Your name is Equius Zahhak, and you can't handle the situation anymore. You've held yourself together for a long time, through the fire, and the prison, and now your escape. But things have just become complicated.

There is a very small list of people that you are required to guard as a troll so near the top of the hemospectrum. The first, Feferi Peixes, has blood of a beautifully royal hue, and while her eccentricities are somewhat disconcerting to you, she has the grace expected of somebody with Tyrian blood.

Feferi has escaped already. With her went Eridan, whom you are obligated to hate due to his status as a seadwelling troll (a hatred which obviously does not extend to miss Peixes), and Sollux, who you hate because fudge that guy. The three reached the gap and are waiting for the others outside.

Terezi and Vriska deigned not to wait, however. The two left as soon as they reached the gap, and now only Gamzee and Tavros are left.

Gamzee is the second troll whom you are required to protect, his blood being as rich a purple as can be seen amongst land-dwelling trolls. His behavior may be deplorable, but as a highblood you are obligated to serve him.

Gamzee is in danger now. He has been trailing behind with Tavros, but they have been moving slowly. Nitram's legs are malfunctioning; likely due to all of the stairs he refused to stop climbing. His legs were strained too much too soon, and now they are locking up. Tavros is trying to run, but seems unable to bend his knees enough to facilitate a proper stride. And Gamzee refuses to leave him for dead, as is customary protocol with weak trolls.

The humans are closing in. Their leader, Scratch, is travelling at the head of the pack, and has set sights on the duo. He is holding a rifle to his face, and preparing to fire. Your first priority should be to take the bullet for Gamzee. As a Blue-blooded troll it is your duty to give your life for the hemospectrum.

The complication arises with the last troll you need to protect. Your moirail, Nepeta, has left to chase the mutant. Her personal feelings have clouded her judgment, as you feared. Should she choose to follow the mutant blood you may never find her again.

You are trapped now. On one side of the wall is your moirail, the one person who loves and understands you. On the other side is your duty, your role as a troll. It is a choice between love and identity, and you fear it may break you.

The humans decide they'd rather break you themselves though. The roar of flying machines cuts through the air. Lights shine on you and the remaining trolls. A human fires upon you with an explosive projectile. As you see the shot come at you, you see the Scratch Doctor fire a bullet through one of Tavros' legs. He falls to the ground with a pitiful wail. Gamzee cries out in rage and stands over him, head lowered. The rest is lost in the explosion, which sends you flying from your perch on top of the wall. You land in a heap of dust and find yourself struggling to get up. Very disconcerting.

Feferi rushes to your side, helping you to your feet. You notice with appreciation the way her lifetime of swimming has given her enough strength to do this. Once you're on your feet you start to move towards the wall again. While Nepeta's disappearance is highly distressing to you, the highblood is clearly in more imminent danger.

Feferi stops you though. "Equius you can't go back there, now that they know how dangerous you are they'll kill you on sight!"

You pause and regard her properly as hemospectrum would dictate. "Lady Peixes, as a blue blood it is my duty to lay down my life for those of a higher caste than myself. I must rescue Makara from the human slime."

"To hell with that!" Feferi cries out angrily. "I don't know what they're planning for Gamzee or Tavros, but I know if we give ourselves to them we won't be helping anyone! The four of us need to stick together, find the others, and figure out what we're going to do next."

You don't know what to do anymore. Gamzee has been trapped by the humans, with only a lowly brown-blooded cripple of a troll to watch over him. He needs assistance immediately or else he will fall victim to the FELT again. He is also running dangerously low on his soporifics, and you know the withdrawal symptoms will make him a danger to himself and everyone around him.

Feferi, on the other hand, is well protected, with the detestable sea dweller and mustard-blooded psionic to guard her. While you find their company abhorrent, you know they are strong enough to keep her safe. Does this mean you should leave Feferi with her adequate protection and defy orders to do your duty?

And there is also Nepeta to consider. You shudder to think of what may be happening to her, what sort of corruption her proximity to the mutant may bring. And while she is certainly strong for one of her caste, unbelievably so in fact, you know the only way you'll feel confident in her safety is if you're with her.

