[Important Story Notes]
[This is a collaborative piece that I worked on with Soup. She and I cooked up the concept/story together, and I handle the words while she handles the art. That means this story has beautiful images crafted by her. This version of GTSTTB is ONLY A MIRROR. To read it as it was meant to be read, please visit the work using the link provided in my profile. Thank you.]
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Three hundred and eighty one.
That's how many bioluminescent bulbs line the walls of the barracks.
You want to laugh.
But you don't. You choke it down, feeling the gills at your neck flare in the slime. Back on Alternia you had a pod big enough to allow you to completely submerge yourself in the viscous dreams of sopor. But these are recuperacoons designed for air breathers. And so no matter how hard you press yourself to the bottom of the pod, the slime refuses to cover your head.
You would be capable of a lot of things, you're sure, if you were allowed to get a decent night's sleep.
Three hundred and eighty one.
You must have miscounted somewhere. Fallen into some self-impugning trap of fate.
They aren't even lit.
Your eyes are chapped against the darkness. They've been open to it for so long that the heavy weight of the black has become a familiar pressure. You tip your head forward just enough to pull your aural fins above the surface of the lukewarm slime. The world seems to open up then, sharpen into a focus beyond the screaming silence of your own brain.
All around you the breath of hundreds. Unseen cadets, sleeping in the darkness.
Recuperacoons on either side of your own, and more on either side of those. Stretching off into the dimness. No one stirs.
You swallow hard, and press your head back against the gelatinous dip designed to pillow it. Your fins sink beneath the slime and the terrifying sharpness of the room is dulled once more. You breathe through your nose, trying not to pay attention to the way the blood thrums in your veins.
Violet blood. Violet. That is something to take heart in.
Your fingers drift through the liquid, up to your chest, and you trace the shape of it, feeling the spot just at your shoulder where your energy rifle left a bruise the day before during accuracy testing.
The memory freezes your insides and you are suddenly shivering in your slime, fangs clacking. It is machinegun fire in your head. You clench your jaw, eyes wide against the darkness. If they hear you, they'll dock more points.
Three hundred and eighty one.
You can't afford to lose more points.
Not yet.
The alarm cuts through the muffling sopor like a chainsaw to the back of your head. You jerk upright in your pod, clutching the lip of the opening. Your breath comes tight, and you try to calm it. Calm. Calm. Trolls are stirring now, and you need to gather up the shattered pieces of your composure before they do. You pull one leg out of the slime and over the side of your pod, stumbling as you drag the other out behind you. It's as if six hours in the sopor has erased a lifetime of limb use from your mind.
You never stopped suspecting that the sopor was specially formulated. Extra strength, so the sergeants could get away with allocating a few necessary hours of rest to more training instead. And then there was you. You with your gills, absorbing it all night, yet unable to sleep.
Maybe if you got a decent night's sleep. The thought comes again as you face your recuperacoon, balling your hands into fists against the chitinous sides. Maybe if your sea dwelling status was given the treatment it deserved. Demanded.
The cadet next to you drops from his pod and stretches. You can count the muscles on his back. His aural fins flick, and he turns to you, like you've said something.
You haven't. You continue leaning against your recuperacoon, but keep your yellow eyes trained on him. He's caught you looking. No sense in turning away like some whipped barkbeast. You're better than that.
You know you are.
He taps his head, like he's done every other time he's found you staring. His version of small talk. A reflection of your first conversation, in which you had asked him outright: How do you sleep in a thing designed against you? It's not the pods, Ampora. Just close your eyes and shut off the fireworks. He had tapped his temple at the same time. Now that's all he does, because it was not long after your first endurance test that he and all the other sea dwellers decided that it would be better not to associate with you.
You hate them.
They reek of dirt and sympathy.
You were bred with higher class.
That is what you tell yourself as you are left fetched up against your pod like a used rag while he strides off with the other cadets, soles smacking smartly against the smoothed carbon floor. That is what you tell yourself as you hold back the waves of shivers that wrack your body. You're sick with nerves. And as much as you hate watching the indigo bloods file past you, it's easy to do today. Easy, because you are so preoccupied with not throwing up. So the procession of cobalt bloods almost sneaks up on you.
Caked with slime and half naked like everyone else, you spy Vriska in between two larger trolls of her ilk. She's already seen you, and is smirking, the corners of her mouth as sharp as everything else on her body. The way she pushes past her meaty peers to cross to your pod suggests that they are made of dust and feathers.
You want to laugh. But you don't. Because you know they are in fact made of clay and muscle, just like Vriska is made of knives and blood, and you are made of chills and pallor.
"Don't tell me you're going to spend selections moping against your recuperacoon." She leans up against it, and you're mildly surprised that her elbow doesn't slice right through the chitin. She follows your gaze with all eight of her pupils before lifting her hand up to your face.
