Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Fucking hell, you’re relentless!” Azdaja shouted over the wall.

“As are you. It’s nice to have an opponent who’s competent for once.” Elwurd peered out from behind the boulder she was hiding behind. The Spade Series’ first planet had become a mess in only a matter of a few hours. All of the trolls had encountered each other (Except Marvus, strangely enough, who was nowhere to be seen) relatively quickly before it was discovered that the center circle they had all been brought to was filled with weapons. One thing led to another, arguments about who got what, before everyone had run in separate directions into the night with their weapons of choice.

Another bullet ricocheted off the brick wall near Azdaja’s head. It came from a different angle than Elwurd was currently positioned at. It must’ve been from someone else who was lurking around. And where had those creepy twins gone? For the love of the Empire, those things terrified Azdaja. Little psychopathic bastards. At least Azdaja was a survivor first and foremost. He didn’t enjoy killing, most of the time, sometimes, but he had to do it.

“I have to run for more cover.” Azdaja peered over the wall.
“As do I.” Elwurd replied, their conversation shockingly casual considering what was going on.
“I’m really tired though, I’m going to walk it. Be fair and walk as well?”
“Sure, why not.”

Azdaja stood up and began to walk along the wall in the dim ambiance of a small fluorescent light on the building parallel to him. He could vaguely see the outline of Elwurd who was walking behind a line of trees. Just because they agreed to walk though didn’t mean either of them had the intention to not try and kill one another.

“So, what do you-” Bang! “Think the ultimate goal of-” Bang! “The game is?” Azdaja asked. Flakes of concrete sprinkled onto Azdaja’s head. Just an inch lower and his head would’ve turned into a splatter of yellow on the wall.

“I couldn’t really-” Bang! “Tell you if I’m being-” Bang! “Completely honest.” Elwurd replied, a bullet splintering the wood on the thin tree covering her position. Just an inch over and Azdaja would’ve hit her squarely in the heart, her blue blood like drops of rain on the ground.

“You know you’re more accurate if you rest your grip on your arm rather than just holding it with one hand.” Elwurd shouted from behind the second rock.
“That may be true, but I’m actually accurate enough to be flashy and deadly.”
“Well I’m not dead yet.”
“Maybe I’m just letting you live a bit longer.”
“Maybe you’re a cocky asshole.”
“Maybe. So where’d you learn to be so accurate anyway?”
“Deals go bad sometimes, you should know this.”
“Generally my deals are over before the commodity knows what hits it.”
“Is that all trolls are to you?” Elwurd asked. “Commodities?”
“Not all, but some. Like bluebloods.”
“Funny, we generally say the same about gutterbloods like you.”

Another bullet from the unknown direction hit above Azdaja. Whoever they were had a clear shot on him, was patient, but wasn’t actually a good shot. That meant the person had to be smart, sneaky, but also inexperienced. It was probably Tagora then. That guy was an absolute weasel but clearly was more experienced with the pen than the sword.

“So tell me more about your job.” Elwurd asked. She crept forwards a bit more from cover.
“What can I say? I kill trolls.”
“Well what kind of trolls do you usually kill? Highest value target? C’mon, give me something here.”
“Highest value?” Azdaja thought for a moment. He crouched down out of the way of the fluorescent light to cover himself from the mystery troll. “I killed a clown once.”
“Clown? Nice. I deal to clowns sometimes.”
“Deal what?”
“Drugs and shit,” Elwurd ran to a wall in front of her. It became visible to her that this was some kind of concrete factory building surrounded by a brick wall that had holes all over it. “Whatever makes me money.”
“We’re both survivors, that’s what sucks about this. One of us can’t walk away from this.” Azdaja leveled his sights on Elwurd. “A damn, damn, shame.”

Azdaja went to pull the trigger before another bullet came out of nowhere. The bullet, closer than before, ricocheted off the gun causing Azdaja to flip out and flatten himself onto the ground. Elwurd quickly skirted around the corner, hopping the wall and pushing a door down into the abandoned factory.

She had to guess though that the factory had always been abandoned. After all, this world wasn’t really real. Well, it was very much real, but it wasn’t real. That hurt her brain to think about so she simply chose not to. Around the corner, she heard a metal door creak open. It must’ve been Azdaja, but above her she heard a scraping sound. Was there someone else here?

Behind an old, mysterious machine that she couldn’t make out from the darkness, but could feel the rust on the metal of, she waited.