Feferi makes the decision for you in the end though. She seems to have thought of a way to tip the scales, as a leader and high member of the hemocaste should. "Equius, go find Nepeta and keep her safe. That's an order." She looks at you sternly, and you find yourself free from doubt. The future empress has ordered you to protect your moirail. You don't know why you ever considered doing anything differently.

"Thank you, Feferi." You say to her with a small smile. She grins up at you, clearly pleased with herself for solving your dilemma. You turn to the others, watching from a distance. "I will leave now to save my moirail from potential harm. You will get Lady Peixes away from here. I will return as soon as I am able. Should I find any harm has befallen her I will use the full brunt of my strength against you."

Sollux opens his mouth to reply, likely with some manner of profanity, as lowbloods tend to favor. But you do not stay to hear him. Instead you head in the direction you saw Nepeta running before, calling her name and praying you find her. You push all thoughts of Gamzee to the back of your mind.

Really, you found him to be atrocious company anyways.

Your name is Gamzee, and you're not sure what to do. Your flush crush is on the ground nursing a leg that is now falling to fucking pieces. You are surrounded by men with guns. Your friends are nowhere to be seen. And you can feel yourself slipping into a rage again.

The pale looking motherfucker who leads this circus of assholes is standing over Tavbro, and has a gun held to his head. He can see the way you look at him. This motherfucker sees every mother-fucking thing. If it weren't such bad news for you, you'd call it a miracle. Instead you'll call it a bunch of bullshit.

"Yes Mr. Makara, you'll behave if you don't want your little friend here to die." The cue ball snaps his fingers and two of his men drag Tavros away.

"Uhh, don't worry Gamzee, I'm sure I'll probably be alright, so-" They drag him around the corner and out of earshot. You want to follow, but the bald motherfucker seems to have other ideas. You'd bash in his head, but you know his friends would riddle you and Tavros with bullets if you tried. Besides, cracking skulls open is not motherfucking cool. It's miraculous, and you'd love to do it. You briefly ponder the location of your remaining pies. You'd really like a pie, even if it rots your thinkpan.

"Now then, Mr. Makara. What exactly does your friend Mr. Zahhak mean when he refers to you as 'highblood'?"

You grin lazily at him, and find your smile broadening as some of the other humans act unnerved. "It means he's gonna rip the rest of this fucking base down to save me, motherfucker." He will, too. Not only is Equius one of your best mother fucking friends, he's also a slave to the hemocaste. You can trust he'll die like a bitch if it means saving you. Not that you'd want that to happen to such a motherfucking bro.

Scratch laughs at this. "We'll see Mr. Makara. We'll see."

You suddenly find yourself doubtful.

Your name is Tavros Nitram, and you're not sure much is going on with you at the moment. Well, yeah, you are being held prisoner, and you're not sure if they just forgot to finish fixing your leg, or if they just decided stopping the bleeding was enough. And yes, your only friend left on the base is sinking into violent, murderous, insanity…

Okay, your name is Tavros Nitram, and your life sucks. It sucks so much right now you don't even have to hesitate to label it. Your life is sucky. There. It's official. You are now a hostage, locked away in a room, and while your potential savior (and maybe flush crush?) is in fact not in another layered brick fortified structure, you don't think you'll be getting out of here soon. Not when the token fire breathing evil overlord of this world has a gun to your royal head.

Unfortunately for you though, there's nothing you can do. Your left leg doesn't move anymore. Your right can barely bend. You are locked in a small cell with nothing to do but wait. So you do.

You have no option but to wait for an opportunity.

Your name is Kanaya Maryam, and you are dead. Or so you thought. You don't think a dead person can narrate, lacking the motor functions necessary for typing or speaking, so it would seem you are not as dead as you thought.

Your friends have left in the chaos, understandable under the circumstances. And while you're not sure how to meet up with them, you know that should be your second priority.

