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She settles into the unfamiliar body. Steel instead of a skeleton. Wires instead of nerves. Her soul flows into it like water into a differently shaped glass. Suddenly her mind is alive again and the ever pervasive mental and physical numbness that she had felt is fading.
Equius is asking her little questions, sweat running down his face. She isn't even really paying attention.
And then she feels it. Something inside of her body trying to twist her soul. Trying to warp her thoughts.
“What?” She grips her chest. “Oh my God, what did you do?”
The rest is a haze, as she tries to remember it. She remembers that he tried to make her love him. He tried to twist her mind. She tore the perverted, unholy thing out of her own chest and smashed it to pieces.
How dare he! How dare he try to make her love him. She never felt such rage. Such blind fury. She hit him, again, and again, and again. She screamed at him.
And then she kissed him because it was the first time she had felt anything beside numbness and apathy for years.
They don't seem to like her anymore. Not that they did much when she was dead, but now they act uneasy around her, or forget that she's even standing there.
Sometimes she forgets to move her mouth when she talks. Sometimes she forgets to turn her head towards someone when talking to them. Sometimes she forgets to blink. The little, subtle, idle movements are gone now. When she has nothing else to do, she just stands there, still as stone.
But when she's mad, something falls into place. She clenches her fist, and snarls, and narrows her glass eyes.
Terezi Pyrope sits on the edge of her recuperacoon, juggling her coin on the back of her fingers, while the ogres and imps mull around the base of her tree hive.
They haven't been in the session for long, but it seems like they're making pretty good progress through the game. Karkat tries to keep them all on a tight leash, but it's like herding purrbeasts. Literally, in at least one case.
He probably won't be happy with what's about to happen. The coin rolls back and forth on the back of her fingers as she waits.
Finally, there's a crack, a bright flash, and the smell of ozone. Aradia, in all her polished steel glory, bursts into existence. Terezi smiles in the darkness.
“What?” Aradia says shortly in a voice like a bad speaker. Her lips don't move.
“Hmm? No 'Hello, old friend'. No 'How are you?'” Terezi says in a hurt voice.
“I do not think we were ever friends.” Aradia says.
“Maybe not.” Terezi shrugs. “We were never enemies, though.”
“Why did you call me here?” Aradia asks again, impatiently.
Terezi bounces the coin back and forth a couple more times. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a tiny wiggling creature “I know where Vriska is. This is a data grub with a conversation I just had with her.” She gently lobs it over to Aradia.
Aradia snatches it out of the air. She looks at it in her palm for a few seconds. She leans her head back and gingerly places the maggot in her mouth. There is a whir, a squeak, her eyes flash, and suddenly she knows everything.
“Are you giving her to me?” Aradia asks, somewhat bewildered.
Terezi shrugs. “I'm not doing anything. I can just tell you where she is. I can't control what you do after that.”
“...She killed me.”
“She got Equius to build you a new body.” Terezi says, as a counterpoint.
Aradia looks down at herself, as if considering this. She runs a finger across the scar on her chest, where she had ripped her mechanical heart out. It crosses over the Aries symbol on her chest. The blue symbol.
“His blood. It's poisoning my soul. I can feel it. All I feel anymore is angry. All I want to do is destroy things. But maybe that's okay. I couldn't feel anything before.” Aradia muses.
“I remember when you were happy.” Terezi says, shaking her head. “I remember when you liked games and temples and funny hats.”
“What's done is done. It doesn't matter.” Aradia shrugs. She isn't sure she really feels that way.
Make her pay.
Aradia shakes her head. Terezi raises an eyebrow. Aradia suddenly looks angry.
“Why are you trying to get your revenge through me?” She snarls.
“I don't want revenge.” Terezi looks hurt. “I'm fine with how I am now. I'm almost happier for it. I learned from my lusus, and got closer to her.”
“Then why?”
Terezi looks thoughtful. “I'm a seer. I saw that I have to tell you where she is. I didn't see what you would do.”
Aradia doesn't react to this information. She knows little about Terezi's powers as the seer of mind.
“Will you forgive her? Or will you kill her?” Terezi asks.
Aradia stands statue still for several seconds.
Kill her. Make her pay, girl.
“I don't know.” She finally says.
Terezi grins like a shark. “I know.” She flicks her wrist, bouncing the coin in the air and catching it. “We'll flip for it! Let's let fate decide.”
“You don't believe in fate.” Aradia says.
“Oh? Well, lets flip for it anyway. Leave it to luck.”
“You don't believe in luck either. I don't know why you bother with the coin. You never even look at it.”
Terezi smiles. “You know, you're right. I don't look at it. I don't have to. Do you know why I flip the coin?”
“I just said that I don't.” Aradia says, annoyance building.
“Well then, I'll tell you!” Terezi laughs. “It's because it clears my mind. It's because it focuses my thoughts. It's because, for that split second that it's in the air, when anything can happen...” She holds up the shining coin between her thumb and index finger “...It's at that exact moment, you know exactly what you're wishing for.”