“We could always make an alliance.” Elwurd called out.
“Sure, maybe,” Azdaja replied from around the corner. “But I don’t know if you’d shoot me the second I put my gun away. That’s the problem here. I’d love to agree to peace but I’d have no choice but to shoot you before you could shoot me.” Azdaja crept along the edge of the wall.
“You love the sound of your voice, don’t you.”
“Well, having the best voice known to Alternia isn’t something everyone can say that they have. I might as well hear as much of it as possible.”
“Right… right…” Elwurd glanced around the side of the machine. Azdaja was right there, feet from her, one shot and…

The gunshot smashed against the wall. It was nearly impossible to see what happened following the flash but a few bullets skirted past Elwurd before she saw the faint outline of Azdaja running up the stairs. Elwurd pushed out, following him up the stairs into the second story.

The level was silent with a few windows along the wall, letting a few bands of moonlight into the room. There were more of those strange rusted machines scattered around the room along with some tables and chairs. Elwurd stopped and looked at one of them. It was rotten to the core.

For the first time in a long time, Elwurd felt slightly nervous. There could’ve been anything around any corner. Azdaja, someone else, who knows. She slipped behind another of the large machines and waited a moment. Just a moment… and then she’d leap.

-------

“It’s starting to get dark outside.” Polypa said from the window. She had propped herself on the windowsill with cat-like balance.
“I didn’t even know that there could be night here, but it is pretty late. The clock is reading 9 PM so I guess it has to be night at some point.” Zebruh replied.
“Let’s grab some bedding, it’ll be like a sleepover. Where do you keep spare stuff?”
“Oh, in that closet over there. But uh, how do you intend to sleep knowing that those things could break in?”
“It’s ok,” Polypa replied. “I’m a light sleeper.”
“Right.”

Inside the closet was stacks of neatly organized blankets and pillows.

“Do you never use these?” Polypa asked, flipping through the blankets like a giant stack of cards.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“There’s never anybody to use them. Other than me, that is.”

Polypa almost opened her mouth to say something before she pulled out a few blankets and pillows. She was still trying to figure out Zebruh. She had been figuring him out for a few perigees over text but now they were here, and she was trying to understand him in person.

It seemed probably pretty confusing on the outside, how someone so jaded like her could find an interest in a random indigoblood, let alone Zebruh Codakk. He had a reputation. Sure, not the worst reputation she had heard. She had to deal with a lot of scum in her line of work. On the surface, she should have more in common with Azdaja and Konyyl but she couldn’t stand them. Those pretentious asses were too busy tooting their own horns to be real survivors. Polypa didn’t really care how many bodies they had. She knew that she’d kick their ass if they were here.

Zebruh intrigued her though. Could he really be that bad? I mean, he didn’t seem so bad right now. Yeah he was full of himself some of the time, and he was terrible at talking to certain trolls like Chixie, and he was also very clearly neurotic to some degree that she couldn’t entirely place a why or how on. It couldn’t be that bad. Nothing she couldn’t handle. At worst he’d turn out to be another dime a dozen creep that she’d dropkick into the ground. For now though, she was merely standing in the presence of a troll with a crippling inferiority complex who acted as though he was better than everyone else to hide it. It was so obvious. Couldn’t everyone else tell too?

“How about we set up in the conservatory? It has a glass ceiling we could look out of.”
“Sounds great.”

The pair brought the blankets and pillows down to the first floor and into the conservatory, a small glass room filled with little plants from Alternia. In the center was an open space that the blankets and pillows were spread out on. With the lights dimmed, Polypa and Zebruh lay down near- but not too close- to each other and stared up at the stars above through the perfectly clear sky.

“Have you ever seen stars like this?” Zebruh asked.
“Once. On a job. I had to go out to a really remote area to get someone and I almost missed them crossing by me because I was so fixated on the stars.”
“Yeah, they’re really nice.”

The two sat in silence for a moment.

“Zebruh?”
“Yeah?”
“What makes you, well, you?”

There was silence for another minute.

“I don’t know if I can come up with a good answer for that.”
“Sure you can, just give me something.”
“Well, I really like music.”
“Music’s cool.”
“I really like to critique it, talk about what’s good and bad about it.”
“But isn’t that all subjective?”
“Of course, but people look at reviews to see people giving their opinions as though they were objective facts. That’s what people are looking for. Confidence.”
“I thought critics just did it because they were pretentious.”
“Hah,” Zebruh laughed. “Most are. I am.”
“You’re not that pretentious.”
“You clearly never read my blog then.”
“I guess I haven’t.”

