thearena | It's another tequila sunrise

Entry tags:

It's another tequila sunrise

Who| Commander Shepard

earthborn, Karkat Vantas

crabmunicator, and The Ψiioniic
What| Carnival, nerve gas, killing a bicyclops, death car ride, murderdeath sunlight, undead, thresher maw, and awkward conversations about clowns
Where| Alternian Carnival, Alternian desert, Earth desert, the Normandy
When| dawn of the second day (sep 29)
Warnings/Notes| gore decorations, PTSDness, mention of murder and torture including whipping, not!lusus death, aliens shrieking about the sun, a goddamn thresher maw

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The night peeled back its clouds to reveal one pink moon and one green one sinking towards the horizon. Psii found himself in the Alternian city, of all places. He'd grown up in a city and had all the awful memories that came with slavery, but at least it was familiar. He knew what lawnring traps to dodge. However, as his ill luck would have it, he ducked into a long underground pedestrian tunnel on a whim and emerged blinking at colorful string lanterns....

Oh fuck.

The skeleton strung up with the lanterns with half its flesh still on it wasn't too much of a surprise in an arena, but the tents, streamers, snack booths, and paintings of clowns killing people were enough to seriously spook him. Like any sane troll, he thought the carnival decorations were more frightening than the torture implements that came with them. It didn't matter if the rainbow stains didn't smell like real blood. There would be enough actual blood here soon enough.

He shivered in the cold desert night and willed his feet to move. This was something out of one of his daymares. He had to get out of here. No, wait, he had to hide and make sure the coast was clear. He didn't know what to do. What if they sent in killers dressed as clowns? He'd freak out, become useless as a sack of dirt tubers, or maybe just kill everything that moved. He'd lost his shit in the throes of a flashback before, gibbering as his friends held him down.

Breathing raggedly, trying not to panic, he snatched the handle of some weapon and folded himself under the tablecloth of a snack booth. It wasn't until he'd wedged himself in pretty tightly that he realized he was holding a whip. The noise he made as he flung it away was half snarl half sob. He clutched at his own shoulders and the scars underneath his clothes. It was hard to get a grip when the thing he'd just been gripping had been the source of so much pain. In any other place, he could handle a nasty surprise like that, but here, memories rose from the mire and played tricks.

Silence, then a whooshing sound as a vent in the ground next to him slid its grate open. Before he could stumble away, the gas was burning in his throat and lungs. He collapsed in the middle of a large path between tents, wheezing and twitching and blinking water out of his eyes. Come on Captor, you sack of shit. MOVE!

You know Imperial Drones? Those big, hulking monsters made of chitin and spikes? The terror and danger laced into every troll as a part of growing up and learning their place in society?

The thing about those was that, when one was after your heels, it was a bit hard to think of where to go. Karkat had only found one by chance, after an equally unexpected encounter with a Mother Grub. Being in this copy of the Alternia just meant he had to explore, though, and to explain to Maglev about where he came from. He hadn't been trying to find the literal origin of trolls; it had just been there, massive and white and bewildering as anything. But there were no Mother Grubs without Imperial Drones to serve them, and when the sound of one hit his ears, he didn't wait to see it before telling Maglev to run.

He ran, too, of course. He ran with such fear in his heart that it wasn't until bright colors and the scent of blood cropped up that he could think to stop. Stupid, stupid, fucking stupid--but a drone would have killed him, no question, just for being the mutant he is. Here, though, other fears swelled up like a wave he couldn't see until it was already arched over him.

As already proved, fear wasn't good for thinking straight.

He stumbled and blundered, breath caught seizing in his lungs, eyes blown wide at the sight of tents, bones, rainbows marked in blood paint. Reels of memories and babbling thoughts rolled through his head, your fault your fault all your fault over a background of Gamzee's face, Initiate's, the Grand Highblood from an encounter during the week of dreams.

On high alert for sight of twisting, orange horns, seeing a set made in pairs hardly stopped him long enough to remember his last conversation with the owner. Instead he scrambled over to the collapsed Psiioniic, dropped to a crouch, and took his hand to tug. "Move! Move! We have to get out of here!"