"Like it?" She asks.
You blink. Her nails have all been coated with a black varnish. It's a flagrant violation of dress code. You let the corners of your lips stretch in a grin. Because she's so much like you without really being anything like you at all.
"Looks like fuckin' shit," you reply.
Her fangs glitter with red light, and it's only then that you realize all three hundred and eighty one of those bioluminescent bulbs have flickered to life above you.
"As if you have any taste, Eridan," she replies, before hooking an arm around your neck and dragging you back into the procession of trolls. The majority of them have already passed into the ablution block, and so you find yourself with cobalt Vriska on your right, and some wiry mustard blood on your left.
You feel nauseous.
"So are you ready?" Vriska's voice is an excited hiss in your ear. "End of the line today. Time to cash in the points and reap the sweet promotional loot."
"I'm ready for something and that something is mostly gettin' away from your insufferable flippancy," you retort, pulling your arms close to your chest in order to avoid making unnecessary bodily contact with any of the pusbloods surrounding you.
She tips her head down to force her leer into your line of sight. "Must be hard, walking around with that huge beefgrub shoved so far up your nook. I hear that makes it pretty tough to ace agility finals, what do you think?"
You recoil, lip curling. "The military isn't a fuckin' joke, Vris. I am attemptin' to take it seriously like I was fuckin' trained to, so how about you take your little kiddie insults somewhere else? I am not interested, and I never was, so how about you stick that up your nook and throb on it?"
"Wow, your jealousy reeks more than usual today," she replies, wrinkling her nose. "But you don't have to worry. I won't forget about you after I get partnered up with some awesome cobalt corsair and you get sent home on a little consolation pod. I'll compile a memoir of all my adventures and dedicate it to you. You can even write a foreword."
"Or I'll write my own illumination in the blood of every human conquest and troll dissenter stupid enough to underestimate me." You mean it to be a retort, but your voice grows quiet under the weight of impossibility. All around you is the shuffling of feet, and ahead the ribbed corridor brightens.
"So he caaaaaaaan make a joke," Vriska laughs, yanking on one of your jagged horns. "I'm glad you shared that hidden talent with me in our last moments together as training buddies. Now my memoirs will be that much more accurate."
You can't do this today. Discipline and propriety refuse to let you flinch, but the three hundred and eighty one lights along with the sopor that never quite covered your head have weakened your skin. Each one of her jabs sinks deep enough for you to taste at the back of your throat, sharp and metallic, like blood. And the last thing you want to do is open your mouth and spill violet in front of someone so woefully beneath you. So it's with tight lips that you pull away from Vriska and stand under an open spigot.
The sanitizing fluid blasts ice cold over your skin, but it's finished before your body has the chance to shiver. Dripping and sprayed to stinging immaculacy, you move into the thermal block and take your place at the head of the formation where all the other sea dwellers are nearly dry. You huddle under an open heating coil and try not to look at them, casting your eyes instead to the seamless black walls surrounding you.
The soft hum of chatter that was present in the showers is gone here. Ahead of you is one of the sergeants, rapier-thin and hook-nosed, eyes narrowed in a perpetual squint. He's in full ceremonial blacks, but not a drop of sweat beads his forehead. Your throat feels dry.
Normally there are briefings. But you are on the precipice of promotion—of military reality—and everything up to now has been letters stamped on this final script. You've memorized every line. So your arms stay pressed against your sides even as sweat begins to trickle down your forearms and into the grooves of your palms.
Then the sergeant opens the hatch, and you move onto the next scene.
This is where you've inked in some lines of your own. You think about Vriska's black nail varnish and feel a bubble of hopeless laughter building once again at the back of your throat. It makes you wonder what it must be like, to break rules out of exhilaration instead of necessity. A backward glance hopes to find an answer to that thought, but she's already been lost in the sea of gray faces.
You find the row of lockers emblazoned with the dual waves of the violet marksman. Yours is conveniently placed between two of the biggest sea dwelling cadets, which you've gotten used to regarding with unbridled rancor every morning as you squeeze between them to change. But now your insides are too cold for kindling, so you just push dimly past their elbows and press your thumb to the identification pad below your name plate. The red keratin door pops open, and you reach past the sweat-stained training tunic to dig out your own set of blacks. The fabric is coarse and over-starched, but you barely feel it as you tug it on over your regulation undergarments. With a few quick snaps, all the silver clasps are fastened, and the purple band is affixed to your upper arm. Then you reach into your locker, underneath a pile of stolen sweat rags, and lift out the cape.
You don't expect it to whoosh when you throw it over your shoulders, but that's exactly what it does. A thick, soaring sound, like wings, before it falls heavy against the backs of your calves. And something in your chest opens, shaking off the chill and pallor clinging to your blacks. A fang pokes out as one corner of your mouth lifts in a grin.
