Factiontorn RP

agt_doubletap — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 14:03:16 GMT

[WHAT: cleaning duties/fucking around.]
[WHEN: at some point in space.]

He actually didn't mind the cleaning. It had been a long time since he'd really done any of it. Sure, he remembered the concept of extremely tedious cleanliness tasks from his brief boot camp excursion, but since then...people had had better uses for him.

So now, on Wherein Two Legislacerators with his friends, doing menial labor was actually kind of relaxing task. It gave him something to do, which he liked, because none of his more refined skills were anything he could employ without putting the whole ship at risk. So cleaning shit it was.

Whatever this shit was.

It was in the nutrition refractory area, and it looked like it has something to do with food synthesization. Sollux didn't know, he wasn't some kind of kitchen tech expert. What he did know was that it was apparently leaking a big green puddle all over the floor.

He prodded at it with his mop, concerned.

"KK?" he called back, tilting his head. "I'm guessing this puddle isn't it functioning as intended, right?"

lt_scintillate — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 23:12:22 GMT

[WHO: Sollux and Kanaya
WHAT: Romcom haxxorz
WHEN: idk sometime after advegetures
WARNINGS: your face]

Kanaya waited long enough for the sap to be washed out of everyone's hair and soul before taking Sollux aside, but not much longer; she'd been nervy for days leading up to the mission, thinking about the possibilities, and the spectacular events of the mission had, rather than releasing that complex energy, compounded it.

Now they were back aboard the ship, she suspected she was burning the air when she moved. She always glowed brighter when anxious.

"So," she said, in the emptiness of the hallway. "Are you still interested in performing the discussed piece of recon?"

POSE AS A TEAM, BECAUSE SHIT JUST GOT ARBOREAL

cpt_infrared — Sun, 29 May 2011 01:14:46 GMT

WHO: BOLD ADVENTURERS
WHAT: An unoccupied planet turns out to be full of dreadful carnivorous plants.
WHEN: After a couple weeks in space i guess?

oh no!

no they don't actually look like that.

agt_doubletap — Wed, 11 May 2011 09:19:30 GMT

WHO: Sollux and Karkat.
WHAT: Some space skirmishing triggers Sollux's programming, and he goes into agent mode again.
WHEN: A few days after they leave the Rebellion HQ.

There were times when things would just slip away from him. Usually these phases passed by unnoticed, he'd simply fall into the trance he'd spent most of his life with the Empire in, becoming distant and unresponsive but importantly not dangerous. It came and went like the depressive sides of his bipolar disorder, and with enough time he would start feeling like himself again and crawl back out of his shell.

But this was different. Curled up in his shared respite block while everybody else was busying themselves with the space skirmish Wherein Two Legislacerators was currently engaged in, the familiar sound of plasma missiles seemed to wake something up inside of him.

He was on an enemy ship, he slowly realized, and the only answer his programming would provide for him was that he'd been taken captive. The method for dealing with that, if he was allowed to roam free, was simple. He needed to return to the Empire, but first he would take the opportunity to destroy this vessel and the crew along with it.

Something deep down struggled against this idea, but it was buried deep in a morass of familiar, oppressing commands. He staggered to his feet, trying to remember where he was on the ship. He didn't have his weapons, but he knew full well that he'd never needed them in the first place.

He was a weapon in himself.

He escaped down one of the halls, carefully avoiding the trolls he came across. He could have killed them easily, but there was no point in leaving a trail of bodies to his location. That location ended up being the door of the engine room, which was securely locked.

That was fine. He didn't have his computer with him anymore so he couldn't do this the easy way, but he knew more than one way to handle these matters. He tore the panel beneath the electric lock open, and began messing around with the wires. He knew a combination that would open it up, and if not, he was prepared to tear down the door with psionics.

Then he would deal with this ship, and head back to Empire space where he belonged.

pvt_briarpatch — Wed, 11 May 2011 06:32:42 GMT

WHO: Karkat & Eridan
WHAT: a fortuitous encounter at HQ
WHEN: after Karkat's Walk of Shame

Eridan Ampora was no slacker, and always made sure to get his job done before taking free time--

Was something that could not, reasonably, be said at the moment, given the show he was putting on of pacing the halls. To be fair, he wasn't usually a slacker, and had enough sense of duty to do most of his chores. Ah, the shell of a troll he had been reduced to-- and he had never managed to shake that melodramatic streak.

But he had heard-- only and hadn't managed to gather anything more than a few off-hand comments-- that a certain someone was back from a certain mission and would be around headquarters at a certain time.

