Chapter Text
It’s common knowledge that you, Karkat Vantas, are Her Imperious Condescension’s bitch.
As common as knowledge of you could possibly get, at least, when you’re an Imperial secret. Which is to say, not at all. The limits to your popularity are the resident staff of Battleship Condescension, and even then, you’re only popular in the sense that people full-out cower when you walk by, which stopped being funny ages ago. The novelty of having fully pupated adults trying their hardest to look meek and unthreatening whenever you walked into a room wore off when it finally clicked that this is your life now.
And it’s all your fucking fault.
But it’s better, you remind yourself, are reminded every time )(IC calls for you to give you a new task. It’s better because you can’t hurt anyone else with your poisonous, disgusting blood. You owe the Condesce for that, at least, even if now you are nothing more than a tool.
You will not hurt anyone else with your blood again.
“Karkitty!”
Not like you hurt your friends.
“What, Nepeta,” you mutter under your breath, standing at attention by the huge, ornate doors. You don’t miss how the guards shift not-so-subtly away from you.
“What do you think she has for us this time?”
You think you could almost see her, out of the corner of your eye, but you know it’s a fruitless effort. You can only ever see them for real if Aradia is hitching with you, and you try not to needlessly use any of them like that. Even if it would be nice.
“I don’t know. Another stealth job, probably.”
“Yes!”
You feel your lips twitch up a little in amusement at her excitement, and the guards shift away even further. Wow. It’s not like they can try to be less like snivelling wrigglers.
Although, it’s not like you can blame them. If you heard there was a troll who literally had lethal, poisonous blood, and talked to people who weren’t there, you would avoid the fuck out of them, too.
Finally, you hear the “Come in, guppy!” you were waiting for, and you ignore the guards as you step through the door, into the Condesce’s throne room.
She grins as you kneel on one knee before her, and you stand when she says, “Cut it out, guppy, I got a job for ya.” Her legs are crossed, one footing moving to a beat you can’t hear. “There’s a planet that my Asterrorists say is at the right conditions for a hospitable cavern for a Mother Grub. Problem is, the planet’s already infested with a bunch’a aliens, and I can’t just blast ‘em out of the sky like I usually do, you carp? My only option is to send a couple flaysquads down there to get the job done right. You’re gonna go with them.”
You nod, contemplating what she’s just said. A possible place for a new Mother Grub? Those don’t come by very often. No wonder she wants you on that job so badly.
“Rememba where your loyalties lie, guppy,” she says, examining her nails. “I’m trustin’ you ‘cause I know you got your little fronds. An’ if you don’t come back here, you’ll just end up killin’ others just like you krilled them. I don’t think you want that, right?” You swallow and nod when she looks up at you. She smiles as she curls her nails into her palm. “I’m just lookin’ out for you, buoy. Now go get ready. You leave tomorrow evening.”
You rub the small scar where it lay on your palm as you spin on your heels and leave the room.
You’ll go out there, get the job done as quickly as possible, and be back before you can somehow manage to fuck up once again.
Simple as fucking that.
- -
You stalk through the forest of the unfamiliar planet, weaving through the trees as silently as you can manage. Nepeta is helping you a little; you can feel her influence in where and how you step, the way she smooths out your movements. It’ll make this part of the job easier, at least.
Find the aliens, and kill them.
It should be easy. With the ample flaysquads the Condesce sent on-planet in conjuction with you, the planet should be free to inhabit within days. There aren’t too many aliens, as far as anyone could tell, and what few occupy this planet are packed together into one, localized area.
They should know you’re here by now. It’s kind of hard to miss the fucking spaceships dropping down onto the planet. You’re going for the careful approach, unlike the straight-out attack the flaysquads will employ, trying to find any of the aliens that are on the outskirts of the settlement.
There.
They’re oddly brown-skinned, instead of natural grey, with no horns that you can see. Is that fucked up or what. They look like they’re on their way out of the hive you can see just past them, rushing to get somewhere. To safety, probably.
You can’t have that.
You slink closer, reaching for your sickles. You’re almost in reach for the first one. Closer...closer...
When you finally get your chance, you lash out. You are not prepared for what happens next.
Red. Screaming. Red everywhere. You jump back, out of immediate reach of any weapons, and for a moment you are terrified, because that’s your red, your hateful fucking red getting all over the place, making this alien scream from pain as its friends form a circle around it, weapons out and ready--
Until you realize that it couldn’t possibly be yours, despite the color screaming assault against your ganderbulbs.
The aliens bleed the same color as you do.
You can’t--
You’re going to be sick.
“Vriska,” you bark, your mouth dry, and your hand flies to your temple of its own accord. You can feel her struggle with the aliens’ strange pans before she finds hold on something, and they all sway and drop. You don’t check to see if they’re dead or just unconscious.
You run, back to the forest you came from, and you don’t look back.