INTERLUDE 1: ENEMY
Almost a sweep into service as both the Head Admin of the Reichenbach and the Imperial Consort to the Empress, Eridan could say he was living a better life. Ostensibly, he was respected, he was well known, his status was elevated, and he was the jewel of the Empress's eye. He played poker with the Helmsman, another close confidant, and life was good.
(Ignoring the haunting images of those he'd abandoned who had abandoned him in the corner of his eyes. Ignoring the accusations, the screaming the voices he sometimes heard. Ignoring the way his mind couldn't reconcile things, sometimes. That was what the alcohol was for. Especially when his Mistress offered them. Something about her drinks took the edge off in a way he craved after a while.)
So what if there were days he couldn't remember? So what if there were appointments that he'd never scheduled that called his attention? He was fine. He could adjust.
(they kept looking at him there was something in those gazes that grated at him that dredged and pulled and ripped at his thoracic cavity, carving it and leaving it wholly empty)
"Oi, Amps," Eridan heard over the intercom. He blinked, bleary-eyed, and looked up, glancing over the screen and the jumble of numbers that refused to make sense. What was he even looking at? He couldn't remember. The anxiety crawled over his skin, twisting into his sinew and prying it apart. "Aaaaamps. Ampy Ampora Ampo??"
"Admin Ampora," he grunted in response, pinching his nose. "What the hell do you want now, Shakes?"
"Cap'n's been trying to page you for like, half an hour. You good, home skillay?"
"I'm. Fine. I'll be there in a bit. Absorbed in work, muted th' comms." He didn't remember muting his comms, but he probably did. Just another thing he couldn't rely on himself for.
(You're jus' a li'l failure, guppy. The bottom dredges of the barrel. But don't worry, we can fix you up, doll you all good an' prawnper.)
He shook his head. He scrubbed his filed down claws through his hair, missing the brief edge of them, before pulling himself out of his chair and giving himself a cursory overview in the mirror.
(Not good enough.)
He sneered at the reflection, the punched in eyes, the bloodshot gaze, the flush to his face... It wasn't good enough. None of this was. Not for Her. Not for him, either. He glanced away after straightening up his uniform, grabbing his cape and throwing it over his shoulders. He rubbed at the fuchsia fabric, thinking of Her, because it was the only way to compose himself, to straighten his back.
Shut it off. Turn it off. Shut down until you're the troll they need you to be.
He fixed his gaze, firm and steady, gaze lidded as he stepped out the door. The first thing he did after locking the shit down, of course, was take a shot from his flask. Newly filled for the day, he'd fucking need it. They were supposed to dock again with the HBC Condescension soon enough, and he’d be able to pull himself together again.
None of the old mattered. It didn’t matter, it didn’t matter, it didn’t fucking matter.
He blinked and looked around, realizing that he was on the bridge. He stood straighter as Captain Nekara approached, proffering a salute. It was still a bit jarring for her to return the gesture, but a single glimpse at the fuchsia on his uniform and he remembered that it was what was demanded by his presence now. Even though his position was less than hers, his status was greater. He was greater.
that should make him feel better why didn’t it make him feel better
The older seadweller didn’t look a night changed from when he’d first arrived as a yellowbelly recruit, not a hair out of place as it fanned around her face before loosely pulling back into the ponytail she regularly wore, horns twisting behind her head. Her uniform was decorated handsomely, metals demanding respect and deference. Nekara offered him a weary smile, something about the way her eyes squinted demanding his attention but he couldn’t focus on it. “Admin. I trust things are running optimally today?”
“Requisitioned th’ replacement parts for the antimatters, cap’n, we’ll have ‘em after our next mission as necessary,” he replied smoothly. “Th’ maintenance reports from th’ engineers indicated it’d be th’ optimal timin’ for th’ order window so t’avoid downtime. I was inclined to agree.”
“Trust Bricks to be ten steps ahead,” she remarked softly, fondness in her eyes. He frowned at that. She was attached to her head personnel, clearly, especially considering Fucking Shakes of all things. But Eridan knew better. Attachments give more reason for people to betray you. Hold them at arm's length. “From what I heard from Shakes, your contact had another update?”
