A/N - This is something I did on my own on a whim while wanting to write about mine and my friend's fantrolls. The original start date was November 2011, so obviously anything that happened in the comic after that date could not be taken into account here. Please keep that in mind while reading this, and the fact that this is, as always, AU.
It's hard to say where things started to go wrong. We'd been in space for a long time, but 'time' loses its meaning when all that's outside is an abyss of stars and planets passing by and all that's inside are bedrooms, a kitchen, the storage hold, the training room that made up the entire lower deck of the ship and the bridge, all connected by thin metal hallways. There is no sense of day or night when there's no constant sun, everything gets messed up and all you want to do is get through your shift and try to relax as best you can when it's your time off. You sleep only when you're tired, eat only when you're hungry and generally fall into a habit of not doing anything outside of lazing around unless it's necessary.
For the past few days, though, our ship had been hanging out in orbit near a planet at the very edges of the planet we were supposed to invade. Our commanding officer was also one of my best friends, and if he had it his way we would have just landed and started the invasion. But just hours before we reached orbit an order had come in from The Condesce to hold off until she could get a little more intelligence on what exactly we were up against. Apparently the last crew that tried to invade had been killed before they got very far and that was cause enough to force her to send in a scouting ship that we were to wait for, gather the information from and report back to her with a plan of attack that then had to be approved before we made any move.
I'm not sure what the timeline would have been in terms of our time, but in this planets time we had been sitting in orbit for six sun rotations, and some of the others were getting antsy. There was no word from the scouting ship, our orders were still standing and now it looked like a fight was about to break out...
"I told you, we have our ordersss!" Our commander, Rin, all but yelled at the black blooded girl who stood in front of him.
"Screw the orders. The scouts are obviously dead or captured or worse, we've had no word in six rotations. I say call The Condesce, explain the situation and see if our orders change." The girl, Rekera, growled back at him.
The two were pretty similar in height so they were glaring into one anothers eyes, both stubborn as hell and both ready to start throwing punches and draw weapons to fight it out of need be. I'd known them both for most of my life, and I could tell that if something didn't happen soon they'd be on the floor throwing punches. Not that I would interfere, they were both far stronger and much more experienced fighters than I and it wouldn't do any good anyway.
"Sssay that again, Rekera. I am in charge here, and if you don't like that then get off my ssship." Rin hissed deeply, daring the black blood to challenge him.
There was a moment's pause, and in that split second I almost thought that Rekera would just walk away from it. I should have known better.
Rekera lunged at Rin, tackling him to the floor with her hands around his neck. Rin kicked her in the stomach and managed to get to his feet, drawing his weapon from the card he kept in his pocket at all times. The scythe formed easily in his hands, the purple blood taking hold of it as if the weight had been there all his life while Rekera pulled out her parasol. It was made of reinforced crystal that would easily match up to his scythe and the sharp spike on the end was more than enough to make it deadly, along with the electrical charge it could fire short distances from that same tip.
With weapons drawn this had finally become serious, and on a ship this small word spread fast. In moments everyone who wasn't on some critical duty had gathered around waiting to see how this would all turn out, though there was silence as none of them dared cheer the fight on. Rin and Rekera didn't need the encouragement anyway, after just a moment of silence the two had their weapons locked together and each was pushing to try and knock the others away to gain the edge in the fight.
Not a moment too soon after the two were together the giant communication screen flickered on to reveal the face of Her Condesce as she was obviously ready to say something important yet said nothing when she saw what was going on. She was not a patient woman, however, and it would not be long before she grew bored with the fight so I finally found it necessary to step in. Rekera was less likely to deck me for interrupting the fight so I went to her, placing a gentle hand on the black blood's shoulder and looking past her to Rin.
Even just that slight touch was odd, as I could feel their bodies straining to put every last ounce of power into the weapons and get even a small bit of budge from the opponent. But soon that stopped as I nodded my head towards the screen and they both knew it was time to end this, weapons withdrawing at the same moment before a small glance was exchanged that said they would continue this later, probably in the training room. For now Rin straightened up and pulled at the bottom of his shirt while Rekera just growled at him and vanished into the crowd of other trolls that had gathered around.
"I apologize, Condessscensssion." Rin wasn't really sorry for what he'd done but he knew he needed to express it or else he'd be in even worse trouble.
"For now I will let it slide, Muerta." The woman's voice rumbled through the ship, making everyone visibly nervous as they shifted their weight in the stifling silence with impatience. "I have new orders for you. The scouting ship is on its way to you now, receive it and gather whatever intelligence they have then report back to me." She didn't even wait for an answer before the screen went blank, and Rin mumbled something to himself before turning to the gathering crowd and all but yelling at them.
"Everyone get back to your dutiesss! Anyone not needed get to the cargo hold and prepare to receive the ssscoutsss, prepare medical attention in cassse they need it and bring me anyone who isssn't critical for a debriefing." There was a moment's silence where no one moved, until... "NOW!" The purple blood shouted, sending the crowd skittering off to do as told. Rekera was among them, and I was quick to leave as well even though I knew I had no duties to attend to and would be of no help down in the cargo hold dealing with the scouting ship. Instead I wandered off back towards the kitchen to see if Jess was there somewhere.
