Aradia Megido was dead to begin with. That's a key point to remember in the course of this tale. She was as dead as a doornail, and without that knowledge, parts of this story will make precious little sense and almost all of it will be of very little interest.
Another very key fact to this narrative is that Vriska Serket was the reason that Aradia was dead.
It was quite some time before Vriska and Aradia would play a game that would change their lives (or lack thereof), but long enough after they had both experienced their respective tragic FLARP-related accidents that they could begin to recover and move on (or not).
It was Twelfth Perigee's Eve when Aradia and Vriska were reunited under very peculiar circumstances for a very important purpose. It was a quiet night before the Twelfth Perigee and Vriska Serket had no choices but to spend it alone with her lusus or spend it alone while avoiding her lusus. Terezi wasn't speaking to her. Tavros was trying not to. Sollux hadn't been online in weeks, a huge surprise for that massive nerd. And Aradia was certainly the last one who would drop her a line of holiday cheer. Really, the only people who weren't shunning Vriska were Kanaya and that Eridan kid. And honestly, Vriska wasn't feeling very festive herself. She figured that she would spend the Twelfth Perigee alone in her room. There was really no point in risking becoming the holiday feast for her lusus. Thinking of which, it was really time to get back to FLARPing, now that her new robot arm was functioning quite well. Honestly, Vriska shouldn't have taken such a long break as it was.
However, it was the holidays, and Spidermom could wait another day or two for her next meal. Hopefully she could…
On second thought, Marquise Spinneret Mindfang might be making her return to the FLARP scene just in time for the holiday. She could decide for sure when she woke up in the evening, after a nice day's sleep (as far as a day of sleep could be nice for a member of a species plagued by horrible nightmares).
Vriska climbed into her recuperacoon, completely oblivious to how bizarre this particular day's nightmare was about to be. At least, a nightmare was what she tried to explain it away as after the fact.
She allowed the sopor slime to envelop her and soothe her, distract her from the stressful thoughts of Spidermom's next meal, the loss of a sister, and the disintegration of several friendships. After all, who needed friends? Certainly not Vriska, who could only be weighed down by others. Yeah, everything was going to turn out just fine. If Terezi refused to respond to her messages, well then, one Scourge Sister was more than enough to kick all the ass. All of it.
However, just as she was about to drift off into a nice dream filled with carnage wrought by Vriska herself, she was dragged into a very different dream. A dream that began with Vriska being pulled out of her recuperacoon and into a painful, metallic slap.
"Wake up, Serket. You're not going to sleep. Not yet anyway."
Whatever Vriska expected to see when she opened her eyes, it wasn't Aradia Megido staring back at her. Although, to be fair, Vriska wasn't quite sure that it was Aradia that she was looking at. After all, as was explained not too long ago, Aradia was dead and Vriska was the ultimate reason behind that. And, while this robot was the spitting image of the dead girl, she was definitely a robot, which would be a new development.
"Don't give me that look. I guess you weren't expecting to see me again after you killed me, but trust me, we'll see each other more than either of us wants in the future."
Vriska wasn't sure what look she was giving this robot girl who even sounded just like Aradia, but she attempted to stop giving it immediately. She didn't want to be on the receiving end of another slap like that last one.
"You're listening now?" Aradia said. "Good. Because to be honest, I don't want to be here, dealing with you. So let's make this as quick and painless as possible."
Aradia unceremoniously dropped Vriska to the floor, breaking a stray Magic 8 Ball in the process. More bad luck, no matter that neither party involved in the breakage needed any more of that.
"I hope you know what an intolerable bitch you are," Aradia continued, "that we have to put on this whole masquerade to stop you from messing up the timeline. Really, I think this is the most elaborate, staged nonsense I've ever had to subject myself to in order to stop everything from spinning off into another doomed timeline, and I've done a lot of nonsense with that goal in mind."
Vriska conquered her shock (and mild fear) long enough to smirk. "For someone who's in a hurry and doesn't want to waste time on nonsense, you sure are spouting a lot of it."
She received a mechanical foot to her stomach as a reply.
"Listen, I'm very angry with a lot of things right now, and you're at the top of that list, believe or not. You're almost so awful that you're not worth getting angry about. I just want you to know that what happens today wasn't my idea. I'm just the messenger," Aradia explained.
"Well how could it be your idea? You're dead!" Vriska spat. "I have to say, if this is Equius's idea of a joke, it's really not very funny."
"This isn't a joke. It's a warning. Honestly, I'm the only one who could deliver it while you were still awake, given some circumstances. But if you won't listen, then there's not much point in telling you. So go back to sleep, pretend you never saw me. I'm okay with that."
Two devices appeared by Aradia's sides. They resembled music boxes, but glowed blue and floated in midair. Vriska didn't know what they were, but she could imagine nothing good.
"Okay, wait!" Vriska rolled her eyes. "Really, now you're being dramatic. Just say what you need to, and I'll listen."
"Okay." Aradia seemed to relax a bit, but she didn't put away her music boxes. "You're unaware of timelines for now, but that doesn't really matter. What does matter is that in the future, you keep messing them up with your selfishness. So this is the best solution we could think of, when it became apparent that we were all doomed. Today, as you sleep, you will be visited by three ghosts."
"Sounds a bit old hat for you, Megido. And tell me, how has life been treating you since you tried pulling that trick on me?" Vriska was fully expecting another blow, but felt that it was worth it.
But no blow was forthcoming. "These ghosts are going to be very different from the ones I sent. They're still your victims, but they'll be much more… personal. And hopefully, they'll be much more successful at making you feel some remorse for your actions, maybe even enough to prevent some of them from happening in the first place.
"Each ghost will appear at the sound of a chime. You should understand well enough once it starts happening. And now, if you'll excuse me, I have somewhere I need to go and die. Again." And with that, the glow of the music boxes enveloped Aradia and she vanished without a trace.
Vriska was never quite sure if that part of her final Twelfth Perigee's Eve was a dream or not. All she knew was that after Aradia was gone, she was still lying on the floor of her room, on top of a broken Magic 8 Ball, dripping with sopor slime and feeling very sore. Disoriented and a bit frightened, she decided that the safety of her recuperacoon was the best place to be. As she climbed in and allowed the sopor slime to sedate her, she convinced herself that it was just a strange dream and oddly synchronized sleepwalking episode. She had never sleepwalked before and, given her living situation, it was something she was going to have to keep her eye on. But it was something to worry about when she woke up. In the meantime, there was nothing unusual to be afraid of, and even if ghosts did show up, according to Vriska's experience, they were going to be harmless, if extremely irritating. She managed to calm herself down and was quite sure that everything would be fine.
At least, she was sure that everything would be fine until she heard Trollian's message chime come from her sleeping computer and felt a chill run down her spine.