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“Your name is ERIDAN VANTAS. And today, you have a TOP-SECRET MISSION to INFILTRATE THE IMPERIAL NAVY PREPARATORY ACADEMY. You are wearing a scuba suit with a head-light specially fitted for the occasion.”
You point at your headlight.
“A universal translator for seadweller languages,” you continue, pointing at the contraptions at the sides of your helmet, “And high fidelity intercoms, guidin’ your way through the dark corridors of the academy while it’s asleep.”
You point at your mouthpiece… and get a scowl in response.
There is a short delay - the universal translator is doing its work - before Karkat’s speech (it really is fascinatin how seadwellers make those clicks, thuds, and roars underwater without even opening their mouths) comes out as a synthesized voice that frankly sounds nothing like Karkat’s dry-land speech. Aside from how loud and posh it is, ‘course.
“Shut your facegash, Vantas,” your friend? Close acquaintance? Pitch crush? You settle on “newest Revolution recruit”, the perpetually irate KARKAT AMPORA, warns, a sharp – sharp er – edge in his voice. It’s always sharp, but with this weird translator, it sounds even ruder and angrier. You think his future title should be… Asshole… Assholey… Assholer Dualrage, and you’ll fucking tell him as soon as you can. “You do NOT need to narrate your actions out loud, for fuck’s sake.”
“Fine.” You roll your eyes, lowering your voice into a whisper. “This mission is dangerous as is, y’know. I could drown. I could run out of air from this fuckin tank. You could get kicked out. You–“
“I already know the stakes of this mission,” he hisses, putting a shushing hand on the face of your scuba helmet. “ I planned it. I know my calculations.”
“If you’re so good at plannin’,” you retort, swatting his hand away, “Why do I, a fuckin’ landdweller, gotta be the one to come with you, oh Great Tactician Assholer Dualrage?”
Ampora looks at you with a tight purse of his lips, eyes narrowing darkly. “…did you just make up that name to provoke an angry reaction out of me.”
Absolutely, Ampora. You feel a tingling inside you – you want to provoke that. You want to provoke more than that. You imagine yourself tackling his shorter form, like you did on your many outings… but for now, you can do it with your words.
“It fits,” you argue, a smile pulling the edges of your lips upwards. “You have the biggest hate boner for your ancestor, like he shits on your sopor every night.”
So do you, but it’s for an entirely different reason. It isn't a boner and more of like, your thinkpan bein' held at gunpoint. You don’t want to think about it too hard… not now, anyway!
“I do not feel an irrational and sexual hatred towards my own ancestor,” Ampora growls, turning away to lead you through the dark hallway. You almost expect to see one of his long coats swirling at the movement, but you remember he’s only wearing a tight catsuit right now, for discretion. “I require no kismesissitude to have a fulfilling life. Especially not with him.”
You scoff. Maybe he doesn’t need that now , but you think your advances might change his mind one day. For now, though… you savor the sight of his thick ass, the toned legs wrapped around the tight suit. You wonder how Ampora keeps himself from dumping buckets every day if this is what the Academy students wear at practice. Anyway, regarding his hateboner (which is unfortunately not directed at you yet): “But you ‘require’ vandalizin’ his fuckin’ mural in the school you’re still attendin’.”
“Yes.”
Wow .
“And you couldn’t have taken your princess with you because ?” you demand.
You really think this is a suicidal plan. Not because you hate plans to infiltrate Imperial bases and send your ancestor’s message, no! Not because you don’t want to get revenge on the fucking Orphaner! You love that shit, you’ll eat up plans to steal secret weapons, graffiti your sign around town, whisper the Signless’ secret safehouses to slaves when their highblood masters aren’t watching. You’ve even done all of them at the amazingly young age of eight sweeps.
But those plans are not set underwater. You can actually breathe on land. Ampora is clearly fucked in the pan if he thinks you’re a better candidate than Aradia for this.
“Mind your own business.”
You swim faster, so you can float on his side. You pull him by the shoulders and look him in the eyes, dammit, it’s so unfair that he gets to not wear this stupid fucking helmet. “This is my business too, Dualrage.”
“Stop calling me that unless you want me to call you ‘the Spineless’,” he snaps.
“That’s not even a valid title.”
At your reply, his fins rise up like spikes on a hedgebeast. He looks like he’s taking a breath through gritted teeth, but you know it’s his gills taking air. His nose is legit squished thin lengthwise. “I chose you because you’re smaller and easier to hide.”
You squint. You can’t fucking believe this. And then you realize: He must be doing this to give you a chance for revenge, this must be a pitch solicitation. Is he in denial or what?
Also, you may be scrawny, but you are almost a head taller than him — the same height as Aradia. “Even with a whole scuba suit?”
He grabs your helmet and sticks his forehead on the glass.
“She. Is. The. Grub. Sucking. Heiress.” His voice is lower now, so low that the universal translator stops being so loud, but with how clearly he enunciates everything (you can’t help but think of Kanaya), you think you get his point. “You. Are. Just. Some. Guy. Understood?”
Some guy, he says. You’re the Second Signless, the only Limeblood left alive. You are good friends with many trolls across the hemospectrum and will recruit hundreds more. The Revolution calls you “sir” and treats you with reverence, and this jerkass calls you “some guy”.
