Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Chapter Text

Chapter Text

==> Be the snarky broad.

You are now KANAYA MARYAM.

Kanaya Maryam has been edited out of this timeline.

==> Be the other snarky broad.

You are now ROSE LALONDE.

Right now you’re talking to three of your closest friends about a strange individual who has been messaging you.

Getting an idea you open a new message box and pull it up next to the memo board.

Talking to her nowadays is so confusing. You’re relieved to turn your mind back to much simpler things.You click the Accept Call button and five little boxes with loading screens come up. It vaguely occurs to you that pesterlog should not have the same functions Skype does, it’s simply not what it is for. This line of thought, however, can only lead to bad places and is probably telling of some higher being’s remnant guilt at twisting reality to suit their own purposes.

Your little swirly box thing is the first to load.

You hope this works, your internet connection has been known to be pretty shitty. As the next little swirly box loads you bring it up to full size and attempt to make what you can of it.

. . . Well then.

“Fuck you, and fuck your lusus.” His voice is somehow exactly what you expected it to be, husky but undeniably young with a strange hissy accent.

“Was there really any purpose behind that string of words?” You raise an eyebrow and adopt a smirk “Your concerning desire to fuck a strange assortment of things, including nonsense words, has been noted.”

The strange boy (Karkat?) at the end of the call’s only response is a double face-palm combo followed by two vaguely waving middle fingers.

“HOLY FUCK, You are an alien!!!” You and the boy both wince, most of the time you appreciate Jade’s enthusiasm, but she can get loud.

“No shit Harlay! Though from my perspective you’re the weird soft alien bipeds, I mean, you’re actually mammals. What the shitspewing fuck.” The look of interest that lights up on Jade’s face has you a little concerned, you hope she doesn't really believe any of this nonsense. You will admit, that is an Excellent costume, but it is nothing more.

The grey boy has actually started to flail his hands with every word, his voice pitching further into the hysterical. “Wonderful, the douche lord himself is here, in all his coolkid glory!”

Dave flips him the bird. “Fuck you too dude, I’m just gonna hang here til you explain what the hell is going on. No big. What the fuck, is that cosplay?”

“Hey guys!”

“And the last asshole is here, our lives are now complete! Hallefuckinglujah!” . . . You hope the gray boy doesn't choke on his own spit or something ridiculous like that.

John snorts “Ok, you are way less intimidating now that I can see that you are just a weird shouty kid. Niiice horns by the way.”

As amusing as watching these interactions is, you feel like the conversation should come back to the point. “Sorry to interrupt but did you have any actual plans for this conversation?” You almost regret speaking with the way the boy’s face crumples. It takes a moment to remind yourself that, beyond a general interest in any unstable individual's well being, you should not actually host a stake in this stranger’s emotions.

“Wow, fuck. To be shiteatingly honest, not really. My husktop’s running out of power, and, I guess you don’t know me but, any advice for surviving on my own? Shit, I’m in some sort of forest I think, it’s more green and brown than it should be. Dave. My Dave, I guess that’s how I’ll refer to him? He was always talking about Earth’s giant hopbeast monsters, I really should have found out if he was fucking with me or not.”

The boy, Karkat, falls silent for a moment. No one speaks. You wonder if he’s noticed the light pink liquid running down his face, or the way his breath has shortened to gasps. You wonder why the liquid is pink, and how he got contacts with yellow whites, how he dyed his tongue black - or if it's somehow changed by the video.

As your perception of the world as you know it temporarily crumbles your pesterchum notification informs you with a little ding that you have a new message.

Chapter Text

You’re pretty sure everyone in the call is staring at you.

That’s ok. It’s, as Dave would be quick to say, ironic.

Jade is the first to speak “Um…. Rose?”

The gray boy - Karkat. Karkat looks even more freaked out then he did before. “Not that I’m really one to fucking talk at this point, but holy shit, are you ok?”

You don't respond and Dave’s face twitches. “Hey, that’s my line, dude. Rose, what the fuck? You know you’re sitting there, like, repeatedly hitting yourself in the face right?”