Eridan’s jaw clicked as he tightened it again. “Affirmative, cap’n.”
Her eyes squinted as her smile grew tighter. It made Eridan want to vomit. “You can call me Nekara, Admin,” she said, “you know that. You’re one of my head officers. Bricks does it. Spoons does it. Myramy does it. Icrusa does it. You don’t...”
“There’s no need, cap’n,” he replied stiffly. “Is that all?”
She closed her eyes and let out a sigh. “No, that’s not all. The details for tonight’s mission. I wanted to debrief with you—”
“I read th’ briefing about it,” he cut in.
She looked at him, confused. “That briefing was classified.”
“My clearance is higher.”
Her eyes once again lingered down, tracing the cape with an incredibly worried, anxious indiscernible glance. “...of course. That was my mistake in forgetting, Admin.”
“Hostile territory,” he mused as he glanced over to the viewing panes. The vastness of space stretched out into eternity, stars twinkling amidst the inky blackness as though it were waiting for the perfect opportunity to swallow him whole.
“Very much so,” Nekara said softly. Her sharpened claws trailed over the railing and his eyes glimpsed the rings on her fingers as she gripped onto the railing. Three quadrant rings. Redrom, left ring, bronze with Shakes’s incisor set with some brown gems. Far more expensive than what a bronzeblood could typically afford. Blackrom, right ring, with citrines around a tooth he recognized off of Spoons, the head Helming Tech. Left thumb, green, Bricks.
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. It was more information to hold onto.
“The Mefaeians have been inching into Syfora, and sure we have the accord with them but Syfora’s a dead space,” Nekara continued. “They’ll be wanting to get a leg up on us.”
“Let ‘em get a fine taste of our fuckin’ proton cannons,” Eridan grunted in annoyance, fingers dancing over his breast pocket where his flask was hidden. He pulled it out and took a long drink from it, ignoring the way that Nekara needled him with worried eyes her gaze.
“I suppose,” she said, “but I would rather avoid the confrontation altogether. The last thing we need is more maintenance to deal with and those proton cannons are expensive.”
“Already told the uppity fuckers down in ballistics to get from another damn supplier,” Eridan grunted in annoyance. Nekara laughed.
“Unagri lives and dies by the Prizaron supplier,” she mused.
Eridan’s fin flicked, jangling the earrings with his irritation at the mention of the head of the ballistics department. “Overpriced pieces’a shit’s more like it. They jus’ like ‘em ‘cause they’re shiny.”
“Why don’t you come to the dinner party after the mission, Admin?”
The invitation twisted uncomfortably under his skin. “Gonna think about it.”
That was enough to lighten some of the burden off of her shoulders, apparently. “Thank you. Well, I’ll leave you to it, Head Admin. Been a long time since I’ve had a good one, so keep up the excellent work.”
The praise felt a little more hollow than it used to, before he learned what praise felt like from the ruler of their whole world. But he accepted it nonetheless. “Thank you. By your leave.” And with a curt spin on his heel, he departed, off to start his midnight rotation.
—
The mission was simple on paper. Dip into the Syforan galaxy, retrieve the intel from the now derelict vessel so it did not fall into the wrong hands, and dip out.
A simple recon and retrieval.
The fact that it was Syfora, the Deadlands, was exactly the part of the mission where it all fell apart. It was that one simple detail that turned the mission into an ungodly fucking nightmare.
Eridan was checking up on the docking bay when the vessel first rocked. “...retrieval team, status?” Eridan said into the comms. There was a beat of silence. “Repeat: retrieval team, status?”
There was another almost damning pause. Finally, the comms crackled to life. “No bead on the retrieval team's signals, Amps,” Shakes said.
“Captain! Admin Ampora! Their signal’s gone!” said a new voice on the comms. Eridan checked his tablet, seeing the head of communications, Heisar, on the line.
“Send an emergency probe in!” Nekara demanded insistently. “Bricks and Spoons went with them! Get that damn probe in!”
“Cap’n,” Eridan began.
