(Rated M for mature language, suggestive themes, and blood and gore)

Sneak Attack!

There was no mistaking the passion in his eyes as he pulled her close, his hands shivering in uncontrollable anticipation. She could feel his breath hot against her face, only heightening the shiver she felt spark through her own body. Her body was ready, waiting, and anxious as the last of her undergarments fell to the floor beside them. She felt so exposed, and yet she could not be more excited. Her breath came in quicker and quicker gasps as he moved even closer to her.

Then his own clothes fell to the floor, little by little, piece by piece, moment by moment. Her eyes couldn't help but wander down across his tight little chest and thin, manly legs. It wasn't long, but it felt like an eternity had passed before the last of his clothing fell to the floor on top of hers. This was happening, she thought to herself. They were there, vulnerable to one-another, and there was no doubt about what would happen next. Her excitement was matched only by her nervousness.

And yet as she watched he leaned down before her, his head travelling down her body until he reached into the bucket and plucked out the slick, waiting, writhing form inside. She blushed, but didn't turn away as he stood in front of her again.

With a suave, knowing smile, he told her "let's put this baby to good use."

The screeching sound of hunger splits the air, jolting you out of your book with a start. You look around from behind your wide-rimmed glasses for a moment before the smell of burning flesh reminds you that you were in the middle of something.

It's dinner time, and your Lusus sounds very hungry.

You set your book down on the table beside your comfy reading couch and push yourself up from the cushions to approach the fire pit you have burning in the center of the small room that is your entrance to the nest of your dear sweet custodian. The smell of burning flesh comes from the body of a young Troll tied to a spit over the fire pit, blackening nicely just the way you know she likes it. The hair had long since burned away from the body, something you had learned to make sure of the first time your Lusus tried to eat you out of displeasure.

Your name is Vriska Serket. You don't have many interests on account of your Lusus taking up so much of your time. It only feeds on the flesh of young Trolls, so most of each day is spent seeking them out to appease the creature's voracious appetite. What time you don't spend hunting down unsuspecting peers or otherwise caring for your lifetime guardian, you spend delving deep into books. Romantic books, dramatic books, it doesn't really matter what's going on in it, as long as you don't have to move much after your typically tiring daily routine. You find it hard to get excited about things, and tend to spend most of your time in a state of emotional numbness. Life just isn't all that exciting, but being alive and bored is better than being dead and bored like your meals.

Seeing the meal properly cooked on all sides, you cut a piece from the torso for yourself, you do so love breasts, and set it aside so you can roll the spit with the rest of the meal towards the entrance to the nest. You look out into the darkness of night, the only lights being the subtle twinkle of stars and one from the window of your nearest neighbor, Equius Zahhak, general pain in the ass. There are a lot of pains in your ass, now that you think of it. It's like your ass has been claimed by the mighty God of Ass Kicking and every day is a bad day for him.

"Dinner's on!" you shout into one hand before slashing the ropes holding the meal on the spit with a long-handled dagger you keep in your Strife Specibus. The body tumbles down the side of the rock face, sticking in the web strung along the rocks a short distance below. You don't need to wait to see what happens, indeed even as you turn to walk back to your own meal you can hear the satisfied screeching and slurping noises from behind you. You wonder for a moment who that Troll had been before you killed them for dinner. Then you remember you don't care.

Some inferior alien species might think this is cruel, even evil. To you it's just life. A girl and her Lusus have to eat, and you've been eating it since before you can remember.

Your mind at ease, you gather your plate and book from their places and make your way up the spiraling staircase towards the hive above. If only someone would invent something that could go up and down without all this walking. Something to change your elevation with ease. But that would just be silly and only exist in the cheesiest of books.

You sit down at your dining table and open the book to the page you left off from as your sharp teeth make easy work of the tough meat now speared on the end of your fork. Before you can dive back into your steamy escapism however you hear a rustle from one of the windows near the front door. When you glance up toward the window you're momentarily stunned to find yourself face-to-face with a little yellow puppet in the shape of a lizard.

"What the Hell?" You wonder to yourself as you push up from the table and approach the window. You put your hands on your hips in confusion, meeting the button-eyed gaze head on without fear. "You don't scare me." You declare in a firm voice. The puppet doesn't back down. "Oh you're gonna be like that are ya?" You roll up one of your sleeves and step forward, but the moment you move behind the door it flies open.

KATHUNK!

