead." She'd found it strangely hard to put it into words. "F-Feferi too. We need you here."
"She's right," Sollux had agreed. "Fuck, Aradia, you can't just leave us in the fucking lurch. Vriska's got us trounced, and Eridan's... well, he's an arrogant asshole who thinks way the fuck too much of himself, but even I have to admit he's tough as fuck."
"My duty is to the timeline," Aradia had replied blankly. "This branch has lost its relevance."
"What, so things turn bad and you give the fuck up?!" Sollux had started shouting. That had probably been a mistake. "Well, I've got news for you, you fucking tin can!" He had strode up to her and threw a fist at her steel side. By the look of it, it had hurt him a lot worse than it had her. "Some of us have to stick around! What're we gonna do, huh?!"
Aradia had turned her head to face him, her eyes weirdly expressionless. "You will die, of course. You have always known this, Sollux. Were you not the one constantly foretelling his own doom?"
He had stared grimly back at her. Finally, with a growl, he'd spun away. "Fine. Leave, then. See if I fucking care." He'd run away at that point. Terezi never found out where he'd gone. He'd been dead a few days later. Shot in the head by Eridan.
Aradia had turned to stare at Terezi, as though waiting for her to protest again. Terezi hadn't said anything, only stared back. Sollux had said everything that had needed to be said. With a short nod, Aradia had opened her music boxes and, without fanfare or spectacle, disappeared. No one had ever seen her again.
Landing in front of another gate, its spirograph pattern swirling entrancingly, Terezi closed her eyes and took a slow breath. It was time to let go of the anger. Aradia had done what she had felt was right. And, she supposed, it was good to know that somewhere out there, in the meandering paths of paradox space, was a timeline in which this shit had never happened, a timeline in which they were all happy, all alive. In which she didn't have to hunt down her oldest friend. She stepped through.
The scent of this world hit her like an anvil, and she almost fell back through the gate. The Land of Little Cubes and Tea. Nepeta's world. Terezi smelled massive mountains made of billions of sugar cubes, and teapots full of perpetually fresh tea scattered about. It was a delicious medley of aromas, but it made Terezi grit her teeth. Poor Nepeta. She'd liked the little cat-girl. In some ways her death had been worst of all.
"Surrender now, Captor, and your death will come on swift hooves," Equius had said, as arrogant as ever. "Don't make this execution more painful than it has to be."
Sollux had narrowed his eyes. "You're a fucking idiot, Zahhak. You're no match for me, and you fucking know it."
"All right then. You have forced my hand." Equius had turned to Nepeta, ever the loyal moirail, and told her, "Nepeta, steer clear of all this. I need you out of my mane while I take care of the mustard-blood." She had nodded mutely. Terezi remembered all too clearly the tormented look in the girl's eyes as she watched her two good friends prepare to kill each other.
It hadn't been much of a fight. Sollux had been right, Equius was no match for him. The blue-blood's freakish strength was utterly useless against a psionic. He had charged, bellowing something that might have been a war cry – and without a word, Sollux had blasted him with psychic energy. After a few moments of terrible red and blue light, there hadn't even been a body.
Terezi remembered Sollux's strangely blank expression as he had turned away from the scorch on the ground that had once been Equius. She remembered watching, frozen, as Nepeta's face turned from horror to blind anger. She remembered smelling Nepeta leap, claws outstretched, toward Sollux's unprotected back. Scenting Sollux turn toward the sound, seeing him take off his glasses. Seeing the blaze of swirling red and blue flames burst from his eyes and blast a hideous path through Nepeta's chest. Smelling the poor bereft girl's body burn away into nothing. The acrid stench of charred flesh mingled with the olive scent of Nepeta's burning blood still hung in Terezi's nose.
Sollux had been... broken after that. The guilt had been a terrible burden for him. Terezi sometimes thought that maybe it had been a blessing when Eridan killed him.
The Seer of Mind slowly pulled herself away from morbid thoughts. There would be time for memories later. Now, there was a murderer to fight. Justice to be served.
The Land of Wrath and Angels. Eridan's world, the bastard. Terezi soared among the silent pinnacles, ornate buildings that had once housed myriad angels. Eridan had killed every last one of them, without provocation, even though the game had clearly never intended them as enemies. But that was Eridan in a nutshell, wasn't it. God-tier Prince of Hope, and more power than he knew what to do with. She clearly recalled the last time she'd seen the boy.
"Do you have anything to say for yourself, Ampora?" she'd asked, facing off with him at the top of his hive. "Convince me that I don't have to do this."
Eridan had raised an eyebrow mockingly. "Oh, yeah, right. The blind girl's gonna execute me, is that it?" His bizarre accent, stronger than ever, had assaulted her ears, making her grimace.
"Yes," she had told him simply. "You have been found guilty of the cold-blooded murders of Feferi Peixes and Sollux Captor. How do you plead?"