One thing Shepard never really parsed was the fear of clowns. Most people feared them because something outwardly cheerful, meant to comfort, to amuse, was too obviously an illusion, too clearly the strange man beneath the paint, and all his foibles and in-born violence. That made some people feel vulnerable, made them forget the illusion for the favor of vigilance.

Not Shepard, she knew the truth; you can kill men, but icons are immortal.

So, it was about the time that Karkat was coughing his way through a half failed rescue, surrounded by tentcloth and rising miasma, that Shepard arrived. The first sign of her arrival was a rising growl under the hiss of gas and the carnival atmosphere, rising like anger and fire. The tent stretched and tore, snagged on the rugged chassis of the vehicle, tent-poles were torn from the ground, and the air cleared in a venomous cloud as clean air rushed to follow the arc of fabric and exhaust. Commander Shepard was not the worse driver in the world, but it was a close competition, and she had never been the kind of woman to settle for second place; the real miracle was that, in tearing down the tent, she hadn't struck either of the trolls inside.

It wasn't a subtle entrance. But then, was she ever?

Part of the endurance of the Alternian clowns' image was their ability to cow the rest of the castes to their whim. Even sea dwellers feared them and trod lightly. Psii and Karkat had a bit more personal experience with their violence. Their paint was an identifying marker to be sure, but not the uncanny source of their fear.

Psii tried to hiss at the person yelling and grabbing his hand, but all that came out were a few rasping croaks. Two seconds later, he realized that 1) he wasn't being murdered, and 2) it was Karkat. Their last conversation didn't cross his mind, mainly because he was too busy trying not to die in a carnival. Psii tried to tell Karkat that yes, genius, he knew he had to get the hell out of here. He had a coughing fit instead.

Then the tent burst open, and for the second time, Psii fully expected to die.

He was powerless to react, other than a few fish-out-of-water flops. Not running was a blessing in disguise, though; he stayed put and took full stock of the situation. A human might not be able to see into the dimness of a vehicle's window at night, but he could make out the form of Shepard inside. Another ally, someone to team up with or even just bum a ride, swap supplies and information, and—Mother Grub's second sphincter, she could have run us over!

Psii mustered all his neurological willpower and raised one arm to give her a middle-finger salute.

Holy shit, holy shit, fuck everything. Not only was the asshole at his feet not answering, but the rasping chokes suggested it was physically beyond him at the moment. Probably why it was beyond him to stand up at the moment.

"Fuck, come on, we don't have time--"

Not the least before tearing fabric and a roar took over his hearing, tearing a bluntly terrified scream from Karkat as he scrambled off to the other side of the Psiioniic. He couldn't just leave him, but oh god, oh god, what if it was the Grand Highblood, come back to kill him for real instead of just in his dreams and here he was fucking up someone else's life in the process and--

Car. It was a car. A big, spiky, monstrous, fuck-off car. Karkat choked audibly on his surprise, coughed, and straightened to see what Psii was already saluting: Commander Jane Shepard behind the wheel.

He let go of Psii's hand and stomped over to the door.

"WHAT IN THE MOST BEFOULED SLAUGHTERHOUSE TORTURE PIT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING, YOU CRAZY HELL BITCH? My blood pusher is currently clawing itself viscerally from the tatters of my rapidly expanding and collapsing bone cage in a grand virtuoso fuck you performance dedicated to the stunt you just pulled. You could have killed us! You could have run us over, or impaled us on the absolutely superfluous amalgamation of death spikes dotting the surface of the murder machine you just drove in here like your crackle-skinned husk owned the place! Do you even know where you are? Do you know what the actual hell is going on? I am sick of insane women nearly murdering me to death with their scuttle buggies!"

Here at the end he turned to the side, arms splayed out, eyebrows raised in a silent can you believe this shit? to Psii.

Shepard considered this mutual tirade with all due solemnity.

It was pretty good! A little weak around the overly-verbose description of Karkat's belabored ribs, but over all, not much to complain about. Psii added a lot of style with the interpretive fuck you dance, a classic, and the kid had a talent for saying shit that Shepard would have paid good credits to see printed on a mug. Scuttle buggies. Heh.

