Constants & Variables - Act 3.3

[nobrandhero]

Read on Dreamwidth under the cut, or over on AO3.

----

The sky was so clear that, if anything disturbed the stars that night, there wouldn't be more than a wisp of a cloud to obscure it. The moon bathed the top of Rose's hive in a light bright enough that Kanaya didn't have much difficulty seeing, even with her darkness-susceptible human eyes.

"What will it look like?" Kanaya asked, her legs crossed and her gaze fixed upwards.

Rose took a deep breath. "I'm not sure. With any luck, a flashing neon sign will light up the sky and point to its arrival." She chuckled. "I'll call it good enough so long as it's visible from this side of the planet."

Kanaya rested her hand next to Rose's, the edges of their pinky fingers barely touching. "At least we have three more positions to check, just a jump in a Gate away."

"Mm." Rose stopped craning her neck and took in the rest of the sights -- the ocean shimmered over one hundred feet beneath them -- before she dared to glance directly at Kanaya. "This is the last chance to turn back, you know. You and the other humans would be safer Gating to another hive than coming with us. This is our mistake to clean up and you're not obligated to risk your lives for it when you're not even God Tier."

"I am sure Karkat will tell you where you can stuff that notion when he hears about it." Kanaya frowned. "We're seeing this to the end. Even if I agreed that we are innocent bystanders in this, which I do not, I wouldn't let our friends walk into this alone."

Rose studied Kanaya for a moment, admiring how the moonlight shone on her dark skin. She wondered what kind of horns Kanaya would have sported if she were a troll. "Jade and Dave couldn't have fucked up your Genesis Frog too badly, considering what selfless aliens came from it."

"Well, it's a bit difficult to call humans selfless. You saw the unnecessary violence that occurred even within my friends."

"I was talking about you in specific, Kanaya." Rose nudged her with an elbow. "Karkat and Terezi as well, to their own degree. If we could only take three allies from your species, we lucked out with you."

Kanaya blushed, ducking her face too slow to hide her smile.

John interrupted them before Kanaya could voice her embarrassment, flying up the outside of the hive to reach the roof. "Why the fuck are you two way the hell up here?" He froze when he saw them sitting close. "Oh. Uh. Y'know what, never mind!" He backed away. "I don't need to actually know about that kinda stuff. You don't need to tell-"

"John," Rose said. "It's tonight."

"What's tonight?"

Kanaya tugged Rose's arm, staring at the sky. Rose snapped her gaze up and scanned the stars until she spotted the flickering light in the distance that hadn't been there mere seconds ago.

Rose nodded at it as the light grew larger. "That."

"Uh..." John took a moment before he saw it and a moment longer before he caught on what it was. "Oh, shit."

Rose stood and drew a needle from her specibus. "Go find Jade and have her teleport everyone up here."

"On it!" John said as he took off.

Kanaya climbed to her feet, watching Rose.

"No turning back after this." Rose raised her weapon towards the sky. The empress's battleship was still just a flickering light in the distance, but it wouldn't be long before its mass was visible.

"I think we crossed the point of no return a long time ago, actually."

Rose smiled. "Point." She shot her brightest spell into the air, feeding it as much power as she could muster until it made a tower of pure light. The entire area lit up almost as if the sun was out, the ocean surface glittering. She squinted, trying not to block out her sight entirely no matter how her eyes watered and stung in the presence of such strong light.

Kanaya placed a hand on Rose's shoulder. "Close your eyes. I'll tell you when."

Rose clenched her eyes shut, gasping in relief as her eyelids relieved the stinging pain immediately. She trained any regained energy on her weapon, willing it to be brighter, to shine from the farthest distance possible. It had to be visible to the battleship by then, but she wasn't taking chances.

"What's happening?" she said.

"I can make out a shape now," Kanaya murmured. "It's... red, I think... and... It's coming closer. I am almost certain it has seen us."

"I'm killing the light then." She let the spell fizzle out and could see the darkness return even through her eyelids. She slumped against Kanaya and breathed deeply, making note not to expend so much energy on a single spell in the near future.

"Will that be enough?" Kanaya asked, wrapping an arm around Rose to prop her up.