You don't remember hitting the floor, but the next time you blink you find yourself staring up at the ceiling of your living room with the door hanging open. There's a puncture in the wood where your horn broke through on impact. Fantastic, now your hive is drafty and you have a headache. Whoever did this is fucking dead! Deeeeeeeeaaaaaaaad!

You roll to your feet when you hear the sound of footsteps scampering around upstairs, and race up the first flight of steps into the bedroom overhead. The room stands in the same state of careless mess and disrepair that it did before dinner, but now you spot an intruder poking through the closet beside your recuperacoon. The bitch seems to be looking for something. You consider asking what she's looking for, but she speaks before you can.

"Come on, I know I saw him dragged here…" the girl mutters to herself. She's looking for the Troll you captured earlier in the day? That's fine by you, she's just saving you the trouble of finding another meal tomorrow.

You creep up towards the girl, but the moment you lunge for her back she ducks out of the way and puts a hand on the side of your face, shoving you towards the recuperacoon.

SPLORCH!

Your sharp horns punch through the outer shell with ease, unleashing a wave of green slime that sweeps over you like a tidal wave of congealed wriggler-excretions. You fight to get free of the goo even as the sound of the other girl laughing raises the hairs on the back of your neck.

"Didn't your Lusus ever teach you not to be so horny? Hahahahahahahaha!" The girl laughs and rushes out of the room again.

Your irritation quickly growing, you burst from the slime and take off after her, taking the spiraling staircase back to the living room two at a time. Five steps from the bottom your foot lands on something soft that slips right out from under you, sending you tumbling the rest of the way down in a pile of limbs and plush until you land in a giant pile of plushy lizard creatures like the one who'd greeted you at the window.

How many of these damn things can one girl cram into her Sylladex? The knife emerges from your Strife Specibus and makes quick work of the upper pile, raining fluff down around you as you emerge from the rest of the pile with your weapon at the ready. The door hasn't moved since you left it, still dangling at the same angle, which means the girl must have bolted down the stairs leading to your Lusus' nest and the rest of your rooms where you keep your most private, hidden treasures. Oh the very thought of her seeing those turns you a deep shade of blue. She cannot leave here alive!

You hurry down the spiral staircase until you come to the first door splitting off from it to your right. You hear the sound of shoes scraping against the cold stone, but looking inside you can't see anyone immediately. She must be hiding among the piles of books you've accumulated in your substantial library, some acquired by ransacking the hives of your meals, others simply by purchasing them over the internet, since that's all the internet is good for anyway.

It's a good thing she didn't make it down to the really embarrassing stuff. She's still going to die, but at least she won't die laughing at you.

The sound of a book hitting the floor draws your attention, your head jerking towards it. Wait, that was a little too obvious. A little too loud. You whirl reflexively, your blade whistling through the air to clash hard against a long metal rod, sending a shower of sparks flying. You find yourself face-to-face with your aggressor, who is now wielding what looks like a solid metal walking cane with a red bird's face on the end of it.

"What the Hell do you think you're doing coming into my Hive?" you demand in a tone of righteous fury as you push at the knife, inching it closer to her face. "I have the right to eat your heart now!"

"Don't try to play dumb! I know what you're up to here! You're taking kids out left and right!" The girl pushes back, surprising you with a great deal of upper body strength and strength in her voice. "I am going to find the evidence and turn you in! Justice will be served!"

"Nngh! If they fall so easily to such lame tricks, the species is better off without their DNA anyway!" Your eyes narrow as you stare into hers, pushing your blade forward to move just a little bit closer. Your mind sparks, whirring with that familiar, tingling power that is so intoxicating, the means by which you take your meals without anyone being the wiser.

They deserved to die for being so damn stupid, and so do I. I should just kill myself right now. I'll just move back and shove my stupid cane down my own stupid throat.

It's a simple mental command that everyone you have ever met obeyed without a second thought.

It's with no small amount of shock then that you feel the cane instead whip past your knife to smash into your jaw. Your head jerks back completely unprepared for the blow, and equally unprepared for the second blow that comes against your side, knocking you to the floor. You roll to your hands and knees quickly, but the girl is already charging for the exit. You flip the dagger expertly in her hand and hurl it after the girl, but she turns to head further down the nest just in time to let the dagger fly harmlessly into the opposite wall.