The yellow blooded girl was as rough and tumble as they came, but that was to be expected when she was so low on the hemospectrum and often got picked on because of it. Still, I was only a middleblood so I was taunted by highbloods as well and we got along quite nicely most of the time provided I stayed out of her way. Her blood gave her psionic powers, making her one of the two helmsmen on the ship that kept it running and going in the proper direction but it also made her dangerous when she was angry.
"Hey come on girly, don't be like that..." A voice snapped me out of my thoughts as I walked, a voice I would know anywhere as my eyes only confirmed what I already knew.
Azuras was a flirt and a complete asshole, content to hit on anything that moved. Sure he was good looking in his own right but he didn't have any of his quadrants filled because he was unable to stay with one troll for long before he was off hitting on someone else. Right now he was harassing poor little Illana, another of the mutant bloods on the ship. Normally no one outside of the lowbloods would even so much as talk to a mutant blood like her, but Azuras didn't care who his potential partners were as long as he got some in the end. Illana clearly didn't want any of his shenanigans but she'd always had low self-esteem and things like this didn't help any.
"L-Leave me alone...P-Please..." Illana pleaded as she tried to walk away from him, but Azuras was not going to take no for an answer.
In a split second he had Illana pinned to a wall, face dangerously close to hers as the girl looked on the verge of tears and didn't even try to fight back anymore. I didn't really have anything better to do and I hated the way Azuras walked around the ship like he owned the place despite Rin having told him more than once to quit messing around and leave anyone who wasn't taking well to his advances alone. That and I really did feel bad for Illana, she was such a sweet girl despite all she had been through.
Not wasting too much time I walked a little faster as if I was just trying to move along so that Azuras wouldn't think anything until I was right up next to him. With one good push I sent the other troll sprawling to the floor and snarled at him, daring him to get up and challenge me. Apparently that was the wrong move, since Azuras picked himself up into a crouch and lunged in my direction. Before I knew it we were both on the floor and Illana was crying, begging for us to stop fighting between her sobs. I wasn't even aware that anyone else was around until I felt a tug at my waist and was forcibly pulled away from Azuras. The rush of the fight was still with me so I turned to try and punch whoever had grabbed me only to find there was no one there and that I was suspended in midair, Azuras about three feet away from me suspended the same way. Looking over I saw Jess sitting against the wall holding the still sobbing Illana, her eyes narrowed at us as she used her powers to keep us apart.
"W'at da fuck do ya two dink yer doin'?" She raised her voice but wasn't really yelling, her own way of saying that she was displeased with our behavior but not quite ready to get physical with us...yet. Probably mostly because of Illana, since even Jess knew better than to be overly violent in her presence.
I said nothing, knowing that my own speech was slow and always made me sound stupid. Others always assumed I was just shy or quiet, and I preferred to let it stay that way as much as possible. Besides, I could tell just from looking at Jess that she wasn't really looking for an answer to her question, since Azuras was involved and Illana was crying she already had a good idea of what had happened. After a few moments of silence she let us both down, putting me on my feet as opposed to Azuras whom she just dropped.
"Get outta 'ere Azuras. I catc' ya 'arassin Illana again and I will report ya ta da captain, understood?" Now she was yelling, and for as much as Azuras never liked to admit defeat here he had no choice, it would be two against one if he didn't leave and with the psionic powers Jess possessed she would easily be able to beat him to a bloody pulp without any assistance from me.
No words were said as Azuras left and I brushed myself off, shooting Jess a thankful look for helping me out. Not that I couldn't have held my own in a fight against him, but it would have been nasty if it had kept up. A little bit of blood already splattered the floor from the few punches that had been thrown and I could feel a throbbing pain in my ribs where Azuras had kicked me plus a few other aches from various blows that had landed during the scuffle. For now, though, I ignored that and moved towards Illana to help only to stop as Jess held up her hand and shook her head.
"No, I 'ave dis. Go back ta yer room or somedin'." I knew better than to argue and left silently, sauntering back to the small space I called my own.
The bedrooms weren't very big, just enough space for our Recuperacoons and a few personal belongings. But it was home while we were in space, and after all that had happened I decided it would be best to get some sleep while the scouting ship was being taken care of. Chances were as soon as a plan of action was laid out everyone would be woken and gathered in the bridge to be filled in, but depending on the shape the scouts were in that could take some time. No point in being sleep deprived when the time came to pay attention to what was going on and who would be doing what once our assault on this planet began, after all.
Reaching down I tugged the bottom of my shirt up until it came over my head and arms. It was inside out so I switched it back the right way before tossing it over the back of a chair that sat near a small desk on the far end of the tiny room. The same desk I would later sit down to write this at, but I digress. With my shirt removed I opted to keep my pants and climbed in through the hole in the top of my Recuperacoon before sliding down into the sopor slime that was contained within. After a few seconds I felt calm and wound up falling into my usual dreamless sleep, wondering what would happen when I would awake again.