Rose sighed. "The entire planet is barren, yet there's a single blast of unnatural light in the middle of the ocean. If she doesn't come to investigate, then the empress is more incompetent than I gave her credit for."

She straightened and brushed herself off as she felt the slightest tingle that they were about to have company. It was less than five seconds later that Jade teleported herself and the other four to the roof.

"We're ready!" Jade said before any of them could have even taken in the situation.

Karkat looked disgruntled and a bit unsteady on his feet from the teleportation. He kept a grip on John's wrist. "Ready for fucking what? What's the big goddamn deal?"

"I dearly hope I don't need to point out what's hanging out in the sky right now," Rose said flatly. The battleship was close enough that she could see its red paint job and hear the faintest echos of an engine humming.

Terezi tilted her head back and put her hands on her hips, nodding. "Yeah, that sure is a sky with important stuff in it probably!"

Rose snorted. "You're excused from my last statement, Terezi. My ancestor's battleship has arrived."

"Holy shit, it's huge!" Karkat said, mouth agape. "That thing is seriously just for one fucking troll?"

"Actually, that's small for a troll battleship, as it's designed for speed rather than power." Rose glanced over her shoulder to watch it approach. It was quite the looming sight, large enough to block off most of the moon if it settled in the wrong position. Its speed slowed as it presumably searched for the source of her spell. "All the same, it can take out a small planet on its own."

Karkat pulled a face. "Well, golly fucking gee, seven dumbass kids can definitely take that down. What were we all worried for?"

"There's a reason we're going to be working from the inside." Rose took to the air, gesturing for the others to follow. "We need to hurry though. John, can you use your windy powers to fly the humans with us?"

"I think so," John said, only floating a couple of inches off the ground as he glanced at Karkat, "but shouldn't Jade just teleport everyone again?"

"I'd rather we not pop into unknown territory and risk landing in the midst of fifty drones. This route gives us time to adjust to our environment if need be."

"Well, okay then," John said. The wind picked up all around them before he concentrated it just on the humans, wrapping them in his invisible grip and lifting them into the air.

Karkat's eyes went wide and he clung to John's shirt. "Shitshitshit, are you nuts? Put me down!"

John laughed, wrapping an arm around Karkat as he flew higher. "I've got you, Karkat! You're fine, I promise!"

"Y-yeah, I don't know, I actually kind of like the teleporting idea," Terezi said, looking nothing short of horrified as her cane batted at the air and found nothing to connect with.

Kanaya was the only one to respond to her sudden airborne state with nothing more than mere curiosity. "Here." She leaned over to tap Terezi's shoulder. "Take my hand."

Terezi fumbled for Kanaya with her free hand. Judging from Kanaya's short wince, Terezi had a mean grip.

Rose waited only long enough to make sure no one was likely to turn into a straggler. "Let's go before the Luminary can make the first move or, worse, leave. Jade, are you ready for any defenses we may trigger?"

Jade beamed. "Absolutely!"

"John, stay in the back with the humans. You'll have most difficulty maneuvering right now with your concentration on the wind." Rose gestured her commands. "Jade, Dave, up front with me to take on unexpected surprises."

Dave held back long enough to share a short kiss with Terezi before speeding up to keep even with Rose. "What happened to pulling off your Seer shtick?"

"It's amusing that you think Sgrub would give me such a consistently infallible power," Rose sighed longingly, "instead of this mixture of clear paths and vague-as-shit hints, all depending on how 'fortuitous' gets defined at that exact moment."

The roar of the engines grew in volume as they took off towards the looming ship.

"Oh god, oh shit, oh fuck," Karkat practically whined. "This is still stupid fucking bullshit and I will write creepy messages in blood on your mirror for the rest of your life if you drop me, John!"

"Oh man, that would be cool," John said with a grin. "Make sure they're really spooky, okay?"

Karkat clung to John with both arms. "Do not get fucking ideas, you supernatural-obsessed freak!"

"I am not going to get you killed, you dumbass!" John said, laughing.

"So what color is this ship anyway?" Terezi said, her cane wavering in the air as if she couldn't quite go without making sure she wasn't about to hit an obstacle.

"It's bright fuckin' red 'cos highbloods are hypocrites like that," Dave called over his shoulder.

She grinned. "Awesome! We should steal it!"

"Sure. That's absolutely feasible."

