MSPA Fanfiction V: We're Going to Need More Wands

[Rio]

Cross posting from the Pokemon AU

Journey of the Ram part 1

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==> Aradia: Wake up

You're already awake. You have been for a while, and you just finished getting dressed.

==> Do a weird dance

Why would you do that? You are a very busy girl and you have much to do today!

==> Examine calendar

Okay. You walk over to the calendar on the wall. It is Friday, and you are now 13 in human years. Your silly guardian and you have agreed that you are old enough to go on a journey now. You have to stop by the lab to get a pokemon from Professor Willow Quinton-Kingsley first though. After that you are good to go.

==> Go downstairs

You are now donwstairs. It seems your guardian is gone, but they left you a note.



That was sweet of them. You are kind of sad that they won't be here to see you off though.

==> Exit home to go to the laboratory.

You exit the house. The sun is shining, but not nearly as bad as it is in your home region, Alternia. The wind is crisp and clear. Some other townsfolk are standing about, enjoying the fine day and their pokemon. It is your sixth solar sweep, your thirteenth year, and you are about to go on a journey of a life time.

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." - Robert Frost

You are quite sure Robert Frost said that. Quite sure.

==> Leave already!

Okay, okay! Sheesh! Frowning, you walk to the neighbor's house. Isn't is so convenient, living in such a small town, where there is like, five other houses? Although having to rely on shipping from the next town is sort of a hassle. Oh look, WQ is already waiting for you.


Aradia stopped for a moment. Professor WQ, as she was called, waved her over silently, with a slim smile. The girl quickly ran over, holding her hat down on her head.

"A fedora? It suits you," the professor said.

"Thank you. I got it just for today," Aradia smiled.

"This way,"

The taller woman adjusted her lab coat and walked inside the lab, Aradia following.

"Did you know in other regions, starter pokemon are limited to just three out of the many in that region?" she asked. Without waiting for an answer, Willow continued. "I don't like doing that. I think it limits trainers very early on. I have a variety of types- ghost, electric, fire, water, grass, flying... What would you like, dear?" she turned to look at Aradia.

"Well, ghost types in general are interesting, as are psychic... But I want a mareep." Aradia told the professor.

"Ah, I should have known." Winona smiled.

The older woman typed something into the computer, and began typing something. Within minutes, the empty spot beside the computer held a pokeball. Willow handed Aradia said pokeball with a very serious look on her face.

"Aradia, before you go, there is something I must tell you. Team English is getting far more open with their crimes, and there's been talk of the leaders of the Derse Corporation. Its becoming more dangerous out there. You have to be careful. But even more so, you have to look after this pokemon. He'll protect you, if you protect him, but I want you to stay out of trouble." Winona said grimly. "Do you understand?"

Speechless, Aradia nodded. Winona smiled again, ruffling the girl's hair under her hat.

"Time to take the first step, then."

==>Aradia: Leave

You give Professor WQ a smile and a nod, and tuck the pokeball into your bag. As you walk out, you notice a tall, serious looking man who you recognize as Diamonds Droog of Derse Corp. You wonder what he is doing in a small town like this, but otherwise choose to ignore him.

==> Aradia: Be Clubs Deuce

Diamonds Droog, you got it.

==> D Exposition.

You notice the girl as she notices you. She looks you right in the eye before going on her merry way. Brace, isn't she? But you have bigger fish to fry, and you have business with one of the leaders of the Prosperity Initiative- Winona.

==> Well, get on with it then!

Listen, person at the keyboard, only one man has the authority to talk to you like that and you'll be damned if its some kid at a keyboard with nothing better to do. Got it?

==> Got it.

Good. You walk into the lab when no one is paying attention. Professor WQ merely greets you with a polite hello. You ask how her husband is doing. She says good. She asks why you're here. Always a lady of business with you, isn't she? Shame she's married. You tell her that the big shots of Team English are targeting professors such as herself. She asks why you care. You say you don't, but if she gets kidnapped by those punks, they'll have access to more pokemon than you're comfortable with. It's bad enough that these brats all over the place have them. She laughs.

==> Tell her why else you're here

You don't. That'd be stupid. You've given your warning, and you have business elsewhere. With a curt goodbye, you leave.

Notes

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Oh hi. Before anyone who desperately wants more Four Leaf Clover, though I doubt thats anyone, I'm working on it. Unfortunately, one of my friends, who helps me out with a good portion of things, is currently not available, so its gonna take some time.
Secondly, oh hi there DroogXWhite Queen! Yes its one of my ships. I love it. :l
This is assuming that people are not carapaces, so yeah.
I will likely continue posting to the AU thread and here as well. So yeah.

[ceruleanTresses]

Do like. That's Three Days Grace, right?

Sure is! Also, thanks!

[SkaianRedeemer]

CT: D --> DA, those frogs were...
CT: D --> Abs100tly vile.
CT: D --> And to dispose of them on an authority figure, I...
CT: D --> I...
CT: D --> Excuse me.

[The Cool]

OH HELL YES

Count Loot: Continue.

Since it seems I have at least one fan, here's part 2 of that Touhou crossover I'm working on.

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Hours in the past (but not many)

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--ordinaryMagician [OM] began pestering rainbowPuppeteer [RP]--

OM: Hey!
RP: What do you want now? I'm busy.
OM: I'm sure it can wait. We need ya to help us with this game or whatever Yukari set up.
RP: And what exactly does this game involve?
OM: No idea yet! BUT I'm pretty sure there's going to be treasure!
RP: Like you really need more junk in that landfill you call a house.
RP: And like I said, I'm busy.
OM: Come on! It'll be fun! When was the last time ya got out of that workshop of yours anyway?
RP: If I say no, you're just going to keep hounding me aren't you?
OM: Probably.
RP: Alright, I'll help, but you owe me big for this.
OM: Great! I told Yukari to send what ya need a few minutes ago.
RP: I suppose research will have to wait.
OM: Anyway, once ya get the server up I'll be the first one in.
RP: Does being first really matter?
OM: OF COURSE! First one in means I get first shot at the treasure.
RP: Ah yes, how could I have forgotten.
RP: It looks like the server is loading. Are you ready to get started?
OM: Hell yeah! Wealth and treasure, here I come!

--ordinaryMagician ceased pestering rainbowPuppeteer--

Your name is MARISA KIRISAME. You are a COMPLETELY NORMAL HUMAN. However, you are able to go toe to toe with some of the most powerful beings around thanks to HARD WORK, DETERMINATION, and a FREAKING HUGE MAGICAL LASER. Your interests include MAGICAL RESEARCH, specifically finding ways to make EVEN BIGGER EXPLOSIONS, running a SMALL MAGIC SHOP, despite the lack of customers. and COLLECTING INTERESTING ITEMS, whether they belong to others or not. Your chumhandle is ordinaryMagician and ya tend to be pretty casual in conversation.

Currently you are waiting for your friend and neighbor Alice to connect the server program so you can start playing this mystery game. A ping from your magicomputer alerts you to an incoming message.

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--phantasmalBorder [PB] began pestering ordinaryMagician [OM]--

PB: Since it seems you're going in first I suppose it would be prudent to point you in the direction of a helpful guide.
OM: HAH! Yeah right, like I need a guide to be amazing.
PB: If you say so. However, I'll deliver it to you anyway, as Alice may not share your sentiment.
OM: Whatever works I guess.
--phantasmalBorder has sent ordinaryMagician the file "Sburb Walkthrough.doc"--
OM: Oh man this is just terrible. What made ya think I would even read this?
PB: Perhaps it was foolish to expect you to.
OM: At least Alice'll get a kick out of it. Probably fits right in with all those books she keeps.
PB: Since I've accomplished what I needed and it seems Alice is ready to connect, I shall take my leave.

--phantasmalBorder ceased pestering ordinaryMagician!--

Looks like she was right about Alice. After sending her a copy of the guide with little more than a "have fun!" you spend the next several minutes scurrying around punching cards and carving totems. When the subject of the kernelsprite comes up, you are torn on what to put in until the decision is taken out of your hands by something small and blue crashing through the window. With a flash of light, the kernel has been prototyped, and shortly after some shenanigans involving a meteor and your entry item, your house has been transported to the Land of Frogs and Fog.

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MARISA: Oh man, I was supposed to get some kind of helpful spirit guide. Instead I get stuck with...
CIRNOSPRITE: HI MARISA! What all's goin on here?
MARISA: You. Please tell me I'm not stuck with an idiot for a guide.
CIRNOSPRITE: THE ONE WHO SAYS IDIOT IS THE IDIOT!
MARISA: Not helping your case...
CIRNOSPRITE: With a genius like me helping you, there aint no way you'll lose!
MARISA: Okay oh wise and helpful guide, what do I do now?
CIRNOSPRITE: ...
MARISA: ...
CIRNOSPRITE: No idea!

You begin to wonder just what deity you've upset recently to have something like this happen. And then you go off in search of aspirin, because you have a feeling the headaches are only just starting.

There are a few bits of conversation that I'm not satisfied with, but I have no idea how to change it, so yeah...

yesssssssssssssss

[draconicAlgorithm]

CT: D --> DA, those frogs were...
CT: D --> Abs100tly vile.
CT: D --> And to dispose of them on an authority figure, I...
CT: D --> I...
CT: D --> Excuse me.

I laughed so hard at that, you don't even know.

Also. SAY WHAT POKEMON AU -now wants to write-

[The Cool]

Taking a break from Crossing Over to write more meta-fic, in the vein of Self-Imposed Challenge. This might be a series if I can think of more material, we'll see.

Re: Sburb Patch Notes - Version Update Preview

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The upcoming April update will bring all kinds of new fun to Sburb, and today, the dev team is proud to unveil one new feature planned for implementation in April.

Multi-Specibus Weapons
Alchemizing new gear always seems to be a priority among players, and nothing offers tantalizing new possibilities quite like a new weapon to bash foes with! Sadly, many players alchemize a new weapon, spending thousands of units of multiple types of Grist, only to find the end result isn't compatible with their strife specibus, and the weapon they had so looked forward to wielding ends up being given to a friend, or worse, scrapped altogether.

Well, no more! Starting this April, players will find many of their alchemized weapons can be allocated to more than one type of strife specibus. This change will include legendary-class weapons, blowing the doors open to all kinds of new strife-related possibilities. We can't go into too much detail, but we can reveal that we'll be doing something gloveKind users have wanted for a long time. That's right, the legendary chainsawKind weapon Cayman's Pigsticker will finally be available for gloveKind players to wield!

Stay tuned for more version update previews!

"Cayman's Pigsticker will finally be available for gloveKind players to wield!"

FUCK

YES

hahaha seriously SL? this is the best you can do? no wonder this fuckin game's dying, you keep pandering to casuals

WoW killer my ass

Jesus Christ, AA, why do you still play this game? Every fucking update you're always bitching, "SL's ruining Sburb" this and "the game was better before they implemented dreamselves" that and urrrrgh

This just in: people have been using the same fucking weapons for years. Hell my character's hammerkind and even I'm getting tired of looking at my WoZ, if Piston Fists get doublespecced into hammer I'm looking forward to giving those a try.

why the fuck would you use piston fists over zilly/fna? zilly/fna gives you all the dps of zilly with fna's stun effect

Piston Fists with the right spec gives you four attacks per round; with the right buffs, I've seen people stunlock fucking Greater Shoggoths. I mean yeah it takes longer to kill them that way and I probably wouldn't do it in a group but for solo? Fuck yes I would get myself a pair of PFs.

well this is just fucking great. I finally had enough grist to build a Ribbitar and right after I made the damn thing, this fucking preview goes up on the forums. why the fuck would anyone build an SR when Chain Sawd is obviously going bladekind next update, costs half the grist to build and a quarter of the boondollars to buy at the auction house, and has better dps to boot?

because alchemizing a double-bladed scarlet ribbitar needs TWO of them, and as far as anyone can tell that's still one of the best weapons in the game for doublebladekind users.

Snazzle's got a point though, some things are going to be completely pointless after this update. What diceKind user is going to trust the Flourite Octet when they can dip into hammerKind and make the more reliable Roll For Initiative? Who the hell is even going to allocate clawKind if its entire catalog is covered by gloveKind? Or halberdKind when every halberd can be equipped with spearKind or axeKind?

No way they're making RFI dicekind, it's just a hammer with d20s for heads. At its core it's still just a big hammer.

It wouldn't surprise me if they folded some specibi into others though. I could see all clawkind users being switched to gloveKind, and halberdkind revoked and its users given a free strife allocation.

"just a hammer with d20s for heads"? the fuck you say? RFI kicks ass and its random damage bonuses are all kinds of fun, shit's like using G&W in Smash Bros

spoken like a true noob who never had the talent to go for a zilly. you WOULD like RFI you stupid bastard

(USER WAS INFRACTED FOR THIS POST)

This is your final warning, AA. One more crack like that and I swear you're out of here.

Notes:

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First one to catch all the references gets a shiny boondollar

Seriously though, treating Sburb like an actual videogame and imagining what Sburb forums are like is all kinds of fun

if you would all just
take a look at the first page of tghe collab/roleplay thread
and see if you notice anything interesting
possibly related to this fic i just quoted

[ProspitDreamer]

I am not sure what I just did. Inspired by listening to the Strife album.

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Dave darts and dashes between timelines, slipping amongst seconds and minutes with a practiced ease. Duplicates of him slash and stab at any part of Noir they can reach, all measured breathing and stern faces. A fraymotif thunders around him, synced perfectly to each strike. Time is his profession, and he is a master of it. Even the appearance and subsequent disappearance of his clones is timed to perfection, dodge and duck and lash out there, a clockwork pulse in heated veins.

Rose keeps her distance, raining violet-sable energies from above. She warps and twists light until it is close to breaking; sees the arc before it happens and bends it to her unwavering will. Her own fraymotif is almost the sound of a violin, high and keening above Dave's guitar strings. Rose's golden hair whips into a frenzy as her dress flutters and snaps about her, midnight in deadly motion. She is bathed in her element, even here where there is no ambient light - rays of every colour, shifting a constant melody across her book-pale skin.

John throws himself into the action, twirling his hammer and swinging it down like he was born to do it. An Heir inherits whatever is left when his elders are gone, and so too did his father's strength pass on to him. Godhood has only strengthened him; he conjures wind where there was none before and with it he becomes fast, faster than Dave in his perpetual loops. The anger of the storm is visible in the tense of his arms, the peace of a zephyr lightens his feet, and he does it all enviably easily, because he is the greatest of his title, and the wind is in his blood.

Jade sees things when there's nothing there; she stands on ledges away from the action and folds space in on itself to create whatever her allies need. Her shots are there to support, not to destroy, but she does her fair share too. A consistent blam blam blam of gunshots, rippling the world around her like water. A prism in Rose's palm to split her shots upon, an imagined hammer for John to assail with, a sword of the same for Dave, she aids without any return and likes it that way. She is safe because of the prototyping.

The trolls are a maelstrom all unto themselves, fourteen individual breeds of power clashing into a single target. A ring and two staves: a larger target there never was, and they make full advantage. Swarms of time-clones draped in red, eight dice rattling in a slender palm, a slick sheen of sweat, all of these things at once and then more. Their fraymotifs are a cacophony of sound that mixes into something more, a beautiful chaotic melody that complements them perfectly - a wide range of sound for a wide range of personalities.

time light breath space blood time breath doom heart space mind light void rage hope life

This was awesome. I can certainly see how music inspired this masterpiece, a perfect description of one moment in time. No, that was not sarcasm.

[Domoz]

So I guess this is uhhh

The Pirate and the Empress
Part 3

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There is a calm after the storm just like there is one before it.
A pirate ship floats in the doldrums, alone, it's crew exhausted but pleased.

They had accomplished their plan. The pirates had kidnapped the Empress of Alternia, and they had gotten away with it.
There is only one small problem left to overcome. They are lost.

Under normal circumstances, any one of them would have been able to use the stars to guide them back to land, but at this moment in time there was still a thick layer of clouds guarding the sky from prying eyes. The sails are loosened and the ship drifts. Dualscar passes over his position at the wheel to his first mate Paris and makes his way below decks. He's got a prisoner to speak with.

Or he would if the Empress wasn't passed out on the floor. He figures that by this time she would have woken up, she should have with that storm going on. With a small shake of his head Ahab makes his way back up on deck. He'll have to do it later, then. It's not like they don't have time to spare.

Moments after he leaves, Ianthe opens her eyes and struggles once again to remember what exactly happened.

Kidnapped by Pirates. Right.

She moves very slowly, checking each limb. Much to her relief nothing is broken, the biggest problem she has is the biting pain in her head.