You can feel your heart racing as you kick from the floor and race after her, yanking your dagger out of the wall as you pass. She's getting closer to your hidden treasures, but thankfully you're catching up to her. She must not have this many stairs in her own hive. Nobody has this many Goddamn stairs in their hive except you. Goddamnit!

You leap from one of the steps, kicking your way down the spiraling walls as you quickly close the distance with your quarry. You catch her by surprise, landing on her shoulders with such force that you're both sent tumbling end-over-end down the steps in a tangle of limbs. Both of your weapons fly free, spinning through the air as you continue your descent to the next landing, where you land on your back with your aggressor knocking the wind out of your stomach with her body weight.

She puts a hand on your jaw to pin you down, but your jaw opens and bites down hard on the side of her palm. Your sharpened chompers easily punch through the tender flesh. Teal colored blood starts to flow, but you don't release your vice-like grip until a fist starts beating into the top of your head furiously, driving your skull into the hard ground. When the world starts to blur in your Vision Eightfold, you finally release your grip and let the girl yank away from you.

"Holy shit, what do you think you are, some kinda Rainbow Drinker!?" The girl jerks back, nursing her wounded hand as she backs into the room behind her. She's backing right into the room with your special treasures. That can't be allowed.

You push yourself to your feet and wipe the blood off your lips with the back of your sleeve. "Hey, don't go in there!" You shout angrily. "I'm warning you, step one foot in there and I will feed you to my Lusus! She LOVES after-dinner snacks!"

"Is that right?" The girl glances to the side with a toothy grin. "That's where you keep the bodies isn't it? All the evidence I need!" The girl whirls to rush into the room.

"Don't you dare!" You scream in frustration and rush after her, but it's far too late. She's already stopped in the center of the room, looking around at the walls with a look of utter confusion on her face. Her soon to be dead and lifeless face.

Her eyes are looking over the many friendly photos you have pinned to the walls in this most special of rooms. The girl can't guess it, but each one is a photo you manipulated your victims into taking with you just before you finished them off. Pictures of smiles and waves, like old friends saying hello to you… or goodbye. There are hundreds, possibly even thousands, you don't know because you lost count so long ago. You've never hung out with any other kids, they were always food to you.

That never stopped you from wishing you could though.

"What… the… fuck?" The girl looks back at you with wide, confused eyes. "What the fuck is this?"

"The last thing you'll ever see… AAAAAAAARGH!" You throw yourself at her in a vicious assault, finally gaining the upper hand as the bitch can't use her wounded hand to defend herself. However you've always been able to rely on your manipulative powers to overcome others, you've never had to fight, while this girl seems quite athletic. She bats your attacks away with one rapid hand, then headbutts you and goes for a jab with one small but sharp horn.

You jerk away from the jab and the girl takes off for the door, but you're ready for this too. You charge after her, grabbing the back of her shirt and shoving her out the room into the far wall outside in the stairwell. You pin her roughly against the wall despite her continuing struggles, your forearms pushing into the back of her neck.

"You're… fucking twisted!" The girl struggles to get free.

"And you're… fucking dead!" You grip the girl's hair, but without warning she pushes off the wall with both arms, shoving your back into the doorframe behind you. Your grip breaks and the girl spins out of your grasp, backing away further down the stairs facing you. You pace her down the spiraling staircase, bringing your fists up in front of your torso as you follow her down, her own fists in a similarly offensive posture.

"What the Hell did you do to all those trolls?" Your quarry demanded as she backed slowly down the steps. "Why are you taking them out? Culling isn't YOUR place!"

"I don't have to answer to you!" You shout back. "Besides, keep going down that way, and you'll find out." You smirk in victory. The girl isn't getting past you on this narrow staircase, and the only stop left on the way down is your Lusus' nest. She's already dead, she just hasn't noticed it yet.

"Haha! I knew it! Keeping your dirty little secret underground, the Legislacerators will hear about this!" The girl whirls to charge down the steps, and you take off after her, but mostly for show. You slow as you near the bottom, emerging into your section of the nest with your hands in the pockets to find the girl standing in the middle of the room. There are buckets of blood in several colors in various corners of the room, drained from your meals before consumption, along with the spit lying cold and dormant right beside her.

Her eyes wide, the girl turns back to you, backing away with an expression of horror and trepidation. "Are you… some kinda Rainbow Drinker or something?"

"Interesting conclusion, but stupid." You smirk. "If I was, I wouldn't leave the blood in here would I?"

"Then what the fuck are you?" the girl demands again.

