Notes: This chapter brought to you by public transit.
Behind Blue Lies – Part 20
"Whale that was a poor shoaling," Veruna said, sounding and feeling disappointed.
"No no, I don't need an y help. Don't mind me," Vriska grumbled as she advanced upon the pair of highbloods and their entourage. "How about we save judgment for when you've finished off your own target?"
"Her Highness won't fail like some trolls," Kythal observed, rather dryly.
"Well, her Highness wasn't dueling with the ward of Enforcer Hydrus, who I will point out is not only stronger than me, but has likely been trained in various combat forms since he was a sweep old," Vriska countered. It had been an excuse she'd come up with while stumbling over to the group. Kythal quickly accepted it with a condescending nod, as if there was no surprise that a cerulean could not best a violet. Veruna, though, frowned severely.
"What happened to pan over fists, my dear?"
Good thing she had an honest answer to that one. Somehow Vriska hadn't expected the question. Man, she just wasn't having any of the luck today. Well, not entirely true. There was still the slitherbeast around her neck that assured her of the support of her moirail. Then again said slitherbeast was now tickling her collar as its tongue flicked in and out to sample her blood. Maybe it wasn't under such good control. Just what she needed.
"It can be rendered a bit more of a moot point when dealing with trolls trained at Ampora's level. My combat trainer liked to point out that a seasoned combatant thinks with more than their pan. They think with their eyes, ears, arms and legs. They react with all the speed of a thought, and strike with all the power of an idea."
"You trained under Jorale?" Kythal asked, leaving Vriska to stare as the 'royal' party moved past her.
"No," she spat out quickly, stumbling after Kythal and Veruna. "His first ward, Artour."
"Good troll, Artour. Misguided and in love with the system, but he knows nothing more. Such is the way of many indigos," Kythal sighed and with a gesture sent their violet guards forward. The screaming and shouting had died down as the poisons and sedatives in the food and drinks started to set in, leaving few non-hierarchists standing. Sure, there were knots here and there of still standing trolls—Terezi among them Vriska hoped—but those were under the careful attention of the hierarchist enforcers and the remainders of Vriska's group. They would pass the message on, once Veruna spoke. Then the hierarchists would beat a hasty retreat through pre-arranged routes, because the palace and city enforcers would arrive soon thanks to Vriska allowing Eridan's escape.
Not that they were out of enforcers in the ballroom. Tethys was still standing as far as Vriska knew, and wouldn't stand aside for the hierarchists. She'd be killed as surely as Empress Gyliea. Kythal was just being cautious, sending their fighters ahead. No sense risking the fake Empress afte rall. Better to throw the violets at Tethys en mass, maybe even let them wear her down before Kythal stepped in to slay her and win credit in Veruan's eyes. If his violets let him. But no, a power struggle amongst the hierarchists was too much to hope for this early on, wasn't it? With the way her luck was going—there was still a searing pain in her pan and eye—they would be strongly united before their chosen Empress, and escape with enough time to have no problems. Luck had never been something Vriska had been awash in. For some reason she was offended by that, but it wasn't important right now.
It wasn't important right now in part due to the fact that a roar worthy of a crazed cholerbear had just erupted from the direction of the ruined podium. With it came the white and black uniform of an enforcer bursting through the smoke, and filled to bursting with the furious energy of Tethys Hydrus on a war path. If Vriska hadn't been expected it, she might have jumped. As it was she merely flinched at the display, and failed to envy any of Kythal's men in their current task.
Eridan had been a more than competent fighter, he'd met and exceeded all the expectations one might put on the future Commander of the Enforceres, not to mention the personal guardian of the heiress Feferi. But Tethys, who had trained him, was a different thing altogether. For one thing, she was fast, in a way that the normal eye couldn't follow. The first of Kythal's men went down in the literal blink of an eye. One second Tethys had stood before the troll, blade poised and body in perfect form to strike. The next her target was down, and the only way Vriska knew he was dead was a sudden burst of fear followed by an abrupt lack she could feel even through her newly discovered and poorly trained psychic protections. The second troll went down just as fast, a feat all the more impressive for the fact that this one had snuck up on Tethys and had been standing several feet away.