You should give them some explanation of this strange and erratic behavior. Instead you use your non-hitting hand to pester your mother.

Before you can respond to this worrying assertion a new box appears in the chat and your mother grins at you.

“Sup bishes?”

The reactions are amusing at least. Dave, Jade, and John have all talked to your mother over pesterchum before. (The woman had decided that ‘getting to know all ur lil friends’ was an important part of bonding. Needless to say, it was horrifying.)

You bury your face in your hands and try to resist rolling over and dying.

Your mother seems to notice your distress and attempts to reassure you “No worries sweetie!! I probs promise not to embarrass you.” Ah if only it was simple embarrassment that fueled the consuming despair that you are beginning to experience. What you wouldn't give for a parental figure who just didn't know the proper etiquette for satanic rituals or something silly like that.

John is the first to get over the shocked silence “Uh, wow. Are you Rose's mom?” You need to warn him at some point not to encourage her.

“Johnny boi, I knew you’d know me!” Your mother hesitates, tapping her nails against the arm of her chair “*Boy” You almost hope she’s drunk, somehow, this would be less embarrassing. “Ok, soooo, I see here four nice upstanding human kiz. Hi human kiz!” She waves at the screen. The ‘upstanding human kiz’ awkwardly wave back. Dear god, your mother is an absolute madwoman. “And then there’s u” She points accusingly at the screen at what you assume to be Karkat “Wth the grey skin an the cute nubby horns and shit. I have some questions!”

Karkat looks a little shellshocked. It must be his first encounter with someone who can misspell words out loud. Or perhaps he just hasn't gotten over the fact that a grown woman just appeared in your pesterchum call uninvited.

“What the actual festering fuck.”

“Omg, can fucks even fester? I mean I guess if you, like, tear something an then -” You don’t need to hear this. If you beveled in cosmic karma you’d think this was some of it coming back to bite you for constantly messing with Dave. “Wait no, fist question!” Your mother’s face goes strangely stern. “Are you in league with the batterwitch? Are you and your nefaus, fuck, NEFA-rious organization coming at me through my kid? I will fuck you up even if you do look like cutie.”

This is nonsense. You’re impressed at the complexities of this prank, no doubt your mother’s newest way to ‘leg one up’ to you. How much had she payed this boy to dress up and cry on camera, or does he just take pleasure in these sorts of things? Part of an acting class maybe? And honestly, how deep does this go? You're sure she could have talked John into playing along merely by mentioning the near holy ‘prank’ but what about . . . . Wow, reevaluating that line of thought you may be a little paranoid.

Karkat finally blinks and responds “Batterwitch? Damn it, actually, fuck. I’m sorry. You’re Rose’s lusus ancestor thing right? I shouldn't have tried to contact her, or any of these human kids. I hereby banish myself from any further contact! Do you want me to find something to swear to because I can tell you firsthand that the gods of this world are a bunch of incompetent fuckwits.”

Your mother frowns and points an unsteady finger at the screen “OH NO, you lil shit! You’re not getting away that easy. I will have a lock on ur location in a sec, and then I will find you and make you beg to ur incompetent gods that you know the answers to my totes legit questions.” She hesitates. “I would also like a blood sample for science.”

Karkat's response to this is, loud, and not very clear. It also displays an impressive vocabulary, you’re not even sure that part of the brain could be used as a satisfactory sex toy.

He slams his computer shut and his video box disappears after a moment. You’re mother doesn't seem particularly distressed by this, which tells you that she likely already has the coordinates she needs. He could always leave his location, but she has ways of tracking people down . . .

. . . Fuck. If you actually examine the events leading up till now, a humanoid alien existing who thinks you and your cohort are his friends and has a connection to an evil alien fish, is actually, SLIGHTLY more likely than all of this this being an elaborate ruse orchestrated by your mother.

Goddamnit.

Your head feels like it’s swimming and you suck in a deep breath as you plaster on a polite smile. “Excuse me, Mother. May I talk to you? In person would be somewhat preferable.”

Roxy nods, a guilty frown tugging at her mouth “Ok Rosie, you finish up with your friends that I totally just barged in on and I’ll be down in the kitchen.” She smiles again “bye bye babues!” With a click of a key her video box disappears.