Your first priority is eating. It used to be bandaging the large hole in your stomach, but access to military first aid kits have allowed you to mostly deal with that issue. You're not sure how bandages will help a hole larger than your arm, but if nothing else you feel more comfortable now that your insides are no longer exposed to the air. Spilling your guts literally feels as personal as spilling your guts metaphorically, as you have recently found out.

The first issue having been solved, you now find yourself insatiably hungry. The few scraps of rations in the warehouse are unappealing to you though. You find that rather odd, as you're sure you've had some of these foods at one point or another, and even enjoyed some of them. Now however they appear as inedible to you as rubber.

Your hunt for sustenance is halted when a human enters, likely to investigate the damage done by a large group of angry trolls. However, while you feel it would be wise to hide, you find yourself oddly compelled to move closer.

You try to move to a vantage point, but the instant you move the human spots you. "Don't move, monster! Wait, what the hell?" His authority gives way to confusion as you both realize that you are glowing in the dark. The element of surprise has been thoroughly obliterated by your body's newly found desire to simulate a light fixture.

You decide to use the element of confusion in favor of the element of surprise, as the human fumbles with their weapon. You're upon him so fast neither of you know what happened. Your teeth bare, the gun is ripped away, you find his throat, and he dies with a gurgling scream before it registers to you that you are drinking his blood.

It tastes delicious. You once tried tasting a small amount of lusus blood in one of your young rainbow-drinker fantasies, but while that tasted horrendous, this is nourishing in a way you can't describe. It would seem that your brush with death has turned you into a rainbow drinker, and you may just have found your favorite flavor.

The human reduced to a husk, you find yourself stronger than ever. You can feel the wound in your stomach knitting itself together, slowly, but still at a faster rate than should be possible for such an injury. When you leave the warehouse the base is all but silent. It is disturbing, to say the least. While you're not sure about the fate of your comrades, the sound of approaching humans means your next move is clear.

In one last burst of speed you reach the nearest wall and clamber over it. You slink away into the night and run away, unsure where things will lead you. Both the path in life forced upon you and the path in the woods you have chosen are foggy, at best. You can only hope the others have escaped safely.

Your name is Karkat Vantas, and you have left your friends behind. It's for the best, really. They were a bunch of assholes, and you know if they continued to stay with you they'd only keep dying. Aradia was bad enough, but you and Kanaya were close. The blood on your hands is enough. If the others follow you they'll only add to the mix of color.

The best solution would probably be to kill yourself. If you're dead you can't put anyone in danger. But you don't want to think about what kind of information the FELT may be able to glean from your body. Besides, all the years you've defied the odds by surviving have left you feeling stubborn about living.

Instead, you're going to live on the run. You'll go solo, and then when bad luck strikes again you'll be the only one there to bite the bullet. It's really the safest thing for everyone else. Regardless of how they may feel about it. You know some of the group will take it better than others. Equius will be glad to see you gone, Vriska too, probably. Feferi will be upset, because you know she's been trying to prod you into a moirallegiance. But you still don't really know about that, you feel like sometimes she's interested in you because you're like a poster child for her hemocaste cause.

Nepeta's crying face flashes into your mind again and you find yourself stumbling. The silly cat-girl was supposed to be happy, and goofy, and always pretending to be her dopey lusus. Seeing her so lost, and miserable, and heartbroken, and knowing you're responsible, is haunting in a twisted way.

But she'll get over it. Her moirail may be a sweaty asshole, but he can be trusted to look after her. Aside from breaking shit and sweating all over everything he touches it's probably what he's best at. So she should be fine. You knew her romance was doomed to failure from the beginning anyways. You've known about her crush for years, but when pailing with somebody is a death sentence for both you and your partner, romantic involvement is the farthest thing from your mind. Well actually, romance is frequently the first thing on your mind, but that's largely because it's something you've always known you couldn't have. Sometimes life is just fucked up like that.

You climb over a fallen tree and see the lights of a small town in the distance. It's hardly a place you intend to stay at for very long, but you think it will do for now.