“Save it! I’m the captain, I’m making the call!”
Eridan boiled at being silenced. “Cap’n—”
“Not another word, Ampora, or I’ll have you court-martialed!”
That cracked something in him. If she didn’t want to listen to him? Then fine. He stayed silent as Nekara kept pressing into Heisar, urging a signal to be sent. He looked around the bay, hissing through his teeth as he tried to take stock of what ships they had.
“We got a response!” Heisar immediately announced.
“See? It wasn’t—”
The message played, and Eridan felt a sinking feeling as he realized she’d done exactly what he was trying to be tactful about. The ship’s automatic translator began to sift through the extensive buzzing of the Mefaeian language, converting it to the Alternian tongue.
“Seems like you really care about your folks here, Alternian! We might give ‘em back... if you got the credits for it... we’ve gotta be able to break even, after all! If the price ain’t good enough, we’ll put ‘em on the market. Syfora’s the best damn place for that! Along with this intel the ship’s got? Man, we’ll be set for life!”
“No!” Nekara shouted, and he winced as he heard the sound of a console crunching under her hand. That would be expensive to fix. “Fuck, track it! Track that signal!”
Eridan finally found what he was looking for. His lip curled up, amused.
Beautiful craftsmanship. Stealther, top of the line, kept for last resort measures. Which, based on what he was hearing over the comms, was important.
“Right, bud,” he said slowly to his tablet, “you stay riiiiight... there.” He set it down inside of the maintenance closet. He hesitated for a long second before setting down his cape on top of it, locking it up tight. Mistress would be furious if he let anything happen to it. “Good. That’s about it. Nothin’ that can track a signal back.”
“...uhhhh, Neks,” Shakes said slowly. Eridan ignored the comms above, popping open the hatch with his credentials before tossing them aside. He didn’t need those where he was going, not with what the message had said.
Intel was already retrieved. Credentials were used. He’d make himself a liability if he had his full credentials on him.
“Not now, Riesse,” Nekara said. “Heisar, what’s your fucking timing on that?”
“Working on it, captain!” Heisar said in a cold sweat.
Eridan carefully started up the cruiser as it rumbled, making nothing more than a soft hum as he calibrated the sensors and began priming the engines.
“Neks!” Shakes yelled.
Nekara’s voice was shrill, causing a horrible bout of static to assault the ship's personnel. “NOT! NOW!”
ENGINES PRIMED. CLOAKING UNIT OPERATIONAL. CHARGE: FULL. READY TO DISEMBARK.
“Shakes,” Eridan said lowly, “open th’ dock or I’m breakin’ it. I know what ‘m doin’.”
“Ahhhhhh... FUCK. Okay. Okay! You win, Amps! I tried to tell ya, Neks!” Eridan smirked as the vacuum blast shields came down, isolating the track with the Stealther from the rest of the docks. It was abundantly clear to the other maintenance and brig workers on hand that something was up, now, and they immediately began sounding alarms as protocol demanded.
“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?” Nekara roared.
“Hey, I fuckin’ tried to tell you, Neks, your boy’s goin’ rogue!”
With a loud snort, Eridan keyed into the comms. “Right. Killin’ comms now. See ya later, ‘m fixin’ this proper.”
He proceeded to kill the comms by punching his fist through them, resulting in the comms screeching for a moment before falling to silence. The ship shot out like a bullet, shimmering once before it vanished from sight. As the ship moved, Eridan quickly set a program he’d lifted off Psii to run on any vessel as a last resort measure, eyes scanning rapidly over its analysis.
He knew that by using the program, he’d likely ping on the Helmsman’s radar. That was only to his benefit at this time however, so he ignored the clock he was now running on and focused instead on driving onward.
The signal was triangulated, as were several signals nearby. The visuals picked up by the program showed a ship of Mefaeian heading towards one of the many planets in the Syforan galaxy, and so he adjusted his coordinates and speed after running some calculations through to try and intercept the ship.