"C'mon, it'll be awesome, coolkid. Flying around space in a big red battleship!"

Dave snorted. "Totally, man, and we'll name it the S.S. Sweet Bro."

"Hell yes!"

Rose swallowed the urge to smile. At least some of them weren't too nervous to remain light-hearted. Her mind snapped back to rigid attention when she felt a pang of warning. "We're about to catch their notice. Jade-"

"Already on it!" Jade nabbed a small metal device from her sylladex, fiddled with the buttons on it, then teleported it away.

Something exploded in a flash of light just over the ship. If Rose had understood correctly when Jade explained her handiwork to her earlier, then the bomb should have disabled the ship's scanners. On the off-chance they were spotted, the ship's guns wouldn't be capable of aiming until a drone managed to reset the computers.

Just that amount of meddling was enough for a lone drone to fly a patrol around the ship by the time they neared. It was much larger than an adult troll, spiky, and dark gray. Instead of charging them, as was relatively preferable, it took off to report its findings as soon as it caught sight of them.

"Strider, after it! I'll play back-up!" Rose had to shout to be heard over the engines. She pulled up and held an arm in the air so the others knew to keep their distance.

Dave flashstepped forward, charging the drone in the back and managing a good stab before his opponent even realized it was under attack. He had to retreat quickly as the drone turned on him, matching his speed with ease. Rose shot bolts of light to block every strike the drone tried to pull. It was still a moment before Dave realized that his defense was solid enough that he could concentrate solely on attacking.

It took an absurd amount of strikes to hit the right area to cut through the shell and send the drone to its knees, but Dave managed with no damage to his own person.

"The landing area is clear! Jade, this is where we teleport!" The words were barely out of Rose's mouth before they were standing on the flat landing area of the ship, with a tower of a control center in front of them. The humans stumbled from the sudden shift to solid ground -- Terezi especially clinging to Kanaya for balance. Rose made a sweep of the area in case she'd missed something from above. "Inside!" she called, running for the nearest entrance.

Dave kept up with her and she noted he kept the grip on his weapon as tight as she did. The near-deafening winds and engine noises dulled to almost nonexistent as soon as they stepped inside the walls of the battleship.

Rose swept the immediate area with Dave before they dared even lower their weapons. The entrance was low security, probably on the assumption that no small group would be able to infiltrate this far, without even any locks to block their way into a maze of metal corridors.

"Holy shit, are we safe now?" John said, leaning back against a wall to catch his breath.

"Relatively." Rose wiped at her brow. "You all did well out there."

Karkat snorted. "We didn't do shit."

"Well, you succeeded in not fucking anything up and that's pretty high praise in this group lately."

"Is there time to regain our composure?" Kanaya said, rubbing Terezi's shoulder. "Dave in particular seems a bit winded and we're all a little out of it, I believe."

"Hey, fuck you, I'm fine," Dave said, though he was breathing a bit fast. Rose was pretty sure it wasn't entirely caused by exhaustion so much as fear.

Rose frowned. "I said we're relatively safe. There's no telling how long it will be before we encounter another drone patrol, so I'm afraid we'll have to carry on as-is." It stung a little to see how quickly Jade and John straightened, putting on airs that they were raring to go. "In the interest of increasing efficiency, we should split into groups while we search for Daveglitch. Dave, stick with Terezi. Jade and John, you're with Karkat. Kanaya and I will make the last group. If you find the glitch, do not engage him if you're not a Blood player. Even then, tread carefully, Karkat."

Karkat snorted, catching John's hand and leading him over to Jade. "You know me, always fucking shit up."

"The fuck are we doing when we find the glitchy asshole exactly?" Dave asked, stepping over to Terezi. She already appeared to have recovered from the flight and was examining her surroundings with her cane.

"Reconnaissance," Rose said. "Keep a portable computer ready and signed into Trollian so we can converge if needed." She was sure to make eye contact with all of them -- or as close to contact as she could make with the shade-wearing duo. "Let's go."

She swallowed her worry as they split ways, each heading down a separate hall to delve further into the ship. There were relatively few appendages and tentacles creeping out of the walls, metal being the most common material to make up the ship, so the engines must have been old fashioned instead of piloted by a helmsman.