They could demote him all they wanted, but that didn't nullify the years he'd spent carefully crafting his life to follow a certain series of events, and that didn't make him think himself any less of a tactician. (He gave himself quite a bit more credit than he deserved, but if you turned your head just the right way, you could construe it as a sort of endearing persistence.)

He wasn't planning on literally running into Karkat, of course, which meant that this could only end one specific way.

cpt_infrared — Sat, 07 May 2011 19:55:36 GMT

WHO: Karkat and his commanding officer
WHAT: codenames everywhere
WHEN: Right after Wherein Two Legislacerators docks in at the Rebel base

Colonel Catmurder was a small, solidly built troll, a brownblood with thick, forward-pointing horns who only came up to Karkat's shoulder – a feat in itself – but couldn't have been more imposing if she'd loomed over him. She'd managed to avoid dying for twenty sweeps and had spent more than five of them with the Rebellion, and nobody made fun of her codename after she told them she'd picked it herself.

She'd been Karkat's immediate superior ever since he'd been promoted to captain, and, while she could be downright avuncular when she put her mind to it, right now she was not impressed with him at all.

"So you're telling me," she was saying, removing the cigar from her mouth as she finally looked away from Karkat's report on the monitor of her husktop, "that you're docking in six nights late because you were captured by a branch of the Imperial military that we didn't even know for sure existed until now, in an unauthorised attempt to rescue one of your childhood friends from their service –" Karkat started to interrupt, but she held up a hand to stop him. "– and that you let yourself get interrogated by a psychic when you know some of the Rebellion's most important secrets."

Karkat shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. Catmurder hadn't let him sit down. It was taking all his resolve to go on meeting her eye. "Yes," he said, "but Doubletap told us that the officer who interrogated me would need perigees to build the kind of mental connection she'd need to be able to –"

"This is the Imperial agent you retrieved? The one who you said," she tapped the screen with her cigar, "has been psychically conditioned to be loyal to the Empire? This is a no-brainer, Infrared, why should we trust him?"

"He wouldn't lie to me," Karkat insisted, frustrated. "He's himself most of the time, Colonel! And, look, I'm sorry, but there's no fucking reason at all for him to lie about that even if he was trying to trick me. They'd want us to go on freaking out about it."

"You'd better hope to god that's true, Infrared. We're going to have to relocate the entire damn base to a new solar system because of this, but if you're wrong then that might not be enough."

Karkat winced. The Rebellion's main base was quite large, but it usually needed to be moved once every sweep or so just in case, and was made mostly out of the technologically advanced space equivalent of portakabins. Karkat had only been with the Rebellion for one relocation. It hadn't been much fun at all. The idea that they were going to have to move, probably in a hurry, purely on account of his own incompetence, wasn't a particularly reassuring one. "Yes, ma'am."

She held his gaze, eyes narrowed. "And now this brainwashed Imperial bootlicker is on your ship."

"He's a lot less dangerous there than he would be anywhere else in the galaxy," said Karkat, unable to keep the defensive anger out of his voice and not really caring, either. "And he only served the Empire because he had no damn choice, there's no way in hell he'd betray us intentionally."

"No way he'd betray us intentionally," Catmurder repeated, skeptically, and replaced the cigar between her fangs. "You're going to have to turn him over for questioning, you know that, right?"

Karkat took a deep breath. Here went nothing. "No, ma'am," he said.

"What?"

"... I said no, I'm not turning him over for questioning. That would be a completely shitawful idea. He wants to help us, but if we put him into a situation like that his programming would just make him either clam up or flip his shit and put a brain laser through the interrogation chamber. He knows a lot, but if we're going to get anything out of him he needs to be with people he actually fucking trusts."

The Colonel gave him a long, critical look, and Karkat realized he was baring his fangs.

"Like you," she said.

"... Yeah." He deflated a little. "Like me."

"That is convenient," she said around her cigar. "Pity finds a way, huh?"

Karkat started. "I never said –"

"I'm not stupid, kid. You can keep him, but I expect regular reports on whatever intelligence he trusts you enough to give up."

Karkat felt his ears prick up. He was sure his relief must be so apparent as to be pathetic, but he couldn't quite bring himself to care. He nodded sharply. "Yes, ma'am. Thank you. I swear you won't be disappointed –"

Catmurder raised an eyebrow. "I'm already disappointed, Infrared. You've put the entire Rebellion at risk with this crap. The only reason I'm not demoting you so hard that you're permanently concussed is you're a good captain but you're no good at anything else, and it wouldn't be fair to punish some other numbskull by putting you under their command just because you did something really stupid," here she leaned forward a little to better emphasize her words, "that you're never going to do again."