You can feel the pressure of eyes. The two sea dwellers beside you have paused in the affixation of their armbands to stare, and you simply tilt your chin up to fasten the golden chain beneath your neck. Then you sniff, sliding your glasses on and smoothing the hair back from your face. Not a breath stirs the air as you stride toward the changing block's exit. Only the click of your heels against the carbon shivers in the silence. You're given a large berth, black-clad bodies parting around you like oily waves, yellow eyes peering out, blinking.
The click of your heels stops, and you press your arms against your sides at attention as the sergeant stares down his hooked nose at you. At his side are two majors, each holding a stack of placards and exchanging uneasy glances. And even though you are dizzy with fear, you cannot force that corner of your mouth back down. It stays lifted, one fang poking out in abject defiance. In your head a voice is screaming.
Do it do it dock the points dock them what is fifty more out of three hundred and eighty one?
He lets his eyes fall over his clipboard before he lifts a gloved hand and beckons to the majors with his two middle fingers. The one furthest from him jerks to action, fumbling with the placards in his arms before sliding one out from the bottom of his stack. He offers it up to the sergeant, who lifts it smartly from his hands. As he raises it beside his head, you see the number embossed there, shining with fresh violet ink.
Three hundred and eighty one.
And suddenly you are back in your pod, staring up into the darkness of the barracks, counting lights with feverish desperation.
"Eridan Ampora?" he asks you. His lips barely move. As if you're not worth the effort.
You say nothing. You simply let your eyes widen a bit, the corners of your mouth still frozen in place. And now you're not sure if the screaming in your head is a demand or a desperate plea. Do it do it dock them please dock them dock the points it still matters doesn't it still matter dock them dock them dock them.
He sniffs, and his long nostrils flare. He then removes an adhesive strip on the back of the placard before slamming the plastic against your chest. You stumble, and your boot heel pops once against the carbon, all the air bursting from your lungs and the glasses slipping to the end of your nose.
"Make your way to the loading dock and take your position there. We've nearly arrived."
The energy in the room seems to bubble up, and it feels suspiciously like the electric tingling before the eruption of laughter. Chest still throbbing, you set your jaw and march past the sergeant, making your way down one of the ship's corridors.
The loading dock is empty and dark, a dim gray cavern woven with ribs of carbonate and more bioluminescent red bulbs. You squint up at them, and wonder if they match your score card too.
The other sea dwellers file in after you, violet numbers emblazoned on their chests as well. Five hundred and eight nine. Five hundred and seventy two. Six hundred. Five hundred and forty. Five hundred and sixty seven. They assemble themselves next to you in ascending order according to score. The gangly cadet that positions himself directly beside you has a four hundred and ninety nine attached to his chest.
Only one person got the full six hundred and twelve points. And she waves at you with a gloved hand, underneath which you know are ten nails dipped in black varnish.
You grit your teeth, and your cape suddenly feels heavy and hot against your shoulders. So you're grateful when the docking gear on the ship screams, because then you don't have to.
The floor trembles, but the cadets ahead of you stand poised in their ranks. Eleven squads, all separated by blood color, with you and the other violet sea dwellers heading the company. It is in this fashion that you march forward once the docks open, a grim black procession of cadets all making their way onto the dreadnaught Vigrid.
The air is cooler inside. It splashes on your face like liquid, and you blink behind your glasses, clenching your jaw tighter to keep your muscles from giving their usual spasms. It's things like this that destroyed you in marksmanship, you tell yourself, so you hitch up your chest and pound the black floor beneath you with your parade boots.
The Vigrid is better than your training vessel in every way, but it's modest about it. Its loading dock is bigger, but all the ribbed rafters are covered with a red, flesh-like coating of tectin. Long strips of bioluminescence in alternating shades of blue and red stretch along the sides and ceilings. You get the sensation that you have just stepped inside the belly of some beast.
The adjoining corridors are wide, unlike the snaking veins of your old ship. Heels echo against the red walls like clicking drumbeats, and you can feel the hem of your cape hitting your calves in time with your heart. You exhale through your nose, trying to focus instead on the way the lights in the ceilings have been arranged in patterns that resemble grasping tentacles. Truly a vessel of the Empress.
By the time you get your breathing straight, a set of automatic doors has already slid apart like a valve, and you squint as the soft lighting of the halls sharpens into a glaring white. The sound of footsteps is lost in the vastness of the room, the ceiling arching up into a dome, at the pinnacle of which glows a white sun. The walls falling away from it are trimmed with a golden surf, resin tentacles grasping outwards in a tangle of polished amber. The floor beneath you is an assortment of colored carbonates. A grand mosaic that you are too small to view.