You want to laugh.
More like you’re the only one who can tolerate him. Even now, when he’s less casteist (not least because he’s now lower than even a Burgundy), Karkat Ampora is still one hell of a bastard. And somehow that makes him all the more alluring.
“Understood.” You echo his tone mockingly.
He flashes you his pretty, soulless, totally fake Violetblood smile you see from just about everyone else in his caste when they see you wandering around (if they’re not just scowling at you and kicking you out).
“Good. Now let us move faster. We are running out of time.”
He says that, but Ampora still swims pretty slowly, probably so you can keep up. That’s okay. You’re not the best swimmer there is. You feel… nice, that he cares about your lack of swimming ability. He’s not so bad without your friends to side-eye and mutter insults about.
You gather momentum and jump slightly from the floor, trying to swim a little bit upwards. From slightly above and behind him, you can see the toned muscles on his back… how they ripple as he does the strokes, how broad his shoulders are. His hair is flowing in the water like curtains… you love how he’s growing it out. It’s so distracting.
“We’re here,” Ampora announces, stopping by a large hallway.
You bend your upper body down and put your outstretched hands together, swimming towards the floor like a torpedo. You end up going too fast and bump your helmet on the ground with a clang. He whips around to look at your flat, fallen form, your legs having followed your upper half.
“Your technique leaves something to be desired,” he remarks heartlessly.
Your head is fine, but the shock of falling like that makes the inside of your ears hurt. Fuck. Fuck. You shift your arms to the side of your hands, flapping your hands to get the pain out – it’s so heavy underwater, but you try your best. “Easy for you to say, gill-face.”
He looks away, scowling… yet he offers you a hand. It’s… your jaw drops. Damn. He has webs between his fingers. You’ve never noticed that before. You wonder how they feel on your skin. But then, you realize, it’s just like how his feet become fins underwater. No wonder he’s not wearing shoes right now.
“Get up, Vantas.”
Pushing yourself upwards with a hand, you take Ampora’s offer with the other. Soon, the water gets you ascending too, which he probably knows the physics and shit of. After you’ve stood up (it’s hard to keep a balance when you’re wearing fuckin' fin shoes ), he doesn’t let go of your hand for some reason, and drags you to the far wall.
But. Whoa.
You stop on your tracks and- and you have to admire the mural. It’s mostly dark, but there are a few small lamps lighting it, enough to give it the dramatic, dim lighted viewing. It’s just so… you feel something resonate inside you, seeing the image of the guy draped in a cool-ass flowing cape, a sword wider than his head, and the most fashionable armor you’ve ever seen (it’s a shame that Karkat doesn’t inherit his fashion sense and wears stupid high-collared coats all the time).
You guess that cheesy mural is supposed to inspire the students. Hell, you feel inspired by it. Even when your history lessons come flooding back to you, reminding you that Orphaner Dualscar - the Deceiver , corrects your thinkpan in the voice of a Signless Revolution schoolfeeder - was a double agent and a dirty, no-good fuckin’ traitor. That he had every last Limeblood killed in front of your ancestor, who had been raised by your now-extinct caste…
O-kay, maybe you’re not so inspired anymore.
You wonder if the troll in front of you, despite having the blood mutation you were supposed to have, will finish the job. You don’t want to fight him – not platonically, anyway. How much does Karkat know about his ancestor? Does he know how the Orphaner betrayed the Signless and sent the first rebellion crashing down? He must know that, right? This is a blackrom date so you can avenge the Limebloods, right?
“Vantas, are you admiring that guy?!” Ampora snaps, looking all the world like he’s about to shit himself (or on the mural). “Even after all he’s done?”
Your face scrunches in a frown, turning a bright lime. You would never admire him. Aside from that sick fashion sense, he’s completely sick in the thinkpan. You shake yourself out of your thoughts. With much sadness, you try to remember the cool armor for later report to Kanaya, and remind yourself of how that stupid Violet nookstain had robbed you of your entire fucking caste.
“Hell no.” You find yourself laughing, quiet and bitter inside your helmet. You can’t not think about this anymore, because fuck, you sure are alone in this bitch of a universe. You’re glad you’re not wearing glasses now — your hot tears would probably fog the lenses! It's awful to cry with contacts on, but. But the tears aren't stopping. They’re not stopping anytime soon. “Fuckin’ Orphaner. Of- of course he’s called the Orphaner . So fittin’, ain’t it?”
You remember how your friends share hives – share entire sectors – with other trolls of their hue. How they can proudly wear the colors of their blood, how they raise each other, and help each other through the awfulness of Alternia. You remember your old hemoanonimity. The fake Olive sign you wear on land to mingle with people you will never belong with. All because of that fucker.
“I’m never admirin’ him,” you spit, “Ever.”
Ampora smiles at you with a ferocity you’ve never seen before. It makes your stomach twist.
“That’s great, Vantas,” he says, “Let’s do this.”
You take the spray-paint can on your belt into your hand and nod. The fire inside you, spades and vengeance and the rage of your dead caste, burns brighter than ever.
“For the Limebloods,” you declare, your voice burning like the irons of Cancer, “And for the Signless.”