"Are you gonna get in, or are you two going to keep bitching until I leave your skinny grey asses hanging out for the clowns?"

He knew better than to argue about the saving of his own life from a stupid death that didn't need to happen. Raising a middle finger was about all the extra effort he could manage anyway. Nodding in understanding at Karkat made him dizzy. He dearly wanted to ask if there were indeed clowns, but he couldn't speak.

He grunted and tried getting to his knees with all the speed of an overturned shellbeast. He crawled and ambled his way over, tripping over a few stairs on a raised part of the floor. The ground smacked his face again. Clearly his inner ear was shot for the moment, and none of his limbs seemed to want to do what he told them.

He got up more carefully this time and put his hand out for some kind of support. Something rusted and vaguely sharp found its way into his grip, and he turned his head to stare at a spike inches from his face.

Ok then.

Time to ditch the walking around the car idea. He didn't feel like stupidly impaling himself while trying to get into the back seat. He made some sort of futile explanatory gesture with his hand, hovering around his nose and indicating the air and his own head. He didn't really care if they could understand him, but it was the closest thing to an apology he could give.

Karkat's belabored libs were the best part, you tasteless swine.

As for Karkat himself, he would have gotten in the car but for the twitchy mustard packet and his troubles with the stairs. He found the handle, got it open, but getting in? Not with this douchebag eating up attention.

Not that he was mad at him for it. The Psiioniic was just a douchebag anyway, as a default state of being. Karkat was sure of it.

"I don't understand a word you're flapping at me. Come on, let me help you. Shepard, come drag this loser with me."

After locating the handle for one of the back doors, Karkat popped that open, then want to Psii to grab and try to haul him into a position of support. How much it would work depended on whether the spindly stick pile would cooperate, but if he wanted to struggle and be left for dead, that was his own problem. With any luck (and if Shepard would indeed come aid the process), they might be able to lurch him over into the back of the death machine.

Ever-helpful, Shepard stretches out her arm and snags Psii by one limb. He's a stick figure made of bones, and his edges are made of papercuts, but despite his alternately limp and flailing nature, she's able to drag him into the back seat by dint of main force. All those chin-ups weren't for nothing, after all; he's not heavy enough to stop her.

"C'mon, let's move, Vantas! Trust you two to find the world's shittiest camp-out on day one."

Psii rolled his eyes at Shepard. Did she think he wanted to end up in a Carnival and get gassed? Coming here was an accident.

Default douchebag or not, he was light enough for two determined people to lift. With help, he stumbled and tripped facedown into a backseat of ripped upholstery, mysterious stains, and old car smell. Lovely. Psii attempted to point this out, partly to lighten the mood, then realized it was futile. As his limbs gradually started to heed his commands again, he struggled into a vague sitting position.

The carnival's colors chuckled at him through the dirty glass, but it was something else that caught his attention, a far more real fear: From way off in the distance, he felt the distinct vibrating thumps of giant footfalls.

Through the fog the gas had placed on his mind, he managed a garbled,

"Drive."

Thank fuck that went easy, or as easy as things ever got around here. Karkat huffed after slinging the Psiioniic in, but wasted not further time before climbing into the front. Doors shut tight, seat belt... Did this thing have a seat belt? If it had a seat belt he'd cinch it tight, but otherwise he'd set himself up to pray for easy death if death were incoming.

"I wasn't planning on it," he snapped back to Shepard. "I--"

Could talk another time. He froze, hearing the same footsteps Psii did, then added an emphatic nod to his rough order. Better silent than dead.

She had a good one all lined up, but when the Psiionic panicked, and Karkat followed suit, Shepard didn't say a damn thing. There was being an ass, and then there was just plain old cocky, and that second one wasn't survivable.

Shepard pushed the pedal down until it clicked and the buggy took off as if it had been kicked. Dust and turf flew up in their wake, and the tentcloth flared away like a demented pair of wings, briefly snagged on one of the spiked protrusions before it tore and flew away. Shepard took a corner around one of the carnival tents like a madwoman, skidding in a wide, wild arc.