Ahead of you they are gathered. And though you've been envisioning this moment for months, it's done nothing to soften the cold claws of their terrifying image. Rows of them arranged on a raised platform—the Alternian infantry, dressed not in ceremonial blacks but in full armor. You feel your insides quiver as your ranks march forward under their yellow eyes and the bulk of their plate mail.
You stumble to a halt as your company ceases its forward march, and silence permeates the room. The leaders step forward to greet each other, and suddenly your sergeant looks like a needle beneath the head of an axe. He shakes hands with the general, a violet blood nearly twice his height with a chest like a generator. And maybe it is. His lower jaw is constructed completely of titanium, and he whirs as he walks back up the gilded resin steps to the platform holding his troops. He stands before them and spreads his arms.
"Welcome, cadets." His voice is a metallic explosion.
You all salute in time before snapping your arms back to your sides. He nods once. "At ease, lads."
You let your legs come apart, but your muscles still shake with tension. All around you is the bated breath of your peers.
"I've been informed that you haven't been given a real briefing on this mission. So I'm going to fill in the blanks. They are as follows."
He holds up a hand and the floor splits apart beneath you. You look down as the mosaic peels back under a layer of clear fiberglass, and suddenly you are standing over the void of space. Floating there amidst the sea of stars is a planet, a wash of gray rock.
"Beneath you is the planet of Carapace. Seven hundred thousand sweeps old, largely terrestrial, full of silicon-based life forms that we call Carapacians. They are sentient, but primitive. However. They have managed to create a diamond amidst all their technological coal."
The floor flickers, and the image of a golden ring replaces the grey planet. It spins lethargically beneath you, pixels sweeping the soles of your boots.
"Carapacian governance is based on forced rapid biological evolution. With each promotion in social rank, they receive genetic alterations, causing instantaneous physical change. This allows them to transform out of their weaker base biological structures into organisms specialized for certain classes of work. Control of these alterations resides at the top of the hierarchy, with the queen. It means she is a monarch in name alone. Her rule is authoritarian, all desirable behavior being rewarded with remote biological promotion, and any dissention being punished with remote demotion or death. Specifics of the technology are still unknown, but it is clear that the ring is the hub of this formidable Carapacian adaptability model."
The ring beneath you shrinks until it is encapsulated by a gray, domed building, which continues to fall away from your feet until you are standing over a huge, walled fortress, and then a city. Soon the land drops away into a canvas of pitted and scorched rock, and you are once again staring down at the sphere of the planet.
"I shouldn't have to tell you what the attainment of this technology could mean for Alternian imperial efforts. But I will, since that's part of the job here. Being able to remotely adapt entire platoons to any environment they're placed in would more than double the efficacy of our assaults. It would scrub out any type of home-world advantage our opponents might have. So of course the humans are getting their oily hands into this grubcake jar as well."
The screen shifts again, swooping over the planet to a place just within its orbit. There, hovering silently in the black abyss, is a human vessel. It is the cut granite to the polished Alternian gems—boxy, lumbering, and armed to the gills with missiles.
"This is a race, cadets. To add a little bit of incentive, this is not only a race against the humans, but against your peers as well. We need only one pair to reach the Queen's Ring. After that, standard protocol applies. The teams that do not achieve mission success are to be considered failures, and culled accordingly."
The screen darkens and the mosaic slides back together under your feet.
The silence is deafening.
"So," booms the general at last, iron jaw clamping shut in an eerie grin. "Let's commence selections. Get all you fresh faces acquainted with your trained infantry units."
A colonel approaches him from behind, holding a plasma pad in his hand. The general leans over the screen and points to one of the sea dwellers standing at attention in the rank. The violet bloods would have their pick of the goods first. Somehow all the saliva has evaporated from your tongue, and you swallow hard, trying to get your throat lubricated again in case one of them makes you speak.
The first one to descend and pace before you is a lithe whip of a troll, but with legs like small tree trunks. Your breathing quickens and the cape around your shoulders makes you feel like you're being cooked. You attempt not to sweat too much, but the sniper's gaze burns you like two yellow suns. Her hair is cropped short, arms like cut marble beneath the bulk of her chitinous pauldrons. Her boots are remarkably silent as she crosses the tile in front of you, never so much as glancing at the lesser blooded trolls in back. You feel your heart swell a little, and the hope tastes almost as hot as her judgment.
At last she puts a hand over the troll at the far left of your section, a big sea dweller with a proud six hundred and nine affixed to his chest. Your heart withers.
"Six oh nine will proceed left to the room adjoining this one," the general commands tacitly from the platform. "There he will receive provisions and equipment before making his way down the hall to cabin three fifty two. You will have one night to rest and become acquainted with your partners before we touch ground tomorrow."