Rose paused at each crossway, trying to sense any whiff of danger or success that her Aspect would grant her. She kept a tight grip on her weapons and was glad that Kanaya's lipstick was out whenever they turned a corner. At least the trail to their target was strong.

"Was it wise to split us up so much?" Kanaya whispered as they climbed a short flight of stairs. "Perhaps we should have been divided into larger groups to ensure that everyone has a Seer present."

"Jade can teleport her group to safety if anything goes wrong." Rose paused on the top stair, confirming the coast was clear before stepping into another corridor. "It would look suspicious if the two of us broke away while the others stayed as one unit."

Kanaya was silent for a moment, frowning. "We're not looking for Daveglitch, are we?"

"No." Rose kept her gaze forward. "I'm going to confront the Luminary."

Kanaya started. "What on earth for? Is this another cultural difference I don't quite grasp, like your grubloaf?"

"Heiresses have the right to challenge the empress for the right to rule. The winner takes control of the empire. The loser dies. Or that's how they say it goes." Rose smiled bitterly. "In actuality, the winner is possessed by the glitch and only plays a figurehead."

"Then..." Kanaya glanced over their surroundings. "Why are we doing this?"

"It's my place as a fuchsiablood to strive to become empress."

"Empress of what?" Kanaya said with clear exasperation.

Rose was silent a moment. "Excellent question."

* * *

Dave was totally chill. It wasn't like drones were the inevitable death sentence he'd braced for his whole life. Nah, it was cool that he was gonna meet them head-on instead of waiting for them to catch up with his mutant ass on their own.

Okay, no, they were actually fucked and even he couldn't try to pretend otherwise. A freak troll and a blind human against an army of drones wasn't going to go well. He'd only survived the first encounter because Rose had interfered.

He still couldn't actually say anything about their imminent doom or he'd risk initiating a pep talk, and that was just about the worst fate he could think of outside of sharing a cocoon with a drone.

"So what's this hallway look like?" Terezi asked.

Dave glanced at the walls. "I dunno, man. Metal and shit. And the blood of lowbloods, probably."

"Well, I could hear the metal, smartass." She smacked her cane against the floor with more force than usual. "Are there flashy buttons or fancy portraits?"

"Nah, nothing flashing out here. Kinda got a few fleshy wires running down the walls, I guess."

"Fleshy?"

"Yeah." He poked one of the protruding wires with his claw as they passed. It shivered at his touch. "Probably made out of some kind of dead grub."

She wrinkled her nose. "Do you guys just make everything out of dead grubs?"

"Pretty much."

"Trolls are so gross."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome!" Her grin was short lived as she froze in place. "Don't move and stay quiet."

"What are-"

She threw a hand over his face, probably aiming for his mouth but instead smacking him in the nose. "Sh!"

"Yeah, that shush explains everything," he said flatly. "Thank you for that. Monosyllable answers to unfinished questions are-"

She succeeded in smacking her hand over his mouth just as a shadow loomed from the intersecting corridor ahead of them. Dave stopped trying to talk, going tense as they waited for the inevitable as a drone came into view. It was almost amazing how quiet the son of a bitch was, despite clomping around on giantass feet. Its head was already turned down their hall, as if it knew they would be there through the magic of listening for voices.

Dave caught Terezi's hand and pulled it off his mouth. "You can stop trying to be quiet. It already saw us."

She groaned. "See? I shushed you for a damn good reason."

"Hey, no big." He nabbed a weapon from his strife specibus, trying to ignore how tense his entire body had gone. "I've got this."

"Wait, absolutely do not-" Terezi shouted as he flashstepped forward and took a swipe at the approaching drone. "-fucking do what I think you just did!"

Dave's sword missed its mark and stabbed into the arm that the drone had thrown up to protect its chest area. The drone let out a screech so loud that it made his hear ducts ache. He stumbled back, narrowly dodging a swipe of the drone's claws. The fucker only seemed faster after its injury. Maybe that's what Terezi was trying to warn-

Two more drones turned the corner behind the first one and Dave's blood pusher clenched in what he really hoped probably couldn't possibly be fear. Even at God Tier, he wasn't sure he wanted to take a chance on fighting creatures bred to be stronger than a goddamn adult.