"Karkat descends towards the village, ready to plunder what he may." You mumble to yourself. "He fights past the horrifying realities of his personal failures and sudden desire to talk in the third person in order to focus on surviving."

"He's definitely not thinking of everyone he's left behind."

"He definitely can't remember the look on her face."

"Definitely not."

"…"

"Fuck."

Your name is Doctor Scratch, and this has not been a good night for you. You make a point of always being the smartest man in the room, though you hardly know everything. That being said, the extent to which you have underestimated those trolls shocks you. They were foolish, clearly adolescent, and they had suffered grave losses before they even encountered you. And yet…

The individual trolls were weak and foolish, but the species itself… they had a power to them. A great variety of powers, in fact. The mind control you were prepared for. And their weapons had been taken.

Other things were not so easy to predict. Psionic lasers, shrinking chainsaws, and the absolutely ludicrous strength of Mr. Zahhak. From the way he sweats you feel confident that troll in particular suffers from several different glandular problems.

This escape has been a preposterously large stain on a record that is otherwise a perfect white. And if there's one thing you cannot abide, it's stains. That being said though, the situation is still not beyond recovery.

You have a trump card now. Out of all the trolls you've met, there are some that have greatly impressed you. The strength of Zahhak, the resourcefulness of Serket, the tactical skills of Ampora, and Vantas in particular caught your interest as the only troll you were unable to glean information from.

But these trolls are all impressive individuals without easily exploitable weaknesses. Zahhak is prideful and strong, a dangerous combination, difficult to control. Serket is arrogant, but unpredictable, and the dice she wields are dangerous enough you kept them in your office where they could be kept safely (another miscalculation as it turned out). Ampora is too dangerous; his mind is that of a skilled warrior, despite his insecurities. And Karkat's mind is impenetrable; clearly the result of a troll skilled at keeping secrets behind an iron wall.

There is one way to tackle such trolls: their loved ones. But there too lies a problem. Zahhak's closest friend is a feral blade wielding cat troll, simple-minded, but no less dangerous. Pyrope, as you've recently discovered, is not as helpless as she appeared to be, and the talent for killing she showed during the escape has you wondering whether you've written her off too early. Ampora's closest allies appear to be Peixes, who has shown herself to be capable as a leader, and Captor, a psionic so powerful you're not sure you can contain him anymore. Vantas spent time with Peixes as well, but overall you're not sure if he's truly close to anybody.

Only one troll in the group has the potential to be controlled, the ability to be useful to you, and an easily exploitable weakness. Gamzee Makara has acted very unassuming and stupid throughout your time observing him, until earlier today. You had wondered why Zahhak had acted so deferentially towards him. Over time spent observing him you have managed to determine the social structure of the trolls, an unusual system based on blood color. And despite his clear idiocy, you have determined Makara is near the very top.

The incident between the trolls earlier today has enlightened you to a crucial fact: Gamzee Makara is dangerous. Unassuming, but dangerous, a combination you have learned to respect. Beneath his foolish exterior lies a deep rage. Behind his casual grin lies a vicious and sadistic mind. His slouch seems like the trait of a slacker, but in truth it is the tension of a hunter. This troll without his drugs could very well be dangerous enough to kill his fellow trolls, and laugh the whole while doing so.

As for his weakness, you are pleased to note that Makara has affections for Nitram, easily the most useless of the trolls. You made a snap decision when you saw the two making an escape. You're still not entirely confident Makara will live up to his potential. But he is your best chance. And by shooting Tavros you captured two trolls with one bullet.

And if Gamzee should fail, there are other options open to you. You have taken and preserved genetic samples from the different trolls, all twelve of them. And there are many routes open to you with such material. You once had a colleague who specialized in genetic manipulation, and not all of her notes are out of your reach.

Yes, you may have lost to the trolls tonight, but the war is still yours to win. They have nothing, not a single chance to survive this mess. It's only a matter of time until you hunt them down. They played you for a fool, but before this is over… you will show them who the real suckers are.

Haa haa.

Hee hee.

Hoo hoo.