The selected troll strides off, boots clicking, the very picture of a perfect soldier.
You can taste bile at the back of your throat.
The general leans over the plasma pad again before extending his finger to the next troll.
The soldier steps forward with the proud smack of titanium heels on resin. His gait is casual, confident. It reminds you of liquefied steel. Smooth and bright and powerful. You feel your blood begin to thrum in your veins as you see the collar of the cape you'd hoped to emulate rising up about his shoulders, framing his neck and the smooth black silk of his hair.
He is power. Condensed, controlled, balled up behind a crooked grin and an ambling strut.
Never have you ever felt so crushed by the mere presence of a troll. Your chest caves in under the weight of your score card, and you can barely breathe as he passes before you. The very air around him seems to have a weight. His own personal gravitational field. You can feel your toes curling in your boots, every joint in your body filling with ice.
His eyes fall on you like a pair of hot irons. You try with every muscle you have not to flinch, but you do it anyway. You quail under his gaze, breath tumbling over in your chest, air buzzing in your ears. His pupils flick over your shoulders, and you can feel the violet collar of your cape wilt beneath them. His jaw tightens in a grin, and as one brow dips down over his eyes, you notice the jagged scars above it, just beneath his hairline.
Those few seconds feel like an eternity. But they are not. Because his eyes inevitably fall on the placard at your chest. And then they break away, and he's gone, striding off down the line and letting his gaze flick over the other trolls.
You wilt. Because everything's been answered in that moment. You are a joke to the most powerful sea dweller you've ever laid eyes upon. A weak, shivering, flinching disgrace that—
A hand falls on your shoulder so hard you swear your boots crack the carbon beneath you. The breath flies from your lungs instantly, so it's with bulging eyes that you peer up at him. And he's smiling wider this time, so wide you can almost see your dumbstruck face reflected in his fangs.
There's been a mistake.
You're sure of it. And everyone else is too. Around you there is the stirring of starched blacks as heads turn. In an instant you can feel hundreds of eyes pressing into you, and a wave of murmurs stirring in the throats of your peers. That electric effervescence that precedes laughter bubbles up around you again, but this time it feels dark. Indignant. Because they want to scoff. To jeer. To ask the proud troll with his hand clamped over your shoulder if this is some kind of bad joke.
So he caaaaaaaan make a joke.
Her voice is like ice in your skull. And you stare up at the soldier because you're waiting for him to pull away and laugh with all that confidence and strength and tell you to get out of line. To pack up and go home because you're such a joke to this mission—to the whole of the Alternian army. And you can feel your chest shuddering, your throat clenching, the urge to apologize breaking over you in terrible waves. You will take of your pathetic excuse for an Orphaner's cape and tuck yourself into a pod and deploy yourself back into obscurity. Because you have just laid eyes on everything you'd ever hoped to become and he is looking back at you and laughing.
It's an oddly warm chuckle, though. Joints still frozen, you stumble as he pulls you out of line. Your peers shiver with disbelief around you, and you stand alone in front of them, frozen in the middle of the floor.
"Get going then," he says.
"Yes sir," you reply automatically, fingers reaching up and tugging at the gold chain fastened below your neck. You try to stumble back, to slink past the proud ranks of the other cadets and return to the loading dock of your training vessel. But he grabs you by the shoulder again and turns you around.
"Loading room is on the left there, chief. And keep the cape. Real cute."
No. No, this is wrong. He can't want you to go to the left. This can't be a real selection. But your legs manage to kick in without the presence of your brain, and they propel you left out of the reception hall and into a small waiting room. The decoration there is sparse, and two officers stand before a pile of black duffle bags. They take one look at the insignia emblazoned on your armband before reaching back and extracting a sack from the pile. They shove it into your arms. And it's there, clutching your duffle to your chest, that you realize you are lost.
"What's the deal, kid?" one of them asks you. He's a dirt blood with wide horns and a broad nose. His nostrils flare as he speaks to you, like you reek stupidity.
It makes all the cold shock in your gut start to boil.
"I didn't hear my cabin number," you retort, now vexed enough to inject some indignation into your tone. Like these low life grunts could even fathom the pressure you'd just been put under.
So you're not surprised when he regards you with a badly hidden smirk while his olive-blooded partner yanks an aphid cake out of his pocket. The cellophane crinkles as he rips it open, and it scratches at your eardrums.
"Can you just tell me where I'm supposed to be reportin'?" you press.
The dirt blood sniffs through his huge nostrils again and crosses his arms. "What were you, second picked?" He casts a glance to his partner. "That's Cronus right?"
Aphid cake soldier nods. "Don't think there's a body in the ship that doesn't know about Cronus getting ranked second."