Certainly, the Stealther was small, but it should be able to fit the rest of the retrieval squad in. He was thinking a mile a minute, adrenaline blasting away the effects of the alcohol his nerves and granting him the steely focus he needed for his absolutely batshit plan. Frankly, this was needlessly reckless, and if his Mistress knew about this she’d be furious, no doubt. It was just enough to make him want to turn back and accept the punishment he’d no doubt get at this time.
But... But there was just something. Something that made him take an extra second, something that pushed him forward. Bricks had done a lot for him. Spoons was incredibly useful for helming maintenance. They were top of their departments and they were... nice.
He ground his teeth. Attachment like this would get him killed. Turn off. Like a husktop. Emotions would do nothing but hamper him. He had to be rational. So he leaned back in the cockpit, glancing around at the equipment he had on hand. He hadn’t the foresight with him at the time to bring along Ahab’s Crosshairs, considering that he hadn’t exactly anticipated doing a sting like this. But he felt grim satisfaction as he saw the silenced pistols loaded in the ship.
Small mercies, at least. Not his weapon of choice, but usable.
He thought back to his time as Feferi’s Orphaner. He thought of the hunt for the stinging meowbeast lusii, so very long ago. They were elusive bastards, horrible insectoid feline creatures that when premature would form packs. Often they were the easiest to hunt when not wanting to deal with the issues of wigglers and grubs. Certainly, it was a grim business, but someone had to keep the imperial lusus sequestered and silent.
It was a testament to his growth that thinking about his experiences as an Orphaner pulled nothing out of him. He felt truly, wholly numb. And he smiled. Because that was an improvement. He didn’t feel a thing about then, about them, and he could do what needed to be done. So he thought of the stealth tactics, he thought of the pincer maneuvers, the divide and conquer tactics, and started trying to put together a plan.
Stealth was of the essence.
It was do or die, and he had no plans to die today.
He got his chance when the vessel pulled into a larger vessel. The maw of the ship’s dock groaned open and as the vessel with the stolen retrieval party entered in, he calibrated the landing with help from the automated landing system.
The hangar was just large enough that the Stealther could hang around until the other ship had deboarded, and then Eridan carefully evaluated what the external cams could perceive. He saw the Mefaeians, lanky lizard-like aliens with an annoying number of limbs and eyes, and he saw them dragging out the retrieval party. Bricks and Spoons looked to be roughed up, though Spoons more so than Bricks. That didn’t bode well. He spotted Yssaol, a subordinate tealblood Admin who had volunteered to go with the team for their authorization, and Traxus, one of the foot soldiers on payroll. He watched them be escorted from the dock, and cursed softly as he heard the drone on the intercom above. He couldn’t understand it, at the time lacking the technology for translating the information.
Inconvenient. Eridan watched, eyes dragging slowly around the room.
One... two. Three cameras. A vent access, hidden behind some crates in the corner of the room. The Stealther was still activated, but he needed to take care of those before he could even begin to scout about. He rooted through the Stealther’s installed kits and grinned fin to tattered fin as he found what he was looking for. It would start drawing some eyes, but perhaps as something attributable to a technological glitch rather than what it truly was.
He activated the frequency jammer. And once the blinking lights on the cameras started to malfunction, flickering to indicate the disruption, he cautiously slid out of the emergency hatch of the Stealther to keep it operational while allowing him freedom of movement. Once he was out he beelined for the boxes, investigating the ventilation hatch.
Standard. Non-Alternian make, obviously Mefaeian, but that made doing this so much easier. Eridan reached and carefully twisting the metal in his hand, he watched in satisfaction as it crumpled with a soft crunch. With that done and, from the looks of it, no alerted personnel, Eridan ducked inside of the vents and began to move. His fins twitched as they guided him forward with the sound of Bricks yelling at their captors and Ysseol’s simpering, navigating the stuffy ventilation as best he could.
He kept following, silent, and after a close call with a sudden drop in the vent systems that led to an awkward shimmy down the vertical descent, they arrived at the brig. He observed as the two remaining Mefaeians from the ship he’d followed shove the stolen members of his goddamned crew into a cramped cell. The cells looked higher tech than other parts of the ship, with a biological scanner lock from the cursory glance.