"... Right," said Karkat, staring awkwardly at her desk. "Never."

"In the meantime," she went on, having determined he was sufficiently ashamed of himself for her liking, "I'm putting you and Wherein Two Legislacerators on scouting duty in the fifteenth subsector." She'd been familiar with his ship's name for perigees, but she still took her cigar out to enunciate it sarcastically every time she had to say it. "Indefinitely," she added, putting it back.

"... Indefinitely?"

"Indefinitely, Infrared. If, as is extremely probable, your actions have led to a security breach, we'll need to expand our pool of safe, unoccupied space as much as possible. And the more you can keep your boyfriend out of anything vitally important that he might decide to wire back to his totalitarian puppetmasters, the better. You got that? I'll be sending the briefing to your ship."

Karkat nodded, dismally.

"Good." Catmurder leaned back in her chair, putting her exceedingly short legs up on her desk. "Dismissed."

cpt_infrared — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 20:14:12 GMT

WHO: Sollux and Karkat
WHAT: thwoon
WHEN: a few hours before docking at rebel HQ

Karkat was gently freaking out.

Wherein Two Legislacerators was steadily approaching the super secret hidden coordinates of the Rebellion's base – a slow-orbiting, inhospitable planet on the outer edge of a solar system that held too few resources and tactical advantages for the Empire to prioritize invading it – and he had about three hours before they were due to dock and he'd be required to present himself to command and explain what the fuck he'd spent the last week doing.

He'd just about determined his actions had been technically justifiable as more than just foolhardy and selfish. Sollux had seen more of the inside of the black ops than probably any troll the Rebellion would ever manage to get their hands on – he was a potential mine of Imperial intelligence, and Karkat was hoping that he could convince his superiors that it would have been a waste to pass up the opportunity. But he was still increasingly sure that, even if they did concede that he hadn't just completely screwed up for no reason, it was entirely possible – likely, even – that they'd decide Sollux would be better off in the hands of practiced interrogators than with his moirail on Karkat's ship.

And now they were only three hours from landing and Karkat still had unfinished business to attend to.

Fuck.

He'd been kind of avoiding the fact that he and Sollux had, well, kissed; it had just seemed like there was always something more important to attend to, and ... he'd allowed himself to not give it too much thought because he wasn't entirely sure how to approach it. He knew it was a douche move to leave him hanging like that, but he needed to sort his own feelings out, and ... and besides, Sollux was still recovering, so perhaps it would be best to leave anything like that until he was feeling more himself.

Except that for all Karkat knew he might not actually get another chance for a long time. It was now or potentially never.

He found Aradia and Tavros enthusing about FLARP in the dining area with Anshar and Jumala (bad influence, should never have let them on board), and obtained their assurance that Sollux was still in the respiteblock he was sharing with them. He was pretty sure the speed with which he bolted off in that direction was kind of suspicious, but he was too busy steeling himself to care very much.

Being captain means never having to knock if you don't feel like it, and Karkat was in too much of a hurry to be polite, so he just barged in like a douchebag.

"Sollux? I need to talk to you."

He hesitated, and then added, with a little less authority, "about feelings."

agt_doubletap — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 03:53:57 GMT

WHO: Sollux and Aradia.
WHAT: Pale bros are pale together.
WHEN: At some point while they are waiting for the Rebel peeps to finish whatever they are doing at the HQ.

He didn't know what to do with himself.

Even if he'd been mentally equipped to, there was nothing he could help with. He wasn't supposed to actually enter the HQ without careful accompaniment, and as far as he could tell with his limited social sensitivity, none of Karkat's existing crew wanted anything to do with him. And he sure as hell didn't have the energy to deal with that kind of conflict anymore.

So he kept to himself. Day by day, his head was gradually beginning to clear, and he spent those long hours putting that newfound clarity of thought to use. A lot of it was struggling to sort out his feelings - to draw the line between what was him and what had been built in to him, with only minor victories. But for the first time in a long while he was able to feel out the depths of his injury, and he was becoming increasingly aware of how badly things were damaged.

And just how trapped he'd been for the last, well...ever.

But now he finally had some freedom to move, and he knew at least one thing he had to use it for. He had been spacing out on the resting slab for the while, but he was finding himself increasingly preoccupied with watching Aradia. Eventually he forced himself to speak.