She lies there for a few moments longer, tempted to fall back to sleep with the gentle rocking of the boat; but she doesn't, instead opting to tear at the ropes binding her hands. She uninterrupted as she breaks every single nail on her hands on the toughened cord.
The Empress feels little beads of blood form around her cuticles but she does not stop. With each passing moment the pain in both her head and her hands seems to worsen.
With a groan she turns her head back to try and gauge her progress, as far as she can see she's hardly even begun to fray it.
If she had lower blood she would be cussing up a storm right now, but instead Ianthe continues ripping at the rope. She's got a lot of work to do.

Back on top of the deck is Dualscar, enjoying the first bit of free time he's had in a long while. He stares at the stars though the thinning clouds, taking a deep breath and leaning on the mast. This feels like the first time in ages he's been able to relax. Ahab enjoys it while it lasts, he knows for a fact it won't last for long.The clouds are clearing but it will still be a while before he can see enough of the stars to navigate by.
Dualscar stretches and starts to move back down to the hold, the captain wants to be caught slacking no more than anyone else on his crew.

Ariel awakens in conditions similar to that of the Empress; with a splitting pain in her head and a mouth so dry it tastes like cotton. She can't even find the energy to move her own arms to cradle her aching skull. She must endure the voices of soon-to-be-deceased crowing their mania into her ears, and she's used to it. She listens with vague indifference as one whispers about the gruesome ways she could die, and another hisses just how nice it would be if the ship ended up at bottom of the ocean.
Ariel sighs and tunes it out; this is nothing new, just a routine haunting.

Ianthe still struggles with her bonds, she doesn't even notice as Dualscar arrives in the hold and just stands there. And watches

She just claws at her ropes and prays for a miracle.
Ahab watches this tomfoolery for a few moments before interrupting, “Are you enjoying yourself?”

The Empress instantly freezes and moves her head to glare at the captain.
They remain like this for nearly a minute, silent; Ahab standing with his arms crossed and Ianthe scowling at him from her position on the floor.He sits down on the floor cross-legged; she maneuvers herself onto her knees.
He props his elbow on his knee and rests his head on his hand; she distorts her face into a scowl.

With a smirk, Dualscar breaks the silence. “It's funny the way the tables turn sometimes, isn't it, Empress?”

Ianthe says nothing, she only looks at Ahab with a calculating stare.
He chuckles, “Ah, well. You deserve an explanation as well as anyone else, I suppose.”

Another moment of silence extends transiently. Eventually the Empress grits her teeth and spits out, “Well?”

A second chuckle.
“Well alright, you were kidnapped simply so that I could have the power to do what needs to be done.”

He holds up his hands, a mock show of humility.
“It's not that I don't disagree with your rule, hell as far as politics go I'm sure you and I could find much to agree on; and by all means I'm sure you're a nice enough person, but the way you run the empire its... well it's horrid. I need to be able to do what I need to do, like say... destroy a few Gamblignant ships, without the law getting in the way.”

With that he stands and brushes himself off.
“Anyways miss Ianthe, I've got to shove off. It's busy work captaining a ship, you know”

He returns do the deck, when he's gone Ianthe just closes her eyes and slumps her shoulders.
“Of course”, she whispers, “You could have at least asked first”

A/N

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I keep dragging out stuff I don't want to be dragging out ugh...
I hate that last line

Also, I just thought I would say that my headcannon+fanart has caused me to have a crush on a fictional character ie: Dualscar
lord why

[penguinbound]

Flatline
A Teal Karkat Fiction

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He was here but a few short hours ago, with the girl he loved. They had danced with the crabs, twirling and stepping to the lands hidden rhythm. They had climbed to the highest cliff, and admired the sky and the view, and they talked about their fates. When she had gone to sleep, he had decided to come back. Discovering the transportalizers back to here had been the greatest discovery so far. And now, he wished they hadn't been discovered.

The small straw huts were cut, burning. Ashes were scattered across the ground. The crabs were laying all over the ground, cut, stabbed, bleeding. None of them were alive. The rhythm was erratic, and felt like a weak heartbeat, thudding in an untraceable pattern. The beat was off, and made the entire scene much to eerie. He didn't want this to be true.

The pain of losing his land was almost unbearable. Teal droplets ran down his face, but he tried to mask the pain. His face was stoic, and he quickly wiped the tears away. If anyone saw him, especially her, then he would break down trying to explain. He needed to save face, if only because he was the morale booster, the guy who calmed everyone down, the one who needed to stay calm.

But he couldn't help it.

As soon as he stepped through the transportalizer, she was waiting. He cursed to himself. "What's wrong?" Had she seen him?

"How did you..."

"I saw you." She had seen him.

"Nothing's wrong."

"You're crying."

"No I'm not." He quickly wiped the tears away. She walked forward, and placed a hand on his shoulder. Oh god, he couldn't handle this. The dams broke, and he weeped. He weeped for his slain consorts, the ruined land, the broken rhythm. That was his land.

She hugs him, and he cries more.

That was his land. It was gone.

And he should've been there to go with it.

A/N:

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This is based on an rp thign[sic] my friends and I are doing.

in other news i am going to be updating detective karkat again soon

[Jim Groovester]

The Sapphire of Alternia, Part 14

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Problem Sleuth walks across the street and heads toward the car, pretending he hasn’t noticed his tail. His hands are stuck in his coat pocket, gripped tightly around his key.

He whips out his gun and ducks into the window and levels the key at the man in the car. “I don’t care who you are but you better...” Problem Sleuth trails off. The man inside has short legs and a round torso. He’s got a handful of candy corn ready to be tossed into his gaping mouth and he’s got Sleuth’s style in hats.

He eats the handful of candy corn all at once. “Hey, Problem Sleuth.” The man says between chews.

“Ace Dick?” Sleuth asks as he lowers his key. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m following you.” Ace Dick says. He puts more candy corn in his mouth.

Sleuth picks up his jaw and unscrunches his brow. “But what are you doing that for?”

“Because I was told to.”

Sleuth’s hand hits his forehead. “But why were you told to?”

“I don’t know.” Ace Dick swallows.

“Weren’t you at all curious about why you were following me?”

“No.” Dick says completely honest. He reaches for more candy corn.

Sleuth swats his hand. “Stop it, you fat bastard.” Sleuth snaps.

“What?” Dick asks indignantly. “It’s my candy corn.”

Sleuth points a finger. “No it isn’t. That’s my candy corn. You stole it from my office a couple of days ago and I knew it was you.” Sleuth says. “Is that why you haven’t been answering my calls? Because you knew I knew you took my candy corn?”

“Shut up, Sleuth.” Ace Dick says. He glares at Sleuth as he defiantly reaches for more candy corn in a deliberate motion.

Sleuth curls his hand into a shaking fist.

==>

You really hate Ace Dick sometimes.

Sleuth sighs in exasperation. “If you haven’t been avoiding my calls because you took my candy corn then what have you been doing?”

“Oh! That.” Dick says loudly, chewing some more. “I’ve been working. And my phone’s broken anyway.”

Sleuth gasps and grumbles inaudibly about the stupid fat short bastard. “What’s this work you’re doing?”

Ace Dick motions for Sleuth to get in the car. Sleuth steps in and sits down. “I’ve been working with a bunch of private detectives. It’s a real tight operation.”

“Doing what?”

“The usual. Following people. Keeping tabs on the gangs. Doing stakeouts.” Dick says. “Normal private detective stuff. I think some of it’s probably busy work to keep us guessing about what we’re actually doing.”

“So what are you actually doing?”

“Beats me. I’m not one of the ones asking questions.”

“Dammit, would it kill you to have a little curiosity, Dick?” Sleuth asks.

“Look at the trouble you get into because of your curiosity. No thanks.” Dick says, grabbing more candy corn. “Besides, I’m getting paid to not ask questions.”

“Oh.” Sleuth says with a disapproving edge. “So the perfect job for you?”

“Exactly what I thought.” Dick says with a smug smile on his face.

Figures. The short fat unimaginative dullard gets the job of his dreams at the same time Sleuth gets his. “When did you start working this new job?”

“About a week ago. I got a call from somebody who didn’t tell me their name and said there was a lot of money for me if I did some work. So long as there were no questions asked.” Dick emphasizes the last few words. “He was very adamant about that.”

“And you said yes.”

“Of course I said yes.” Dick says with a smug grin. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Sleuth furrows his brow and rubs it. “Because you were obviously getting roped into something incredibly shady.”

“But I don’t have a problem with that.”

“If you knew what you were getting into you would.” Sleuth says. He sighs. “When did you start following me?”

“Sometime yesterday in the late afternoon.”

Late afternoon.

“Well, that’s when the guy in charge asked us to follow you. I didn’t find you until this morning when you left your apartment. You gave those cops the slip. Impressive work, Sleuth.” Dick says.

“Why you?”

“I volunteered.” Dick says. “You’re my friend and I know how you work.”

Sleuth frowns. “You’re a jackass, Dick.”

“Shove it, Sleuth.”

Sleuth rubs his chin. “Where can I find this guy in charge?”

“Hell if I know.” Dick responds. “There’s a place we go to check in every once in a while. That’s where the guy in charge calls. There’s some smug piece of crap who likes to think he’s the second in command. He spends most of his time at the place.”

An idea crosses Sleuth’s mind. “I could use a ride, Dick. I’ve got this place I want to visit.”

“I’m on the clock, Sleuth. I can’t make social trips in the middle of the day.”

“Like you care.”

Dick smiles. “Good point.” Dick turns the car on and starts driving. He pulls out of his parking spot and merges into traffic. He takes a quick right and changes lanes. “What have you been getting yourself into lately, Sleuth?”

“If I tell you I need you to keep this quiet. This is just between you and me.”

==>

You always tell Ace Dick exactly what to do. If you don’t tell him to be discrete he won’t be.

Dick nods.

“I’m looking for the Sapphire of Alternia for Wealthy Quantifier.”

“That’s interesting.” Ace Dick says but means the opposite.

Sleuth turns to Dick. “Interesting? That’s it? I tell you I’m looking for the most expensive hunk of rock on this planet and all you can say is that it’s interesting?”

“What do you want me to say?”

Sleuth faces forward. He doesn’t really know. “At least you can pretend to be interested.”

“That’s what I was doing!” Dick says. “I don’t get you sometimes, Sleuth.”

“Just shut up for a second.” Sleuth says. “The Midnight Crew and the Felt are looking for it too. I think your group of detectives is involved in all this too.”

Dick doesn’t say anything.

“I could use your help on this one.”

“Sure, anything you need.” Dick says.

Sleuth ponders if Dick is just humoring him. “You mean that?”

“Of course I do.” Dick says. “After you helped me with Mobster Kingpin I’d do anything for you, pal.”

Sleuth grips his key. Dammit, it’s just so tempting. But he obviously means well even if he is a self important jackass. “Thanks, Dick.”

The rest of the car ride is spent wordless between the two. Dick drives from the Midnight Crew’s hideout to a neighborhood full of buildings that have obviously seen better days. There's currently a land grab by real estate developers who were hoping to turn a profit by destroying old buildings and replacing them with new offices and apartments, and in turn new wealth.

In the meantime, the neighborhood harbors squatters, drifters, grifters, and an assortment of other petty criminals and transients. The prevalence of abandoned buildings make it a simple matter to hide and distribute illicit substances, something the Felt and the Midnight Crew take advantage of frequently. The two major gangs are at odds with each other because of it.

“Are we close?” Sleuth asks.

Dick nods.

“Why are a bunch of private detectives making a base out here?”

Dick shrugs.

Sleuth opens his mouth to ask another question but remembers how pointless it would be. “When you’re a couple blocks away drop me off.” Sleuth says.

“Alright.” Dick says.

Sleuth glares. “And because you didn’t ask what for I’m going to tell you. I need you to keep working with your detectives, as a sort of inside man.” Sleuth says. “Can’t have your friends noticing you dropping me off at their headquarters.”

Dick lets the comment pass as he continues driving. “Hide your face for a little bit.” Dick says.

Sleuth complies by turning his hat down.

“On your right.” Dick points out. “We’re passing it right now.”

Sleuth takes note of the building. It’s an abandoned office building with a boarded up storefront. At some point it was Honest Shopowner’s General Store, but the sign says H ne t Sh powne s Ge era Sto e.

Dick turns a corner and drives for a few blocks. He pulls over. “Here you are, Sleuth.”
Sleuth opens the door and gets out. “Now remember, I completely gave you the slip right now.”

“Don’t tell me how to do my job.” Dick shouts as he drives off.

Sleuth watches the car drive away, gripping his key the whole time. Damn, it’s so tempting. Sleuth turns around and walks down the street towards the abandoned office.

Late afternoon, Sleuth thinks. What did Sleuth do yesterday that got him followed by his former rival? He got shook down by the Felt and the Midnight Crew on a couple different occasions, so maybe Dick’s group of detectives figured Sleuth was on the case because of it.

Or, it could be something else. Sleuth doesn’t want to believe that could happen. But he’s got his suspicions.

Sleuth turns the corner and winds up in front of the store. If these private detectives are any good they’ve already spotted Problem Sleuth.

Problem Sleuth: Make a stealthy entrance.

You’re not really sure that’s necessary, but for the sake of caution, you enter the storefront as quietly as you can.

If what Diamonds Droog says about them is true, that these are your competitors instead of colleagues, you don’t think you have much to worry about.

Sleuth holds his key out of his coat with his left hand wrapped around his key ring. He’d like to put a few holes in these guys, but if he gives Anarchy Repressor an actual murder charge to pin on him he might as well stop trying to prove his innocence.

The door swings silently open. Inside are dusty shelves, racks and counters. Behind the counter are a bunch of dirty blankets making a rough mattress. The detectives probably don’t sleep there, with the money Dick says they’re making.

Sleuth hears voices coming from the back. He silently hides behind a counter. Two detectives, obviously ripping off Sleuth’s style, walk through the store oblivious to Sleuth’s presence.

“I don’t know why we bother looking for her.” One detective says to the other.

“Quit whining about it. We both know she can’t be found if she doesn’t want to be, so will you just stop complaining and take your money?” The other says as they walk outside.

Sleuth stands up and heads towards the back of the store. There’s a small storage room, empty save for garbage, and a small staircase leading to the second floor. Sleuth moves to the staircase, listens for a moment, then makes his way up.

Sleuth doesn’t immediately hear anything on the second floor. It either means the building’s empty or he’s walking into a trap. He walks down the corridor to the first door. He throws it open silently, key and keyring at the ready. He peers through the open door.

There’s a broken office chair and some stripped carpeting. He takes a step inside, looking around. There’s nothing in here. Sleuth heads out.

He performs a similar procedure for the second and third offices on the floor. He opens the door to the fourth and quietly enters when he hears a phone ring from the floor above him. Somebody above him stomps around to the phone. Sleuth hears the muffled sounds of one-sided conversation.

Sleuth peeks into the corridor. He quietly makes his way back to the stairs. He ducks back into a room as a trio of detectives march up towards the third floor.

“You ever been to the Crew’s casino? Place is a palace.”

“Can you really get everything you ask for there?”

“Sure can. Last week, I got-”

“Shut up, you loner. Nobody wants to hear about that.”

“That’s not even what I was talking about.”

Sleuth heads back to the fourth office. By their footstomps the trio head to the room above and talk to the man in the room. Sleuth hears muffled shouting and muffled excuses and muffled ripping new ones. Dick was right. There is a guy who fancies himself second in command. The trio start walking away, most likely with some new assignment.

Sleuth waits for the trio to descend the stairs. After he can’t hear their complaining about confusing jobs, Sleuth makes his way up. The third floor has the same setup as the second, but Sleuth knows which room he needs to go to.

Sleuth walks to the fourth office. He looks through the dirty frosted glass of the door. He can see the man, but not where he’s looking. The problem is that the man can say the same for Sleuth. And in this case, the advantage goes to the person who isn’t trying to sneak around.

The man starts walking to the door. Sleuth opens the door across from the fourth office and hides inside the room. The man opens the door. “Hey, come on. You shy or something?” The man asks.

There are several seconds of silence.

“I know you’re out there, so come on. Just come out with your hands up. I promise you you won’t get hurt.”

Sleuth silently refuses the offer. There are several more seconds of silence.

==>

Whoever this guy is, he either doesn’t like shy private detectives, or he thinks somebody is trying to sneak in.

Because he’s firing hot lead through the office walls.

Problem Sleuth: Lie prone against the wall.

Like you need to be told to do that!

Problem Sleuth pulls his key ring out of his coat. He pushes himself away from the wall with his legs and fires a short burst from his tommy gun through the wall. That quiets the man down for a bit.

Except he comes back louder than ever. Sleuth is going to end up with a bullet through several organs if he keeps it up.