Jade looks concerned. “Are you guys going to be ok?” You give into temptation and fall over groaning.

“We’ll be fine. I just need to ask her about, well, aliens I guess.” With a short goodbye, and an almost ironically sincere sounding good luck from Dave, you shut off the call and go to confront your mother.

Chapter Text

You don’t prepare for it like you would have even a year ago. No adjusting your clothes or makeup to mirror her perfect mask. You, still kind of want to but, Roxy isn’t - your Mother isn’t the same figure she’s always been in your life. You’re trying to interpret her differently.

On the way down you do find your mind wandering to the gray boy. You wonder who he really is. (Also why would he type like that? Can he truly not see what a huge give away it is? There’s overcompensating, and then there’s shouting in gray capslock text on a chat client with plenty of other perfectly acceptable color options.) Unfortunately the kitchen is not that far away and you can only distract yourself for so long.

You find your mother at the stove. It’s a little strange to see since she's not in the kitchen much. In fact until you were about eight you had just assumed that meals magically appeared. You're the first to speak “So. May I assume you will be leaving soon to retrieve the, ah, alien?” There, perfectly even and non-confrontational. Damn, you are good at this open communications thing.

She smiles, and it’s a bit more natural than normal, too many teeth. “Yup, I have some questions I want answers for.” Than in an impressive show of insecurity the smile turns nervous. “Sorry for scaring him away though, I got kiiiinda caught up, but I guess he was your patient thingie?” she gestures to the pot of milk, grabbing a Hershey's syrup bottle and squirting a generous amount in “I can explain some stuff maybe? If you want, I’ll probably wait til after coming back to show you ALL the research, but like. Basic stuff?.”

You breath in slowly, thinking.

“Ok.” You sit at the small dining table.

It takes her a while to start speaking, and you are impatient. Eventually she takes the pan of hot chocolate and sloppily pours some into two mugs before sitting down and handing you one. “K, so. Uh, here, how about you just ask me whatever you want?”

You nod slowly, thinking, and decide to start with “Who is the gray boy?”

Your mother leans back in the chair “I don't know! Wish is frustrating since the organization's been trying to figure out more about fishsticks an her species since we became aware of her, with not super awesome results. An, like. There were some differences, the kid looked a lot smaller and doesn’t have fins? But still gray with tiny looking versions of her horns! Which is what our source says a lot of them look like.”

Ok then. “What is The Organization?”

At this she flushes a bit, using one hand to pull her scarf over her nose. “Um, yeah, sorry for not telling you about that sweetie! Jus, I thought it might be safer if you didn't know that I'm one of the leaders of a secret organization geared to taking down our evil alien fishoverlord who's . . . kinda Betty Crocker? I mean, if you wanna know my actual job, it's that. I don't do much field work anymore but me and old doublejunk dude are most of the communications and info department. Other than that I do some weapons development, plus drone take-down if they end up in the area.”

You suddenly feel the overwhelming doomed sensation of someone who has just realized that the more they ask the more confusing things are likely to get. You wish you had a drink. “Betty Crocker? No, ignore that. I feel like the 'Double Junk Dude' is definitely the most important thing here.”

She shrugs “I guess he's like her secretary or something? And according to him he has two di- um, privates.”

Great.

You don’t have anymore questions that you can articulate right now so you let her go. Now that you think about it you have seen her take off like this before, or declare that “some newb on th internets is getting a betten” and, blow up their computer you guess? You were never quite sure if that was a thing that should have been possible. Secret organization against an alien baked goods invasion though, everything explained.

Not really, but after she leaves you decide not to go back to your room. Instead you take another mug of hot chocolate, a blanket, and one of her bright pink cellphones and resign yourself to watching cartoons on the couch and pestering your friends until she comes back.

Wat.

You guess you’re flying over the woods in an awesome helicopter right now? Not really gonna do any raking tho.

Why are you even thinking about this, maybe you’re going nutty?

Oh hey, pings.

Pssh, you could fly this thing with your feet if you wanted. Maybe.