Another pause for a moment.

“And I guess,” Zebruh started again. “There’s more to me than that.”
“Oh?”
“Nah, you probably wouldn’t want to hear about it.”
“I’d love to hear about it.”
“No, I think that-”
“Zebruh,” Polypa interrupted. “You can tell me.”

Zebruh sighed.

“As you’ve probably figured out by now, I don’t have a lot of friends. I have nobody in my quadrants and-”
“Well I don’t either, it’s really ok.” Polypa muttered.
“You see,” Zebruh continued. “I’m horribly, horribly introverted, but nobody seems to notice that I’m actually really shy because I’m able to speak with such confidence. It’s like people think I’m either lying or just confused when really that’s what I am. I’m horribly shy. Even talking to you right now has me almost shaking. I think that’s why a lot of people really hate me, I’m not good at coming across as ‘normal’ for people.”

Polypa thought for a moment.

“You know I don’t wear these bandages for show.” She started.
“Really?”
“Yeah, when I was younger my hive caught on fire and I was nearly killed by it. I had some pretty nasty scars on my arms from where some pieces of wood collapsed on me so I decided to wrap them in bandage to hide them.”
“I’m really sorry to hear that, I’m glad you’re alive.”
“Yeah, I’m glad to be alive too. I’m just happy that you haven’t had to go through anything like that.”
“I haven’t, but I know what pain is like. I’m just good at burying it inside of myself.”
“I could tell.”
“We’re two side of the same coin, I think.”
“What?” Polypa asked.

This was getting interesting, she thought. Maybe this would hold the answer that she was waiting for. How could he bring them together? A lowblood mercenary, and a highblood critic.

“We’re both people who live in the shadow of pain in their pasts. We’re both trying to move past it but we’re not entirely sure how, and we’re looking for people to explain it to who really get it but it often doesn’t seem possible.”
“Wow, Zebruh, I’m impressed.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I am actually.”
“Thanks.” Zebruh flushed indigo.
“You put it well, I’ll give you that.”
“Let me know some time and I’ll read your tarot.” Zebruh said lightly.
“Sure, not tonight though. I’m really tired. It’s been a long day of trying not to get culled.”
“Yeah, I’m very, very tired. Goodnight, Polypa.”
“Goodnight, Zebruh.”

Polypa closed her eyes while Zebruh continued to stare up at the sky. A chill passed over his heart. It was a familiar sound that said: “Don’t do it. Don’t get attached.” He wanted to bury it as quickly as possible. It was different this time, he was sure of it. But oh god, what if it wasn’t. The ghosts of his past were still around him, still grabbing at him, still needing him for whatever reason. He could almost see them, and hear them, and he could without a doubt feel them. They were here to stay a lot longer than he would’ve liked. It took an hour for his blood pusher to calm down enough to fall asleep while Polypa was completely out within five minutes.

-------

Come on, Azdaja thought. It was just one click and that’s all he’d need. Azdaja jumped up and clocked a 180. Shit. Before he even saw Elwurd, he realized it was checkmate.

Elwurd quickly popped out behind him and nestled the tip of her gun underneath his chin.

“Is this the part where you confess to having pitch feelings for me and let me go?” Azdaja stifled a small laugh.
“No, Azdaja, this is the part where you die.”

With a firm pull of the trigger, a spray of yellow blood erupted from Azdaja’s head as his corpse fell to the floor. Elwurd took a breath and looked down before hearing another click.

“And this is the part where I win the whole thing.” Tagora laughed as he stepped out from the darkness. Elwurd’s eyes locked on with him before a second loud bang echoed through the room.

Elwurd looked at Tagora and her hands began to shake. She was unable to pull the trigger. Elwurd dropped the gun and felt her stomach. Hah, blue blood coming out. So much blue blood… so fast… son of a-...

Elwurd collapsed onto the floor next to Azdaja. Tagora stepped over her. “I’ll be taking these to help recover the costs of my operation. Thanks for doing part of my job for me.”

Elwurd tried to choke out a reply as Tagora reached down and took both her and Azdaja’s pistols before calmly leaving the room. Dying, she turned her eyes up towards the ceiling as her vision began to fade. Fuck you, Tagora, she thought. He’d get his eventually. She kept repeating that until the last bit of life finally left her.