==>

If only you had a corpse to throw through the door. Besides yours, of course.

It seems you have only one option left.

Problem Sleuth: SEPULCHRITUDE!

What? No. That’s stupid.

“Alright, alright. You got me.” Sleuth shouts, bluffing panic. “I give up. I don’t wanna die.”

“Your guns.” The man shouts. “On the floor where I can see them.”

Sleuth puts his key and keyring on the floor just inside the open door, in plain view from the opposite room.

A moment passes. “What the hell is this? I said your guns, not your keys.”

“Those are my guns.” Sleuth says.

A moment passes. “But those were keys a second ago and now they’re guns.”

“Are you an idiot? That’s a pile of keys, not guns.”

“What the hell is going on?”

“Are you sure that’s a gun in your hand?” Sleuth asks.

Unidentified Man: Look at gun/key.

It appears that your gun/key, upon very close inspection, is, in fact, a gun. You find the notion that it could have been anything else besides a gun oh dammit.

The guy across the hall has his keys pointed right at you.

“Put it down if you don’t want to walk around for the rest of your life a foot shorter.” Sleuth says lying on his side with both hands around his tommy gun.

The black carapace is wearing a trench coat and tie. He probably has his hat somewhere else. He looks at his gun, confused.

“I said put it down.” Sleuth repeats.

The man slowly rests his tommy gun on the ground. Sleuth stands up, keeping his own gun trained on the man at all times. He walks across the hall and kicks the tommy gun away. He searches through the man’s coat and tosses away all his other armaments.

“What’s your name?” Sleuth asks in a demanding tone.

The detective ringleader starts to speak.

“Actually, I don’t care.” Sleuth says. “Who do you work for?”

“I don’t know.” Detective Ringleader, for lack of his actual name, says.

“Don’t give me that. You got a phone right there and you’re barking orders to a bunch of for-hire second-rate private eyes. You’re not pulling them out of your ass so they must be coming from somewhere.”

“I don’t know his name.” Ringleader says.

“You better start giving me answers before I start losing my patience.” Sleuth says.

“Okay, okay.” The man throws his hands up in a placating gesture.

“You’re not working for free so you must’ve met him at some point.”

“Yeah, I did. He’s a tall guy, white carapace. Covered up an expensive suit and his face with a giant trench coat. Told me to work for him, here’s a thousand dollars, said to keep quiet. Is that good enough for you?”

“What are you working on?”

The man looks up at the ceiling. “I give out all the orders and I don’t even know.”

Sleuth taps Ringleader in the gut with his gun.

“Look, there’s about twenty of us, and we’re all being worked to death. The guy calls constantly to get updates on our progress. A lot of it seems pointless, and even contradictory sometimes.”

“Has your group been to Wealthy Quantifier’s house?”

Ringleader starts. “I don’t get it. We get sent there, told to pack up a bunch of valuable stuff, and then we stash it somewhere.”

That’s weird. Something odd’s definitely going on with this group. “And did you ever deal with a courier?”

“Yeah.” Ringleader looks down, regret on his face.

“Where’s what you took from the poor guy?” Sleuth asks.

“It’s in a warehouse with the rest of Wealthy Quantifier’s stuff on the other side of town.”

Sleuth doesn’t have a chance of getting there in time even if he calls his racecab driver. Even if he does, the men there will know he's coming. He’ll have to use a different tactic to get to the Sapphire of Alternia. Sleuth points with his keys to the phone. “Call him.”

Detective Ringleader hesitates. “We don’t call him. He calls us.”

“It’s an emergency. There’s some real pressing information he needs to know.” Sleuth points his gun at him. “You’ve got a gun to your head. You think you can come up with a good reason?”

The man frowns and moves to the phone. He dials the number and hands Sleuth the receiver. “It’s your show now.”

Sleuth takes it and puts it to his ear. After the fourth ring, the phone gets answered.

“Hello?” The other end asks. “Tell me it’s you. Is the box ready to be moved yet?”

Sleuth hangs up.

It was Litigious Lawyer.

==>

You’re gonna have a lot of questions for him.

Like why he stole the Sapphire of Alternia, killed a courier, robbed Wealthy Quantifier, and had you followed after you paid him a visit.

You better get to him soon, since Mr. Pretend Detective here is going to let him know as soon as you leave.

Problem Sleuth: Call Transportation Deferrer.

You dial the number to your favorite cab service. She picks up in the middle of the first ring. You tell her you need a ride somewhere quick. She says that she’s your girl in a manner suggesting she’s willing to do more than simply take you from two different locations in the city. Actually, you’re surprised. She doesn’t say that suggestively at all. You just kinda figured.

You ask her if she was waiting for your call. She says that the two of you’ve been through this. She always knows when you need a ride.

That’s great, you say. You tell her where you are and tell her to get there quick. She says will do and hangs up and so do you.

“This box.” Sleuth says. “You know what’s inside?”

“No.” Detective Ringleader says.

“If you know what’s good for you, keep it that way.” Sleuth says. He shoves his keyring back in his coat pocket. He leaves Ringleader in the room. As soon as Sleuth is gone he starts dialing a number.

Sleuth starts heading down the stairs. Some private detectives come up the opposite way. “Don’t worry about it. He got him.” Sleuth says.

“What are you talking about?” One of them asks.

“I heard the shooting too. There’s a guy dead in there.” Sleuth responds, marching past the detectives.

“Dead?” One of them asks. “This isn’t how things are supposed to go.”

“Ask him.” Sleuth says, pointing backwards with his thumb. “The guy came in here with a gun, or something. I don’t know. He seemed shocked about it. I would be too.” Sleuth says, starting the descent to the first floor.

“Come on.” One detective says to the other, moving up the stairs.

Problem Sleuth hustles his way out of the building. He opens the door to find a cab screeching to a stop on the curb. Sleuth opens the door and sits in the backseat.

“Hey, Sleuth.” Transportation Deferrer says. She seems a bit more reserved today.

“Keynote Bank. And step on it.”

Deferrer gives a half-hearted giggle. Sleuth is pinned to the back seat from the sudden acceleration.

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The plot thickens. Or gets revealed, as the case may be. Everybody saw this one coming, right? I would be surprised if this was actually a surprise to anybody. You mean that the character you introduced and spent some time fleshing out actually has a larger role in the story than first thought? Noooo waaaay.

I had so much fun writing Ace Dick. A completely self-interested, completely incurious, completely unimaginative dullard who annoys Problem Sleuth in just about every way possible was seriously fun to write. The plan with Ace Dick was that he was supposed to drop in, tell Sleuth a bunch of stuff, and then Sleuth would figure everything out from there. I decided to change that up a bit.

Feedback is always welcome. Since I'm planning on making some heavy edits once I finish this thing, even though I've got some ideas about what I could've done better I'd still like to have a second opinion.

Comments, timely as ever:

@SeptiumsMagistos; I'll say that I'm really liking COLORS right now. Looking forward to more.

@SkaianRedeemer: You once again prove that there is no task too trivial or critical that does not allow for drama and gossip between 14.5 teenagers and 1.5 robots. Great work as always.

I'll say that this part was easier to follow than some of your other ones. I think it's because they're all separated and not cooped up into one room, so who's doing what and looking at who isn't so difficult to keep track of.

@anonymousComrade: This was great. It's like you know exactly how game forums work. I think I said this before, and if I have I'll say it again, but I like that you treat Sburb like a game, instead of a planet destroying playground for a few kids to dick around in.

@Summergale: I see how this could come about from listening to the Strife album. Definitely cool the way you did it.

[CheeseDeluxe]

The Sapphire of Alternia, Part 14

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Problem Sleuth walks across the street and heads toward the car, pretending he hasn’t noticed his tail. His hands are stuck in his coat pocket, gripped tightly around his key.

He whips out his gun and ducks into the window and levels the key at the man in the car. “I don’t care who you are but you better...” Problem Sleuth trails off. The man inside has short legs and a round torso. He’s got a handful of candy corn ready to be tossed into his gaping mouth and he’s got Sleuth’s style in hats.

He eats the handful of candy corn all at once. “Hey, Problem Sleuth.” The man says between chews.

“Ace Dick?” Sleuth asks as he lowers his key. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m following you.” Ace Dick says. He puts more candy corn in his mouth.

Sleuth picks up his jaw and unscrunches his brow. “But what are you doing that for?”

“Because I was told to.”

Sleuth’s hand hits his forehead. “But why were you told to?”

“I don’t know.” Ace Dick swallows.

“Weren’t you at all curious about why you were following me?”

“No.” Dick says completely honest. He reaches for more candy corn.

Sleuth swats his hand. “Stop it, you fat bastard.” Sleuth snaps.

“What?” Dick asks indignantly. “It’s my candy corn.”

Sleuth points a finger. “No it isn’t. That’s my candy corn. You stole it from my office a couple of days ago and I knew it was you.” Sleuth says. “Is that why you haven’t been answering my calls? Because you knew I knew you took my candy corn?”

“Shut up, Sleuth.” Ace Dick says. He glares at Sleuth as he defiantly reaches for more candy corn in a deliberate motion.

Sleuth curls his hand into a shaking fist.

==>

You really hate Ace Dick sometimes.

Sleuth sighs in exasperation. “If you haven’t been avoiding my calls because you took my candy corn then what have you been doing?”

“Oh! That.” Dick says loudly, chewing some more. “I’ve been working. And my phone’s broken anyway.”

Sleuth gasps and grumbles inaudibly about the stupid fat short bastard. “What’s this work you’re doing?”

Ace Dick motions for Sleuth to get in the car. Sleuth steps in and sits down. “I’ve been working with a bunch of private detectives. It’s a real tight operation.”

“Doing what?”

“The usual. Following people. Keeping tabs on the gangs. Doing stakeouts.” Dick says. “Normal private detective stuff. I think some of it’s probably busy work to keep us guessing about what we’re actually doing.”

“So what are you actually doing?”

“Beats me. I’m not one of the ones asking questions.”

“Dammit, would it kill you to have a little curiosity, Dick?” Sleuth asks.

“Look at the trouble you get into because of your curiosity. No thanks.” Dick says, grabbing more candy corn. “Besides, I’m getting paid to not ask questions.”

“Oh.” Sleuth says with a disapproving edge. “So the perfect job for you?”

“Exactly what I thought.” Dick says with a smug smile on his face.

Figures. The short fat unimaginative dullard gets the job of his dreams at the same time Sleuth gets his. “When did you start working this new job?”

“About a week ago. I got a call from somebody who didn’t tell me their name and said there was a lot of money for me if I did some work. So long as there were no questions asked.” Dick emphasizes the last few words. “He was very adamant about that.”

“And you said yes.”

“Of course I said yes.” Dick says with a smug grin. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Sleuth furrows his brow and rubs it. “Because you were obviously getting roped into something incredibly shady.”

“But I don’t have a problem with that.”

“If you knew what you were getting into you would.” Sleuth says. He sighs. “When did you start following me?”

“Sometime yesterday in the late afternoon.”

Late afternoon.

“Well, that’s when the guy in charge asked us to follow you. I didn’t find you until this morning when you left your apartment. You gave those cops the slip. Impressive work, Sleuth.” Dick says.

“Why you?”

“I volunteered.” Dick says. “You’re my friend and I know how you work.”

Sleuth frowns. “You’re a jackass, Dick.”

“Shove it, Sleuth.”

Sleuth rubs his chin. “Where can I find this guy in charge?”

“Hell if I know.” Dick responds. “There’s a place we go to check in every once in a while. That’s where the guy in charge calls. There’s some smug piece of crap who likes to think he’s the second in command. He spends most of his time at the place.”

An idea crosses Sleuth’s mind. “I could use a ride, Dick. I’ve got this place I want to visit.”

“I’m on the clock, Sleuth. I can’t make social trips in the middle of the day.”

“Like you care.”

Dick smiles. “Good point.” Dick turns the car on and starts driving. He pulls out of his parking spot and merges into traffic. He takes a quick right and changes lanes. “What have you been getting yourself into lately, Sleuth?”

“If I tell you I need you to keep this quiet. This is just between you and me.”

==>

You always tell Ace Dick exactly what to do. If you don’t tell him to be discrete he won’t be.

Dick nods.

“I’m looking for the Sapphire of Alternia for Wealthy Quantifier.”

“That’s interesting.” Ace Dick says but means the opposite.

Sleuth turns to Dick. “Interesting? That’s it? I tell you I’m looking for the most expensive hunk of rock on this planet and all you can say is that it’s interesting?”

“What do you want me to say?”

Sleuth faces forward. He doesn’t really know. “At least you can pretend to be interested.”

“That’s what I was doing!” Dick says. “I don’t get you sometimes, Sleuth.”

“Just shut up for a second.” Sleuth says. “The Midnight Crew and the Felt are looking for it too. I think your group of detectives is involved in all this too.”

Dick doesn’t say anything.

“I could use your help on this one.”

“Sure, anything you need.” Dick says.

Sleuth ponders if Dick is just humoring him. “You mean that?”

“Of course I do.” Dick says. “After you helped me with Mobster Kingpin I’d do anything for you, pal.”

Sleuth grips his key. Dammit, it’s just so tempting. But he obviously means well even if he is a self important jackass. “Thanks, Dick.”

The rest of the car ride is spent wordless between the two. Dick drives from the Midnight Crew’s hideout to a neighborhood full of buildings that have obviously seen better days. There's currently a land grab by real estate developers who were hoping to turn a profit by destroying old buildings and replacing them with new offices and apartments, and in turn new wealth.

In the meantime, the neighborhood harbors squatters, drifters, grifters, and an assortment of other petty criminals and transients. The prevalence of abandoned buildings make it a simple matter to hide and distribute illicit substances, something the Felt and the Midnight Crew take advantage of frequently. The two major gangs are at odds with each other because of it.

“Are we close?” Sleuth asks.

Dick nods.

“Why are a bunch of private detectives making a base out here?”

Dick shrugs.

Sleuth opens his mouth to ask another question but remembers how pointless it would be. “When you’re a couple blocks away drop me off.” Sleuth says.

“Alright.” Dick says.

Sleuth glares. “And because you didn’t ask what for I’m going to tell you. I need you to keep working with your detectives, as a sort of inside man.” Sleuth says. “Can’t have your friends noticing you dropping me off at their headquarters.”

Dick lets the comment pass as he continues driving. “Hide your face for a little bit.” Dick says.

Sleuth complies by turning his hat down.

“On your right.” Dick points out. “We’re passing it right now.”

Sleuth takes note of the building. It’s an abandoned office building with a boarded up storefront. At some point it was Honest Shopowner’s General Store, but the sign says H ne t Sh powne s Ge era Sto e.

Dick turns a corner and drives for a few blocks. He pulls over. “Here you are, Sleuth.”
Sleuth opens the door and gets out. “Now remember, I completely gave you the slip right now.”

“Don’t tell me how to do my job.” Dick shouts as he drives off.

Sleuth watches the car drive away, gripping his key the whole time. Damn, it’s so tempting. Sleuth turns around and walks down the street towards the abandoned office.

Late afternoon, Sleuth thinks. What did Sleuth do yesterday that got him followed by his former rival? He got shook down by the Felt and the Midnight Crew on a couple different occasions, so maybe Dick’s group of detectives figured Sleuth was on the case because of it.

Or, it could be something else. Sleuth doesn’t want to believe that could happen. But he’s got his suspicions.

Sleuth turns the corner and winds up in front of the store. If these private detectives are any good they’ve already spotted Problem Sleuth.

Problem Sleuth: Make a stealthy entrance.

You’re not really sure that’s necessary, but for the sake of caution, you enter the storefront as quietly as you can.

If what Diamonds Droog says about them is true, that these are your competitors instead of colleagues, you don’t think you have much to worry about.

Sleuth holds his key out of his coat with his left hand wrapped around his key ring. He’d like to put a few holes in these guys, but if he gives Anarchy Repressor an actual murder charge to pin on him he might as well stop trying to prove his innocence.

The door swings silently open. Inside are dusty shelves, racks and counters. Behind the counter are a bunch of dirty blankets making a rough mattress. The detectives probably don’t sleep there, with the money Dick says they’re making.

Sleuth hears voices coming from the back. He silently hides behind a counter. Two detectives, obviously ripping off Sleuth’s style, walk through the store oblivious to Sleuth’s presence.

“I don’t know why we bother looking for her.” One detective says to the other.

“Quit whining about it. We both know she can’t be found if she doesn’t want to be, so will you just stop complaining and take your money?” The other says as they walk outside.

Sleuth stands up and heads towards the back of the store. There’s a small storage room, empty save for garbage, and a small staircase leading to the second floor. Sleuth moves to the staircase, listens for a moment, then makes his way up.