Dirt blood looks back to you and extends a hand, tugging the sack in your arms down so he can get a look at your score card. You yank yourself out of his reach, flushed violet with fury, but the damage has been done. The soldier smirks and looks back to his chewing comrade.
"Three eighty one."
Aphid cake guy gives a snort.
"Three eighty one," dirt blood says again, turning back to you with laughter painted all over his face. "He gets top pick and he wants McCapes here. Fucking thinks he can just waltz onto the battlefield and take it by himself. Arrogant son of a bitch."
"He'll get pulled apart at the joints," aphid cake guy remarks, licking his fingers. "Don't worry about it."
"Can only fucking hope," dirt blood snaps before grabbing the plasma pad hanging from his belt loop. "Cabin two sixty three is where you'll wanna head. Good luck, roachglobes."
You grip your bag until the cloth strains under your nails. But you don't bother gracing them with a bit of verbal acid. They're obviously jealous of your new partner's rank and status. Of his regal bearing and rich violet blood and the way he moves like steel.
Your stomach shrinks again, and you turn and push your way out of the room.
The corridor is long, and every fifty rooms, it branches. You wander along it with increasing urgency, because each second that you spend lost will surely count against you, and you're positive that it's not too late for this troll to change his mind. Cronus. You wonder if you should tell him that you know his name, or if that would imply that you'd let the guards in the other room speak too much. Your fists clench again around the sack in your arms, fangs grinding against each other.
Never will a lowblood address you or your partner in such a way ever again.
When you finally find cabin two sixty three, your stomach is in knots and it feels like there's a knife lodged between your ribs. Wiping a sleeve over your brow, you reach up to knock at the door. It's black carbon with the purple waves of your insignia carved into it. At least you share a weapons class.
It opens immediately, and you stand at attention, prepared to deliver some kind of apology to your senior, but the words never make it past your lips. They die rather pathetically in the back of your throat as you look at the troll before you.
He's…small now. Still at least a foot taller than you, but his strength seems less like a dream and more like cheap plastic now that he's been stripped of all his impressive plate mail. In its place is a white cotton shirt and a pair of faded black jeans. They're ripped at the knees. Ripped and denim and undeniably human.
You are suddenly very positive that your stomach has dropped from your body and crashed through the floor to float frozen somewhere in space.
"Hey there, kiddo," he says, clapping a hand on your shoulder. It's definitely the same hand as before, so you let it drag you into the cabin and shut the door behind you.
"You look to be in a mild state of shock," he says, his brow furrowed over his white smile. As if he's not sure whether to smile at all, and you think that it perhaps has something to do with the fact that you're standing rigid in the middle of his respite block while more dying noises make their way from your throat.
It's possible that this is a trick. Some training exercise that is designed to test your wits and intuition. You wonder if the real soldier is lurking in the room somewhere. Perhaps behind the slime-crusted recuperacoon or underneath the stack of…no, that wasn't regulation reading material at all. You avert your eyes, staring instead at your bag and trying to swallow.
"Can't really blame you for being nervous though. I can hardly imagine that you were expecting to be picked up by the highest ranked guy in the infantry, but here you are. You can believe it, kid, even though I know it's going to take some time. Want to sit? Have some juice? A smoke?"
There's suddenly a small paper packet being forced under your nose. You jerk back, blinking at it. Rows of paper-looking cylinders are stuffed inside the little box, and you let your eyes flick up to the guy holding them out to you.
He's smiling that crooked smile again. You can't decide if this is mockery or just a facet of infantry eccentricity that is beyond your personal levels of comprehension.
"Of course you don't want a smoke, I'm just jerking you around. Loosen up, bud." He taps a cylinder from the carton and sticks it between his teeth before he goes over to his desk, where he's got a black bag of his own open. "So what did they give you?"
You're still trying to get over the little white wand in his mouth. "Is that…human paraphernalia?" You want it desperately not to be. Any second he will put on the stunning violet plate mail again and tell you that you've passed his test, that you are far more perceptive than he ever thought possible, and you will both sling Crosshairs over your shoulders and storm the gray planet like twin hurricanes, crushing the competition beneath your soles.
The daydream continues to whir desperately in your head as he flops onto his chair and leans back, chewing on the wand between his lips. "You're some kind of golden boy, aren't you? Well, aside from the unbelievably cruddy exam score. But don't worry about that, most of what they teach you in basic is utter horseshit anyway. I'll let you in on what you really need to know."
He turns to the bag on his desk then, rummaging through it as you continue to stand in the middle of the room, feeling vaguely sick.
You try again, because you are sure this nightmare has to stop at some point.
"Is that little wand thing human paraphernalia?"
He looks up at you, eyes lidded with vexation. "Yes, scout, yes it is. It's called a 'cigarette' or 'a smoke' and it's a stunningly human product. Here's a treat for your excellent detective work."
