Chapter Text
DV: oh crap i d.id.n't e.ven look at the time
DV: i ha.ve to jump off for a scrim
DV: but i'll see you this morning, right?
TC: + Hell yeah! I actually need to clean out my lusus's pond so might be a bit on the later side, but I'm definitely making it down. >>
TC: + Wouldn't miss it for the world. >>
DV: hold.ing u to that, frog boy!
TC: + Haha, see you then! >>
-- dVa [DV] ceased trolling triadobatrachusCrossfade [TC]--
You pull a nearby throw pillow against your face and scream.
This super can't be happening. Of course it's like great that it's happening, but you also maybe want to crawl into a ball and die a little. No allies, no quadrants, nothing but floaters and guppies down here, has been for the past nine sweeps. You'd rather not be secretive, but the histories don't lie: heiresses stay in the deep, and the queens stay in the stars. Every now and then, a violet blood—usually younger than you—may swim close to your undersea hive with a morsel of curiosity between their shark's teeth. You never had any interest in them, a background radiation of fear even, though you'd never admit it. After all, you're D.Va! Undefeated ScarAlchemize player, head of the near indomitable MEKA network, super awesome mechanic…And yet when you see your bl0od-cousins nearing too close you flip on the automated defenses and the flashing fuchsia chases them away. Online friends are safer. Online friends can't turn on you the way the way a loyal seadweller can.
Or at least, that was the understanding up until now. But Luscio was just…so cool, and you couldn't help it, and then he asked if you wanted to be morails and then the wanted to come here…
You resist screaming into the pillow again. You're nearing Ascension. You have total control over your life.
You weren't lying about the scrim, so you do distract yourself even though D.Mon can tell you're not really there. After a while she calls it to your immense relief. So you wander wander wander around your hive, killing the hours until-
An alert that something wants to cross the defense line. Is he here already? He said he'd be a bit late but maybe the pond cleaning didn't take as much time as he thought…
Nervously, you deactivate the defenses. You can't see so well in the dark outside the glass bubble of a window, but you assume he rented some sort of craft to get down here. You already have a few gentle ribbings on hand—something something landweller with a frog lusus still needs a swimmerbug in order to dive—and you hold them flimsily to your chest like the single icebreaker that will smooth this all over well. The outer airlocks are groaning. You stand in the middle of your hive, various flavors of self-assured smile crossing your face. You cock your hip and put a fist on it. You are cool. You are chill. And most importantly this is Luscio; you know him, and there's nothing to be nervous about.
The inner airlock opens and the Empress herself steps into your sanctuary.
The sounds you make shall not be described here; it was certainly not a 'squawk' as later reports would have on believe, and instead let it only be said that it was something very un-heiress-like. You go tumbling over your loungeplank, strupods akimbo, and panic descends on you like a cawbeast. The Empress—flanked by two violets, their combined mass in the dark making you think it was an approaching shuttle—shakes water out of her hair, and steps further into your rumpusblock. You struggle, to kneel, to scramble to a decent enough position that you can flip your pistol kind out of your strife specibus and rise shaking to point it at her chest.
As you do, you know two things:
You dinky little peashooter will do nothing, not to a full-grown seadweller and certainly not to the most powerful specimen of royalty the brooding caverns have ever produced.
The second thing you know is that the Empress does not have pink hair.
The fuchsiablood in the center raises her palms flat in surrender. "Peace little sister. We mean you no harm."
Yeah, no, this is definitely not Her. You've absorbed the propaganda reels obsessively, watching the way Her face changes with each word, the exact nicks in her gills. This stranger before you is of your blood, but that is impossible, there should only be two of you in the world-
"The old heiress," you realize suddenly. "…But you're dead. She killed you."
"At least little piece of propaganda is still doing its job," the violet to the Aspirant's right says. She is wringing out her own swath of black hair; an amount that would put the Empress to shame, if she didn't keep it in a pull-back so tight to her scalp.
"We knew it would," the Aspirant replies. To you, she says, "a necessary lie. Her Condescension needed to believe me dealt with in order to give us time to build toward our final assault. We let her believe she had killed me, so she might turn her attention to other matters."
Ridiculous. Though you cannot fake eye color, not this close. Whatever else she says, she is indeed a living royal blood.
You keep your hands steady. "That was dumb. Everyone gave up on you, and now no one ever remembers your rebellion anymore."
"They'll remember soon enough."
You do not like that grimness in her face. It speaks of cold waves you wish to never wade in to.
You shiver, but grit it down. "Why are you here? I don't have anything you want!"
"I do not think that is true. But regardless, we have something you want: a way out."
Her meaning comes to you easily enough. Join her rebellion. Join her, or wait for the Empress to find you instead; no doubt a day that is coming, if the Aspirant stumbled across you already. With concentration, you manage to lower your pistolkind fractionally.
"And what do you get out of taking me on?" you ask the obvious, genuinely perplexed.
"Legitimacy? A future, extremely powerful soldier? Lineage, should I fail? You said it yourself: I died, and the rebellion was forgotten. Should it happen for real, you will provide the security we need."
"How can I even trust you?" you fire off rapid questions one after another. "How did you find me? What did you do with Luscio?"
"Nothing."
"Then…?" The second worst case jumps to mind: he sold you out. He told your enemies where you were, just like you always feared the first person you let into your life would.
But the Aspirant shakes her head. "Do not blame him, he does not know we took his place when submitting our security signature. We merely monitored your correspondence, and looked for an opening."
"Okay, creepy, but at least you have good hackers." You unequip your pistolkind. "What does this whole…joining a rebellion involve, exactly?"
"Getting offworld, first of all. We can discuss exact terms in orbit; if we have found you, She will not be far behind. If you can leave with us now that would be the best option, and we can make other arrangements as we go. Do you have anyone that we must extract for you? Loyal friends, quadrants?"
After a horrible bombardment of deathly ultimatums, having an adult troll mention your quadrants is the last straw, and you blush a furious pink.
The troll to the Aspirant's left, silent up until now with her shoulders straight and hands clasped firmly behind her back, notices your stricken face. She raises one semi-amused eyebrow and says, "Aspirant, have pity on the guppy. Surely that is not the sort of discussion she wants to have in front of strangers."
"Oh, yes, of course," the Aspirants says, seemingly to genuinely not have considered this. "You can make those arrangements yourself I suppose."
You let out a breath of relief. "Y-yeah. Sure. Just…let me pack up my gaming rig."
As you bundle your worldly possessions—you'd always known you'd have to flee some day, you just never really expected you'd have a fighting chance about it—you catch the eye of the ancient looking violet. It will be nice to have one more ally. Certainly, you're going to need them.