Sleuth doesn’t immediately hear anything on the second floor. It either means the building’s empty or he’s walking into a trap. He walks down the corridor to the first door. He throws it open silently, key and keyring at the ready. He peers through the open door.

There’s a broken office chair and some stripped carpeting. He takes a step inside, looking around. There’s nothing in here. Sleuth heads out.

He performs a similar procedure for the second and third offices on the floor. He opens the door to the fourth and quietly enters when he hears a phone ring from the floor above him. Somebody above him stomps around to the phone. Sleuth hears the muffled sounds of one-sided conversation.

Sleuth peeks into the corridor. He quietly makes his way back to the stairs. He ducks back into a room as a trio of detectives march up towards the third floor.

“You ever been to the Crew’s casino? Place is a palace.”

“Can you really get everything you ask for there?”

“Sure can. Last week, I got-”

“Shut up, you loner. Nobody wants to hear about that.”

“That’s not even what I was talking about.”

Sleuth heads back to the fourth office. By their footstomps the trio head to the room above and talk to the man in the room. Sleuth hears muffled shouting and muffled excuses and muffled ripping new ones. Dick was right. There is a guy who fancies himself second in command. The trio start walking away, most likely with some new assignment.

Sleuth waits for the trio to descend the stairs. After he can’t hear their complaining about confusing jobs, Sleuth makes his way up. The third floor has the same setup as the second, but Sleuth knows which room he needs to go to.

Sleuth walks to the fourth office. He looks through the dirty frosted glass of the door. He can see the man, but not where he’s looking. The problem is that the man can say the same for Sleuth. And in this case, the advantage goes to the person who isn’t trying to sneak around.

The man starts walking to the door. Sleuth opens the door across from the fourth office and hides inside the room. The man opens the door. “Hey, come on. You shy or something?” The man asks.

There are several seconds of silence.

“I know you’re out there, so come on. Just come out with your hands up. I promise you you won’t get hurt.”

Sleuth silently refuses the offer. There are several more seconds of silence.

==>

Whoever this guy is, he either doesn’t like shy private detectives, or he thinks somebody is trying to sneak in.

Because he’s firing hot lead through the office walls.

Problem Sleuth: Lie prone against the wall.

Like you need to be told to do that!

Problem Sleuth pulls his key ring out of his coat. He pushes himself away from the wall with his legs and fires a short burst from his tommy gun through the wall. That quiets the man down for a bit.

Except he comes back louder than ever. Sleuth is going to end up with a bullet through several organs if he keeps it up.

==>

If only you had a corpse to throw through the door. Besides yours, of course.

It seems you have only one option left.

Problem Sleuth: SEPULCHRITUDE!

What? No. That’s stupid.

“Alright, alright. You got me.” Sleuth shouts, bluffing panic. “I give up. I don’t wanna die.”

“Your guns.” The man shouts. “On the floor where I can see them.”

Sleuth puts his key and keyring on the floor just inside the open door, in plain view from the opposite room.

A moment passes. “What the hell is this? I said your guns, not your keys.”

“Those are my guns.” Sleuth says.

A moment passes. “But those were keys a second ago and now they’re guns.”

“Are you an idiot? That’s a pile of keys, not guns.”

“What the hell is going on?”

“Are you sure that’s a gun in your hand?” Sleuth asks.

Unidentified Man: Look at gun/key.

It appears that your gun/key, upon very close inspection, is, in fact, a gun. You find the notion that it could have been anything else besides a gun oh dammit.

The guy across the hall has his keys pointed right at you.

“Put it down if you don’t want to walk around for the rest of your life a foot shorter.” Sleuth says lying on his side with both hands around his tommy gun.

The black carapace is wearing a trench coat and tie. He probably has his hat somewhere else. He looks at his gun, confused.

“I said put it down.” Sleuth repeats.

The man slowly rests his tommy gun on the ground. Sleuth stands up, keeping his own gun trained on the man at all times. He walks across the hall and kicks the tommy gun away. He searches through the man’s coat and tosses away all his other armaments.

“What’s your name?” Sleuth asks in a demanding tone.

The detective ringleader starts to speak.

“Actually, I don’t care.” Sleuth says. “Who do you work for?”

“I don’t know.” Detective Ringleader, for lack of his actual name, says.

“Don’t give me that. You got a phone right there and you’re barking orders to a bunch of for-hire second-rate private eyes. You’re not pulling them out of your ass so they must be coming from somewhere.”

“I don’t know his name.” Ringleader says.

“You better start giving me answers before I start losing my patience.” Sleuth says.

“Okay, okay.” The man throws his hands up in a placating gesture.

“You’re not working for free so you must’ve met him at some point.”

“Yeah, I did. He’s a tall guy, white carapace. Covered up an expensive suit and his face with a giant trench coat. Told me to work for him, here’s a thousand dollars, said to keep quiet. Is that good enough for you?”

“What are you working on?”

The man looks up at the ceiling. “I give out all the orders and I don’t even know.”

Sleuth taps Ringleader in the gut with his gun.

“Look, there’s about twenty of us, and we’re all being worked to death. The guy calls constantly to get updates on our progress. A lot of it seems pointless, and even contradictory sometimes.”

“Has your group been to Wealthy Quantifier’s house?”

Ringleader starts. “I don’t get it. We get sent there, told to pack up a bunch of valuable stuff, and then we stash it somewhere.”

That’s weird. Something odd’s definitely going on with this group. “And did you ever deal with a courier?”

“Yeah.” Ringleader looks down, regret on his face.

“Where’s what you took from the poor guy?” Sleuth asks.

“It’s in a warehouse with the rest of Wealthy Quantifier’s stuff on the other side of town.”

Sleuth doesn’t have a chance of getting there in time even if he calls his racecab driver. Even if he does, the men there will know he's coming. He’ll have to use a different tactic to get to the Sapphire of Alternia. Sleuth points with his keys to the phone. “Call him.”

Detective Ringleader hesitates. “We don’t call him. He calls us.”

“It’s an emergency. There’s some real pressing information he needs to know.” Sleuth points his gun at him. “You’ve got a gun to your head. You think you can come up with a good reason?”

The man frowns and moves to the phone. He dials the number and hands Sleuth the receiver. “It’s your show now.”

Sleuth takes it and puts it to his ear. After the fourth ring, the phone gets answered.

“Hello?” The other end asks. “Tell me it’s you. Is the box ready to be moved yet?”

Sleuth hangs up.

It was Litigious Lawyer.

==>

You’re gonna have a lot of questions for him.

Like why he stole the Sapphire of Alternia, killed a courier, robbed Wealthy Quantifier, and had you followed after you paid him a visit.

You better get to him soon, since Mr. Pretend Detective here is going to let him know as soon as you leave.

Problem Sleuth: Call Transportation Deferrer.

You dial the number to your favorite cab service. She picks up in the middle of the first ring. You tell her you need a ride somewhere quick. She says that she’s your girl in a manner suggesting she’s willing to do more than simply take you from two different locations in the city. Actually, you’re surprised. She doesn’t say that suggestively at all. You just kinda figured.

You ask her if she was waiting for your call. She says that the two of you’ve been through this. She always knows when you need a ride.

That’s great, you say. You tell her where you are and tell her to get there quick. She says will do and hangs up and so do you.

“This box.” Sleuth says. “You know what’s inside?”

“No.” Detective Ringleader says.

“If you know what’s good for you, keep it that way.” Sleuth says. He shoves his keyring back in his coat pocket. He leaves Ringleader in the room. As soon as Sleuth is gone he starts dialing a number.

Sleuth starts heading down the stairs. Some private detectives come up the opposite way. “Don’t worry about it. He got him.” Sleuth says.

“What are you talking about?” One of them asks.

“I heard the shooting too. There’s a guy dead in there.” Sleuth responds, marching past the detectives.

“Dead?” One of them asks. “This isn’t how things are supposed to go.”

“Ask him.” Sleuth says, pointing backwards with his thumb. “The guy came in here with a gun, or something. I don’t know. He seemed shocked about it. I would be too.” Sleuth says, starting the descent to the first floor.

“Come on.” One detective says to the other, moving up the stairs.

Problem Sleuth hustles his way out of the building. He opens the door to find a cab screeching to a stop on the curb. Sleuth opens the door and sits in the backseat.

“Hey, Sleuth.” Transportation Deferrer says. She seems a bit more reserved today.

“Keynote Bank. And step on it.”

Deferrer gives a half-hearted giggle. Sleuth is pinned to the back seat from the sudden acceleration.

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The plot thickens. Or gets revealed, as the case may be. Everybody saw this one coming, right? I would be surprised if this was actually a surprise to anybody. You mean that the character you introduced and spent some time fleshing out actually has a larger role in the story than first thought? Noooo waaaay.

I had so much fun writing Ace Dick. A completely self-interested, completely incurious, completely unimaginative dullard who annoys Problem Sleuth in just about every way possible was seriously fun to write. The plan with Ace Dick was that he was supposed to drop in, tell Sleuth a bunch of stuff, and then Sleuth would figure everything out from there. I decided to change that up a bit.

Feedback is always welcome. Since I'm planning on making some heavy edits once I finish this thing, even though I've got some ideas about what I could've done better I'd still like to have a second opinion.

Comments, timely as ever:

@SeptiumsMagistos; I'll say that I'm really liking COLORS right now. Looking forward to more.

@SkaianRedeemer: You once again prove that there is no task too trivial or critical that does not allow for drama and gossip between 14.5 teenagers and 1.5 robots. Great work as always.

I'll say that this part was easier to follow than some of your other ones. I think it's because they're all separated and not cooped up into one room, so who's doing what and looking at who isn't so difficult to keep track of.

@anonymousComrade: This was great. It's like you know exactly how game forums work. I think I said this before, and if I have I'll say it again, but I like that you treat Sburb like a game, instead of a planet destroying playground for a few kids to dick around in.

@Summergale: I see how this could come about from listening to the Strife album. Definitely cool the way you did it.

[CheeseDeluxe]

"Because penguinbound Told Me To"

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It was a fuzzy one, at best. A memory he wouldn't be able to delve into. Whatever. That wasn't important for the time being. He'd already won. All he needed to do now was claim his prize. However, he had a twinge of guilt, as it were. He looked over his shoulder, then over this thoughts.

It all started a while ago with the release of that accursed game. sGrub, was it? Hell, did it even matter? Well, his good friend somehow accrued a copy of the game. "Sure, whatever, I'll play," he said.

And then he heard of the circumstances and the rewards surrounding the game. Vast riches untold, they say. Dangers beyond your wildest dreams. It was rumored that even FLARP didn't hold a flame to it. He became very interested...and very crazy. He spent several weeks researching the game, taking a break now and then to nibble on his favorite snack, sopor pie. As the days passed by, his friends started noticing changes in his behavior. He started becoming more irrational and careless, going on about "horn piles" and "wicked elixirs". But maybe...maybe that was all just a ruse.

In fact, it had been. The entire time, he was just posing. Waiting in the shadows, waiting for the perfect time to strike. And he thought he had it all in the bag, too. What used to be a sweet, darling boy slowly became a sinister, malevolent mastermind. Without anyone giving a damn, he would eliminate everyone person by person. He'd have to influence everybody and coordinate every single move he made. It was not much of a puzzle for him, though.

And finally, he was ready. His plan was set into motion like clockwork. He was careful and ruthless in his actions, not feeling a single emotion as he tore apart his old acquaintances one by one. It was easy. Almost...too easy. He knew something was wrong. He had a gut feeling about the whole thing, really. He didn't acknowledge that, however. He was too busy backstabbing everyone to riches.

After what felt like years, he was finally there. The last one standing, on that single platform, in the middle of a giant, black void. The door was right in front of him. But why couldn't he open it? Was something wrong? Had he not completed something; did he leave an important object behind?

Then he realized he was being overly cautious and opened the door. A giant world full of anyone's desires. Golden streets, diamond streetlights, and a lustrous, gleaming city in front of him. And the best part? It was all his. Everything was in his control. His life, complete.

...what was that? Something nudged him...
It almost felt like an entire person just leaped on him just now...
All of a sudden, more jab-like feelings, all around his body. Why? Well, who would care? The world was his toilet and nobody could do a damn. Off the boy went, to his trophy.

"HEY, FUCKFACE, WAKE THE GODDAMN HELL UP!"
:33 < *pounces on the silly clown* why won't gamz33 get up?
d0nt w0rry ab0ut it nepeta
hell be fine
8oy, that sure sounds greeeeeeeeat, coming from a dead person...::::/

continued if I ever feel like it

[SkaianRedeemer]

I'll get to reading in the morning but while this is still fresh on my mind:

@Jim Groovester: Yeah, I think you're right. I'll try to keep them neat and tidy like this when I can from here on out. I can think of at least one scene that needs them together but besides that we might be clear. It'll be nice!

[Violet CLM]

Sole Survivor

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Your name is KIMINOA MAHLIKA and you are EMPRESS of the Troll species. You have developed such an AIR OF AUTHORITY about you that your INFERIORS, and all trolls were your inferiors, never dared speak your name aloud, preferring to call you HER IMPERIOUS CONDESCENSION or the ALLMOTHER. This latter term always struck you as especially flattering because MOTHERS, like their vestigially opposed counterparts FATHERS, are mostly a part of troll MYTHOLOGY AND ANTIQUATED VOCABULARY, and it was useful for you to command a mythological level of respect.

You have no INTERESTS, since any sign of personal affect could have proved a POTENTIAL WEAKNESS for your NUMEROUS CRITICUTIONARIES to take advantage of. You had some many solar sweeps ago, of course, when you lived as a youth on your homeworld of ALTERNIA, but ERASED them from record when you first entered into the THROES OF REBELLION against the previous empress. You even had your lusus BROKEN DOWN INTO BIOMATTER lest anyone find a way to use her as a weapon against you.

Since ascending to your role as empress, you lived on your PERSONAL FLAGSHIP with your IMPERIAL CONSORTS and a staff of retainers and militia. KUMBHA VAZIRI was a fellow indigo-blood and your most recent consort, but was rather younger than you, since your consorts had an EMBARASSING HISTORY of BETRAYAL and needed to be REPLACED every few solar sweeps. The consort was traditionally a sort of INFORMAL MOIRAIL for the empress, but you had never been weak enough actually to need one for that romantic function.

All these uses of the past tense, of course, are because EVERY TROLL BUT YOU SEEMS TO HAVE JUST DIED.

You felt it coming, of course. There were psychic ripples through the universe seconds before it struck, and when it did strike, it felt like your insides and outsides were trying to swap places. You tasted blood and your vision went black for a little while, but you are empress, and it was beneath you to be vanquished by so base and natural a phenomenon. You clung to the ladder exit of your imperial respiteblock and waited until the pain and vertigo subsided. Your right knee hurt a little from where you banged it against a rung of the ladder when the first ripple hit you, but besides that, you are fine.

You are pretty sure you know what happened. The Vast Glub finally struck, and while you are not technically of the same high caste as the Rift’s Carbuncle, Gl'bgolyb, your role as empress protected you. Still, you didn’t reach this job by not testing out your assumptions, and it’s possible that one of your many enemies just developed some sort of neural attack wave that targeted only you. You’re going to need more data, so you ascend the ladder from your respiteblock, favoring your right knee, and begin to explore your flagship.

It doesn’t look good. If there was some technological attack, it was fairly wide-reaching. Dead trolls litter the halls, their blood seeping out from orifices new and old and pooling in rainbow puddles, caste and caste mixing together frivolously. It is disgusting. You identify the bodies, mentally sorting them into their respective onboard factions to make sure that one group or another didn’t launch an attack on everyone else, but there is no caste or belief system or alliance of necessity not represented among the dead. It looks like the whole ship really is gone. You look into the weapon and control blocks but the situation is no different. You notice some control pads sputtering from the blood splashed onto them and you considerately turn them off until you can figure out what to do next.

It occurs to you to check on your imperial consort. You doubt Kumbha could have done this – he had always struck you as one of your most loyal consorts ever, despite the age gap, and he never showed any flair for programming either – but if anyone else on the ship survived, it was probably him. Your thought is confirmed as you pass into his chamber – no lock on the ship cannot be opened by you – and find Kumbha in a heap beside his desk, bleeding heavily but still miraculously alive. The attack was definitely attuned to hemospectrum, and you suspect the Vast Glub more than ever.

“EMpress?? KIminoa??” His voice is feeble as you approach him, but maintains its dragging quality.

“Don't move: Kumbha. Everyone else is dead and you're bleeding badly. What did you feel.” You speak exclusively in titles and declarations, as befits a troll of your rank.

“THis horrible wave came through my mind and body all at once.. OH god,, KIminoa,, I Hurt everywhere..”