Something flies at you and you drop your duffle to catch it, but it hits your face with the bright crackle of cellophane before flopping to the floor. You blink, your glasses smudged, but you can still see the wrapped aphid cake lying at your feet.
You don't think you've ever felt so betrayed.
"Does the disciplinary council know about this?" you demand. Your voice seems hilariously tiny.
"Nope. Those weasels don't know about most things, and we're going to keep it that way. Unless you plan on giving me trouble. In which case, there are plenty of other kids I could've picked out of that bunch still standing in the reception hall. Not too late for me to change my mind." He raises an eyebrow at you, the crooked grin gone.
You shrink back, trying to swallow your tongue. Maybe you'll choke on it.
He turns back to his bag. "So what did they give you?"
"What?"
He waves to the ground at your feet. "In your grubscout pack. Crack her open, let's see what you've got."
You look at the bag and back at your partner before you scoop it up and bring it toward him. You stop beside him, and your eyes wander to some of the things laid out on his desk. Folded cotton shirts, metal plugs that vaguely resemble ammunition, a jar of some amber liquid.
"What?"
You jerk and look toward him. His expression is blank. "What is it?" he asks again, voice deadpan.
"Is all a this…?" You want to stop asking. Mostly because you already know. But you can't help but hope that one of your questions will be met with some kind of sensible reassurance to the contrary.
He sighs, rubbing a temple with his thumb. "Look, kid—"
"Eridan," you interject.
He quirks an eyebrow at you.
"That's my name. We've been in this room together for all a five minutes and you still haven't asked me for it, so there it is."
You share a silence and an awkward stare.
Finally he blinks and replies. "Cronus. Much obliged. Anyway, I don't know how to really tell you this, so I'm just going to be straight with you. Part of being successful in the military is knowing when to follow the rules and when not to. For instance…can you open your bag there?"
You drop it on the ground with a thud and unzip it. Inside are a few effects. Some violet plate mail, a blanket, packets of jerky, a shiny new Crosshairs, and an ammo cube to supplement it. The sight of the weapon and armor make you feel weak with joy. Two strands of familiar and deadly light amidst all this—
They are suddenly and unceremoniously yanked from your bag.
"Like this, for instance," Cronus says, hefting the bulk of the blue rifle in his hands. He holds it up to his shoulder, laying his cheek alongside it, one eye squeezed shut as he aims at some indiscernible point on the wall. "Nice weapon for an Alternian marksman. Did you know it can take out twenty guys at once with one shot of concentrated energy?"
You nod emphatically, heart lifting as the image of the grand troll from the reception hall wavers before you once again. "It's also known to—"
"Garbage," Cronus remarks, letting the rifle clatter to the floor.
You let out a helpless cry, scooping the Crosshairs back into your arms and cradling it to your chest. "Are you fuckin' nuts?" you yelp.
"No. And I'll tell you why." He lifts something up from beside his desk. A quick jerk of his arm snaps the barrel in place, and you find yourself squinting at him in disbelief.
"This is a standard semi-automatic human rifle. It takes bullets and can spit them out again at the rate of fifteen rounds per minute. The Crosshairs needs that much time just to recover from a fully charged shot. So that's one minute where you can be killing fifteen guys instead of getting killed by fifteen guys."
You stare at the slender metal tube and the lacquered backing. You're sure that even you could break it over your knee if you wanted to. And so the only reply that falls out of your mouth is, "But it's…human."
"Craving another aphid cake for all this sleuthing you're doing today?" He asks you. His mouth is a lopsided grin, but it doesn't make his fangs look any less sharp. So you glare at him but keep your lips pressed together.
"Anyway, I know it's human, and that's the other half of the point. Who do you think we're racing against?"
"You want me to say humans."
"Yeah I do, because that's an incontrovertible fucking fact," he snaps, smile beginning to disappear. "We're racing against humans and inevitably killing them. And ninety percent of them will be carrying these. That means a limitless supply of ammo. How much ammo did those jokers down in the prep room give you for your precious Crosshairs?" He jerks his chin toward your bag.
You tug it closer to you, trying to shield the opening from view. You scowl.
"Gave you one fucking cube, didn't they?"
"It's rechargeable," you snap.
"It's garbage," he barks back, yanking the bag from your grasp. You try to grab for it, but he shoves a foot into your chest, staving you off as he pulls the ammo cube from the duffle and tosses it over his shoulder. Then he lifts up the human rifle and shoves it into your arms.
"You'll be using that," he says. "Also you can kiss this useless shit goodbye too."
You stare in horror as he pulls the plate mail out of your bag and tosses that over his shoulder as well. It crashes behind him and for a second you're sure it's the sound of your world collapsing.