You bring the plane down into the clearing that Double Junk Dude directs you to, only wincing a bit as the loud whirring of the blades waps against the trees. Cool, that wasn’t so bad. And this place isn't even that far from Potsdam, so double plus there.

You make sure to check your guns before slipping on the shades, you’re not taking your shotgun this go round but two pistols at your calves and a modified tranq in your hand should be enough.

Chapter Text

You are now past Karkat.

WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU WANT TO BE THAT. BEING YOU IS LIKE BEING SUCKED INTO A DARK CYCLONE OF DESPAIR MADE OUT OF THE DEFECATION OF THOUSANDS OF SICK WIGGLERS.

Yeah so you think you've stopped crying.

You shouldn't have been crying in the first place, sobbing is loud and dumb and you are going to be eaten by a giant hopbeast. But honestly WHAT THE SHITEATING SWEATGLOBES, WHERE ARE YOU. It’s fine, everything’s fine, this is probably one of the human’s weird as fuck dreambubbles and you are going to wake up any second now. (or find out that you died in some horrifically brutal and noble fashion)

The contents of your sylladex are scattered around you so the first thing you decide to do is kick all your shit into a kind of pile, grab your crabtop praying that it’s at full charge, and prepare to start trolling people for answers.

Except, when you open trollen instead of 16 names coming up you’re meet with four. All online.

What the fuck, Dave better have some answers.

You start crying again halfway through the conversation with John, mostly out of anger and confusion. You start laughing half way through the conversation with Jade, little giggles that you are really fucking glad no one is around to hear.

By the time Rose’s ancestor butts into the call you feel just, tired. You think you babble a bit. Then she starts talking about interrogation and blood samples and you're not tired anymore. Swearing at your stupidity you slam the husktop closed and leap up from the pile.

You have to run, fuck. You try to Captchalogue stuff as one 'pile of shit' to save time and nothing happens. FUCK, WHERE’S YOUR SYLLADEX. Kicking through the shit you grab a sickle and try to check your strife specibus, but NOPE, nothing. Screeeing in frustration you spin around and stab the biggest thing in your pile of shit (a very comfy multi person ass supporter) fully expecting the blade to bounce off.

Your blade is firmly embedded in stuffing.

WHAT THE FUCK.

Oh well, despite it not really being posible without a strife specibus this is still the best thing to happen to you all night. Letting loose a battle SCREEEE you keep stabbing the fluffy ass supporter. This is a great use of energy.

After you’re satisfied, (and the blade is dull, damn) you finally try and figure out what you’re going to do about the fact that an adult alien might have your location and be coming to interrogate you. The answer is pretty obvious, kiss sweet crabtop goodbye, find your two sharpest sickles, and start running as fast as you can.

????
WH47 7H3 FUCK

Shit, whatever man, you’ve got a lackey to play with.

Derect.

You mean direct, on a very serious mission. One that you could even say you are - BUDUM-TISH

You load out of your current mind, carefully slotting in the protocols that hide you from yourself as you sink back into red lines.

Another set of protocol takes over and you decide to cut off your backup engines before rerouting, it’s not like you’re doing any serious flying anyway. Technically you could just increase your power output, but it would put strain on the hardware and you don’t need another biological meltdown right now.

Something nudges at the back of your awareness, but you carefully ignore it, only letting it flash through your circuitry for a few microseconds. (You’re supposed to be doing something else, something that would further your empresses’ mission in this new world but, what?)

Hmmm. This model of drone building is going very slow, mostly because HIC wants them to look exactly like real drones. You would be way past the testing stage if she just wanted normal giant robots.

Fuck shit ow.

Oh yeah, you were doing a thing.

It’s not actually that hard to find the way the impossible troll went. You mostly just watch through TG’s shades and adjust brightness and night vision settings. She has the whole tracking thing down, and to both of your relief this kid is no professional. You start reviewing the clip of audio log that you saved from the group call TG joined.

Yeah she’s way too loose tongued, you’ll have to insult PF until he lectures her or something.

It takes hours to track the troll down, you kinda have to admire his determination since he really clearly has no idea how to go on the run. Well either that or he just felt like cutting foliage to make an easier path would be interpreted as animal behavior.