“Yes: I know: Kumbha. I think it was the Vast Glub. Do you think you have any chance.”

“NO,, it''s too much.. SOon I''ll be dead too.. KIminoa -- EMpress -- what are you going to do??”

“I'll go back to Alternia: and see if it's been invaded. If it has: as the last representative of the troll species: I'll fight them until one or the other of us dies.” The words come easily to you, for your dedication to your subjects is total and complete.

He nods and fights to breathe. “KIminoa...... before you go,, please kill me.. I Don''t want to die so slowly..”

“I will. Goodbye: my consort.” From your strife specibus you summon your imperial spear, the Pokerface Poker. Its mirrored surface reflects impassively the dying troll before you. You hold it aloft for the killing blow.

“KIminoa,,” he says, staring at you rather than at the spear that is about to end his fading life. “KIminoa,, I''Ve always loved you..”

“That is immaterial,” you say, and drive it home. His vascular system bursts apart and his muscles go limp. You rise to your feet and walk away before you can be bothered by the look of pain in his eyes. One more troll dead. That is how it goes. That is how it has always gone. You do not have the medical knowledge to have treated him, and he was hurt and deserved to be culled. That is how it goes. You are empress. All is beneath you.

You return to the ship’s control block and turn on the fleet communications system. There is no word from any of the other ships, though many of them were stationed around your flagship when the Glub – there is really no reason to believe it was anything else – hit you. You were in place to invade a newly discovered planet some glaresweeps away from Alternia, but now the planet’s inhabitants will live to breathe another day. Perhaps someday they too shall discover space flight and will fly to Alternia and find… what? That must be your destination. Even if there is no one left alive and no attacking force to battle, you are empress and it is your duty to be on homeworld for the end times.

You do not know where Alternia is or how to get there, for you have always had a dedicated crew for such things, but you can learn. None of the ship’s functions seem to have been damaged, so you still have access to food and spoor, and you have all the time in the world to read through the manuals and learn the workings of the ship. You drag the dead bodies from the control block and take them to the incinerator, so that they will no longer be in the way. Brainless cleaner droids are dispatched to remove the colorful blood from the controls, and it is reassuring that something besides you still moves, however robotic and lifeless.

You begin the long task of learning how to bring your flagship back to Alternia. The ship’s memory banks have access to innumerable works of instruction besides the physical manuals onboard, and you refer frequently to these for clarification and definition of unfamiliar terms. There is also useful information to be had on the Alternet, but as the hundreds of hours of learning go by, more and more servers disappear from the ‘net until there are no pages left to visit and your browser is as helpless as its mythological namesake, Sisyphus. Most probably, the bees of the apiculture networks on Alternia have no one left to feed them and are slowly dying, taking their Alternet servers with them. The information in the manuals and memory banks is somewhat less up to date, but you still manage.

When you sleep, it is worse than usual. The slime of your ornate recuperacoon keeps away many of the bad dreams, but a few always get through. Every troll you have ever felt any sort of connection to in your long life features at one point or another in your dreams, falling bloodily to the ground as the Vast Glub tears through them. Somehow they know you are there, and their words to you are always the same before the breath leaves them before.

“Wy did yu fale to protect mi?”

“Why’dja failta protect me?”

“WhY DiD YoU FaiL to ProtecT me?”

“Y9u failed. To pr97ec7 me. Why?”

“Where4 did U fail 2 protect me7”

When, weeks after the Glub, it is finally Kumbha’s turn to die before you, you wake yourself up, hurling the Pokerface Poker into the dark. The motion triggers the lights to turn on, and you pull yourself from your recuperacoon, cursing loudly, and pull on a robe. There is no one left alive to see you, but you are empress, and protocol forbids you from leaving your respiteblock in the nude. You try to stay awake for as long as possible, but a troll must sleep sometime, and so you do, always fitfully. One day, wandering the ship after trying to absorb a particularly obtuse passage in one of the manuals, you discover that Kumbha’s recuperacoon was larger than yours, and you take to sleeping in it instead, since the additional slime keeps more of the dreams away. You will never know what so tormented him that he needed so much extra protection from the terrors.

After what you would guess is about the length of a season on Alternia – it is hard to keep time with no moons in the sky – you feel that you are ready to begin the trip home. In theory, you are now master of the workings of your flagship, and it is time to return to the heart of your former kingdom. Besides, a possibility has occurred to you in the interim for saving your species. It is a faint one, for you never kept tabs on it during your more active days as empress, and you dare not hope it will work, but there are days when it keeps you going as you emerge from the recuperacoon.

You flip the master switch and the control room lights up. You have not tried to use any of the controls before now, but you have done the reading and they are all familiar before you. A spacemap found on the Alternet and downloaded before its server died tells you where your destination is. Slowly, carefully, knowing the flagship is meant to be staffed by multiple trolls at once, you turn it around and begin to boost it towards home. As all goes according to plan, you let out a breath you had not realized you had been holding.

You give the ship’s engines everything you can, since you see no reason to conserve fuel. If for whatever reason another trip is required after you reach Alternia, you can always find more fuel matter on the planet and load it into the ship yourself. You will have all the time in the world.

It takes a long time to reach Alternia. You find a shipboard computer that displays universal time, and the equivalent of several solar sweeps go by before you finally sight your gray homeworld. In the meantime, you do your best to stay busy and find new duties for yourself as empress. You sort the dead bodies you had not previously incinerated by caste and deposit them in separate storage containers. You join the cleaner droids in removing the caked blood from the halls, and eventually everything is clean again. Clean and lifeless. You try to remember what life was like before you became empress, and it is difficult. Like all trolls of any nobility, you lived alone – only base bloods lived in the sweeping communal hive stems – but then you had your lusus to watch over you. She had been strict, allowing no disobedience or frivolity in the empress to be, and she had shown no surprise when you had her killed, but she had still been company.

You take up exercise, running about the flagship’s corridors and listening to the pound pound pound of your feet against the floor echo into silence, as no one but yourself hears it. Several times you redecorate the entire ship for simple lack of anything else to do. You take up reading and go through many of the works of fiction stored in the ship’s memory banks, written in a more peaceful period of your species’ history when such creativity was less looked down upon. You even find a few troll movies in the rooms of some of the dead, and try to watch them, but they are just too terrible. Besides, it feels strange to see other living beings, even though they are merely projected images.

As the equivalents of seasons go by, sleeping grows even harder. Even Kumbha’s large recuperacoon keeps out only a fraction of the painful visions, and you take to sleeping in spurts instead, every few hours, resting your body but not staying asleep long enough for most of the dreams to sneak up on you. It is an odd life, but physically viable. You wish you could sleep more so that you would have to spend less time figuring out what to do with yourself, but the visions are far worse than the boredom.

In the third sweep of travel, you suspect you are beginning to go a little mad. From toys and food containers and bits of clothing you construct a miniature throne room on the floor of the large weapon block, and then a whole palace, and finally a city. You expand it no farther, since there is only so much floorspace and you do not have the means to send your fictitious inhabitants into the sky. The city is perfectly laid out in concentric circles of hemospectrum position, radiating outward from the palace, a tiny purple fortress to house the royalty within. Over time, you invent individual inhabitants of your city and move them about their lives as threshecutioners or archaelotantes or a dozen other jobs. When one of them displeases you, it is culled. That is how it goes. That is how it has always gone.

You are proud when Alternia and its two moons finally appear on the viewscreens. Proud that you mastered the controls of your flagship and steered it home, and proud that you survived the journey. You are empress, and you are supreme, even when all others are dead. In the days of approach, you review all sections of the manuals on landing – you doubt that any automatic mechanisms to help with descent continue to function on the planet below – and then begin the landing procedure with full confidence. Technically you could get something wrong, but you have come this far, and it would be ridiculous if you made a mistake now. You have come to Alternia, and you will survey it and discover what your new duty must be.

You bring the flagship down onto a forest, the fire of its jets burning away the trees beneath you as you descend steadily to the ground. Your clothes are neat and you are in full regalia for this moment of return. You hold your spear at the ready and step from the ship to begin your exploration.

There are wild animals everywhere, their numbers increased dramatically without trolls to keep them in line. You handle yourself well in combat – an empress must be prepared to defend herself against threats both political and physical – whenever one of them sees fit to attack you, but for the most part you leave one another alone. You are not shocked until you see lusus running free among the other animals, their custodial roles apparently forgotten with no one left to care for.

Your first destination is the ocean, to try to determine what slew the Emissary to the Horrorterrors, but there are no visible clues on the sea’s surface, and you lack the specialized physiology to go underwater and witness directly the resting place of the aquatic behemoth. You try to find a submersible, but too much has stopped working without anyone to maintain it, and you are unwilling to start learning the skills involved in submersible operation and repair so soon. You intend to return later, but first you have other locations to visit.

As you leave the seaside, you remember that Gl'bgolyb had been a lusus, and had a charge, a young troll named Feferi Peixes. Feferi was the heir apparent, and had the highest blood of all. You would have had her killed long ago were it not for Gl'bgolyb’s protection. You wonder if it is possible that Feferi too might have survived the Vast Glub, and be somewhere on Alternia, equally alone. If so, she would probably be underwater somewhere, though, and even if not the chances of finding one troll on an entire planet are not especially promising. If Feferi is alive, and you find her, it will be because she wants to be found. And then what? A fight to the death between the last two trolls in the galaxy over an empty title?

You shake your head at the thought and continue walking. It is not an empty title. Your species may be dead, but you are empress, and you will discover your duty and you will carry it out. And if at last you give up hope and find nothing more to do, then you will know that you have failed your people and deserve to be culled. As your last act of service, you will do the culling yourself. You have known this since you confirmed in the control block of the flagship that you were the sole remaining survivor. But you have two more stops to make before you return to the ocean and do the final test.

It has been a long time since you last set foot on Alternia, but the shifting pink sands and garish moons are nonetheless familiar. You travel at night and invade the hives of long-dead trolls to take what solace you can from their recuperacoons during the day, since the solar cycle places new restrictions on your times of mobility that did not exist aboard the ship. Everywhere you see the same decaying corpses, surrounded in dried blood, except for the cases where the wildlife have broken in and devoured the bodies before time could work its magic on them.

You begin to cull lusus when you see them. Their niche is as caretakers, and if there are no young trolls to care for, they have no part to play in the ecology. It is a futile gesture – there will always be more lusus – but it is good to be doing something real, after seasons of nothing but moving little pretend trolls around on the floor of a derelict battle station.

You wonder what young Feferi might have been unable to protect her lusus from. Or perhaps she simply neglected to feed it, and it had died of starvation. Feferi had been assigned a moirail – you think his name was Eridan Ampora, although it is hard to remember – to help her and to make sure she continued in her duties, but perhaps something had gone wrong. Heirs were assigned moirails to prepare them for the more formal responsibility of a consort in the event that they achieved the throne. Maybe she grew tired of him, or maybe their relationship grew too flushed and she abandoned Gl'bgolyb in a fit of youthful indiscretion. There were clear risks in leaving the feeding of the most dangerous creature on Alternia to children, but no adult who had grown up unculled would have wanted to remain on the planet instead of joining the vast Starfleet, and it kept Feferi busy enough that she could not reasonably try to assassinate you without fear of everyone dying. The system had worked… but clearly it had stopped working, one way or another. Perhaps you will find out how when you return to the ocean and find a way to enter the dark waters safely.

In a small grove of trees you find an entrance to the subterranean complex where the lusus wait for new charges. After a few hours of searching you discover the chamber housing the great mother grub. You are not surprised – only disappointed – to discover that she is dead. Without any trolls to feed her, she must have died sweeps ago. Only your faint hope remains.

You had heard, although you had never thought much of it, that a wriggler with a special jade green blood had been born, and that a virgin mother grub had abandoned its role as progenitor of the species to act as her lusus. You have a vague sense that their hive had been somewhere in a certain desert, not too far from the border. Unlike the skeletal remains before you, this virgin mother grub had lived above ground, and perhaps she has managed to hunt and sustain herself. Perhaps she is still alive even now and can be brought to serve as a new mother. The trolls aboard your flagship whom you sorted by caste are well-preserved enough that you should be able to extract the requisite genetic material from them to begin the species anew if only the grub survives.

Ultimately, though, your hopes are foiled once again. It takes a long time of wandering and battling wildlife before you find the oasis where the desert hive stood. Something has happened, though, and the building itself has completely vanished. There is a large splotch of dried green blood nearby that roughly matches a mother grub in size and shape, but there is no sign of the grub herself, not even a skeleton. Suddenly you realize that her body must have contained a matriorb. Did something kill her in order to extract it? But what? Or who? And how can you possibly guess where they might have taken it before they were killed by the Glub?

As you ponder these questions, your eyes are drawn to the desert to the east. There is a strange sort of temple standing there, surrounded by six pillars in a circle formation. Spear in one hand, just in case, you approach the temple and notice a pit in the ground before it, with a set of sand-covered stairs leading down into the darkness. In search of clues, you descend the stairs.

At the base of the pit you find an enormous computer system, with twelve monitors and a single keyboard beneath them. The monitors are embedded in a large metallic plate of a shape you do not think you recognize. A glowing button – how, when all other systems you’ve seen have stopped working? – invites you and you press it.

One of the screens comes to life. It is focused on a young troll, you would guess six or seven solar sweeps old, with a bright purple highlight in his hair and striped pants and scarf. Abruptly, you recognize him from pictures as Eridan Ampora, the heir’s moirail. As you watch the screen, the boy Eridan blasts another young troll with a white light and the other troll is thrown backwards against a wall. You do not understand. Is this a record of something that happened before the Glub? But why does it focus on Eridan? And why does it begin the clip at such an abrupt moment?

As the light of the attack fades, you see the rest of the room, and everything becomes clear in an instant. In the background, lying next to a pretty young troll who looks horrified at the action before her, is the missing matriorb from the vanished virgin mother grub. The sign on the troll’s shirt is jade green. And there, turning from Eridan to the fallen body of the other troll, is Feferi Peixes. Somehow she must have found a way for not only herself but also these other three trolls – and who knows how many more not visible on the screen – to survive the Vast Glub. They have brought the matriorb with them and are going to start your species anew, with Feferi as empress instead of you. But she is not fit to be ruler. In triggering the Glub, not only did she fail to kill you, her target, but she also killed her entire species save for this select set of followers. That is not culling. Culling is done in response to imperfection and failure, not to the entire species.

As you watch the screen, you see Eridan point his weapon – a wand of some sort – at Feferi, but he seems unable to follow through with it. You will him fervently to kill her, to punish her for this act of wanton violence, for killing the entire species for the sake of a failed bid at your title, but he hesitates. Again you notice the keyboard beneath the screens. You are still not sure if this is a recording or something that is taking place as you watch, but you see no harm in trying.

“Boy,” you type, and you see him look confused. Somehow the message is going through to him. “Eridan.” He seems to look towards you through the screen.

“You kill that girl,” you type. Feferi has turned from the defeated troll’s body and is readying herself to attack Eridan, and while you have no idea what his motivations are, neither do you care. He is your hope of punishing Feferi for her crime against the species.

“You kill that girl this instant.”

And he does.

You are still empress. And your duty has been fulfilled.

[QRQD]

Sole Survivor

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Your name is KIMINOA MAHLIKA and you are EMPRESS of the Troll species. You have developed such an AIR OF AUTHORITY about you that your INFERIORS, and all trolls were your inferiors, never dared speak your name aloud, preferring to call you HER IMPERIOUS CONDESCENSION or the ALLMOTHER. This latter term always struck you as especially flattering because MOTHERS, like their vestigially opposed counterparts FATHERS, are mostly a part of troll MYTHOLOGY AND ANTIQUATED VOCABULARY, and it was useful for you to command a mythological level of respect.

You have no INTERESTS, since any sign of personal affect could have proved a POTENTIAL WEAKNESS for your NUMEROUS CRITICUTIONARIES to take advantage of. You had some many solar sweeps ago, of course, when you lived as a youth on your homeworld of ALTERNIA, but ERASED them from record when you first entered into the THROES OF REBELLION against the previous empress. You even had your lusus BROKEN DOWN INTO BIOMATTER lest anyone find a way to use her as a weapon against you.

Since ascending to your role as empress, you lived on your PERSONAL FLAGSHIP with your IMPERIAL CONSORTS and a staff of retainers and militia. KUMBHA VAZIRI was a fellow indigo-blood and your most recent consort, but was rather younger than you, since your consorts had an EMBARASSING HISTORY of BETRAYAL and needed to be REPLACED every few solar sweeps. The consort was traditionally a sort of INFORMAL MOIRAIL for the empress, but you had never been weak enough actually to need one for that romantic function.