"I'll tell you how I plead." His hand rose, legendary gun at the ready, and a finger pulled the trigger. A blast of hideous blue fire burst forth from the barrel, aimed directly at Terezi's chest.
But Terezi hadn't been concerned. She'd known what he was going to do. This entire encounter had been unfolding exactly as anticipated. She had easily sidestepped the blast. "Fine then." She'd drawn her sword-cane, held it at the ready. A well-placed taunt – "No wonder Vriska never really hated you. You're so... simple," – and he was hers. The Prince of Hope had charged blindly, foolishly. He'd fired his gun into empty air, launched bolts of white hope-energy wildly, tried to cover her with his attack. He'd missed every time, because she always knew where he'd aim. After a few confused moments, Eridan had stood facing the edge of the precipice – Terezi's sword piercing his chest. He'd coughed, and Terezi remembered smelling the trickle of violet blood that escaped his lips. "Goodbye, Eridan," she'd said, and pulled her sword free. The body fell, down hundreds of stories, so far that she never heard the crash as it hit the ground.
Terezi could smell the spot, up ahead. Even among the towering spires of the Land of Wrath and Angels, Eridan's hive stood breathtakingly tall. That was her destination today, too. But for a different reason.
As she approached, a tiny thread of orange tickled her nostrils. Breathing deeply, she could detect a little sliver of delicious red, and just the faintest hint of cerulean. Vriska. Of course.
Terezi landed on the top of the building, watching Vriska's back as the other girl sat on the edge, looking out over the empty planet.
"Hello, Redglare," Vriska said mischievously, "come to kill me?"
"Stand and face me, Mindfa... Vriska."
"What's the matter?" Vriska didn't turn around. "Too proud to stab me in the back, like you did Eridan? Right here, as I remember."
Terezi didn't answer. There wasn't an answer to give.
Finally, Vriska stood, turned. "You know, Redglare, it didn't have to be like this. You could have been with us from the beginning. You didn't have to side with the weaklings."
"She loved you, you know," Terezi said softly. "Even to the end."
"Who?" Vriska grinned, revealing her fangs. Her left eye, with its sevenfold pupils, widened sardonically. "Oh, you mean the jade-blood?"
Terezi ground her teeth. "Kanaya."
"I don't think she did, not all the way to the end." Vriska bit her lip in mock concern. "It's hard to love someone when they're slicing into your gut with a chainsaw." Vriska grinned at the other girl's look of anger. "And you're going to kill me for that, aren't you?"
"Not just for that, Vriska," Terezi told her, closing her useless eyes. "For Tavros, and Gamzee."
"That's sweet. Do you really think you can do it this time? I have all the luck, remember?"
"And I can predict what you'll do before you do it. I think we're evenly matched."
"A little gift I gave you, as I recall. Killing can't be all bad, can it?"
Vriska was right about that. Terezi did owe her god-tier status to the girl's killing spree. Terezi remembered that day – three months ago now – like it was yesterday. The pair of them had faced off, just like this, in this very spot. Terezi had read Vriska a list of her crimes – murder threefold, conspiracy to commit five more. She'd given the other girl a choice: come quietly and be executed painlessly for her crimes, or fight and die in pain. She'd been an idiot.
Back then, even perched as she was at the very top of her echeladder, she was no match for a fully realized Thief of Light, not in a head-on confrontation. Vriska had moved without a word, rolled the Flourine Octet. Eightfold eights, of course. One in ten million odds for anyone else, a perfect certainty for Serket. Moments later, Vriska was clothed in the blue-and-black armor of her pirate ancestor, wielding in one hand a vicious scimitar. She'd struck, slashing at Terezi's unprotected chest – and as the Seer of Mind had raised her sword to parry, her fingers had slipped. A freak of circumstance – but one she should have anticipated, facing a foe with the forces of fortune itself at her disposal.
Terezi remembered the feeling of the scimitar slicing into her chest, remembered it slicing her heart in two, remembered smelling the stomach-twisting odor of her own teal blood spurting out over Vriska's outstretched arm. Remembered falling back, off the tower of Eridan's hive. Remembered fading out...
She didn't remember what had happened next, only what Sollux had told her. He'd been on his way, hoping to help her fight Vriska, when he saw her fall. He'd swept down – his telekinesis a godsend, as ever – and snatched her out of the air. He'd brought her to her Quest Bed, a massive block of stone with the familiar symbol of Mind blazoned upon it, and watched the life seep out of her.
What she did remember was waking up a new woman. Shimmering gossamer wings sprouted from her shoulders. A green hood covered her eyes – no particular hindrance for a blind Seer – and she wore a green-gray dress. Striped black-and-white tights covered her legs, and on each foot was a comfortable emerald slipper. But most important of all was the power.