In another situation it might have been beautiful. Vriska might have meditated on the idea of poetry in motion. Comparisons may have been made to dancers who had mastered their craft. To waves breaking upon the pink-tinted sands of the shore. Maybe she could even have disregarded the splashes of violet that marred Tethys's uniform, or counted them as decorations that doubled as a nod to one's color and thus level of service. As it was, this was the situation, and Vriska looked on with one eye and wondered if maybe, just maybe, Tethys would end things here on her own. Not entirely on her own. Vriska was within reach of Veruna. A well placed dagger throw and...
A sound and emotion cut across her line of thought. The sound a click and high pitched whirr. The emotion satisfaction. Tethys must have heard the sound, because her head turned, eyes wide, Kythal's name on her lips and everything about her radiating defeat. There was only enough time for Vriska to cover her eyes as the whirr became a screech and their air took on the distinctive smell of ozone. That would have been bad enough, all things considered, but the scent soon changed, replaced by the smell of overcooked meat and freely flowing blood.
Vriska uncovered her eyes, and swallowed her horror as she took in the sight before her. Tethys was still standing, though more in shock than anything else. Or maybe it was more accurate to say that the remains of Tethys still stood. Because there was very clearly no life left in the body. Not really a surprise that she was dead, considering the hole the size of one of Goatad's fists that had been punched through Tethys's chest. There was smoke coming from the tip of Kythal's plasma rifle, making the source of the fatal shot more than obvious.
"Messy," Veruna commented as Tethys fell forward, crumpling like a wriggler's paper doll that had its strings cut. "But a lovely addition to her enforcer uniform. Maybe I'll have my own enforcers add a bloody ring to their uniforms."
"Your desires are our will, my Empress," Kythal said, bowing.
"Tell me, is it satisfying to slay your former kismesis?" Veruna asked, picking her way through Kythal's violet guards, and stepping daintily onto the heavily damaged platform.
"Yes, my lady. Good to see her finally put into her place."
Veruna nodded in agreement, and slowly twirled her war-fork between her fingers. "I hope I shall have the chance to experience it."
Part of Vriska wanted to point out that the Empress hardly counted as Veruna's kismesis, especially considering the fact that Veruna had been believed dead for sweeps upon sweeps. It wasn't hard to hold her tongue. There wasn't any point in correcting Veruna, not here and not now. It would be deadly. Too many things these days were.
"Maybe I should have gone into a different line of work," she mumbled, more to herself than anything, and had to resist the urge to laugh when the slitherbeast tapped her collarbone twice. Wasn't it nice to have such a supportive moirail?
"Whale, whale, whale. Look what we have here," Veruna crooned as she came to a stop, a menacing grin plastered on her face. "It has been a long time, hasn't it sister?"
A voice, both familiar and strange, croaked out a weak response from the wreckage. "Veruna. You... live."
"Indeed. Don't I?" as Veruna laughed, Vriska started to creep closer, to catch sight of the troll speaking with Veruna. "That makes one of us."
"Why...?"
"Oh come now, do you reely not remember just why? Are you pulling my line? Oh my dear, forgetful as ever. I've come to take what is mine. The throne. Too long have you misguided our people. I intend to put things to rights."
"There is no... right in... what you want."
At last Vriska was close enough, and her pusher almost broke at the sight. Never had she been more glad that Sollux hadn't been able to figure a way to give her a small camera to record what Vriska saw. The great Empress lay broken on the ruined platform. Her skin was charred black, her legs completely mangled, and one of her facial fins torn off by a piece of wood. A large shard of the podium had apparently been launched by the explosion, and it was now embedded in her shoulder. All over she was splattered with brilliant and beautiful fuchsia blood, not to mention fresh spots of violet from the death of Tethys. She looked so small, so pathetic, so weak. How had their Empress fallen this far?