He retreated, nabbed Terezi's wrist, and broke into a run. "Okay, change of plans, we're gonna check out another part of this godawful ship and give these losers the slip somehow while we're at it!"

"That isn't going to work!" Terezi said as another drone appeared from another corridor up ahead.

He slid to a stop. Drones ahead of them, drones behind them, and not a single damn escape route that didn't involve ducking past claws. "Goddamn, what is this, a drone wriggling day party? Who the fuck invited all these assholes?"

"I dunno, probably the guy who wouldn't shut up." She brandished her cane at the incoming drone. "Maybe you should trust the Seer of Mind to know which choices will result in bad things, Dave, instead of being all 'sup, I'm too cool to listen to orders.'"

He turned to face the other three drones, going back-to-back with her. It was only fair that he go against the higher numbers, being somewhat immortal and all. "Maybe you should explain your orders instead of being vagueass about them."

The drone closest to Terezi lashed out and she blocked the strike with more ease than Dave would have expected from someone who could only go by sound and vibration. He probably should have known better after watching her fight in Sburb.

"Just so long as you're aware that I'm officially revoking your license to bitch about this later, as penalty for catching their attention when I told you not to!" she said.

Dave grit his teeth as two drones launched at him at once. "Guess I'll be bitching without a license, then!" He ducked a swing aimed at his head, then stabbed at the other drone. "What's the fine?"

"I'm sure the jury will come up with something suitable for you!" Terezi smacked her opponent across the head. "Something like- LEFT!"

"What?" Dave said, already dodging to the right. Claws tore through his sleeve and skin. He cringed, but it was a shallow wound, even if blood was running down his arm.

All four drones ceased their assault, their heads snapping towards Dave.

"What happened?" Terezi whispered, keeping her weapon at the ready.

"Guess they're mesmerized by the beauty of my blood." He swung his sword at the nearest drone. It dodged him. The one that had been focused on Terezi caught him unawares from behind, slamming him into the wall. Before he could recover from the impact, the drones seized both of his arms in grips so tight that he had to swallow a cry of pain.

Terezi slowly crouched next to the wall and otherwise went still, her face somber as she listened.

Dave wrenched against the drones' grips to no avail. "T'z-"

She shook her head and held a finger over her mouth for silence, otherwise keeping perfectly still. That was super helpful. Fuck, he hoped she knew what she was doing.

Dave kicked at the drones all the same, but their shells were too thick to even bruise. They didn't seem to notice his struggles as they ripped his weapon out of his hand and confiscated his entire sylladex. Once he was all but defenseless, they hauled him off his feet and kept tight hold of his arms.

Even knowing it was pointless, he tried pulling free because it was better than going without a fuss. What the fuck did they want? They were just dragging him down empty corridors. Oh god, was this culling? He thought they just killed trolls on the spot, but maybe mutants got special executions. (Would culling count as heroic or just? What would they do to a culling victim who fucking revived anyway?)

He glanced over his shoulder. Terezi slunk behind them, her mouth set in a frown. Her pace was slow and she didn't use her cane for a guide, instead keeping one hand on the wall. At least she probably would step in before he was in real danger of dying.

The drones finally halted in front of a door that didn't look any different from the other doors they'd passed, which opened into a pitch dark block. They threw him in with such force that he landed in an ungraceful sprawl and the door closed before he could even scramble back to his feet.

He stood, already back on guard. There was a faint orange glow on the other side of the block, but otherwise it was too dark to see jackshit. As far as he could tell, the block was completely empty. It could've been worse, all things considered. At least the drones hadn't come in with him and there weren't any troll-eating monsters hanging out in a corner.

"Dave?" Terezi's voice came through the door, muffled but audible. She knocked twice. "Dave, you're okay, right? I'm sorry I couldn't help. It would have just gone way worse if I'd interfered."

"Yeah, don't worry about it, better only one of us got caught." He glanced around as his night vision kicked in. "There's nothing even in- Holy fuck."

"Dave?" Terezi said.

The block was empty, mostly, save for one goddamn adult troll standing against the wall opposite the door.

Dave didn't move an inch, waiting for the adult to react. He'd never actually been so close to one before, but any troll vicious enough to survive childhood wasn't likely to be friendly to a mutant brat.