When TG finally catch sight of the target she hangs back, watching the kid from around a tree as he cuts a path through nature and mutters loudly to himself. God this shittard is bad at this.

You start fiddling a bit. Unless they’re in the heat of destroying stuff your operatives getting into confrontations always makes you a little nervous when you’re running on this mode of thinking program. TG knows what she’s doing though, it’s fine.

She takes a moment to check her guns before circling around and making herself visible to the target. The wiggler might not be that bad at some stuff because he notices something’s up as she moves in, freezing and loosening into a fighting stance. Nice, nobody notices TG unless she wants them to, maybe he's a professional that has no experience with nature? When she actually steeps into his line of sight he goes ashy and you’re pretty sure if you had a noise you would be able to smell the fear on him.

“FUCK.”

You’re glad TG has a good view because you snap a few pictures with her glasses. The troll really is a wiggler, maybe around six - or seven if he’s short.

“Yoo, kid. Sorry I got a bit salty, I def promise not to dissect you, that would be totes immoral.”

Heheheheheh. He has super short little nubby horns, maybe HIC found a way of mutating humans to look like trolls? It would be weird that you didn’t know about it, but it could have been something she delegated through Crocker Corp? He has a sign and everything though, and his husktop seemed pretty modern for just before the vast glub.

Something else is bugging you about him, but you’re excited enough to ignore it for now.

“SO, IF I LIKE, RAN AWAY. RIGHT NOW, HOW WOULD YOU FEEL ABOUT NOT SHOOTING ME.”

“Uh, I would probs totes shoot you then, sorry”

“WELP.” The next few moments are a blur of movement as kid moves towards TG with a flash of sickles. You only realize that he was probably going for her gun after she’s shot him twice in the chest and flashed away.

The kid keeps moving, this time in the opposite direction now that he’s realized the hard way that TG’s bullets aren't instantly fatal.

For a second all you see is trees and bouncing and then TG’s gun is slamming into the back of the kid’s head.

A lot of slamming around and yelling is happening and you. Kind of. Fuck off for a minute. You’re still seeing out of TG’s glasses and monitoring her stats and stuff, but most of your mind is fiddling with the security cameras on your ship, or messaging secret shit board with ‘??: 7G 831NG 0WN3D 8Y 515 5W33P 0LD, WH47 D0’.

TG isn’t actually owned by the six sweep old, that would be silly.

You examine the target through the glasses, he’s face down and TG’s cuffed his hands and ankles. As you watch she seems to decide that the safest course of action is sitting on him.

He doesn't look that injured, TG took the darts out, and you think the back of his head’s only a little bloody. You go through your database for brain injury tests and compare them to the data from this planet.

He's also yelling at full volume but that bit’s not your problem.

Something's going wrong with your programing, something is BUGGING you, about the impossible little troll. Part of you is still moving things around and directing energy to the drone room, part of you is watching HIC texting her board of directors in the pool.

Part of you, the part that you barely think about anymore, is hanging in the helmsblock slowly becoming more pink organic wires then troll body. Yooooou're pretty sure the disturbance is coming from your organic portion. Which, makes sense since it used to be a troll? Any memories of life on the planet are saved in the organic hardware.

Which means it's a bitch to access, shit, maybe you saved some copies somewhere.

You’re still paying attention to the audio in the glasses.

“Dude real sorry bout this shit, uh like, how does your head feel?”

“OH I DON'T KNOW, MAYBE I SHOULD ASK, HEY HEAD HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT BEING HIT WITH SOME SORT OF DRUG INJECTION GUN? THAT THROBBING AND PROBABLE BLEEDING WORKING FOR YOU?? NO I DIDN'T THINK SO, OH MY GOD I'M BEING KIDNAPED. ALIENNAPPED. WHATEVER.”

“Hey double dick dude was right, your eyes are kinda turning orange there, here repeat some vegetable names after me.”

“WHAT THE HELL, WHY.”