"Aradia? Can I talk to you?"

cpt_infrared — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 02:48:04 GMT

WHO: Kanaya & Karkat
WHAT: there are not enough words that begin with G
WHEN: on the way back to HQ

-- crimsonGenericnoun [CG] began trolling glowsynonymAfterdark [GA] --

CG: KANAYA?
CG: DO YOU THINK I DID THE RIGHT THING.
CG: I MEAN I KNOW I'M GOING TO GET MY BULGE ROASTED AS SOON AS WE GET BACK
CG: I'M OKAY WITH THAT
CG: BUT DO YOU THINK WE SHOULDN'T HAVE DONE THIS?

agt_doubletap — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 02:38:09 GMT

WHO: Sollux and Feferi.
WHAT: First encounters.
WHEN: Enroute to Rebellion HQ after Sollux has had some time to sleep.

He was in a daze as he woke, nestled into the slime of his recuperacoon. The routine was simple. Get up, get dressed, without any real memory of what duty he needed to be up for. He didn't ask questions or want answers. He'd just get out of his recuperacoon and report to his masters for-

Wait. No. This was wrong.

He stumbled out onto the cold metal floor, littering it with green slime that still covered his body. He was confused. This wasn't where he remembered being, this was different, something was - wait. Someone else's belongings were strewn around the respiteblock. Fuck. Fuck, what was...

No, stop it, you know this, you know what's going on, you just have to think. Come on, think.

He staggered towards the door, wearing nothing but his pair of shorts, leaving a trail of green behind him. He pushed the door open, and found himself in an unfamiliar hallway.

Except he did know it. He had to.

cpt_infrared — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 04:40:45 GMT

WHO: Karkat & Corporal Garcer Queves
WHAT: Rational objections to the keeping of a brainwashed Imperial black ops agent on a Rebel ship
WHEN: After all the rescueturbulence has died down a little bit, still en route to the Rebellion's HQ

According to the criteria he'd set for himself, Karkat was now technically allowed to sleep. He had been technically allowed to sleep for several hours now – Sollux had woken up, and he hadn't tried to psionically crush anybody's lungs or deathlaser anything with his mutant eyeballs, so technically, having made sure that everyone was, broadly speaking, okay, the only thing now on Karkat's immediate agenda should have been to ensconce himself in his recuperacoon for a while and try to get some actual rest for the first time in about five nights.

It hadn't really worked.

There was far too much on his mind – or rather, there were a few specific things on his mind that were just really determined about remaining on his mind, and he'd just wound up staring at the interior wall of the recuperacoon for an hour in a state of irritation, worry and distraction that the sopor slime could only do so much to ease. Eventually he'd given up, washed the slime off and gotten dressed again, and now he was doing the rounds of the ship in some kind of effort to kid himself that he was doing something useful instead of just trying to distract himself.

The engine room was always a good first stop. The hum of the engines and the various monitor displays ticking and undulating and otherwise doing their thing tended to serve as a nice sort of reminder that necessary and useful stuff was going on down there, even when nothing actually needed direct attending to.

"Hey," he said, stepping in as the door slid open – shoulder first, as soon as the opening was wide enough. "Are we okay down here?"

sgt_swiftpaws — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 20:23:24 GMT

WHO: Nepeta and Equius
WHAT: reunion between two fated meowrails!
WHEN: after Nepeta gets promoted, before Tavros needs robot parts I guess!

Nepeta was generally a lot better at containing her excitement when she needed to than she had once been, but even so, stepping off the courier vessel and through the airlock of Equius's very own ship was a very exciting moment indeed! It'd been ages since she'd last actually seen her moirail, and wouldn't he just be so pleased to find out she was now stationed on his ship? Ooh, it was everything she could do just to keep her stance appropriate, but she couldn't mask the silly grin that spread across her face as the soldier led her to meet the captain to report for duty.

agt_doubletap — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 23:28:18 GMT

WHO: Sollux, Karkat, Kanaya.
WHAT: Sollux wakes up - in more ways than one.
WHEN: A few hours after the rooftop escape!

The sleep that trigger word put Sollux into was a deep one - intended to put him safely out of the picture if he ever became dangerous to his captors. Along with dropping him instantly, it also held him under for hours at a time. And no amount of noise or physical disturbance would change that.

But his consciousness was finally beginning to rise to the surface again, enough to flash through some of his more troubling memories. It showed on his face, even though he wasn't quite awake. He was beginning to stir, somewhere between dreaming and reality, and on his resting slab in the medical bay he quietly gasped, his hand twitching as it striving to reach for something.