"Do I get to know what's chasing us, or is this some kind of surprise party," She snarled over the engine's growl, "Because I hate surprise parties."

Having not fastened his restraint loop, Psii's body slammed into the back of his seat. He jostled a bit before hauling himself up to crane his head around and look out the rear view window. The footfalls grew louder and faster. A tent collapsed and flew into the roadway behind them as something bowled it over, something large and white with two heads....

"That—That'th my luthuth," he murmured to himself. Maybe that dream he had some lunar sweeps ago meant something. His brain was a hot psionic mess to begin with—visions, telekinesis, eye lasers--so he didn't rule out a different kind of precognition than the usual, maybe something the Capitol didn't account for in their power blockers....

Two seconds later, he realized he could talk, somewhat.

"My luthuth! Thtop the buggy!"

Psii began tugging at the door handle.

What was after them? A good question, but not one Karkat could clearly answer. Clowns said his brain. Subjugglators, indigos, maybe the Grand fucking Highblood come to murder him for real this time. He shuddered in his seat and tried to find his tongue to answer with, but Psii piped up first.

Karkat craned his neck then, turning as he could with the seat belt to try to see, and indeed, he knew the same. Two heads, tall, eyes in Captor red and blue. Then Psii was saying to stop, scrabbling at the door, and--

"No! Nonononono, we don't stop, we're not stopping! This is the Carnival, you panblasted fuck! That's not your real lusus, it's--it's a copy, there's several, I've seen more of them already--" His head whipped back to Shepard, eyes wide and panicky again. "Don't you dare stop. I'm not dying here!"

"Sure you are," She grit, under her breath, leaning against the suspension and the pull of inertia. Life was so much easier with mass effect engines, have no doubt-- Shepard raised her voice above the engine, "Vantas so help me you will get a grip, or I will drive this car into a wall!"

Or into another tent, as the case may be. Momentarily blinded by brightly-colored canvas and bright lights beyond, the buggy fishtailed to a stop, facing the direction they had come. The ten was enormous. Well, it wasn't the biggest one here, by some margin, but it was large enough that their screeching halt had landed them precisely in the center, with room to spare.

The hole in the canvas gaped in front of them, ripped right up to the tentpoles, and the scraps waved at them like loose teeth, ready to be torn. Shepard revved the motor; it was all academic now.

Whatever was chasing them, it was about to come.

One of the most common causes of car accidents was turning to smack the kids, and Karkat was pitching an epic fit. The tent didn't help Shepard's odds either. When the wheels screeched to a stop, Psii chose to bail out regardless, trying his best to tuck all his angles in and roll. He staggered to his feet, elbows and knees singing with scrapes, vibrations from his giant lusus shaking his very core.

He could make up for leaving his lusus for dead. He could gain a powerful (if stupid) ally. A troll separated from their lusus felt naked and exposed, basically cull bait. They always had your back. Sometimes they even made great war mounts.

"H-hey thtupid," his voice rasped, unable to project properly. "Hey! It'th me!"

He waved his arms, and one head turned, finding him through the tent wreckage and dust from their sudden stop. Soon both eyes were fixed on him. The bicyclops roared and began to charge.

If there was one thing to shut him up, it was yet more Carnival. Karkat scrunched down in his seat as if the tent fabric could attack him itself, and the swerving of the car on through didn't raise his hopes. Still, somehow, none of them died.

It didn't mean Psii wasn't making a valiant attempt.

Karkat jolted back up. The car was stopped, the door open, the Psiioniic outside and trying-but-failing to yell at his ersatz lusus. Karkat quaked.

"Shep--Shepard, no, Shepard, we can't, we can't, go, go get him back, make him come back. We have to leave!" Not looking at her, he reached over, trying to latch hold of her arm or sleeve. She could just as easily have slipped out in the meanwhile, but even then he wouldn't stop yelling. "It's not safe here, we can't. We can't stay. They're, th-they're going to come for us, I don't, I don't want to die, there's subjugglators. They'll send in the Grand Highblood again, he was right, but I don't, I want to die, I don't want you to die!"