She shows her the shiny, clean side. “You forgive her. Let old wounds heal, and go on with your...life.” Terezi turns the coin, showing Aradia the ugly, scarred side. “You find her, and you kill her, if you can.”
She slides her thumb under the coin.
“Watch closely now.” She whispers. She flicks her wrist and pops her thumb up from under her finger, and the coin sings and it spins through the air. Aradia's head snaps up as she watches it. At the apex of its ascent, Aradia holds both hands out and summons her music boxes. By the time it passes by Terezi's nose on the way down, the smell of ozone is already starting to fill the room again. By the time it bounces on the floor, Aradia is already gone.
Terezi stares into the empty room. She picks up the coin and puts it in her pocket. Then she turns around and crawls into her recuperacoon. She wants to be on Prospit, with Vriska, if the poor girl died.
Vriska looks up just in time to see Aradia hanging in there air. She looms over Vriska, casting her shadow on the confused troll.
“What? What are you doing here?” Vriska asks, taking a step back.
Make her pay.
Aradia feels the rage boiling in her, creeping into her mind like acid burning through metal. She knows it's the blue blood that's doing this to her. She knows that this isn't how she used to be. But for now, she doesn't care.
Vriska doesn't even have a chance to react as a foot slams into her gut like a hammer. She folds forwards, cerulean dripping from her mouth. Aradia does not know if it's blood or vomit. Another kick sends Vriska flying back.
Vriska rolls a few times and is still. After a few seconds she coughs up more cerulean fluid and tries to push herself up. She tries to reach for her dice. Aradia reaches down, grabs her by the shirt, and hauls her up. She looks Vriska straight in the eye as she brings her fist around and hits her in the jaw. Vriska's head violently snaps to the side with a sickening crack. Her head rolls back and she looks at the sky with horror. Her body goes limp. Even though she's still, her eyes dart back and forth violently. She tries to move, but it doesn't feel like there's anything there.
Aradia picks up Vriska with her mind, and squeezes. Her limbs bend unnaturally, and there's more cracking. Vriska looks so badly like she wants to scream. Aradia swings her hand and flings Vriska into the earth hard enough to crack rocks.
Aradia is enjoying this. She wants the pain to burn through Vriska like the rage burns through her. She wants Vriska to feel like a prisoner in her own body. She wants her to feel the cold, numb dread of death that Aradia felt as she saw Sollux, holding an empty jar of mind honey and staring at her, eyes glowing.
Vriska slams into the wooden bridge. Aradia prepares to-
“Stop! Stop! What are you doing?” Aradia looks over at Tavros, sitting in is rocket car and waving his hands frantically. “Aradia! Please!” He wails.
Aradia...doesn't know what to do. She...should she feel bad. She should feel bad, right? Why doesn't she know? Does it even matter? Isn't this justice?
Her face screws up with confusion and frustration. She drops Vriska to ground, like a bag of meat and marbles.
That a girl.
That voice again. She hates it. She flicks the cerulean blood off of her hand, spelling out exactly what she thought of being told what to do.
With another flash, she's gone again.
Aradia floats gently on the other side of Vriska's planet, computer brain flashing. She tries to sort out her feelings, but it's like trying to grab fog. She growls in frustration.
Did she really want to do it? Or was it that voice.
She remembers so badly wanting the coin to show its scarred face, and give her an excuse to destroy her murderer. That's what she wanted.
The smell of ozone, a crack, and suddenly two Aradias are floating over the sand dunes.
“You did the right thing.” Her copy says.
“I feel like I shouldn't think that.” Aradia says back.
“It doesn't matter.” The copy replies. “It doesn't matter how you feel. It had to be done. Otherwise, things that should happen would not have happened.”
Aradia stares at her duplicate. “You forgave her.”
“I thought I would try to be...like our old self.”
“What happened?”
“It doesn't matter.” The copy echoes, shaking her head. “All that matters is that you do what you have to do. Not what you want to do. Not what you think is right. What you have to do to keep your session viable.”
“What do I have to do?” The original Aradia asks.
Suddenly, there is a crackling, the smell of ozone, and dozens of tears open in time. Dozens of Aradias pop into existence.
“Ask them.” The copy waves her hand. “Ask us. Learn from your mistakes.”
It will be over soon. Aradia can feel it. Her soul will be pulled from this prison of a body. She doesn't know what will happen after that. She isn't sure she cares anymore. Lately she's able to push down the anger and fury and violence. But all that's left is the numbness again. She doesn't know which one is the lesser of two evils.
She looks to her left. Sollux is furiously typing at his computer. She feels like she should say something. She tries using trollian to talk to him. He doesn't react well, understandably. But she feels the anger well up again as he tells her that “robots don't have feelings.”
Sometimes she wishes that were the case.