He was becoming aware that he was somewhere else than where he'd fell, and what seemed like the most likely option was not a pleasant one.

cpt_infrared — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 21:45:08 GMT

WHO: Aradia, Kanaya, Karkat, Sollux, Nereid & eventually Feferi
WHAT: ALMOST VICTORY
WHEN: immediately following this and this

The last ten minutes had been uneventful but extremely tense. Karkat had almost felt like it would have been a relief if they had been stopped, rather than spending every second in suspense over whether they'd make it, wishing he'd been armed even though he was in no fit shape to take on any guards if it had come to that ...

But they'd finally reached the roof – in theory, he and Kanaya were safe.

Hopefully the same could be said of Aradia and Sollux, but for a few innard-curdling seconds there was no sign of them, and Karkat was more than ready to assume the worst.

agt_doubletap — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 21:29:53 GMT

WHO: Sollux and Aradia
WHAT: MOIRAIL REUNION. Aradia comes to rescue Sollux like a true bro.
WHEN: Like four-ish days after Sollux and Karkat were captured, at the same time as Kanaya is breaking out Karkat.

It was quiet.

Sollux was in his cell, lying on the same table he'd been on for the last few nights, skimming the edge of consciousness. His wrists and ankles were bruised yellow from struggling against his bonds, though his motivations for doing so were something he could hardly remember. All he knew was that they'd turned off the lights when he stopped trying to fight them, which meant that he was getting something close to sleep for the first time in a while.

His thoughts were shapeless and confused, his surroundings just a hazy abyss as far as he could perceive. But if he'd had any sense of time, he would have known that his manipulator was late for her appointment with him due to distractions elsewhere in the base.

He was about to learn that this wasn't mere coincidence.

agt_doubletap — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 07:02:12 GMT

[WHO: Sollux and Nereid.]
[WHAT: A solo-log in which Sollux has broken the rules and Nereid decides to do horrible things to his brain. General unpleasantness ensues.]
[WHEN: Around the same time Karkat's interrogation scene happened.]

Sollux was already alone by the time he started coming back to himself, or at least he was in every way that mattered. He was surrounded by the throng of guards that had been ordered to escort him to the cell and 'prepare' him for the process, but if he had any identity to them beyond a damaged piece of property he would have been stunned. He was gradually becoming aware of what was happening to him, to what he was losing, but his body still wouldn't move with his mind.

He felt himself be stripped of his armour and the needle enter his neck, its contents trickling into his veins and numbing whatever part of his brain gave him his telekinesis. He felt his powers slip away from him, and it was only then - helpless and exposed - that he found himself able to move.

He struggled against them, yelling and snarling, forgetting all of the technique that he would have used against enemies of the Empire. Instead it was a desperate mess of straining limbs and grapsing claws, fueled by all-consuming terror, anger, and sorrow. But his nails had no hope of even scratching their armour, and his strength was swiftly overwhelmed by their numbers, a series of savage blows sending him sprawling to the floor. He laid there, shaking, until it was decided that that wasn't good enough, and they wrenched him to his feet so they could force him onto the table.

They strapped him down and left him there, blinded under the harsh lights, and was allowed the next several hours to wait in the chill air and near perfect silence to contemplate what was going to happen to him. And what would happen to Karkat.

At some point he gave in and wept openly, because it was the only thing left that he could do, and it didn't matter anymore. There was nothing to salvage. It was over.

Those tears had long since dried by the time Nereid finally came for him.

He could hardly see her through the glare of the spotlights bearing down on him, designed to torment the subject on the table and no one else. She was free to lurk in the shadows as she came around to the head of the table.

"Sollux," she said, resting a hand on the side of his face, her thumb caressing his cheek. He flinched, as if that touch had been a physical blow. "I had really thought we were past this."

"Don't touch me," he breathed, barely audible despite the stillness of the room. If she'd heard him, she pretended that he hadn't. He tried to pull away, but he couldn't move enough for it to make any difference.

"Neither I nor the rest of black ops can afford the risks this kind of unpredictability bring to the table. You're useless to me like this." He felt her connect to his mind, and at this point there was nothing he could do to stop her. He growled weakly in resistance, pulling uselessly against his bonds. "So we're going to have to make some changes."