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING, NO FUCK YOU, DON'T FUCKING TOUCH ME I WILL BITE YOU I SWEAR TO FUCK”

The voice is nagging you, it's like, you're feeling things but you're missing the data that would tell you why you're feeling things?

“OW! WHY. I THOUGHT ALL HUMANS HAD THE SAME BLOOD WHY ARE YOU – EW.”

You don't send all of yourself into the helmsman, just enough to be a pass for a complete person. This tech is ancient, the brain hasn't been booted up since the last meltdown and forceful upboot by HIC.

You slip in, switch on all the right bits, and get ready for what's left of a troll to start screaming. It does, and of course so do you because the troll thing is part of your system. You try sending messages straight into its head to calm it down and explain why you turned it on.

You probably did have backups of your organic data at one point. You understand why both you and the old meatsack decided to delete them. They’re crusted over with old feelings and horrors. They're also kind of fuzzy and warn with time so you do make backups again and store them both in yourself and in the memory data closest to the helmsman.

Mituna Captor, later known as The Ψiioniic, lived about as long as most lowblood psiionics of the time. He was a slave before he found a new masterfriendslovedthem way with the cult of the signless. And by 'found' you mean the idiot prophet himself snuck into the slave quarters to preach at everyone not on shift and see if anyone wanted to 'break the chains of slavery'. You were one of the few he convinced, and if you were to be honest to the memories of that troll, it was mostly because of a combination of 'fuck how dramatically can I commit suicide' and 'thit he's kinda cute, would pap maybe??'

The disapontment of finding out that he was totally and completely taken in all the quadrants by one badass fury that was also unfairly cute, kinda hot; was completely outclasses by the fact that freedom was a new terrifying thing that you were totally competent at immediately you swear.

The Signlesses death, the loss of your family, and later instalment into your ship are all memories that hurt the meatbag to share. You're kinda worried you might have to shut it down before HIC hears but they do get through.

This was probably stuff that you used to know, the reason why you've been part of trying to keep rebellions informed and safe even as you built up a lot of your mind to be HICs.

Bleh. This still doesn't explain much, just, who the kid's ancestor was.

You better report to your operative.

You shut it down and check on TG, looks like she's been messaging you – how long did that even take? 5 minutes, ok cool, little sloppy but meatbag was being difficult. (meatbag is totally your new nickname for your helmsman port)

“ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME ANYMORE YOU EXCUSE FOR A SENTIENT CLIMBBEAST, WHAT IS EVEN HAPPENING HERE. I MEAN ARE YOU PLANNING TO SIT ON ME UNTIL I SPONTANEOUSLY DIE FROM INDIGENT EMOTIONAL OVERLOAD, OR”

TG pats the little redblood on the head, he tries to twist around to bite her but don't have the leverage.

“Just waiten for the date rape stuff to work.” So, your operative is kind of a idiot. The kid that now reminds you of someone you have a secondhand affection for stiffens and shuts up, letting his face get smooshed into the ground.

??: 7G UH
TG: ummmmm, wow yeag

“Uh, no kid don worry, like, its jus for nooking you out till we get to the lab like then I contact the other leaders to figure out what we're gonna do. But I promise our prisoner of war captives are like, treated ok an stuff?”

??: 15 7H15 4 G00D 71M3 70 M3N710N 7H47 7H3 K1D M1GH7 N07 83 W17H H1C
TG: uhm, no its cool

You watch with almost rapt attention through TG's glasses, the kid is weirdly quiet, but after a moment he nods into the ground.

No one talks for a bit, not even you and TG. She kind of nervously tries to pat the kid's head. You know she's taken in people before, you've needed information and humans were dying because of the stuff that HIC – and you – were putting in motion. But, it's been a while for the little short lived human, and this might just be a clueless wiggler instead of a mercenary or politician.

Also she didn't just shoot him with bullets like she normally would have.

You're not sure if the kid falls asleep eventually because of the drug or because he was really tired and gave up. He could also be faking it but you know TG could take care of it.

The Harley foundation would mean putting the kid in the system. The leaders have to be informed, but you might be able to keep this contained. The head bunch of losers all have emotional investments in offspring, you might be able to keep the wiggler off the experimentation block.

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