Edited 2015-11-21 13:36 (UTC)

That would have been sweet, if Shepard had heard it. Later, when she was reviewing the footage, it'd be downright adorable. But for now, Shepard's blood was up, and all she saw was this;

The creature leaned into its run with arms extended to grab, a face (faces) grimacing with rage. She could hear the aggression in its voices, the timbre of stance and the distance between them. Velocity, attitude, attitude, distance, speed, inertia. Her spacer mind knew without math that it wasn't going to stop. It was going to kill him, if she didn't do something.

If.

The roar of the motor leapt up her legs like an extension of her will, pain forgotten, and the sound of Karkat's terror was lost under the current. The brave fear many things, but in courage lives that special ignorance shared by all petulant children; she ignored him, and released the brake.

And the car snarled into motion, throwing up sawdust and sand as it did, like a battering ram, like an onrushing bull made from steel and gasoline. And Shepard, her face was a death-mask, a rictus of bloody-minded triumph. Either that thing would die, or they all would; but damned if it weren't going to end in glory, either way.

"I'll hate you forever for looking tho damn thmug, Shepard. Alternian thun and the undead it bringth aren't thomething to joke about."

They had plowed through the Alternian desert by now. Psii was scowling at the Earth sunlight as if it might burn him. To be fair, the desert was pretty bright, and it would only get hotter as noon approached. They needed to reach shelter soon. Psii kept his eyes peeled for that despite his cringing. This would be all over soon.

"What'th that rumbl—"

The world tipped and lurched as the ground screamed open. Psii braced his arms and jerked his head from where it had banged the side of the car and cut his ear. Sand was shooting towards the sky behind and to the left, and rising with it, a massive chitinous length with too many legs to count. Psii realized it wasn't the ground tearing itself apart with a shriek, it was a creature.

Psii gingerly raised a hand to a bit of dried yellow blood on his ear and cast his eyes around their shelter. The Normandy was cold smooth lines and utilitarian spaces. It didn't appear to have any biotech built into it, like all Earth things, but it gave Psii a small feeling of uneasiness anyway, as with all spacecraft. He grew up knowing that if his powers were discovered, he'd be forcibly commissioned as a helmstroll. Even if he wasn't a psionic, he'd most likely be shipped off as a slave to space military to help conquer other planets anyway. The Alternian Empire was all about that, and Psii was all about people leaving him the fuck alone.

Shepard was strutting around like she owned the place—which, to be fair, she did. Psii took the opportunity to rest. He found a wall and sat down with a groan next to Karkat.

"Thankth for helping me back there."

He didn't want to directly allude to his lusus; saying it would make what happened real. But that was what he meant.

"Hate me all you want, you're not getting--"

You don't ever forget your first encounter with a Thresher Maw. There's a terrible, awkward sort of fluidity to the way they move, hoisting themselves above the ground like a snake, up, up, impossibly far up. How large must the underground portion be if the part you can see is more than twice as long as the car? No eyes, not a one, but it sees you all the same, turning the blind head and oh, the roar, the incandescent mouth, splitting open like no natural thing should. The grossly bulbous swell, preparing to spit deadly, acidic venom.

The moment she heard it, she knew. You never forget it.

"Thresher Maw! Brace for evasive maneuvers!"

Karkat didn't feel much better. Space ships said his first arena - first full arena, that was - and that one held too many unpleasant associations. Injuries, people dying, that fatal moment where he had let the Initiate into his mind. He wasn't jumpy but he was tense, and he couldn't resist scanning whatever room he went into like danger would find him if he didn't.

This room was fine. He didn't see anything apt to jump out, and he didn't hear anything else moving within the ship but Shepard and the Psiioniic.

He looked over as Psii settled beside him, then raised an eyebrow. "Helping you? What did I do but panic over something that didn't happen?"

Clown attacks, he meant. Even though nothing came of it, he still wouldn't want to go back.