That scared him, because on some level he knew what it implied. He also knew that she would be able to feel that fear though their connection, and that only made him feel worse. God, he was helpless. If he'd been stronger, than maybe Karkat wouldn't have-

"I know you're hurting," Nereid said, in a falsely reassuring tone. "I can feel it in there. I know how important he was to you." Past tense, that was past tense, he didn't like that. "But his role in your life is over." He flinched - he didn't know what she was doing inside of his head but it was starting to hurt. "And it will be so much easier for you if you accept that it's time to move on."

"F-fuck you," he gasped, but the pain kept getting worse and worse. "Fuck you, I won't...I..." He wouldn't forget this, he'd get revenge someday, he'd-

"I'm going to help you with that," she said, he words smooth and determinedly speaking over his protests. "These kinds of attachments are proving to be nothing but counterproductive to your purpose. And it's really about time you turned over a new leaf..."

"No. Get...get away from me. Get...ahh..." His body convulsed under the strain. He choked out a sob. "Fuck. Fuck you, you...you did this to me, y-you sick fuck..."

"Shh," she hushed, putting her finger to his lips. "Just relax. It'll be much better when I'm finished. You won't have to remember any of this." She leaned in close, kissing him lightly on the forehead. "Or anything about them."

Her claws sunk fully into his mind, and terror seized him. He screamed and struggled, fighting through the pain and disorienting vertigo swelling in his head.

"No...no...fuck, get out, I...I'll kill you." His cry of pain shifted to a scream of anger part way though, "I'll fucking kill you!"

But his strength faded quickly, and as she began tearing into his mind it became impossible to think. His shouted curses dwindled to groans of agony, and he got lost in inside his own head, helpless as she started toying with his memories. This was it, and he knew it. By the time she got her way, there wouldn't be anything left. And as that realization began to sink in, he gradually felt himself letting go.

Maybe being gone wouldn't be so bad. What reason did he have to stay?

lt_scintillate — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 07:32:07 GMT

[WHO: Karkat and Kanaya.
WHAT: THIS IS GOING TO BE A TOUCHING REUNION WHETHER KARKAT LIKES IT OR NOT (AND WITH THOSE BROKEN LUNGTHING GUARD BONES HE PRETTY MUCH DEFINITELY DOESN'T)]

Kanaya didn't put undue effort into stepping softly through the base's figurative and dank alimentary canals; the stolen armor, specially sealed at the seams by a hastily improvised solution of pitch and grubsauce, did well enough to trap the glow coming off her skin and to deflect the eyes of the few soldiers scattered through these halls. As for those whose distant gaze concerned her far more- no amount of padding in her shoes could have allowed her to escape their notice.

The ringing slap of her soles off tile did, however, mean that the two guards stationed just outside the relevant cell cluster came to greet her, welcoming relief from the boredom of their shift in the form of conversation, she presumed. This was useful, in the narrow confines of the corridor. They clumped.

Kanaya made use of it, and went on, licking absently at her knuckles as she walked.

There were doors, now, barely visible and closely locked, and sometimes she thought she heard a groan. She passed them by. The ghosts had been very specific. She was grateful for that, although under ordinary circumstances she would have preferred Karkat not to be known by sight to anything deader than herself.

These were not ordinary circumstances.

She came to the last door. She slipped a decidedly battered tube of lipstick from her boot.

What followed was, in any case, far noisier than any footfall.

The door remained standing for a moment after she'd cut it out of its hinges. She swung it gingerly aside, and then, as an afterthought, raised the dark visor of the helmet, and stepped into the cell.

cpt_infrared — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 05:37:02 GMT

[WHO: Karkat & less than savoury OCs]
[WHAT: unpleasantness, self-loathing, etc.]

Karkat had been prepared for the fact that, if he was captured, interrogation might occur, but it hadn't seemed like too much of a big deal when it had just been a theoretical possibility that he was determined to avoid. It turned out that, as an actual, physical reality, it kind of was a big deal. A big, painful, final deal.

He hadn't had the worst of it yet. He'd been bruised and bloodied and humiliated, but the worst part was the fact that he had days more of this, if not weeks or even perigees, to look forward to, and that it would get worse. A lot worse. He still had all his extremities, for example.

He'd been granted a brief respite from questioning, left alone in the small, too-bright cell, and, though what he'd been told was that his interrogators were due for a break, he got the impression that the intention was to give him some space to ruminate on the fact that this was how he was going to spend the rest of his inevitably brief life if he didn't talk.

It was working, sort of. It was filling Karkat with despair, anyway, but nothing could have persuaded him to give up information. He knew perfectly well that his blood precluded any possibility that sufficient spillage of revolutionary secrets could lead to his being offered some kind of sanctuary in the Empire, and that the only reward he could look forward to for giving them what they wanted was a swift death – even if he'd been the kind of pathetic bootlicking grubfucker who'd even consider rolling over and exposing his belly for the Empire, there was no guarantee that they'd even cull him quickly.