“Ah, fuck,” Spoons hissed out, rubbing at her swollen shut eye and bloodied up face. “This iiiisn’t what you’d call. Ideal, huh?”
“Nekara’s gonna be pissed,” Bricks agreed grimly as he slumped down, wincing as he cupped his ribs.
“God, fuck, I don’t want to fucking die here, holy shit, what do we do?” Ysseol paced, hands behind his back and gaze frantic as he glanced at the floor, sweat beading at his brow. “She’s gonna come back for us, right? She’s not gonna let us...”
Traxus let out a grunt as they glared at Ysseol. “Annoying,” they hissed. “Always a guy when you’re being a coward. Not doing gender right.”
Ysseol snapped his glance over with bared fangs. “Fuck you. Are you living in the same fucking universe that we are? Where we’re captured?”
Traxus’s eyes moved slowly to the vents, meeting Eridan’s own. Eridan blinked in surprise and offered a wave, and Traxus offered a smile back. “Living in the universe where I have eyes. Look.”
The vent crunched under Eridan’s grip with ease and he slowly pulled himself out to his full height, rubbing at his shoulder.
“Piss poor ventilation they got,” Eridan hissed out as he gave a proper look-over to his missing crew, “but it’s better’n nothin’. Got yourself in a fuckin’ mess.”
Spoons almost let out a yell of delight, but was shortly stopped by Bricks throwing a hand over her mouth. She pouted over at him and he shook his head, raising a finger to his lips. “Plan, Ampora?”
“Gettin’ you outta there. Follow my lead.”
He reached out and crunched the hand scanner and the below gate under his hands with frightening ease. Highblood strength truly came in handy sometimes, and now was one of those. Spoons immediately threw him into a hug and kissed his cheek, leaving his skin crawling and a desire to drink heavily, and she spun on her heel despite looking like hell had warmed her over. “See, it’s all good! We’re all good!”
Eridan glanced around before reaching into his other pocket, pulling out one of the silenced guns. He held it out grip-first, to Bricks. Bricks glanced at it and then back to him, brows raised.
“Trust you best with a weapon right now, Bricks. Yer sensible. ‘M gonna run distraction. Better shape than you. Get to th’ dock in five minutes, ‘ll be there.”
“But—” Traxus began, and Eridan shook his head.
“No. You remember the path back to the docking bay, right? Go.”
Eridan split off at that moment, gun held tightly in his hand and plan made in his head. He moved quickly, quicker than they did in any case, and took the first opportunities to fire shots off at the nearest cameras he could see. Next, he peeled off in the opposite direction, hoping to head towards the more densely populated part of the ship.
Another announcement immediately hit once he rounded the corner, alarms wailing from the speakers, and he stiffened up as he saw personnel rounding the corner. He didn’t waste any time, raising the gun and using his years of training to put them all down. One, two, three headshots before he turned back, aiming to run in a different direction from that.
He had no idea what they’d said. He wished he had a goddamned translator. But clearly, it couldn’t be good, because the alarm was active and he was being hunted.
He shot out another camera before ducking into a side room, only to let out a gasp as he was yanked up off the floor. He flailed his feet as an arm gripped tight around his neck and he bared his teeth with a rattling growl as he thrashed before swinging his foot back with all the strength he could muster. He felt bone easily give way and a screech from his assailant and whipped around, firing the gun at them to shut them up. He lurched back as he felt a bullet skim his arm and whipped around, seeing several more soldiers approaching.
Cornered, he was cornered. He dodged out of the room before seeing more personnel running at him.
How were they finding him so quickly?
He quickly snarled as he kept running right at the reinforcements, allowing them to believe the feint before he turned his head down at the last minute. His horns, sharp as they were, gored the first obstacle easily enough.
They don’t matter. None of this matters. You must survive. Mistress will not be happy if you die here.
And it was that last line of thought that had his yellow sclera bleeding red as the highblood rage set in properly, making the next few crucial moments a blur.
—
“He’s late. We should just find that ship and go. It’s not here, so it has to be the Stealther, right? He’s probably a lost cause.”
