Work Text:
She hates the Land of Maps and Treasure. Her rocket-boots, a gift from a friend, eliminate any risk of falling down those hundreds of feet into the ocean. But flying like some bug between the purple-rocked islands that cut high up into the map-sky like a highblood's crooked teeth is sickening. She feels like a wasp instead of the cat she should be.It is only fitting, though; she is about to kill a spider.
She knows where she has to go; although there is a tiny computer in one of her numerous pockets she does not bother to check it. She does not want to check it, lest she have to see her friends wonder where she is, what she's doing. How stupid this game is! Not just the literal one, the one she's playing, the one that made this place in the first place. The troll game: the game of submission and dominance and wrestling for power and death, the one everyone she'd ever known was drafted into from birth.
Except her. She'd lost the game, and been sent off. And she'd had to fight to even continue to exist as a non-player. But suddenly now she has returned to the field.
A memory comes to her head. The burning pain in her core that came a few weeks ago flares up- Equius didn't want to play the game either. He thought he had to. And she wanted him to know he didn't have to, and he wanted her to convince him. She thinks he did. She usually understands pretty thoroughly how people work. But it gets blurry once she gets herself involved. The way she understands herself is different from the way she understands everyone else. That's just how it is.
She is allowing her mind to wander, which something she usually does her best to prevent. A wandering mind misses the telltale stirring of a small prey beast in the grass of the woods, taking the opportunity to flee. But she does not want to dwell on what comes after this. The window of time in which she can distract herself dwindles and then disappears anyway, as the biggest landmark on this planet nears. This is the spider's nest. There are two plans. If the spider is home, she will confront her directly. If she is not, Nepeta will hide out and take her out stealthily once she inevitably returns to upgrade her gear. The second is far easier. She wishes for the first.
She hasn't abandoned her principles, has she? The spider is cruel and selfish and monstrous. Nepeta has only ever seen her either furious or tormenting someone weaker than her. Nothing sickens the cat more than those who see something weaker than themselves and choose to hurt it. That was the way trolls were supposed to act. Another jolt of pain, remembering how Equius tried his best to be a pacifist. She expects he still tries. Nepeta had never expected to leave adolescence; she had accepted her probable fate of living semi-feral in the woods. But perhaps had she not, she would've dreamed of perhaps living in a more peaceful world and adopting that peace with other things. Equius and the spider were neighbors. Probably physically closer than any other two of her friends. But there was something redeemable in Equius that there wasn't in the spider.
Nepeta spots a window around the middle floor, clears her head. Focuses on getting in. She closely examines it - twelve panes, as she's seen in every window of her friends' hives. She's strongly built, but she's not large, and is flexible. She sheds her coat and throws it onto the roof. If she's successful in her mission, she'll rocket back out and grab it later. Then with substantial strength she smashes through the window and enters a small room, the floor littered with hundreds of shards of black and white porcelain and dozens of pointed dice, among other detritus and garbage. She takes a minute to examine the wall. Her eyes scan the Flarp poster, the assorted character sheets, the paper drawing. She pauses for maybe too long looking at the drawing. Vriska is a better artist than she is. For Nepeta, art was just something she did, just something that came naturally from her, less a skill than something like exhaling. But Vriska clearly put effort into learning how bodies and faces and clothes were put together. Nepeta is having trouble pushing away her conscience. It was one thing to hunt animals. This was another.
She climbs down the stairs. She can hear voices. The spider and Tavros must be home. She walks lightly, but eventually she walks out onto the landing. The adventurers stand between two pillars. Vriska's voice is heavy. She sounds self-satisfied, with an edge of frustration. She's in a good mood. Tavros's voice, though still tense and shaky, is as close to relaxed as Nepeta has ever heard it. She walks in, makes herself visible.
Nepeta believes Vriska underestimates her. This is probably because they don't know each other very well. This is also because Vriska is not a very complicated person, and expects other people to be similar. It is what means she must resort to psychic powers to get what she wants out of people. So Nepeta knows that Vriska sees her, when she acknowledges her at all, as someone naive. Cheerful, believes too well of people, but too self-assured to bully like Tavros, and not someone who shares very many of her interests anyway. Her natural anxiety in social situations helps her act this part. She stalks forward, looking Vriska straight in her eye.
"Vwiskers." This comes out shaky. "I need to talk to mew about something." Nepeta tries not to say this like she's going to confront Vriska. The mood she's going for is "I'm scared, but I think you can help." The spider looks skeptical, but curious. Nepeta is sure she is confident enough to take this bait.
"Are you really still doing the cat pun thing?" asks Serket, her tone mocking. Nepeta gets a little mad. She wants to tell her something that will really cut her. But her aggression is to be expected. She can match it and establish herself as the spider's equal, or she can defer and establish herself as a pawn. She chooses the latter.
