ACT 1

An Imperial Ban

PART 1

Planet Earth

Planet Earth. The blue marble planet that hung in the sky third from it's sun. A small planet whose perfect distance from it's little star made it the ideal candidate for life.

and the ideal picking of Her Imperious Condesce's next colony.

The invasion began when Karkat Vantas was about seven sweeps, new to the fleet and eager to learn from his superiors. He had boarded his ship, The Harvester, with high dreams of being a Threshecutioner in the favor of his Empress.

When it was discovered that Earth had lifeforms of an intelligence similar to Alternians, the first goal was complete annihilation of this dominant species, then stripping the planet of it's resources and flooding it. Thousands died in the first wave. It was really easy, killing them. The 'president' of a rather large nation had offered to host the Empress in a formal meeting in the nation's capital city. An offering of peace. Upon arrival he, and thousands of others who had come out to see this progressive step for their species, were burned in minutes. No survivor in the area. A majority of the city fled, thinking they were safe. Militaries shot up nuclear missiles, only to lose them in the vacuum of space. The next wave killed millions. It seemed that for these 'humans', there would be a matter of days until total species annihilation.

Until Feferi Peixes put a big hole in the Empress's chest.

Until she picked up the crown from the still-warm body of the Empire's longest ruling leader.

Then it was banned to step foot on planet Earth. No firestorms from above or total slaughter from the ground. All ships were to bypass this particular planet and continue onward.

To this day, nobody is entirely sure as to why she chose this particular planet to skip. She did not rule with the same iron fist that her predecessor had, but she still had the cruel Tyrian wrath that came natural to her caste. The empire, which had been stretched as far as possible, was to retract it's borders. Come back a little closer to home, closer to her lusus which she cared for greatly. Only approved militia ships were to branch out, and they were only allowed to fight off threats to the empire's grip on it's corner of the universe.

It was during the recall that he laid eyes on Jade Harley. About half his height and a few sweeps (which the humans divided into shorter years ) younger, the little Jade was standing amidst the chaos of the ruins of this Californian city. She was sniffling, scared, calling out for a 'Grandpa', which Karkat assumed was the name for her lusus.

He was not far away, maybe a few feet, and she was not looking at him. But the little crying girl surrounded by angry humans and fleeting Alternians had his attention. Although Empress Feferi had made it illegal to harm the humans while retreating, many trolls were bashing a last few heads in, getting their last 'huzzah' before reboarding the ships. He watched as strife specibi flung out of moduses and down onto the heads of yelling humans.

She cried out, screaming for a lusus that did not come. Karkat watched as a troll tripped over her, sending both of them to the ground. He watched as the troll cursed this little human wriggler and pull out his weapon, raising it for her head.

The familiar pop of ozone and the slicing of air and flesh ripped in seconds as Karkat pulled his sickle out and took the trolls hand off.

Whoops.

Protecting a human was not a favorable action, especially if it involves hurting a fellow Alternian. He quickly reached down and scooped up the blubbering little girl into his arms. He was seven sweeps to maybe her nine human years, but he was not strong enough to make this a very efficient escape. After running a few yards he dropped her, grabbed her hand and dragged her along as he ran. She screamed, trying to break free, calling for her Grandpa.

"SHUT UP" he yelled over the chaos and commotion, regretting instantly the decision to save this tiny crying human girl. He needed time to think, but it wasn't really a thinking sort of time, amidst all this nonsense and bullshit.

He pulled into an alleyway, squatting down to her eye level, frowning. "Hey. Hey listen to me." she wouldn't stop crying, wiping her eyes with her filthy little child hands. "Hey I said listen so will you kindly shut the fuck up?" she broke out into loud sobs, snot dripping out of her nostrils and down to her lip, where it flowed into her tiny mouth. He gagged. Human children were repulsive. "Oh fuck no don't do that ugh that's disgusting!" His comforting words didn't console her. Instead they just sent her into hysteria. She had not once looked him in the eye, or looked at him at all, instead looking out into the street, her little green eyes behind large circle frames, all smudged, the lids around her eyes puffy and red and swollen with tears. She tried to say something, but choked on her own tear-induced hiccups. He gritted his teeth, rolling his eyes. "Okay, listen here tiny ape creature, you need to stop whimpering like some kicked infantile barkbeast or i'm going to-"

"Grandpa!"