The adult showed no signs of response. His head was bowed and he didn't so much as twitch. As Dave relaxed enough to actually study him, he realized that the orange glows he had spotted before were a pair of metal cuffs attached to the adult's wrists, holding his otherwise limp body up. The bastard was just another captive. A dead one, at that.

"Uh... nothing," Dave called to Terezi. "I didn't say anything. False alarm. They just left a goddamn corpse in here. No big deal." He ran his hand over the doorframe, trying to find a way to open it. "The fuck is their damage, throwing me in here without even bothering to cull me?"

"Maybe they just really liked you, coolkid. Wanted to keep you for themselves."

"Yeah, well, they can get in line." He slammed his shoulder into the door and received a painful jolt down his arm for his troubles. "Shit, this door won't fucking budge. Can you find the lock out there?"

"Uh, maybe?" she said. He heard faint tapping of fingers against metal. "If this is it, I can't figure out how to operate it."

He sighed and leaned against the door. "Okay. Okay, shit, uh..."

"Maybe I should try to find the others."

"Whoa, hang on, by yourself?"

"Dave, I survived Sburb. I'm blind, not helpless," she said. He could practically hear the eyeroll in her tone.

He frowned. "Yeah, okay, point. Just... be fucking careful, okay? And fast. Fast would be good. Never know if they're gonna come back to finish the job."

"I know, coolkid. I won't let them kill you," she said, her voice soothing. "I'll be back soon."

"Yeah. Later." He leaned against the door, listening to her footsteps until they faded.

Without Terezi around, that left him with approximately fuckall to entertain himself with. At least the drones weren't bright enough to know they needed to confiscate the shades that had been alchemized with basic computing abilities. He opened Trollian.

-- turntechGodhead [TG] began trolling gardenGnostic [GG] --

TG: heads up terezi is headed your way cos drones are assholes
GG: what?
GG: is she ok? D: are you ok??
TG: we are uninjured im just trapped in a containment block and thats kinda inconvenient
TG: which is why t-z is gonna catch up and lead you over here so you can bust me out
GG: ok we will wait for her as long as we can
GG: we just found daveglitch
TG: whoa shit what?
GG: no we are okay!!! hes...
GG: well hes not attacking us
GG: its tricky :\
GG: i need to concentrate on this sorry :(
TG: nbd
TG: ill just kill time and go poke the corpse of the last poor bastard who got stuck in here

Dave sighed. He wished he'd been joking to Jade, but there wasn't even a vent to try escaping through and Rose was ignoring his messages. He wandered over to his dead blockmate.

"So they just leave prisoners to starve around here?" Dave said, looking him over. Like most adults, the guy was a fair amount taller than Dave. His hair was slicked back and his horns... were kinda the closest Dave had ever seen to his own, actually. He wore no giveaway colors for his blood. His clothes were just black and an unnatural shade of red, no sign included. "That musta been a harsh way to go, dude, but I guess it's a good sign for my survival since someone's gonna bust me out before that's an issue."

Dave felt something under his foot and pulled back before he could finish putting his weight down. He'd almost stepped on some kind of glass object, but he couldn't tell what the hell it was. He knelt and scooped up a pair of triangular shades.

"Were these yours?" He waved the shades at the corpse. "Pretty cool design, man." He turned them over. They were computerized like his own. "Where'd a fucker like you come from anyway? Thought this ship was all about the minimal decorations, but here they hang a corpse around like a-" He ducked so he could peer up and get a look at the corpse's face. He froze. The corpse's eyes were open, the colors a perfect mirror of Dave's own gander bulbs. "Dude." Dave pulled his shades off to be sure the tinted lenses weren't throwing him off, but the irises remained bright fucking red. "What."

The corpse's eyes flickered. "Who the fuck..." it said with a strained and raspy voice.

Dave leapt back with an utterly uncool yelp, dropping the triangular shades and barely keeping hold of his own.

The corpse had moved. The corpse had talked. The corpse was probably not actually dead but just a poor bastard too weary from captivity to show signs of life until some dumbass kid got up in his face. A poor mutant bastard, no less, who was trapped on the empress's ship of all places for some fucking-

Wait, oh god. That was Dave's last ounce of logic out the window. He was stuck in a cell with the Sufferer.

Previous Chapter | Chapter Index | Next Chapter