No... he wasn’t.
Eridan could hear it in the distance, panting heavily as he gripped at his ribs. How did he get here? He didn’t remember getting here. He felt tacky with blood. On whole, it barely smelled of his own blood. He felt nauseous and achy and everything hurt. He was tired. His head pounded and his hand trembled tightly around the pistol in his hand that was now useless as it was, bent at an odd angle and dented in with cooling, electric yellow alien blood on it. Gross.
“...why did you do that, Ysseol?”
What were they talking about? What did that mean? Something about the way Bricks sounded made him feel uneasy.
“Because it was the best way to save us, wasn’t it? He said he’d run distraction. If they knew just how freakin’ valuable he was, they’d focus on him, not on us. They’d at least want to keep him alive, being the Empress’s new toy.”
Ice doused his lungs. He suddenly found it difficult to take a breath in.
“That’s bullshit and you know it.” Spoons sounded furious. “He doesn’t deserve that, especially after he came out of the way to save your dumb ass!”
“How was I supposed to know that activating the console would have alerted them?”
“I warned you—”
“But we had to get that information back! It was our fucking heads if we didn’t!”
“And it's our heads if her consort gets captured!” Traxus snapped, agitated. “Use your fucking pan for once, you fucking bulge!”
The gun fired twice, but to no avail. Ysseol let out a sharp sound of pain. In heavily Mefaeian-accented Alternian, one of the obstacles spoke;
“Gun down, Alternian. Hands in the air. Or the teal dies.”
He peeked around the corner to see Ysseol in a headlock and a knife tight at his throat, drawing blood as it did so. The gun clattered as Bricks rose his hands, teeth bared. Ysseol looked wretched, shivering and sniveling like the worm he was.
Anger flared up, and then indifference.
Turn them off like a husktop.
He thought of the Condesce. She wouldn’t want him to put himself at risk for this slime, especially when he had proven the truth of her words. If Eridan trusted anyone, much like Ysseol, they’d stab him in the back.
But then he thought of Feferi, and his throat grew tight.
Turn it off. Don’t think of her. Not now!
He thought of Karkat.
No. No. No.
He was moving before he could even realize it, lunging forward before the Mefaeian could realize he was doing so. It was like time was moving far slower than it ever had, and Eridan bared his teeth and roared as his hands grappled onto the hostile’s throat.
It became a mad grapple and flurry of limbs and unrelenting violence as Eridan continued to attempt to gore his enemy with his horns. It was an ugly, brutal, quick fight and he barely could keep track of what was happening. He swung a fist, feeling bone crunching beneath his hands, and felt his head ping off hard metal, driving wild sparks of pain past his eyelids. But he couldn’t give up. He wouldn’t. So he kept flailing, kept punching, let the wild adrenaline bring him back to the time he’d wrestled a fucking cholerbear lusus before shooting it in the head once he got the reprieve.
Just long enough, just long enough, just long enough. Last longer. Punch harder. Tear flesh and scales apart with your teeth. Be every bit the monster that people think you are. But do not let emotions rule your head.
Then, weightlessness. He let go as the Mefaeian let out a shrill screech, falling from the high platform of the dock they were stationed on to the lower levels. He realized he was falling, too, but let out a choked sound as his uniform was abruptly seized by psionics.
He watched the Mefaeian hit the lowest dock with a final thud. They did not get back up.
“Uch! Frick! Ow, ow, headache, Bricks get him fast please I can’t...”
The psionic grip slowly, shakily reeling him back up was replaced by a more solid grip. He was slowly yanked up as Bricks spoke. “Got him!”
He blinked up at the ceiling of the dock, heaving for air as it all spun around him. He glanced over, seeing Spoons half kneeling back, Traxus on his knees to his other side, and Bricks wheezing as he gripped at his ribs again. He fumbled over to the nearest security console and pulled out a drive he'd been saving for a special occasion. He knew this would get Psii's attention more than anything. Because once he plugged it in, the power went out, replaced by emergency lighting. He watched the screen flicker rapidly, his dear Helmsman's work taking effect with frightening efficiency before downloading all their surveillance and data logs.