But it was okay.

He deserved this.

The injuries, the taunts, even the knowledge that he was definitely going to be tortured until he died, was bearable because he knew he was getting exactly what he was due for his complete failure. He'd let everyone down, horribly, and this was what he'd earned.

Slumped against the wall of the cell, Karkat closed his eyes and raggedly exhaled. At least something about all this was right.

DIAMONDS GOING FLYING

lt_scintillate — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 03:14:39 GMT

[WHO: Kanaya and Aradia.]
[WHAT: 2X paleflail COMBO.]

She waited for half an hour after the appointed time, bearing firmly in mind, as she had ever since the incident in orbit over Gallifried, with the improvisational exploitation of the local postage system and its consequences, that Karkat was by nature overoptimistic in his estimations for how long it took to exit ships by unconventional routes.

Then she began to panic.

This would not have been immediately visible to any observer; her expression, one of faintly perturbed impatience, did not shift, and she rose very calmly from her seat. But her hands had closed into fists at her sides, and her knuckles had gone- well, if she had been living, they would have gone slightly less green, and as it was they stayed white.

They were, nonetheless, tightly clenched.

She moved out and down through the body of the ship, her footsteps very loud on the tiled floor.

The cabin Aradia and Tavros were staying in was a small one; theirs was not a rescue ship, and it was not really equipped to support many more people than could crew it. There would have been no cabin at all if one of the gunners hadn't got lungworm and returned to the safety of the Rebel planet in the past perigee. As a consequence, throwing open the door became a much more dramatic gesture than she'd intended, if only because it almost knocked over a desk.

Kanaya could not bring herself to care.

"Aradia," she said, "we have a problem."

agt_doubletap — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 09:26:01 GMT

WHO: Sollux and Karkat
WHAT: Not makeouts and a failed rescue. That is to say, a frescue.
WHERE: In and around Sollux's respite block within the Imperial fleet.
WHEN: About two and a half weeks after the memo.
WARNINGS: Swearing, mindrape, and absolutely no makeouts what so ever.
SUMMARY: Karkat sneaks onto the black ops ship where Sollux is being held to retrieve him. Meanwhile Sollux is not having a good time at all. Conflict ensues.

He could feel her inside of his head, crawling between thoughts like a spider on a web. It didn't hurt, at least not anymore, but the touch left him feeling naked and defenseless - powerless to resist the pull of the threads that had been carefully woven to cage his mind over two long sweeps of manipulation. Reality had dissolved into a shapeless haze, and while he was distantly aware of the fact that his body was lying on a table somewhere, it all felt numb and intangible as he wandered, lost inside of this own thoughts.

But at his core he knew there was still something to fight for. He couldn't conceal much, but there were some thoughts that she couldn't be allowed to see. Thoughts of his friends that were still alive and trying to help him even if he couldn't help them, throwing themselves against the fangs of the Empire for a chance to bring him home. That knowledge made part of him feel stronger - even if there was a good chance that Kanaya may have never figured out his clues, even if he had every reason to believe that they had already died in the attempt, even if he knew that the web that bound his mind would force him to wish that they'd never tried at all - it was all he needed to wrap himself around those memories like a shield, willing his outer shell to be as empty and featureless as the tool he was supposed to be.

Though despite his efforts, and probably just by chance, it was during that search that he felt her brush against his bubble of protection. It didn't break, he didn't break, but she'd felt its presence. She knew.

And after a silence that seemed immeasurable within the haze, and a faint stirring sensation in his mind, he heard her voice in his ear.

"You're hiding something from me."

Still lost in the trance, Sollux was incapable of responding aside from a swell of dread rising to the surface of his thoughts. That was apparently all she needed. He could feel her grip on him tightening, the claws digging in deeper, in way of warning. He gasped with pain and discomfort, locating his limbs long enough to struggle in vain against the restraints.

"You know I hate it when you do that. Come on, open up." The pressure intensified and he desperately tried to breathe, curling even further into himself in defense. He had to keep fighting, he had to keep-

"Or do you need a reminder of the consequences?"

She cut in deep, wrenching an old memory free from where he tried to keep it locked away. He found himself dropped back into his body again - not his present body, but the one from over a sweep previous, abused and broken and screaming in pain. He was overwhelmed by the spectral sensations, reliving the agony like a wound still fresh.