All these uses of the past tense, of course, are because EVERY TROLL BUT YOU SEEMS TO HAVE JUST DIED.

You felt it coming, of course. There were psychic ripples through the universe seconds before it struck, and when it did strike, it felt like your insides and outsides were trying to swap places. You tasted blood and your vision went black for a little while, but you are empress, and it was beneath you to be vanquished by so base and natural a phenomenon. You clung to the ladder exit of your imperial respiteblock and waited until the pain and vertigo subsided. Your right knee hurt a little from where you banged it against a rung of the ladder when the first ripple hit you, but besides that, you are fine.

You are pretty sure you know what happened. The Vast Glub finally struck, and while you are not technically of the same high caste as the Rift’s Carbuncle, Gl'bgolyb, your role as empress protected you. Still, you didn’t reach this job by not testing out your assumptions, and it’s possible that one of your many enemies just developed some sort of neural attack wave that targeted only you. You’re going to need more data, so you ascend the ladder from your respiteblock, favoring your right knee, and begin to explore your flagship.

It doesn’t look good. If there was some technological attack, it was fairly wide-reaching. Dead trolls litter the halls, their blood seeping out from orifices new and old and pooling in rainbow puddles, caste and caste mixing together frivolously. It is disgusting. You identify the bodies, mentally sorting them into their respective onboard factions to make sure that one group or another didn’t launch an attack on everyone else, but there is no caste or belief system or alliance of necessity not represented among the dead. It looks like the whole ship really is gone. You look into the weapon and control blocks but the situation is no different. You notice some control pads sputtering from the blood splashed onto them and you considerately turn them off until you can figure out what to do next.

It occurs to you to check on your imperial consort. You doubt Kumbha could have done this – he had always struck you as one of your most loyal consorts ever, despite the age gap, and he never showed any flair for programming either – but if anyone else on the ship survived, it was probably him. Your thought is confirmed as you pass into his chamber – no lock on the ship cannot be opened by you – and find Kumbha in a heap beside his desk, bleeding heavily but still miraculously alive. The attack was definitely attuned to hemospectrum, and you suspect the Vast Glub more than ever.

“EMpress?? KIminoa??” His voice is feeble as you approach him, but maintains its dragging quality.

“Don't move: Kumbha. Everyone else is dead and you're bleeding badly. What did you feel.” You speak exclusively in titles and declarations, as befits a troll of your rank.

“THis horrible wave came through my mind and body all at once.. OH god,, KIminoa,, I Hurt everywhere..”

“Yes: I know: Kumbha. I think it was the Vast Glub. Do you think you have any chance.”

“NO,, it''s too much.. SOon I''ll be dead too.. KIminoa -- EMpress -- what are you going to do??”

“I'll go back to Alternia: and see if it's been invaded. If it has: as the last representative of the troll species: I'll fight them until one or the other of us dies.” The words come easily to you, for your dedication to your subjects is total and complete.

He nods and fights to breathe. “KIminoa...... before you go,, please kill me.. I Don''t want to die so slowly..”

“I will. Goodbye: my consort.” From your strife specibus you summon your imperial spear, the Pokerface Poker. Its mirrored surface reflects impassively the dying troll before you. You hold it aloft for the killing blow.

“KIminoa,,” he says, staring at you rather than at the spear that is about to end his fading life. “KIminoa,, I''Ve always loved you..”

“That is immaterial,” you say, and drive it home. His vascular system bursts apart and his muscles go limp. You rise to your feet and walk away before you can be bothered by the look of pain in his eyes. One more troll dead. That is how it goes. That is how it has always gone. You do not have the medical knowledge to have treated him, and he was hurt and deserved to be culled. That is how it goes. You are empress. All is beneath you.

You return to the ship’s control block and turn on the fleet communications system. There is no word from any of the other ships, though many of them were stationed around your flagship when the Glub – there is really no reason to believe it was anything else – hit you. You were in place to invade a newly discovered planet some glaresweeps away from Alternia, but now the planet’s inhabitants will live to breathe another day. Perhaps someday they too shall discover space flight and will fly to Alternia and find… what? That must be your destination. Even if there is no one left alive and no attacking force to battle, you are empress and it is your duty to be on homeworld for the end times.

You do not know where Alternia is or how to get there, for you have always had a dedicated crew for such things, but you can learn. None of the ship’s functions seem to have been damaged, so you still have access to food and spoor, and you have all the time in the world to read through the manuals and learn the workings of the ship. You drag the dead bodies from the control block and take them to the incinerator, so that they will no longer be in the way. Brainless cleaner droids are dispatched to remove the colorful blood from the controls, and it is reassuring that something besides you still moves, however robotic and lifeless.

You begin the long task of learning how to bring your flagship back to Alternia. The ship’s memory banks have access to innumerable works of instruction besides the physical manuals onboard, and you refer frequently to these for clarification and definition of unfamiliar terms. There is also useful information to be had on the Alternet, but as the hundreds of hours of learning go by, more and more servers disappear from the ‘net until there are no pages left to visit and your browser is as helpless as its mythological namesake, Sisyphus. Most probably, the bees of the apiculture networks on Alternia have no one left to feed them and are slowly dying, taking their Alternet servers with them. The information in the manuals and memory banks is somewhat less up to date, but you still manage.

When you sleep, it is worse than usual. The slime of your ornate recuperacoon keeps away many of the bad dreams, but a few always get through. Every troll you have ever felt any sort of connection to in your long life features at one point or another in your dreams, falling bloodily to the ground as the Vast Glub tears through them. Somehow they know you are there, and their words to you are always the same before the breath leaves them before.

“Wy did yu fale to protect mi?”

“Why’dja failta protect me?”

“WhY DiD YoU FaiL to ProtecT me?”

“Y9u failed. To pr97ec7 me. Why?”

“Where4 did U fail 2 protect me7”

When, weeks after the Glub, it is finally Kumbha’s turn to die before you, you wake yourself up, hurling the Pokerface Poker into the dark. The motion triggers the lights to turn on, and you pull yourself from your recuperacoon, cursing loudly, and pull on a robe. There is no one left alive to see you, but you are empress, and protocol forbids you from leaving your respiteblock in the nude. You try to stay awake for as long as possible, but a troll must sleep sometime, and so you do, always fitfully. One day, wandering the ship after trying to absorb a particularly obtuse passage in one of the manuals, you discover that Kumbha’s recuperacoon was larger than yours, and you take to sleeping in it instead, since the additional slime keeps more of the dreams away. You will never know what so tormented him that he needed so much extra protection from the terrors.

After what you would guess is about the length of a season on Alternia – it is hard to keep time with no moons in the sky – you feel that you are ready to begin the trip home. In theory, you are now master of the workings of your flagship, and it is time to return to the heart of your former kingdom. Besides, a possibility has occurred to you in the interim for saving your species. It is a faint one, for you never kept tabs on it during your more active days as empress, and you dare not hope it will work, but there are days when it keeps you going as you emerge from the recuperacoon.

You flip the master switch and the control room lights up. You have not tried to use any of the controls before now, but you have done the reading and they are all familiar before you. A spacemap found on the Alternet and downloaded before its server died tells you where your destination is. Slowly, carefully, knowing the flagship is meant to be staffed by multiple trolls at once, you turn it around and begin to boost it towards home. As all goes according to plan, you let out a breath you had not realized you had been holding.

You give the ship’s engines everything you can, since you see no reason to conserve fuel. If for whatever reason another trip is required after you reach Alternia, you can always find more fuel matter on the planet and load it into the ship yourself. You will have all the time in the world.

It takes a long time to reach Alternia. You find a shipboard computer that displays universal time, and the equivalent of several solar sweeps go by before you finally sight your gray homeworld. In the meantime, you do your best to stay busy and find new duties for yourself as empress. You sort the dead bodies you had not previously incinerated by caste and deposit them in separate storage containers. You join the cleaner droids in removing the caked blood from the halls, and eventually everything is clean again. Clean and lifeless. You try to remember what life was like before you became empress, and it is difficult. Like all trolls of any nobility, you lived alone – only base bloods lived in the sweeping communal hive stems – but then you had your lusus to watch over you. She had been strict, allowing no disobedience or frivolity in the empress to be, and she had shown no surprise when you had her killed, but she had still been company.

You take up exercise, running about the flagship’s corridors and listening to the pound pound pound of your feet against the floor echo into silence, as no one but yourself hears it. Several times you redecorate the entire ship for simple lack of anything else to do. You take up reading and go through many of the works of fiction stored in the ship’s memory banks, written in a more peaceful period of your species’ history when such creativity was less looked down upon. You even find a few troll movies in the rooms of some of the dead, and try to watch them, but they are just too terrible. Besides, it feels strange to see other living beings, even though they are merely projected images.

As the equivalents of seasons go by, sleeping grows even harder. Even Kumbha’s large recuperacoon keeps out only a fraction of the painful visions, and you take to sleeping in spurts instead, every few hours, resting your body but not staying asleep long enough for most of the dreams to sneak up on you. It is an odd life, but physically viable. You wish you could sleep more so that you would have to spend less time figuring out what to do with yourself, but the visions are far worse than the boredom.

In the third sweep of travel, you suspect you are beginning to go a little mad. From toys and food containers and bits of clothing you construct a miniature throne room on the floor of the large weapon block, and then a whole palace, and finally a city. You expand it no farther, since there is only so much floorspace and you do not have the means to send your fictitious inhabitants into the sky. The city is perfectly laid out in concentric circles of hemospectrum position, radiating outward from the palace, a tiny purple fortress to house the royalty within. Over time, you invent individual inhabitants of your city and move them about their lives as threshecutioners or archaelotantes or a dozen other jobs. When one of them displeases you, it is culled. That is how it goes. That is how it has always gone.

You are proud when Alternia and its two moons finally appear on the viewscreens. Proud that you mastered the controls of your flagship and steered it home, and proud that you survived the journey. You are empress, and you are supreme, even when all others are dead. In the days of approach, you review all sections of the manuals on landing – you doubt that any automatic mechanisms to help with descent continue to function on the planet below – and then begin the landing procedure with full confidence. Technically you could get something wrong, but you have come this far, and it would be ridiculous if you made a mistake now. You have come to Alternia, and you will survey it and discover what your new duty must be.

You bring the flagship down onto a forest, the fire of its jets burning away the trees beneath you as you descend steadily to the ground. Your clothes are neat and you are in full regalia for this moment of return. You hold your spear at the ready and step from the ship to begin your exploration.

There are wild animals everywhere, their numbers increased dramatically without trolls to keep them in line. You handle yourself well in combat – an empress must be prepared to defend herself against threats both political and physical – whenever one of them sees fit to attack you, but for the most part you leave one another alone. You are not shocked until you see lusus running free among the other animals, their custodial roles apparently forgotten with no one left to care for.

Your first destination is the ocean, to try to determine what slew the Emissary to the Horrorterrors, but there are no visible clues on the sea’s surface, and you lack the specialized physiology to go underwater and witness directly the resting place of the aquatic behemoth. You try to find a submersible, but too much has stopped working without anyone to maintain it, and you are unwilling to start learning the skills involved in submersible operation and repair so soon. You intend to return later, but first you have other locations to visit.

As you leave the seaside, you remember that Gl'bgolyb had been a lusus, and had a charge, a young troll named Feferi Peixes. Feferi was the heir apparent, and had the highest blood of all. You would have had her killed long ago were it not for Gl'bgolyb’s protection. You wonder if it is possible that Feferi too might have survived the Vast Glub, and be somewhere on Alternia, equally alone. If so, she would probably be underwater somewhere, though, and even if not the chances of finding one troll on an entire planet are not especially promising. If Feferi is alive, and you find her, it will be because she wants to be found. And then what? A fight to the death between the last two trolls in the galaxy over an empty title?

You shake your head at the thought and continue walking. It is not an empty title. Your species may be dead, but you are empress, and you will discover your duty and you will carry it out. And if at last you give up hope and find nothing more to do, then you will know that you have failed your people and deserve to be culled. As your last act of service, you will do the culling yourself. You have known this since you confirmed in the control block of the flagship that you were the sole remaining survivor. But you have two more stops to make before you return to the ocean and do the final test.

It has been a long time since you last set foot on Alternia, but the shifting pink sands and garish moons are nonetheless familiar. You travel at night and invade the hives of long-dead trolls to take what solace you can from their recuperacoons during the day, since the solar cycle places new restrictions on your times of mobility that did not exist aboard the ship. Everywhere you see the same decaying corpses, surrounded in dried blood, except for the cases where the wildlife have broken in and devoured the bodies before time could work its magic on them.

You begin to cull lusus when you see them. Their niche is as caretakers, and if there are no young trolls to care for, they have no part to play in the ecology. It is a futile gesture – there will always be more lusus – but it is good to be doing something real, after seasons of nothing but moving little pretend trolls around on the floor of a derelict battle station.

You wonder what young Feferi might have been unable to protect her lusus from. Or perhaps she simply neglected to feed it, and it had died of starvation. Feferi had been assigned a moirail – you think his name was Eridan Ampora, although it is hard to remember – to help her and to make sure she continued in her duties, but perhaps something had gone wrong. Heirs were assigned moirails to prepare them for the more formal responsibility of a consort in the event that they achieved the throne. Maybe she grew tired of him, or maybe their relationship grew too flushed and she abandoned Gl'bgolyb in a fit of youthful indiscretion. There were clear risks in leaving the feeding of the most dangerous creature on Alternia to children, but no adult who had grown up unculled would have wanted to remain on the planet instead of joining the vast Starfleet, and it kept Feferi busy enough that she could not reasonably try to assassinate you without fear of everyone dying. The system had worked… but clearly it had stopped working, one way or another. Perhaps you will find out how when you return to the ocean and find a way to enter the dark waters safely.

In a small grove of trees you find an entrance to the subterranean complex where the lusus wait for new charges. After a few hours of searching you discover the chamber housing the great mother grub. You are not surprised – only disappointed – to discover that she is dead. Without any trolls to feed her, she must have died sweeps ago. Only your faint hope remains.

You had heard, although you had never thought much of it, that a wriggler with a special jade green blood had been born, and that a virgin mother grub had abandoned its role as progenitor of the species to act as her lusus. You have a vague sense that their hive had been somewhere in a certain desert, not too far from the border. Unlike the skeletal remains before you, this virgin mother grub had lived above ground, and perhaps she has managed to hunt and sustain herself. Perhaps she is still alive even now and can be brought to serve as a new mother. The trolls aboard your flagship whom you sorted by caste are well-preserved enough that you should be able to extract the requisite genetic material from them to begin the species anew if only the grub survives.

Ultimately, though, your hopes are foiled once again. It takes a long time of wandering and battling wildlife before you find the oasis where the desert hive stood. Something has happened, though, and the building itself has completely vanished. There is a large splotch of dried green blood nearby that roughly matches a mother grub in size and shape, but there is no sign of the grub herself, not even a skeleton. Suddenly you realize that her body must have contained a matriorb. Did something kill her in order to extract it? But what? Or who? And how can you possibly guess where they might have taken it before they were killed by the Glub?

As you ponder these questions, your eyes are drawn to the desert to the east. There is a strange sort of temple standing there, surrounded by six pillars in a circle formation. Spear in one hand, just in case, you approach the temple and notice a pit in the ground before it, with a set of sand-covered stairs leading down into the darkness. In search of clues, you descend the stairs.

At the base of the pit you find an enormous computer system, with twelve monitors and a single keyboard beneath them. The monitors are embedded in a large metallic plate of a shape you do not think you recognize. A glowing button – how, when all other systems you’ve seen have stopped working? – invites you and you press it.

One of the screens comes to life. It is focused on a young troll, you would guess six or seven solar sweeps old, with a bright purple highlight in his hair and striped pants and scarf. Abruptly, you recognize him from pictures as Eridan Ampora, the heir’s moirail. As you watch the screen, the boy Eridan blasts another young troll with a white light and the other troll is thrown backwards against a wall. You do not understand. Is this a record of something that happened before the Glub? But why does it focus on Eridan? And why does it begin the clip at such an abrupt moment?

As the light of the attack fades, you see the rest of the room, and everything becomes clear in an instant. In the background, lying next to a pretty young troll who looks horrified at the action before her, is the missing matriorb from the vanished virgin mother grub. The sign on the troll’s shirt is jade green. And there, turning from Eridan to the fallen body of the other troll, is Feferi Peixes. Somehow she must have found a way for not only herself but also these other three trolls – and who knows how many more not visible on the screen – to survive the Vast Glub. They have brought the matriorb with them and are going to start your species anew, with Feferi as empress instead of you. But she is not fit to be ruler. In triggering the Glub, not only did she fail to kill you, her target, but she also killed her entire species save for this select set of followers. That is not culling. Culling is done in response to imperfection and failure, not to the entire species.