It was Vriska's fault. All Vriska's fault. She had killed the Empress. The Empress who had done nothing ill to her. Who had saved her and her wardmates from Spided. Who had given Karkat a chance at a real life. And how had she repaid the Empress?
Gog, she was going to be sick.
"We've always disagreed there. Now we will see who is right. Goodbye, sister."
"Veruna..."
"Yes?"
"Rot in the depths of the sea."
Apparently Veruna didn't much like the suggestion, because the war-fork was whirling in her fingers once more. Then, abruptly, it stopped, the fuchsia gripped it tightly in her two hands, and brought it down into the chest of Empress Gyliea.
Keeping control of her mind after the explosion had been a struggle for Vriska, but there was something very different about dealing with Gyliea's death. It felt like a mournful crooning was piercing her, body and pan, and it made her want to scream. Something, something BIG, was out there, screaming in loss over the death of the Empress. Something that Vriska's pan could not even begin to block out. Only strength of will alone kept Vriska on her feet, and only the weakness she felt from loss of blood was enough to keep people from looking twice as she stumbled back a step, pan rioting with the crooning.
"You first," Veruna was whispering, still smiling. At last she rose up fully and turned to face her gathered victims and supporters.
Even as Vriska regained her balance, the crooning at last gone, Veruna was spinning the war-fork again, turning it so that the fuchsia-stained prongs faced the ceiling. When she jabbed it up towards the sky three times the motion was accompanied by approving cheers from her followers. And pained sobs from those innocents left standing.
"It has come," Veruna said, lifting her voice to be heard throughout the room, in the kind of way that only fuchsias seemed capable of pulling off. "Brothers and sisters, our time has come. We stand now at the the beginning of a new age. The age where those worthy of power are given it. No longer will the high serve the low. This is a perversion of our world. Perversion of our blood. Perversion of the hemohierarchy that we should live by."
Someone, somewhere out in the crowd booed, and the sound was quickly replaced by a gasp of pain. Vriska just stood her ground, silent and holding in all of her own mourning.
"This is the age where our people are lead to the right way of thinking. Too long have my sisters and ancestors led you wrong. I will correct this. Know this, high and lowblood alike. Know your places, serve me, and you will be allowed your lives. If you act against the good of the new regime, you will die. Your quadrants will die. Your inclade will die. Serve, learn your place, and act as befits the place you are born into by your blood.
"You will do this, because it is proper. You will do this to save your pathetic lives. You will do this because the price for disobedience is more than you can fathom obeying. Submit to me. Obey me. And learn your place. Those who stand with the current Heiress will know sorrow. Those who swear loyalty to me may live. But all shall know the will of Empress Veruna. All shall follow, or mourn their loss.
"Those of you who still live, do so at the sufferance of my strategist, Vriska Serket. You will spread the world of what has happened here, and you will teach obedience. You will forsake these misguided thoughts of equality. Those who have always done so, we will know you. We will find you. And you will be brought before Kythal Ampora to be judged. Together you will fight with us, and take Beforus to the glory it should know."
Vriska could do little more but stand by in shock as she heard Veruna name Kythal fully. Kythal Ampora? And he had been kismesis to Tethys Hydrus at one point? Did that mean... Here she'd thought things were already hard enough on Eridan with what was coming. But to have to face a man who could quite honestly be a direct ancestor to him... Who had slain his guardian...
Yeah, if Equius didn't hunt her down to kill her, Eridan surely would. Just what she wanted out of all of this.
"Bow down, lowblood. The time has come. Bow down or die. Fighting will get you no where."
Then, with a simple gesture, everyone was moving. Kythal's guards started forward, clearing the way for Veruna, and Vriska fell in behind them. Bad enough that she'd had to run into Terezi, but had Veruna really had to go and announce her name to the whole of the assembled?
Oh well. She'd known tonight was going to be the end of her life as she knew it. What was the point in worrying about it now?
Her life was over either way.