They thought they were winning, but this was a last fuck you to each and every one of the dead assholes. And now, it was done.
Eridan felt dazed and angry, so very angry, but as he turned to face his erstwhile crew he only spoke numb, flat words, everything else locked behind an impenetrable barrier. “We leave. Now.”
And as he spoke, the anger drained away, leaving emptiness.
—
The ride back to the Reichenbach was dead silence. Eridan was solidly focused on navigating the ship, crammed as the Stealther was, and did not relax until the ship opened properly, decloaking and allowing them all to escape the miserable, overheating confines of the cruiser. Once they did, it was as if a string had been cut. Ysseol collapsed to the ground in a heap of pitiful sobbing, Traxus slowly pulled out the salvaged drive from the derelict vessel, and Spoons laid flat on her back on the floor.
It was Bricks and Eridan who stayed standing, though Bricks swayed slightly as he propped himself up with the Stealther.
“Ampora,” he said, breathless, “that was bloody reckless. It was also fucking brilliant.”
“Round on the house for our fucking Head Admin, y’all!” Shakes hollered over the comms, jittery with adrenaline and his usual psionic overcharge.
“Posh. Doin’ my job,” Eridan replied, blinking slowly as he realized that his vision was blurrier. The world didn’t seem to be holding up right.
“Whoa, whoa! Steady there.” He blinked once again, staring at Bricks who was staring into his eyes. It occurred to him that everything felt eerily silent around them other than the blood rushing in his fins. Since when had Bricks been holding him by the shoulder to keep him up? Why was he keeping Eridan up...? “...oh, shit. Amps. How bad d’you reckon you hit your head there?”
“I hit my head?”
“...fuck I didn’t mean to, I didn’t—”
“Enough, Yssaol. I’ve heard Traxus’s report.”
“He just... why does he get everything handed to him on a silver platter? I’ve been working for his position for sweeps, Captain...!”
“After what he did for you? He’s bleeding out in Bricks’s arms, Yssa, are you fucking insane? I’ll fucking—”
“ Spoons. ”
“...it’s... what I thought at the time. I don’t have any defense of myself, Captain.”
“I trust you understand why you didn’t get the Head Admin position now?”
“...yes, Captain.”
—
That was the last thing he registered before waking up in the medbay. He was blinking into the room, antiseptic flooding his nostrils, and the docterrors were scrambling about. But this wasn’t his medbay. This wasn’t his ship.
He instead stared up at the bright tyrian eyes of his Mistress, and his stomach bottomed out. He was in the HBC Condescension, that was why it wasn’t his ship. And now he had so much to answer for his failures.
“Mistress,” he slurred out. “Mistress, ‘m sorry.”
“Hush now, guppy. It’s opportune, don’t you fret a fin.” She smiled, her voice soft and dulcet and everything he needed.
“Wanna go t’apologize t’you, s’inconvenient.” It was anxiety, a nerve that stung and radiated agony through him. He had to be good, had to earn her praise, had to be better. He let out a low moan of distress. “Please, don’ be mad.”
“Ain’t mad, li’l guppy.” She crooned as she trailed her fingers down his jaw. He leaned into it, even though it drove a maddening pressure through his head. “Like I said, this is glubbin’ perfect.”
“How?” he asked, confused, not understanding. He looked over, vision all fuzzy and unpleasant, and locked up as he saw something he’d never expected to see set up on an operating table around him.
“You are my confidante,” she said. “You must keep my secrets close, locked tight so no one can pull them from you.”
The helming drive that was installed into all helmsman twisted its tendrils on the desk. It made him sick. It reviled him. He didn’t want that inside his head. He was a seadweller, not a psion, he wasn’t built for that. Psions had the capacity for higher electrical voltages in their pans, they could deal with it, he wasn’t made for this.
“No,” he slurred out, “please no, empress, tha’ll kill me.”
“It won’t,” she said firmly, the lilt vanished from her voice completely. “Stop crying, guppy, brain surgery ain’t so bad. Don’t you wanna be good for me, hon?”