As you watch the screen, you see Eridan point his weapon – a wand of some sort – at Feferi, but he seems unable to follow through with it. You will him fervently to kill her, to punish her for this act of wanton violence, for killing the entire species for the sake of a failed bid at your title, but he hesitates. Again you notice the keyboard beneath the screens. You are still not sure if this is a recording or something that is taking place as you watch, but you see no harm in trying.

“Boy,” you type, and you see him look confused. Somehow the message is going through to him. “Eridan.” He seems to look towards you through the screen.

“You kill that girl,” you type. Feferi has turned from the defeated troll’s body and is readying herself to attack Eridan, and while you have no idea what his motivations are, neither do you care. He is your hope of punishing Feferi for her crime against the species.

“You kill that girl this instant.”

And he does.

You are still empress. And your duty has been fulfilled.

This was amazing. Absolutely amazing. I haven't read your other series due to a lack of familiarity with BTVS canon, but I would love to see you write more here.

[Violet CLM]

Thank you!! KtRDS (...yeah, never using that acronym again) is completely standalone, and basically just takes Buffy as inspiration: all that's presupposed is on the Homestuck side of things. When I started writing it I'd only seen one Buffy episode ever, so yeah, not very essential.

[QRQD]

Might give it another look in that case. If it's as good as Sole Survivor it'll definitely be worth my time.

[Graven_Image]

Sole Survivor

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Your name is KIMINOA MAHLIKA and you are EMPRESS of the Troll species. You have developed such an AIR OF AUTHORITY about you that your INFERIORS, and all trolls were your inferiors, never dared speak your name aloud, preferring to call you HER IMPERIOUS CONDESCENSION or the ALLMOTHER. This latter term always struck you as especially flattering because MOTHERS, like their vestigially opposed counterparts FATHERS, are mostly a part of troll MYTHOLOGY AND ANTIQUATED VOCABULARY, and it was useful for you to command a mythological level of respect.

You have no INTERESTS, since any sign of personal affect could have proved a POTENTIAL WEAKNESS for your NUMEROUS CRITICUTIONARIES to take advantage of. You had some many solar sweeps ago, of course, when you lived as a youth on your homeworld of ALTERNIA, but ERASED them from record when you first entered into the THROES OF REBELLION against the previous empress. You even had your lusus BROKEN DOWN INTO BIOMATTER lest anyone find a way to use her as a weapon against you.

Since ascending to your role as empress, you lived on your PERSONAL FLAGSHIP with your IMPERIAL CONSORTS and a staff of retainers and militia. KUMBHA VAZIRI was a fellow indigo-blood and your most recent consort, but was rather younger than you, since your consorts had an EMBARASSING HISTORY of BETRAYAL and needed to be REPLACED every few solar sweeps. The consort was traditionally a sort of INFORMAL MOIRAIL for the empress, but you had never been weak enough actually to need one for that romantic function.

All these uses of the past tense, of course, are because EVERY TROLL BUT YOU SEEMS TO HAVE JUST DIED.

You felt it coming, of course. There were psychic ripples through the universe seconds before it struck, and when it did strike, it felt like your insides and outsides were trying to swap places. You tasted blood and your vision went black for a little while, but you are empress, and it was beneath you to be vanquished by so base and natural a phenomenon. You clung to the ladder exit of your imperial respiteblock and waited until the pain and vertigo subsided. Your right knee hurt a little from where you banged it against a rung of the ladder when the first ripple hit you, but besides that, you are fine.

You are pretty sure you know what happened. The Vast Glub finally struck, and while you are not technically of the same high caste as the Rift’s Carbuncle, Gl'bgolyb, your role as empress protected you. Still, you didn’t reach this job by not testing out your assumptions, and it’s possible that one of your many enemies just developed some sort of neural attack wave that targeted only you. You’re going to need more data, so you ascend the ladder from your respiteblock, favoring your right knee, and begin to explore your flagship.

It doesn’t look good. If there was some technological attack, it was fairly wide-reaching. Dead trolls litter the halls, their blood seeping out from orifices new and old and pooling in rainbow puddles, caste and caste mixing together frivolously. It is disgusting. You identify the bodies, mentally sorting them into their respective onboard factions to make sure that one group or another didn’t launch an attack on everyone else, but there is no caste or belief system or alliance of necessity not represented among the dead. It looks like the whole ship really is gone. You look into the weapon and control blocks but the situation is no different. You notice some control pads sputtering from the blood splashed onto them and you considerately turn them off until you can figure out what to do next.

It occurs to you to check on your imperial consort. You doubt Kumbha could have done this – he had always struck you as one of your most loyal consorts ever, despite the age gap, and he never showed any flair for programming either – but if anyone else on the ship survived, it was probably him. Your thought is confirmed as you pass into his chamber – no lock on the ship cannot be opened by you – and find Kumbha in a heap beside his desk, bleeding heavily but still miraculously alive. The attack was definitely attuned to hemospectrum, and you suspect the Vast Glub more than ever.

“EMpress?? KIminoa??” His voice is feeble as you approach him, but maintains its dragging quality.

“Don't move: Kumbha. Everyone else is dead and you're bleeding badly. What did you feel.” You speak exclusively in titles and declarations, as befits a troll of your rank.

“THis horrible wave came through my mind and body all at once.. OH god,, KIminoa,, I Hurt everywhere..”

“Yes: I know: Kumbha. I think it was the Vast Glub. Do you think you have any chance.”

“NO,, it''s too much.. SOon I''ll be dead too.. KIminoa -- EMpress -- what are you going to do??”

“I'll go back to Alternia: and see if it's been invaded. If it has: as the last representative of the troll species: I'll fight them until one or the other of us dies.” The words come easily to you, for your dedication to your subjects is total and complete.

He nods and fights to breathe. “KIminoa...... before you go,, please kill me.. I Don''t want to die so slowly..”

“I will. Goodbye: my consort.” From your strife specibus you summon your imperial spear, the Pokerface Poker. Its mirrored surface reflects impassively the dying troll before you. You hold it aloft for the killing blow.

“KIminoa,,” he says, staring at you rather than at the spear that is about to end his fading life. “KIminoa,, I''Ve always loved you..”

“That is immaterial,” you say, and drive it home. His vascular system bursts apart and his muscles go limp. You rise to your feet and walk away before you can be bothered by the look of pain in his eyes. One more troll dead. That is how it goes. That is how it has always gone. You do not have the medical knowledge to have treated him, and he was hurt and deserved to be culled. That is how it goes. You are empress. All is beneath you.

You return to the ship’s control block and turn on the fleet communications system. There is no word from any of the other ships, though many of them were stationed around your flagship when the Glub – there is really no reason to believe it was anything else – hit you. You were in place to invade a newly discovered planet some glaresweeps away from Alternia, but now the planet’s inhabitants will live to breathe another day. Perhaps someday they too shall discover space flight and will fly to Alternia and find… what? That must be your destination. Even if there is no one left alive and no attacking force to battle, you are empress and it is your duty to be on homeworld for the end times.

You do not know where Alternia is or how to get there, for you have always had a dedicated crew for such things, but you can learn. None of the ship’s functions seem to have been damaged, so you still have access to food and spoor, and you have all the time in the world to read through the manuals and learn the workings of the ship. You drag the dead bodies from the control block and take them to the incinerator, so that they will no longer be in the way. Brainless cleaner droids are dispatched to remove the colorful blood from the controls, and it is reassuring that something besides you still moves, however robotic and lifeless.

You begin the long task of learning how to bring your flagship back to Alternia. The ship’s memory banks have access to innumerable works of instruction besides the physical manuals onboard, and you refer frequently to these for clarification and definition of unfamiliar terms. There is also useful information to be had on the Alternet, but as the hundreds of hours of learning go by, more and more servers disappear from the ‘net until there are no pages left to visit and your browser is as helpless as its mythological namesake, Sisyphus. Most probably, the bees of the apiculture networks on Alternia have no one left to feed them and are slowly dying, taking their Alternet servers with them. The information in the manuals and memory banks is somewhat less up to date, but you still manage.

When you sleep, it is worse than usual. The slime of your ornate recuperacoon keeps away many of the bad dreams, but a few always get through. Every troll you have ever felt any sort of connection to in your long life features at one point or another in your dreams, falling bloodily to the ground as the Vast Glub tears through them. Somehow they know you are there, and their words to you are always the same before the breath leaves them before.

“Wy did yu fale to protect mi?”

“Why’dja failta protect me?”

“WhY DiD YoU FaiL to ProtecT me?”

“Y9u failed. To pr97ec7 me. Why?”

“Where4 did U fail 2 protect me7”

When, weeks after the Glub, it is finally Kumbha’s turn to die before you, you wake yourself up, hurling the Pokerface Poker into the dark. The motion triggers the lights to turn on, and you pull yourself from your recuperacoon, cursing loudly, and pull on a robe. There is no one left alive to see you, but you are empress, and protocol forbids you from leaving your respiteblock in the nude. You try to stay awake for as long as possible, but a troll must sleep sometime, and so you do, always fitfully. One day, wandering the ship after trying to absorb a particularly obtuse passage in one of the manuals, you discover that Kumbha’s recuperacoon was larger than yours, and you take to sleeping in it instead, since the additional slime keeps more of the dreams away. You will never know what so tormented him that he needed so much extra protection from the terrors.

After what you would guess is about the length of a season on Alternia – it is hard to keep time with no moons in the sky – you feel that you are ready to begin the trip home. In theory, you are now master of the workings of your flagship, and it is time to return to the heart of your former kingdom. Besides, a possibility has occurred to you in the interim for saving your species. It is a faint one, for you never kept tabs on it during your more active days as empress, and you dare not hope it will work, but there are days when it keeps you going as you emerge from the recuperacoon.

You flip the master switch and the control room lights up. You have not tried to use any of the controls before now, but you have done the reading and they are all familiar before you. A spacemap found on the Alternet and downloaded before its server died tells you where your destination is. Slowly, carefully, knowing the flagship is meant to be staffed by multiple trolls at once, you turn it around and begin to boost it towards home. As all goes according to plan, you let out a breath you had not realized you had been holding.

You give the ship’s engines everything you can, since you see no reason to conserve fuel. If for whatever reason another trip is required after you reach Alternia, you can always find more fuel matter on the planet and load it into the ship yourself. You will have all the time in the world.

It takes a long time to reach Alternia. You find a shipboard computer that displays universal time, and the equivalent of several solar sweeps go by before you finally sight your gray homeworld. In the meantime, you do your best to stay busy and find new duties for yourself as empress. You sort the dead bodies you had not previously incinerated by caste and deposit them in separate storage containers. You join the cleaner droids in removing the caked blood from the halls, and eventually everything is clean again. Clean and lifeless. You try to remember what life was like before you became empress, and it is difficult. Like all trolls of any nobility, you lived alone – only base bloods lived in the sweeping communal hive stems – but then you had your lusus to watch over you. She had been strict, allowing no disobedience or frivolity in the empress to be, and she had shown no surprise when you had her killed, but she had still been company.

You take up exercise, running about the flagship’s corridors and listening to the pound pound pound of your feet against the floor echo into silence, as no one but yourself hears it. Several times you redecorate the entire ship for simple lack of anything else to do. You take up reading and go through many of the works of fiction stored in the ship’s memory banks, written in a more peaceful period of your species’ history when such creativity was less looked down upon. You even find a few troll movies in the rooms of some of the dead, and try to watch them, but they are just too terrible. Besides, it feels strange to see other living beings, even though they are merely projected images.

As the equivalents of seasons go by, sleeping grows even harder. Even Kumbha’s large recuperacoon keeps out only a fraction of the painful visions, and you take to sleeping in spurts instead, every few hours, resting your body but not staying asleep long enough for most of the dreams to sneak up on you. It is an odd life, but physically viable. You wish you could sleep more so that you would have to spend less time figuring out what to do with yourself, but the visions are far worse than the boredom.

In the third sweep of travel, you suspect you are beginning to go a little mad. From toys and food containers and bits of clothing you construct a miniature throne room on the floor of the large weapon block, and then a whole palace, and finally a city. You expand it no farther, since there is only so much floorspace and you do not have the means to send your fictitious inhabitants into the sky. The city is perfectly laid out in concentric circles of hemospectrum position, radiating outward from the palace, a tiny purple fortress to house the royalty within. Over time, you invent individual inhabitants of your city and move them about their lives as threshecutioners or archaelotantes or a dozen other jobs. When one of them displeases you, it is culled. That is how it goes. That is how it has always gone.

You are proud when Alternia and its two moons finally appear on the viewscreens. Proud that you mastered the controls of your flagship and steered it home, and proud that you survived the journey. You are empress, and you are supreme, even when all others are dead. In the days of approach, you review all sections of the manuals on landing – you doubt that any automatic mechanisms to help with descent continue to function on the planet below – and then begin the landing procedure with full confidence. Technically you could get something wrong, but you have come this far, and it would be ridiculous if you made a mistake now. You have come to Alternia, and you will survey it and discover what your new duty must be.

You bring the flagship down onto a forest, the fire of its jets burning away the trees beneath you as you descend steadily to the ground. Your clothes are neat and you are in full regalia for this moment of return. You hold your spear at the ready and step from the ship to begin your exploration.

There are wild animals everywhere, their numbers increased dramatically without trolls to keep them in line. You handle yourself well in combat – an empress must be prepared to defend herself against threats both political and physical – whenever one of them sees fit to attack you, but for the most part you leave one another alone. You are not shocked until you see lusus running free among the other animals, their custodial roles apparently forgotten with no one left to care for.

Your first destination is the ocean, to try to determine what slew the Emissary to the Horrorterrors, but there are no visible clues on the sea’s surface, and you lack the specialized physiology to go underwater and witness directly the resting place of the aquatic behemoth. You try to find a submersible, but too much has stopped working without anyone to maintain it, and you are unwilling to start learning the skills involved in submersible operation and repair so soon. You intend to return later, but first you have other locations to visit.

As you leave the seaside, you remember that Gl'bgolyb had been a lusus, and had a charge, a young troll named Feferi Peixes. Feferi was the heir apparent, and had the highest blood of all. You would have had her killed long ago were it not for Gl'bgolyb’s protection. You wonder if it is possible that Feferi too might have survived the Vast Glub, and be somewhere on Alternia, equally alone. If so, she would probably be underwater somewhere, though, and even if not the chances of finding one troll on an entire planet are not especially promising. If Feferi is alive, and you find her, it will be because she wants to be found. And then what? A fight to the death between the last two trolls in the galaxy over an empty title?

You shake your head at the thought and continue walking. It is not an empty title. Your species may be dead, but you are empress, and you will discover your duty and you will carry it out. And if at last you give up hope and find nothing more to do, then you will know that you have failed your people and deserve to be culled. As your last act of service, you will do the culling yourself. You have known this since you confirmed in the control block of the flagship that you were the sole remaining survivor. But you have two more stops to make before you return to the ocean and do the final test.

It has been a long time since you last set foot on Alternia, but the shifting pink sands and garish moons are nonetheless familiar. You travel at night and invade the hives of long-dead trolls to take what solace you can from their recuperacoons during the day, since the solar cycle places new restrictions on your times of mobility that did not exist aboard the ship. Everywhere you see the same decaying corpses, surrounded in dried blood, except for the cases where the wildlife have broken in and devoured the bodies before time could work its magic on them.

You begin to cull lusus when you see them. Their niche is as caretakers, and if there are no young trolls to care for, they have no part to play in the ecology. It is a futile gesture – there will always be more lusus – but it is good to be doing something real, after seasons of nothing but moving little pretend trolls around on the floor of a derelict battle station.

You wonder what young Feferi might have been unable to protect her lusus from. Or perhaps she simply neglected to feed it, and it had died of starvation. Feferi had been assigned a moirail – you think his name was Eridan Ampora, although it is hard to remember – to help her and to make sure she continued in her duties, but perhaps something had gone wrong. Heirs were assigned moirails to prepare them for the more formal responsibility of a consort in the event that they achieved the throne. Maybe she grew tired of him, or maybe their relationship grew too flushed and she abandoned Gl'bgolyb in a fit of youthful indiscretion. There were clear risks in leaving the feeding of the most dangerous creature on Alternia to children, but no adult who had grown up unculled would have wanted to remain on the planet instead of joining the vast Starfleet, and it kept Feferi busy enough that she could not reasonably try to assassinate you without fear of everyone dying. The system had worked… but clearly it had stopped working, one way or another. Perhaps you will find out how when you return to the ocean and find a way to enter the dark waters safely.