Edited (better wording) 2015-11-30 21:03 (UTC)

Karkat had settled from hands pressed tight over his eyes to slumped in his seat. The sun wouldn't kill or blind him here, but the continued sand meant only that they had wound up on the exact opposite side of where he wanted to go. He wouldn't find Maglev any sooner if he'd just gone further from where he started. And who knew which way she and Luna had ran? He hadn't looked, hadn't watched, had been too scared by the imminent threat of what he thought he heard to even make sure they stuck together. How was he supposed to keep her alive like this? At least he was alive, but he wasn't the kind of troll to let that stop him worrying.

It took the noise to rouse him, but the sight of what followed easily cast off his mood for later. Like something out of a movie, the kind of horrible alien creature on a world being colonized, not yet wiped out by the noble Alternian forces - it looked almost unreal, but he knew better than to doubt it. The rattle of its emergence proved that enough.

"Oh my sweet Mother Grub's perpetually chafed taint, what the fuck--" Karkat yelped as the reason he should have braced himself hit him before he could do so, and his shoulder slammed against the car door. He did better then, found grips to hold onto, lodged his feet against what he could to help that way. His eyes, though, stayed wide, glued to the Thresher Maw so long as he could follow it.

"What the hell is that?! Shepard, what--how the fuck do we avoid that?"

He chuckled and hissed, "Not tho thmug now, are you, Shepard?!"

Judging by her reaction, they might be this thing's next meal, but as he "braced for evasive maneuvers," he couldn't help egging Shepard on. It was a totally socially acceptable method of encouraging a friend towards their best potential—on Alternia, anyway.

Psii saved some hissing for the thing outside their car window, too. It glowed just a bit brighter before some bright glob shot from its mouth and landed in their tire tracks, too close for comfort. The ground sizzled.

"Oh and it apparently thpitth athid, oh how lovely!" After all he'd been through today, Psii was too fucking done to be afraid any more. "Fuck your planet up the ath, Shepard! At leatht it'th thome ground dweller without eyeth—Do we have anything to throw at it?"

God forbid they actually have a useful projectile weapon in an arena. Psii's fingers curled around the blackout fabric on his window. Yes, he was prepared to rip it off and fight back, even without his powers. Yes, he wanted to stick his torso out and fire at it, or maybe chuck stuff to distract it. If it really couldn't see, then throwing anything, even the stale alcohol bottles tastefully placed on the floor for effect, was fair game.

Karkat was on the passenger side—shotgun, the hot seat. Drivers tended to swerve their own side away from danger and kill the person sitting next to them. Maybe he should have sat in the back and put up with Psii like a good wiggler on a schoolfeeding road trip, but it was too late now.

The wind of the passing car nearly blew Psii off his feet. He staggered and wrenched his mind from the memory of his lusus into the present.

The thing hurtling towards the spiky vehicle was not his lusus. Hell, it didn't even have the same roar. And it was attacking his friends. (Shepard counted as a friend at the moment, she was surrogate spacemomlusus for Karkat.) The bicyclops bent to grab the car with both hands, but the spikes tore the palms to ribbons instead. With another roar, it doubled over in pain and nearly came crashing down on the scuttlebuggy.

Psii was knocked on his ass by the tremor of its fall. The bicyclops was struggling to raise itself to its knees. Single eyes on two heads lit up with a threatening glow.

"Optic blatht! Move, MOVE!!"

Psii had no weapons on him, but he had to do something. He lunged, grabbed a piece of metal debris, and chucked it at the bicyclops. One head turned toward him, then the other. God, the thing was so stupid, it was nostalgic. Psii had dueled with his lusus as a wiggler, and this was no different. He knew to wait until the very last second before leaping out of the way of its optic blast.

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It's another tequila sunrise

Carnival

wow I'm alive terribly sorry for the wait

arrives at starbucks, late, with coffee from another starbucks

plot twist: i'm the starbucks barista, and i also forgot to track this

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good job guys, the crab is useless with panic

itp: "Mica stop listening to the Fury Road soundtrack on repeat."

THRESHER MAW

for Karkat, aboard the Normandy

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karkat's fucking face tho

you say this like i'm not doing the same thing