"No, give that back," you yell, tossing the gun aside and trying to tear his foot from your chest.
"Settle down there, sport, you'll hurt yourself," Cronus chuckles.
Something in you breaks. Because despite everything, despite the small glimmer of hope that had danced before you for just an instant—the hope for something more, for a future, a dream—you're still just a joke. A punch line to this lying human-clad disgrace of a troll and it blots the sense from your eyes and you're swinging around, tearing the rifle from the floor and leveling it at him and screaming, somewhere there is screaming, ugly noise, and your lips moving in time with it GIVE IT BACK YOU FUCKIN' PIECE A SHIT I EARNED THAT I EARNED IT IT'S MINE.
And then the rifle is jerked from your hands and slammed back into your nose. Your glasses clatter across the floor and reality comes snapping back in place.
You clutch your face and crumple back on your knees, spluttering and staring and heaving as blood dribbles between your fingers.
"You haven't earned a goddamn thing." His eyes are cold chips of yellow amber as he glares down at you, violet blood dripping from the butt of the rifle in his hands. "Look at the number on your chest. The only reason you're here is because of me."
"You broke it, you fuckin' broke my nose," you splutter into your hands, oozing mucus and drool everywhere. "Oh my fuckin' god."
"Shut up. Your voice is starting to make me sick." He tosses the rifle aside and wipes his hands on his pants. "You know, I saw that cape around your neck and I thought I was looking at a kid with guts. Someone who wasn't afraid to bend a few rules where it was necessary. I really thought you'd be better than another factory-made soldier ready to charge mindlessly into the culling fork. I was obviously mistaken."
You don't look up. You can't. All you can do is hold your nose and watch gouts of blood slop onto the floor.
"Tell you what, though. I'll explain what's going to happen tomorrow when we disembark, and then I'll let you freely choose whether you want to keep your precious plate mail or not. Because I'm just a swell guy like that."
He settles back in his chair, folding his arms over his chest and frowning down at you.
"So, Eridan, have you ever heard of a sea turtle?"
All you can do is groan, your entire head pounding. So he gives a shrug and begins inspecting his fingernails before continuing.
"It's the human equivalent of a shellbeast. You've probably been too busy stuffing your head up the nook of Alternian superiority to have read up on their breeding habits. Luckily I'm here to fill you in."
He slips off his chair and kneels beside you, putting a hand on your shoulder as you continue to huddle over a small pool of slobbery blood.
"The mother turtle makes her way up the beach, buries a whole shitload of eggs in the sand there, and leaves. Then all the little baby turtles hatch and poke up out of the sand together. Tons of them. And they're all bound for the ocean. Do you want to know what happens to all those baby turtles?"
You look up at him, glaring. He grins his crooked grin.
"They all die right there on the beach. All but one. Because one is all it takes to go out and make sure sea turtles keep on existing."
He grips your horn, yanking you close enough to feel his breath on your face. "I don't know what kind of delusions of grandeur you had stewing up in that thinkpan of yours, but tomorrow isn't going to be all pomp and parade We're fighting each other just as much as we're fighting the humans. And the second that the Vigrid opens up her hatch to lay us like a bunch of eggs on the beach of Carapace, that's when we start dying. En masse."
Cronus releases you, and you grunt a little before recoiling, shifting back into a sitting position and huddling against the wall. You watch through a haze of pain as he stands and crosses to a discarded violet pauldron before picking it up and flinging it in your lap.
"So you can run around in your heavy violet armor and die. Or you can put on these clothes I got kindly set aside for you and blend in with the human detachment landing a mile off." He pats a little bundle sitting on the ledge of his recuperacoon.
You look up, curiosity dissolving some of the rancor clouding your eyes. "Human detachment?" Your voice is clogged with blood.
"That's right," he says, pinching the human cigarette wand between his thumb and forefinger, taking it out to grin even wider.
You jut your jaw even though he can't see it behind your cupped hands. "You wanna join them, is that what I'm hearin'?"
Cronus rolls his eyes and replaces the wand. "No, I want to avoid the fucking energy bombs that are going to detonate on our side of the battlefield by using a couple human bounty hunters as camouflage. As soon as we stop needing the camo, we can pick it off."
He scoops up the little black bundle from his pod and crouches down beside you. His hand falls on your shoulder again, and you finally feel like you've staunched the bleeding enough to release your nose and meet his gaze evenly.
"This isn't about picking sides, chief. This is about winning, and doing what's necessary to make sure that you do. So you let me know if that sounds attractive to you at all. Because if so, I can make it happen. I've got all the keys to winning, and I've made it so all you have to do is pick them up."
He lays the bundle on the ground before you, and you peer down at it, your face itchy with crusted blood.
"So," he says, pinching the wand between his fingers. "What's it going to be?"