Everything suddenly made sense. Where once she had simply been a shrewd judge of character, able to predict the general actions of anyone she knew, she found that now her vision was crystal clear. She could see the tunnels and vortices in a person's mind like never before, could predict their actions down to the word, down to the step. It was the reason she'd survived this long, where no one else could stand against the Thief of Light. Because against a true Seer of Mind, luck doesn't matter.
"And now you want to pay back my kindness by killing me." Vriska put a hand to her chest in mock offense. "What kind of gratitude is that?"
"This conversation is over, Vriska. Strike. I know you want to."
"You're right. I do." Vriska idly raised a hand, letting Terezi catch a whiff of her chosen weapon the eight die composing the legendary Flourine Octet. "Shall I roll? What do you suppose the result will be?" Vriska grinned, letting a trace of fang peek out from between her lips. "Care to place a wager?"
"No more games. Roll, Serket."
"Fine, then." Vriska let the Octet fall. They struck the ground, one at a time. Bounced. Landed. Eight... eight... eight... eight... eight... eight... eight... seven. Vriska locked eyes with Terezi and smiled. "Didn't see that one coming, did you, Scourge Sister?"
Blue light fountained up from the eight die, forming into the massive shape of a dragon's head. With a roar, it struck – but Terezi had already stepped adroitly out of the way. "I did," Terezi replied calmly. The head snapped at her, barely missing one of her wings. With a snarl, she slashed back at it, her sword-cane slicing effortlessly through the blue flames composing the creature. It reared back, looking almost stunned, and abruptly dissipated. "Ever the contrarian, Vriska. Nothing short of eight eights will be enough, you know." She approached the girl, sword ready.
Vriska sighed, gathered up her die, and prepared to roll again. "Fine, then. I'll kill you the same way I did before. Sorry for trying to bring a little spice to your death."
"ROLL!" shrieked Terezi, for a split-second losing her composure. "Roll, or I'll kill you now!"
The blue-blooded girl grinned. "One in ten million it is." She rolled. Eight. Eight. Eight... "Are you sure you want me to? I could always go with the Spinneret." Terezi stared back in stony silence. Eight. Eight. Eight... "Last chance, Redglare..." Eight. Eight.
The eight die glowed with power, bathing Vriska in their light. "Here we go again!" she shrieked, a trace of hideous laughter rippling through her voice.
Black armor, trimmed with blue, shimmered into existence around Vriska's body. Her chest. Her shoulders... her arms. Every inch of her, save her head, was encased in a protective shell. And in her armored hand materialized the sword of Marquise Spinneret Mindfag, Scourge of the Alternian High Seas.
Terezi stood expressionless, waiting. Vriska stared back at her, seeming disappointed by the lack of reaction to her metamorphosis. "You make it hard to be a good villain, Redglare," she said accusingly.
"I've seen it before."
"You have, haven't you. When I killed you!" Vriska obviously expected to get a rise out of her with that. Again, she was disappointed. "You're no fun anymore."
"Good. Let's get this over with."
"All right!" Vriska raised her sword, and, snarling, charged.
Terezi pirouetted out of the way, and predictably her foot caught on a piece of rubble. She slipped, tumbling to the ground – but she was ready for it, and as Vriska's sword came down she let the tumble carry her all the way over the edge. She spread her wings and hovered, facing her opponent again.
"Nice move, Redglare," Vriska said. "But two can play at that game." Her own wings, a beautiful blue pair, unfurled from her back and she floated aloft.
Again she struck – again Terezi swung away. A stray air current pushed her back into the path of Vriska's blade, but again she was ready. Her cane came up and pushed the weapon aside.
"Is that all you can do, Pyrope? Dodge and block? When are you going to fight back?" Viciously, Vriska slashed at her.
Effortlessly Terezi ducked under the blade, darting down, around, back – "Now." Her sword sliced forward, and before Vriska had a moment to react, stabbed through the girl's chest.
Cerulean blood spread out across Vriska's orange outfit as the pair settled softly back to the top of the tower. Terezi could smell her expression – a mixture of shock, horror... and, perhaps, just a little bit of relief. "You... you win, Redglare," Vriska coughed. "I... lose." She slumped down, face-first on the floor, and her breathing rattled and stopped.
Terezi stared blankly at the corpse of her oldest friend, her dragon-headed sword-cane sticking grotesquely out of her chest. Smelled the cerulean blood – "enviable cerulean swill," Vriska had once called it – pooling underneath the body. And waited for the sense of satisfaction to come.
She turned and stared out over the empty planet, filled with a billion dead angels and a billion empty buildings. At the sky, with its thirteen planets, one of gold and one of violet. At the distant form of Skaia, far above. And waited for the satisfaction to come.
She stared with unseeing eyes at the expanse of the Incipisphere, of the doomed session she and her friends had played, now empty of anyone she had ever called "friend". At the remnants of an offshoot timeline she knew was never meant to happen. And waited for the satisfaction to come.
And waited.