"Yes, yes, we will find your Grandpa Lusus, but right now you need to stop cryin-"

She broke off into a sprint, running right into the chaos of the street. He reached his hand out, reaching for the edge of her shirt to pull her back, yelling, ordering her to stop, but to no avail. She was gone, hopping over rubble and sidestepping past carnage rotting in it's own blood, and straight into the arms of an elderly male. He wasn't sure whether or not her Lusus would approve of her running off with another human. Then again, would her Lusus approve of her being in hiding with a troll?

The elderly human, whom she called "Grandpa" several times in an excited rush of sudden relief, looked at Karkat with a steady, even glare. So he was the lusus? Damn, humans were weird. But this Grandpa human seemed a little less weird and a little more dangerous.

The chaos that had surrounded them was settling as more and more Alternians were being beamed back onto their ships. Humans were flocking indoors, unsure of their safety, and waiting for the next signs of danger or a clear assurance that they were going to live another day.

Now it was just the young and suddenly very afraid Karkat Vantas, a happy little Jade, and her stern and terrifying. He was armed, with one arm protectively wrapped around the shoulder of his ward.

"You have a home to get back to, young man." He said, not angry or resentful, but with a stern tone of a schoolfeeder. "I suggest you get back to it."

Karkat nodded, reaching to his ear and using his earpiece to make contact with the ship. "Vantas, Karkat. Reporting in. Beam me up."

The HIC Host, Fourteen Years later

He had just been beamed back up to the small delivery shuttle that his two friends, Sollux Captor and Terezi Pyrope, had been watching over while he was down on the little blue marble.

That's what they called it now, the three of them; the little blue marble. Every sweep, Karkat returned to the planet where the little girl was. In the four and a half sweeps since he first met the little human girl, Karkat had fought and climbed his way up the ladders of troll employment. Now, at just under fourteen sweeps, he had made it into the inner circle of the most revered threshecutioners in the empire. He was well known for his success on every mission he was handed, and was a well behaved imperial whipped beast.

As far as caste went, Karkat was well settled in the lower middle end of the spectrum, a lime green between olive and yellow. A humbling color with enough wiggle room as far as laws were concerned. His success in making it to his age without facing the cullpits was something to boast about to his lesser hued friends. Though his highblooded moirail never saw it as much..

They were now flying back to main fleet, Karkat sulking by one of the portholes, Terezi and Sollux getting a little grossly pale behind the wheel. He watched the stars light years away fly past, little meteor planets whizzing by with their bacterial life in little festering pools, or their little grey craters filled with nothing but dust. He thought about the halo of flowers around her head, the soft light of the earth's sun. He loved seeing her in the light of the afternoon, when his people were steady asleep. It seemed natural on that planet, the sunlight. Everything thrived off of it. So different from his own home world and he loved it.

He loved her.

"Kk, you may want two snap out of that funk 'cuz we're coming in for landing"

He turned, his scowl of lovelorn bullshitty sorrow replaced by the scowl of the everpresent "fuck you" on his tongue.

"I can fucking see that. I'm not blind."

"Offended!" Terezi cried from the other room, gasping as melodramatically and as loud as she possibly could, rambling on about triggers and her sensitivities. He rolled his eyes while Sollux snickered.

"Well for those of you that can't tell, I am rolling my eyes. There they go. Woah these bitches won't stop rolling. Oh fuck they might just roll themselves some tiny appendages so they can flip you off."

The ship boards on a much, much larger ship. It's crawling with the young legislacerators of the empire, most being tealblooded, others being not too far off, but every single one of them thumping a code of laws and ethics, accusing and always on the hunt. Terezi walked back into the main galley where the two male trolls were. She was back in her uniform and ready to dive back into the fiercely cruel and unforgiving world that she had dreamed of since wrigglerhood.

They departed that ship and flew off to another, traveling more miles and miles to get to the comparatively small ship that housed the threshecutioners. Karkat felt his gut knot up and flip, his heart sinking to his stomach and rising into his throat.

The closer to the ship they got, the further away from that planet and that island and that field and Jade he would be. He wanted, needed, to turn back. But they didn't.

Because as a lap dog of the empire, Karkat Vantas was not going to be caught breaking the rules anytime soon.