"Alive. That's how the world works. Eat….. or be eaten." The smile fades from your lips as the sight of you Lusus rising outside of the nest entrance shows over her shoulder. The girl doesn't even have time to raise her eyebrow before a thick mass of webbing slams into her from behind, knocking her to the floor with a heavy thump.

"What the-" The girl's words devolve into a high-pitched scream as she looks over her shoulder, seeing the giant Lusus tugging her towards the entrance. Her fingers dig at the floor in front of her, clutching with genuine fear at any crevice they can find. The wound on her hand continues to bleed, leaving a trail of teal-colored blood as she's dragged across the floor towards the Lusus, who was now roaring in fury at her nest being intruded upon.

"Bet you're wishing you didn't stick your nose into my business now, aren't you?" you demand haughtily as you walk alongside the girl being dragged toward the creature's chattering mandibles. "Now you're going to find out where all the others went, to feed my Lusus like the little morsels of meat you are!" you grin in victory.

"You're… hngh… not going to let it… eat me…" The girl's voice was strained as she spoke. Her fingers were digging so hard into the rock that the fingertips were beginning to split open, leaving several smaller trails of teal shining on the floor.

You smirk. "And why the Hell wouldn't I? I sure as Hell don't want to face 'justice'."

"Because I get it… you do it… to feed… this thing… HRGH! Ext… ex…. ciiirrrrr" She stutters.

"Extenuating circumstances?" You offer helpfully.

"R-right…" the girl replied. "You have to… but you're… lonely… I can tell."

Your smile fades as you consider the girl. She's sharp as a tack, even filled with mortal terror her eyes seem to be peering into yours, as if picking you apart from the inside. You kneel down beside the girl, watching as she's dragged perilously close to the exit. A matter of seconds and she'll be close enough for the mandibles to close around her midsection.

"What the Hell do you know about it?" you demand more seriously.

"I was… lonely too." The girl grunts. "I didn't have friends… for the longest time. I don't… even have… a Lusus!" The girl's grip is so tight on the ground you can practically hear the bones of her fingers scraping across the rough surface. Seconds more and she would be gone… but your mind whirls in a hurry and you leap into action.

You yank the dagger from your Strife Specibus steps from the exit, one smooth slash ripping through every strand of webbing still attached to the girl. Without missing a beat she leaps to her feet and darts for the staircase, with you following moments behind her. Your Lusus roars in fury and several more strands of web fly into the room, this time aiming for you, but you deftly dodge them with the ease of long practice until you slip into the stairwell with the girl, who's leaning against the wall and clutching her chest.

"Shit… I think that Lusus… is gonna kill you next time you see it…" The girl speaks through her panting.

"Awww, she'll forget. She always does, she has the memory of an unfertilized grub egg." You reply and push yourself upright against the wall. "So… what did you do?" you ask curiously.

The girl turns her sharp eyes on you with her sharp-toothed grin returning in an instant. "I made some friends. That's what."

"I'm not sure that's an option for me." You look away into the nest. "I have to feed my Lusus… and eat, of course. Other young Trolls have to be food for me."

"Maybe some… doesn't mean they all have to be." The girl pushes off from the wall and approaches in front of you, that same confident, almost daring look on her face. That grin could make a Wiggler cry.

"And suddenly you don't care what I do." You scoff. "How do I know you won't run to the Legislacerators the second you walk outta here?"

"You don't." the girl replies. "But if you didn't want to be my friend, you would've let me be eaten. Or did you just save me out of the kindness of your heart?" She snickers in a cocky, knowing manner. You regard her with a numb gaze for a moment. It's hard to deny how tempting it is. Having her here, chasing her around, you've felt more alive tonight than you have since the first time you lured a Troll into your Hive for your Lusus to feed upon. What else could she introduce you to?

"Vriska." You speak confidently. "I'm Vriska Serket."

"Terezi Pyrope." Terezi extands one hand to you, but then realizes there's still blood dropping from her scratched and raw fingertips. "Damnit…"

"Forget it. I've dealt with a little blood before." You grip Terezi's hand firmly with a sharp grin of your own. "Come on, I think I have some stuff upstairs to stop the bleeding." You turn to guide the girl up the long spiraling staircase, towards the Hive far above.

"Holy shit you have a lot of stairs." Terezi comments venomously.

"Yeah. Yeah I do." You snicker back. This girl has been a pain in your ass as much as any… but perhaps some pains in the ass are worth the effort.