In a small grove of trees you find an entrance to the subterranean complex where the lusus wait for new charges. After a few hours of searching you discover the chamber housing the great mother grub. You are not surprised – only disappointed – to discover that she is dead. Without any trolls to feed her, she must have died sweeps ago. Only your faint hope remains.

You had heard, although you had never thought much of it, that a wriggler with a special jade green blood had been born, and that a virgin mother grub had abandoned its role as progenitor of the species to act as her lusus. You have a vague sense that their hive had been somewhere in a certain desert, not too far from the border. Unlike the skeletal remains before you, this virgin mother grub had lived above ground, and perhaps she has managed to hunt and sustain herself. Perhaps she is still alive even now and can be brought to serve as a new mother. The trolls aboard your flagship whom you sorted by caste are well-preserved enough that you should be able to extract the requisite genetic material from them to begin the species anew if only the grub survives.

Ultimately, though, your hopes are foiled once again. It takes a long time of wandering and battling wildlife before you find the oasis where the desert hive stood. Something has happened, though, and the building itself has completely vanished. There is a large splotch of dried green blood nearby that roughly matches a mother grub in size and shape, but there is no sign of the grub herself, not even a skeleton. Suddenly you realize that her body must have contained a matriorb. Did something kill her in order to extract it? But what? Or who? And how can you possibly guess where they might have taken it before they were killed by the Glub?

As you ponder these questions, your eyes are drawn to the desert to the east. There is a strange sort of temple standing there, surrounded by six pillars in a circle formation. Spear in one hand, just in case, you approach the temple and notice a pit in the ground before it, with a set of sand-covered stairs leading down into the darkness. In search of clues, you descend the stairs.

At the base of the pit you find an enormous computer system, with twelve monitors and a single keyboard beneath them. The monitors are embedded in a large metallic plate of a shape you do not think you recognize. A glowing button – how, when all other systems you’ve seen have stopped working? – invites you and you press it.

One of the screens comes to life. It is focused on a young troll, you would guess six or seven solar sweeps old, with a bright purple highlight in his hair and striped pants and scarf. Abruptly, you recognize him from pictures as Eridan Ampora, the heir’s moirail. As you watch the screen, the boy Eridan blasts another young troll with a white light and the other troll is thrown backwards against a wall. You do not understand. Is this a record of something that happened before the Glub? But why does it focus on Eridan? And why does it begin the clip at such an abrupt moment?

As the light of the attack fades, you see the rest of the room, and everything becomes clear in an instant. In the background, lying next to a pretty young troll who looks horrified at the action before her, is the missing matriorb from the vanished virgin mother grub. The sign on the troll’s shirt is jade green. And there, turning from Eridan to the fallen body of the other troll, is Feferi Peixes. Somehow she must have found a way for not only herself but also these other three trolls – and who knows how many more not visible on the screen – to survive the Vast Glub. They have brought the matriorb with them and are going to start your species anew, with Feferi as empress instead of you. But she is not fit to be ruler. In triggering the Glub, not only did she fail to kill you, her target, but she also killed her entire species save for this select set of followers. That is not culling. Culling is done in response to imperfection and failure, not to the entire species.

As you watch the screen, you see Eridan point his weapon – a wand of some sort – at Feferi, but he seems unable to follow through with it. You will him fervently to kill her, to punish her for this act of wanton violence, for killing the entire species for the sake of a failed bid at your title, but he hesitates. Again you notice the keyboard beneath the screens. You are still not sure if this is a recording or something that is taking place as you watch, but you see no harm in trying.

“Boy,” you type, and you see him look confused. Somehow the message is going through to him. “Eridan.” He seems to look towards you through the screen.

“You kill that girl,” you type. Feferi has turned from the defeated troll’s body and is readying herself to attack Eridan, and while you have no idea what his motivations are, neither do you care. He is your hope of punishing Feferi for her crime against the species.

“You kill that girl this instant.”

And he does.

You are still empress. And your duty has been fulfilled.

Okay, mind = blown. The old Empress, one of the exiles? How did I not think of this!

[draconicAlgorithm]

Yup, I'm a Pokemon fan.

Kantostuck

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At long last, John stepped out of the shadow of the cave and into the bright light. He squinted, shielding his eyes with a grimy hand, but he smiled. Finally, after wandering around for hours, he had found the exit. The last hurdle was behind him.

As he stumbled past the rocks and onto the cobbled pathway, his gaze went outward. Past a line of elegant arches was a building, huge and inviting. Without ever having seen it before, John knew what it was.

It was the Indigo Plateau.

He had made it.

John leaped into the air, giving a loud cry of joy, and took off down the road as fast as he could. After close to six months of journeying in an unfamiliar land, he was only yards away from his goal. Five tough battles awaited him, but he didn't care. He'd made it here. That was good enough for now.

He began to slow down as he neared the building, and, when he caught sight of a pool of water, he decided to go ahead and try to wash some of the dirt off before going inside. Once he had done that, it occurred to him that perhaps a quick pep talk to the team was in order. He stood up straight, his face now bright and clean, and released his six Pokémon from their Pokeballs. In flashes of red light, one right after another, a Venusaur, Pidgeot, Raichu, Haunter, Nidoqueen, and Lapras stood (or floated, in some cases) before him.

"We finally made it, guys! We're going to face the Elite Four!"

"Fuck, wasn't that cave good enough?" The Haunter replied in a familiar angry-sounding voice. "I do not want to do any more fucking battling today."

"For once, I agree with the crabby ghost," the Nidoqueen said. "Even my spines ache after all those battles. Even an amazing fighter like me needs a rest!" John's face fell.

"Well, I guess if you guys are tired, we can take a break and wait until tomorrow. I don't want to overwork you!"

"Just tell them to can it, John!" The Raichu grinned broadly, revealing oddly sharp teeth for a rodent Pokémon. It didn't help that the creature wore red sunglasses with pointed lenses as well. "You're the trainer!"

"Shut up, Terezi," the Haunter growled. "You didn't have to do a fucking thing because you're a delicate electric type. Didn't want you to get OHKO'd by a stray Mud Slap!"

"I did just as much work as you, Karkles!" The Raichu shook a tiny fist at him. "Not all the trainers in there had ground types!"

"Ugh, will you two just stop?" The Nidoqueen moaned. "You're giving me a headache."

"Shut up, Vriska!"

"Nobody fucking asked you!"

John finally gave up on attempting to get any sense out of those three and turned to the others instead.

"Uh, guys? What do you think?"

"Fuck waiting, let's do this thing," the Pidgeot said.

"And predictably, Dave sides with Terezi as well as selecting the more hasty choice," the Lapras commented. "I would rather rest, personally. After a good night's sleep, we will all be revitalized and fare a far better chance of defeating our lofty opponents." Dave snorted.

"In other words, Rose isn't ready to get her shell scratched up yet."

"I am simply advising that we take the more practical route in this endeavor." The Lapras shot a glare at the Pidgeot

"Jade?" John asked his final, and starter, Pokémon. The Venusaur rearranged her glasses with vine before speaking.

"Well, I'm kind of eager to get this battle started, too! I want to prove that we really are skilled fighters, and that you're the best trainer!" The girl's voice coming from the Pokémon's mouth seemed very out of place, but John had long gotten use to it.

"But," she went on, "I think I see Rose, Karkat, and Vriska's point too. We'll be better prepared if we wait until tomorrow and rest up tonight!"

"Aw, Jade, c'mon," Dave whined. "Who wants to wait until tomorrow for this? Let's just get it done now." Jade smiled.

"Cool birds don't whine, Dave!" She chided. The Pidgeot's beak snapped shut. John just laughed.

"Well, I guess the consensus is obvious. We'll rest tonight and take on the Elite Four tomorrow." There was a rise of cheers from a majority of the party, making John wince slightly at the noise.

"Fiiiiiiiinally! I don't think I can take another step!"

"That's just your enormous girth talking, Vriska."

"Oh, shut up, Terezi! We can't all be tiny chubby rodents! Some of us have to be a powerhouse and carry the team!"

"Alright, guys, that's enough arguing!" John recalled all of them to their Pokeballs, suddenly feeling a lot more tired.

It was probably for the best that they decided to rest before taking on the Indigo Plateau challenge. He wasn't sure he was up for a whole lot more bickering that day. He needed a nap.

It had been a long time since he started this journey. When Vriska said that falling asleep on the Quest Bed was something he had to do in order to get stronger, he hadn't thought that this was what she meant, but when he awoke here, it seemed like the only option. As he began to obtain Pokémon, he came to the strange revelation that he could understand their speech and that when he named them after his friends, they actually became them. It had made the journey less lonely, but they were certainly a handful at times!

John walked the rest of the distance to the Indigo Plateau more slowly. He would have to wait a while longer before facing his final opponents, but it was worth it. Their goal was just within grasp. And after that, who knows?

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When Vriska first told John that he had to go to sleep on the Quest Bed, I specifically remember thinking, "Yeah, sleeping on the Quest Bed forces you to go on a quest to become the Pokemon Master! Totally." I was going to write something to that effect at the time, but then John died too quickly and the idea fizzled out.

AND NOW IT'S BACK. I guess.

This is a real team I'm playing with, by the way. I decided to do a Homestuck run on my FireRed game a while ago. Player is John, with these guys as my Pokemon. Karkat probably won't become a Gengar until I send him over to my Pearl game, though, because I have no way of trading anything on FireRed. >> Also, these are obviously not the best choices for these guys as Pokemon, but I went with A) what I thought might fit them best in the region, B) what I could use to make a decently balanced team, and C) what I thought would be humorous.

[Lazyboy21350]

Flatline
A Teal Karkat Fiction

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He was here but a few short hours ago, with the girl he loved. They had danced with the crabs, twirling and stepping to the lands hidden rhythm. They had climbed to the highest cliff, and admired the sky and the view, and they talked about their fates. When she had gone to sleep, he had decided to come back. Discovering the transportalizers back to here had been the greatest discovery so far. And now, he wished they hadn't been discovered.

The small straw huts were cut, burning. Ashes were scattered across the ground. The crabs were laying all over the ground, cut, stabbed, bleeding. None of them were alive. The rhythm was erratic, and felt like a weak heartbeat, thudding in an untraceable pattern. The beat was off, and made the entire scene much to eerie. He didn't want this to be true.

The pain of losing his land was almost unbearable. Teal droplets ran down his face, but he tried to mask the pain. His face was stoic, and he quickly wiped the tears away. If anyone saw him, especially her, then he would break down trying to explain. He needed to save face, if only because he was the morale booster, the guy who calmed everyone down, the one who needed to stay calm.

But he couldn't help it.

As soon as he stepped through the transportalizer, she was waiting. He cursed to himself. "What's wrong?" Had she seen him?

"How did you..."

"I saw you." She had seen him.

"Nothing's wrong."

"You're crying."

"No I'm not." He quickly wiped the tears away. She walked forward, and placed a hand on his shoulder. Oh god, he couldn't handle this. The dams broke, and he weeped. He weeped for his slain consorts, the ruined land, the broken rhythm. That was his land.

She hugs him, and he cries more.

That was his land. It was gone.

And he should've been there to go with it.

A/N:

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This is based on an rp thign[sic] my friends and I are doing.

in other news i am going to be updating detective karkat again soon

A opposite POV to Penguins story.

Flatline
A Jade Terezi POV

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She was just there with him, the boy she loved, a few hours ago. They danced with the crab consorts to the lands beat and admired the view from a high cliff. They talked about their fates and the boy made a promise that they would all get out of this alive. She went to bed after that but she worried about his strange behavior at the end of their trip to his land, she exited her room to check on him.

He wasn't in his room when she awoke so she hurried to the computer lab to check there. Not a sign of him. She knew there was only one other place he could be, his land. She ran to the small building that held the transporter there and she arrived just as he entered the transporter. She waited for him.

He came back, broken down and crying. Her heart sunk to the lowest depths. “Whats wrong?” she had asked, the most obvious question.

“How did you...”

“I saw you.”

“Nothings wrong.”

“You're crying.”

“No i'm not.” He wiped a tear away. She stepped forward and place a hand on his shoulder to comfort him. She does a quick scry with her seer powers to see what had happened in his land. She had seen it, the broken dams, the slain consorts, the ruined land, and the broken rhythm. His land was gone.

She hugged him and silently weeped with him.

She loved that land yet it is now gone. She wished she could do something about it.

But she was glad he wasn't there to go with it.

Sorry I couldn't come up with a different title for it.

[Katrika]

Guide of Space

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When Theseus was thrown into the labyrinth to face the Minotaur, he didn’t get lost. Not because he knew the way, or anything like that. No, he had a ball of thread that he unwound behind him, guiding him back to the entrance after he slew the beast.

I know how he felt.

It’s kind of like my power, see? I see the best possible path to take, outlined in a golden light. It’s harder to manage then it sounds. For one thing, before I reached god tier, it kept flickering out if I didn’t concentrate. Even now that it’s constant, it’s always changing. After all, everything else is changing. Placement of monsters, for one. Potential allies are always moving around. In some lands, even the landscape is in a constand flux. There were a few scary moments when I thought I lost the thread, but I always found it again.

I’m the finder. I’m the guide. I’m the planner.

I’m the quiet one in the background pulling all the strings.

I’m Emma Scout.

I have just one thing to say to the Black King: Checkmate.

Author's Notes

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Emma was too focused to waste words. xD

[SkaianRedeemer]

@Domoz: If you're going to keep using one-line paragraphs it would really help if you'd space them, it's just turning into a blob the way things are, unfortunately.

@Jim Groovester: For a while there in the Ace Dick conversation I wasn't sure who was outsmarting who! So I suppose you could say I'm glad to see him. I'm not quite sure what happened with DR and the keys, though. I guess I had assumed that Weapon/Object duality was just a PS Universe "Thing" rather than a Problem Sleuth thing like you seem to be implying here.

@Violet CLM: I really enjoyed this! You've got a good perspective of passing time going on throughout the entire fic!

[The Cool]

Desolation: Reversed

2.1

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Deep in the network, a problem was being inspected.

"Executing procedure: HOW TO MAKE A PLAN.
Step one: Identify the situation."

"One: There is a game being organized.
Two: Participation in said game requires a place of residence, as well as a body capable of interacting with objects.
Three: Computer programs do not have the things required by point Two.
Four: The two of us are computer programs.
Did I leave anythng out, Res?"

"I don't believe so.
Step two: Identify the goal."

"Simple. The goal is to make it so we can play this game."

"So far, so good...
Step three: Identify discrepancies between Situation and Goal."

"Beings that can't interact with things can't play.
We are beings that can't interact with things."

"Step four: Render findings in step Three ineffectual."

"Well, let's see.
We can't change the game itself, so that leaves us with one problem to solve."

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its not interesting yet
is it

[Zero]

Desolation: Reversed

3

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Deep in the network, a problem was being inspected.

"Executing procedure: HOW TO MAKE A PLAN.
Step one: Identify the situation."

"One: There is a game being organized.
Two: Participation in said game requires a place of residence, as well as a body capable of interacting with objects.
Three: Computer programs do not have the things required by point Two.
Four: The two of us are computer programs.
Did I leave anythng out, Res?"

"I don't believe so.
Step two: Identify the goal."

"Simple. The goal is to make it so we can play this game."

"So far, so good...
Step three: Identify discrepancies between Situation and Goal."

"Beings that can't interact with things can't play.
We are beings that can't interact with things."

"Step four: Render findings in step Three ineffectual."

"Well, let's see.
We can't change the game itself, so that leaves us with one problem to solve."

its not interesting yet
is it

I'm liking it. I think its got a lot of potential. I'm presuming its going to be about a bunch of computer programs playing Sburb yeah?

[The Cool]

Desolation: Reversed

3

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Deep in the network, a problem was being inspected.

"Executing procedure: HOW TO MAKE A PLAN.
Step one: Identify the situation."

"One: There is a game being organized.
Two: Participation in said game requires a place of residence, as well as a body capable of interacting with objects.
Three: Computer programs do not have the things required by point Two.
Four: The two of us are computer programs.
Did I leave anythng out, Res?"

"I don't believe so.
Step two: Identify the goal."

"Simple. The goal is to make it so we can play this game."

"So far, so good...
Step three: Identify discrepancies between Situation and Goal."

"Beings that can't interact with things can't play.
We are beings that can't interact with things."

"Step four: Render findings in step Three ineffectual."

"Well, let's see.
We can't change the game itself, so that leaves us with one problem to solve."

its not interesting yet
is it

I'm liking it. I think its got a lot of potential. I'm presuming its going to be about a bunch of computer programs playing Sburb yeah?

nope unfortunately

its about a group of peple who
for some reason or another
are still around after the apocatypse
most arejust plain immortal

everythings dead
and i mean everything
so theyre really bored

and a couple just so happen to be ais