“I do,” he slurred out.
“So you want this?”
Bile rose in his throat, but he swallowed it down and smiled. “Yes. For you, Mistress.”
And she looked happy at that, in a way that was soft and tender and just for him, and his pusher flutters as he smiles shakily.
“How bad can it be, anyways?”
He was horrifyingly awake.
He found himself laid out on the mediculler platform, numbed to the nines, strapped down into place as he stared up at the ceiling while desperately wanting to scream and cry and run from this hellish place. His skin crawled with the amount of IVs that pinched into his skin. He was numbed so intensely that he couldn’t even feel her hand on his face, that he couldn’t feel the portion of his skull being removed with his horn—his horn!—and after that all he really felt was the building pressure in his head as they slotted in that thing that he could feel, he swore he could feel it rooting into him, feeding into him like a parasite, until he passed out.
He didn’t think that was normal. It couldn’t possibly be normal. He couldn’t think about looking up if it was normal for the procedure to be like that as he was, certainly dying.
Surely, this was his punishment.
—
When he woke up next, because his head pounded and ached. Everything was healed perfectly, without a scratch, no pain of sutures or anything, and he knew it well to be the tyrian influence. So he slowly dragged himself up out of the bed to realize that he was back in the Reichenbach.
Why is he back here? He was in the HBC Condescension, wasn’t he? He blinked slowly and lethargically, slowly glancing around in a daze.
“Admin Ampora!”
He blinked back over, staring at Icrusa as he was approached. The yellowblood fretted as he immediately began to check every machine connected to Eridan, and the seadweller was confused.
“...‘crusa,” he slurred out, blinking slowly, “wh...”
“Oh, slurring, that’s not good, why did they do that?” He was clearly panicking.
“S...’fine.” Erisan slowly pulled himself out of the bed, only to almost trip as he was gripped by psionics. He turned to face Icrusa, eyes narrowing.
“Sir, you can’t,” Icrusa said softly. “Please. Please, for once, don’t you know what they did to you?”
“Yes,” Eridan answered, trying to tame the slurring as best he could, “I do. I chose it.”
Icrusa’s face went white. “Why?”
Instead of answering, instead of trying to justify the knot in his throat and the agony in his pan, he changed the subject as he gripped Icrusa’s jacket in hand and pulled him in close. “You ain't entitled to th' answer. Now, no one’s t’know about what was done. Even if I have to rip out your tongue, your throat, your fuckin’ airsacks, you will tell no one. Are...we...clear?”
“...s’classified, sir, so I won’t,” he squeaked out. “Pain of execution from the Empress.”
Of course she was looking out for him, she always did. He let Icrusa down.
“Good. Then we’ll never speak of this again.” He looks down his nose at Icrusa, feeling agitated and cornered. He pointedly pulled out every IV, yanked out the breathing tubes from his fucking nose, and scowled as he tasted the metallic taste of blood on the back of his tongue. “Sign my release form.”
He left before Icrusa could say anything else in the matter.
He had to remember that everyone might shown him respect, might seem concerned, but the moment he turned his back, they’d talk about him. They’d rumour, they’d whisper, they’d gossip. They'd sell him out. They’d gladly be his enemy. He could only trust his Mistress. So ignore their looks, ignore the falsities, trust Mistress and Mistress alone. And that was that. He was tempered, he was cooled, and he was ready to keep moving forward. First thing on the agenda was taking those records he stole from the Mefaeian ship and uploading that stupid fucker into his head, along with the rest of the data from the DC Reichenbach and then, the HBC Condescension. If he was to be a secret keeper, he’d do his job diligently.
He paused briefly, catching his reflection in the viewing panes of the exterior hall he stalked down with a purpose.
His left eye was partially swollen shut, nasty scars carved onto his face. That'd need some cover-up, obviously. He couldn't afford to be seen with such blemishes. His Mistress would hate that more than anything. Good thing he could by the best product money could fucking buy in this economy.
Hurts and insecurities could sit by the wayside. Enemies would always exist.
Here and now, he had work to do.
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