"I'll stop if it makes you feel better." Vriska's face curls into a sneer. Shit. That's too far. Too submissive. Even Tavros looks concerned. Nepeta is kind, but she's still got a reputation as a huntress. She gives a cat smirk, trying to play it off as sarcasm. Now she has flipped to the other side, and this doesn't seem serious enough. God, she does not know what she is doing at all. She wants to just get to the point already. But she has to catch Vriska off-guard. She needs any advantage possible. Before Vriska can let out some sarcastic retort Nepeta speaks quickly.
"I don't think Karkat is the right purrson to lead the red team." She hopes this is convincing. Her true feelings about him are a lot more positive than that. Not to mention complicated. "And I didn't know who else to pawlk to about it. Purrezi, she's - she's fiercely loyal to him. So, I thought you..." Nepeta realizes she has been ignoring Tavros completely, and feels a little bad for not accounting for him. Then she realizes, with a sickening lurch, that she'll have to deal with him first, before she can take Vriska. She tries to hide her shivering.
"I'm his furred-in-command. I hear more from him. A-and..." The ranks did not actually matter very much. Karkat may have blustered and bragged about being leader and Terezi being his second and all that sort of complexity, but in reality the red team is set up fairly laterally. Nepeta hopes that Vriska is as hierarchy-minded as Equius, though, and will fail to realize this. "He wants you gone. He thinks you're a threat to his dominance." This is half-true. Karkat does not want Vriska dead, as much of a liability as she is. Nepeta is acting outside of anyone's wants but her own. But she thinks this will be best for the team. She understands the meaning of necessary sacrifice. She has personal stake, here. She has seen how Vriska treats those who see her as a friend, and Nepeta can say with confidence it's one of the few things that makes her angry. Just thinking about this, she is tempted to give up the lie and just attack her then and there with the element of surprise. But Tavros is still there.
He says "K-Karkat doesn't seem like the type to seize power..." Vriska says "He doesn't need to! He's the glorious leader! What would he need me out of the way for? I keep the weak dregs-" she glances at Tavros in such a way that he can't not notice it, making Nepeta seethe internally "-in check. I even make them a little bit useful!"
Nepeta knows immediately that Vriska doesn't believe her. She is a role-player, not a liar. So she gives up. She looks left and right. Talks, not trying to be convincing anymore, just distracting.
"I don't know myself, but he keeps talking about 'getting you out of the picture,' 'out of his way,' all -" she cuts herself off midsentence, and leaps at Vriska, aiming to knock her over, daze her. She succeeds, and Vriska is on the ground long enough for Nepeta to de-captcha a piece of her emergency food - a heavy, frozen slab of meat - and toss it at the boy in the rocket chair hard enough to daze him. As she's turned away from the spider, she hears her get up, and before she can turn around a metal rocket-shoe beans her in the back and knocks her to the ground. Predicting this, she controls her drop to the ground instead of resisting, and manages to roll away from the spider, onto her feet, in front of Tavros, who is only now coming to enough to panic. Nepeta clenches a fist and bangs it on the top of his head, knocking him out immediately. Then she turns. Vriska is standing now, dice suddenly in hand, and Nepeta is too far away to negate them. They rattle to the ground, there's a flash, and Vriska is suddenly holding a silvery revolver. She holds it out, points it at Nepeta. Her typical smug, toothy grin has disappeared. She looks genuinely angry. "So he sent you to get us out of the way, huh?!" Something happens in Vriska's eyes, and Nepeta feels something in her mind. Is this her famous mind control? Doesn't work. Leijon is more beast than troll. She focuses on getting out of the way of the gun, but Vriska's aim is true. Must be part of the die's effect. Fire spreads through Nepeta's whole center. Her breath leaves her, but she's endured worse. Her arms are still strong. Blanking the pain, Nepeta races towards Vriska and tackles her to the ground. Even a highblood's natural strength is no match for those arms that have torn meat from beasts the sizes of hives, for Vriska was merely born with her strength, whereas the raging tiger that crashed down on top of her has had to build every single atom of muscle from scratch. Dice clatter to the floor, followed by droplets of olive blood, followed by the slamming weight of two trolls. The dice do something. Doesn't help. Nepeta sinks her claws deep into Vriska's back, making more blood puddle on the ground. She is surprised by how poor of a one-on-one fighter Vriska is. The spider must be used to fighting game constructs, or poor victims already weakened by Terezi's manipulation or Ampora's raw power. Nepeta has her here. She can kill her. But she thinks. Her mind, so clear before, fills with thoughts. She asks herself, "will this put an end to the cycle of revenge, or will it just add me to it? Will it just extend it forever?"
So she makes a sudden choice. She pulls her claws out of Vriska's back and picks her up. The spider kicks and screams, unable to move her arms. Nepeta kneels on the floor, stretches the spider's body out, and with the last of the strength in her injured body she drops Vriska down on her knee, slams her down, and there is a sickening crunch. Now she will never hurt anybody ever again. Nepeta lets her fall to the ground. She doesn't have the strength to pick her up again. She is bleeding from her center. Her mind is blank. She tumbles. Cat head hits the ground. A thought appears, dim like a call from the other side of a cave.
She didn't know she could do this.