By the time she finally released him, he was shaking and gasping for breath, unceremoniously dropped back into reality. She pulled back from his table, disappearing into the other side of the chamber.

"Take him to his block," she said. "I'll make sure we have some private time later."

He stumbled as he was deposited back into his respite block, dizzied and lost even as the door slammed behind him. Eventually he found the wall with his hands, clinging to it like an anchor. He was running out of time, and he knew it.

It had been over two weeks since he'd been in contact with Kanaya and Karkat, and he'd spent so much time trying to force it away from the front of his mind that he was questioning whether it had happened at all. Even if it had, it would have been so easy for Kanaya to miss the point of his clues, or for them to die before they made it there. In fact, he had been programmed to believe that that was the only option.

But deep down he knew that not only had there been a chance of his retrieval, but that it had been his only hope. He couldn't live like this anymore, despite how much his mind rebelled at the idea of ever leaving. If they'd died, if they'd listened to him and not come at all, if they'd been captured...

He sank down to the floor, grasping for support, folding into himself.

Much longer and there wouldn't be anything left to save.

What is screwdriver?

pvt_rainfall — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 07:21:09 GMT

Who: Kanaya and Feferi
What: Crash landings
Where: A ship
When: After everything else

It was like culling her fish in the ocean, doing the repairs on this ship. Difficult, and small, a menial task to be sure, but ultimately worth it. It was these little things that added up to make a difference. Even if it was a small thing, she was doing her part, right? Right. At least, thats what she kept telling herself as she struggled to try and make the proper repairs in the ships ceiling. She was lying on her back and had with her a number of strange tools, none of which she knew the name of. Maybe she should have asked for more details when they told her what it was she'd be doing. All she knew was she was supposed to take the screwdriver and remove a panel and put a red wire into the blue socket. This long double ended weird... duodent tool shaped object was the right thing right?

She took what was actually a wrench, but what she thought was a screwdriver, and worked on loosening some bolts, which she thought were screws. All right, it was coming off, she was making process! She was sure she would succeed this time. Maybe the last...300 or so times they had asked her to do something it hadn't gone.. exactly as planned. Sure she kept getting moved from ship to ship as different commanders got fed up with her, but this time, this time she was going to succeed. That ominous creak be damned. Wait, ominous creak?

With another bolt loose and another ominous creak Feferi and the ceiling panel she was resting on clattered to the floor.

"Crap!" she screamed as the panel fell. Hitting another object before clattering to the floor. Whatever the panel hit, made the whole flying panel set up tilt sideways and dump Feferi on the floor. Ow ow ow, that hurt, fuck her back. And then the panel fell off the other thing on top or her. Shit. This was bad.

cpt_infrared — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 01:08:18 GMT

[WHO: Aradia & Karkat]
[WHEN: I don't know, after all the other eight billion logs we have had so far! 8)]

-- ultravioletUprising [UU] began trolling apocalypseArisen [TA] --

UU: Aradia?

agt_doubletap — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 18:44:09 GMT

[WHO: Sollux and Aradia.
WHEN: After the memo with Kanaya and Karkat, and after Kanaya's conversation with Aradia. Probably more suspense-fully late than is polite.]

-- twinArmageddons [TA] began trolling apocalypseArisen [AA] --

TA: hey.
TA: ii'm back now.

lt_scintillate — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 00:33:36 GMT

[WHO: Kanaya and Aradia.]
[WHEN: After the memo.]

-- ultravioletUprising [UU] began trolling apocalypseArisen[AA] --

UU: Private Aradia
UU: Or I Guess
UU: Ensign Aradia
UU: ?
UU: The Records I Was Able To Scrounge Up Were Unclear
UU: Anyway
UU: Aradia Also Known As Private Slash Ensign Miss Jones As A Consequence Of What I Unfortunately Cannot Really Delude Myself Into Thinking Are The Proclivities Of A Gauche Superior While The Plots Of Your Favorite Films Yet Remain Stamped On My Trivial Knowledge Kidneys
UU: I Offer You Both Greetings And Salutations
UU: Hi

cpt_infrared — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 05:42:28 GMT

[WHO: Kanaya, Karkat & Sollux.]
[WHEN: Not too long after Kanaya's previous conversation with Sollux.]

-- ultravioletUprising [UU] began trolling twinArmageddons [TA] --

UU: We need to talk.
UU: If you even think about blocking me I will reach across Empire space to punch you in the oversized teeth.
UU: I am not fucking kidding.