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nln4 · 5 years

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two - a sidesteps parallel universe fic

In which @ratastrofiend‘s Paris and Mikoto pair up for some wacky villain hijinks Word Count: 2442 Rating: T for team, of which there is no “eye” in. TW: eye horror, death

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In the darkness of the secluded hallway, his armor glows bright enough that he has to crouch out of the way to avoid detection. He’s been relegated to look out duty (which he promptly grumbles about in his mind, loudly enough for you to hear) while you prepare your part of the plan - breaking into the security network of the tower that houses a treasure that he apparently needs.

How he ropes you into the plan is beyond you. It starts with a series of texts over a couple of weeks, which you oblige, since you were naturally curious.

[>Can you look for security exploits in X Tower??]

[>Why??]

[>I’ll pay you.]

It’s not like you need money. You’re not quite as obscenely rich as he is, but you live a comfortable enough life.

[>In ice cream. Lifetime supply.]

Fuck, he’s got your number.

But presently, the glowing gold pulsing lights in his armor are really throwing off the dark-vision of your helmet cams and you wave him further away so you can focus on the task at hand.

“You know, we’re supposed to be sneaking in,” you think, thankful that your powers provide a built in communications system. Frequencies can be dialed in to, conversations can be heard when spoken aloud. “You’re going to draw guards to us like moths.”

“Look at me,” he thinks, with a gesture to the gold and white armor that adorns his body, a beacon in the darkness. “Does it look like I sneak?”

“Maybe it’s something you should consider,” you retort in your mind, quickly unscrewing a metal panel. Behind it are ports, usually meant for on-site maintenance (a poor design choice that made this mission actually possible).

This particular panel is the closest from the rooftop entrance that you two entered and so far, the plan is working well. Sneak in, shut down security systems silently, sneak out. That’s your usual MO and the only way you would agree to his plan at all.

“You have nanovores,” he thinks viciously, pointing to the housing cage on your wrist. “Why not actually use them? And can’t you hurry it up? The second round of guards are coming soon.”

“First of all,” you think back, plugging in an ethernet cable into the port connected to a miniature laptop. “No one is supposed to find out we’re here, so a hole in the middle of a metal panel would be out of the question. And secondly, no, I can’t, these computer systems are slow as shit, they’re probably still running on last century’s operating system.” You’ve never quite understood how some of the world’s supposedly most valuable secrets were guarded by a computer running on decades-old software.

…ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ !! Don’t rush! the Rat King squeaks. It’s a chorus of voices, both yours and his, and behind your helmet, you grin at the fact that both sets have your back.

“You shut up,” he thinks, pointing at the containment unit on your helmet, absolutely annoyed.

“Don’t be mean!”

…ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ Yes, no mean!

He taps a booted foot impatiently, cursing up a storm in his head. But the back of his mind is running a series of numbers, almost like a clock ticking down; he must be keeping track of foot patterns, time schedules of when the next wave of guards are set to make their rounds. You have to shield to focus on the puzzle in front of you.

Finally the command prompt opens, cursor blinking and you start typing.

“What, no ‘Virus Uploaded’ screen?” he jokes.

“You know full well that’s not how it works, asshole,” you think, still typing. Your helmet helps you parse through lines of commands, making sure there are no mistakes as you work and you silently thank Dr. Mortum’s genius.

“They’re coming,” he thinks and your vision splits, half focusing on the screen in front of you, the other half watching him shift his position into one ready for attack.

“Give me two minutes,” you signal, holding two fingers up, almost a peace sign.

“You have one,” he snarls in his mind, head looking back over his shoulder at you before turning the corner to dispatch the oncoming security guards.

“Once again, not how it works!”

But 120 long, long seconds later, your rootkit is installed and you quickly unplug cables, screw the metal panel back into place. A few feet away, he leaps into action, with the grace and precision of a hunting predator. He drags four unconscious bodies away and sends a mental blast through their minds so hard you can feel it almost rattling your brain in your skull. They’ll have a blinder of a headache tomorrow and you don’t envy them one bit.

“Safe room,” he thinks and you nod. The rootkit lurks silently in the system already, and the first job was to record the last ten peaceful seconds and feed a loop to the CCTV cameras. Fortunately, the safe room is only one floor below and the two of you move silently down the stairs. You’re almost reminded of your old Farm days, back when you worked with the HIVE Squad. Certainly, your little ragtag mob don’t move in the same way as trained little soldiers do. The two of you move as one seamless unit, with him taking point and you keeping an eye (and a mental feeler) for anything following from behind. If just one of you can wreak enough havoc on Los Diablos on your own, two telepathic powered villains could dismantle entire regimes.

He holds a fist up and you pause, the both of you waiting before rounding the corner to the safe room. You try to pick up any waves, any presence lurking nearby but there are none and it seems like he’s satisfied with the current situation as well since he starts down the hallway to the safe room without you.

“Thanks for the heads up,” you think, walking fast to catch up to him, hoping your mental voice is tinged with enough sarcasm. Sometimes it doesn’t quite pick up; you’ve found that mental and physical inflections can vary.

He doesn’t look back, merely shows you his middle finger over his shoulder and you stick out your tongue, grateful for your helmet.

“I still saw it. We’re telepathic.”

“Dammit.”

The HUD on your helmet shows that it’s been a good five minutes since your plan has started, which means that the next step should start any…

...second…

...now.

One floor down, your helmet picks up the sound of electronic distress noises, computers alerting their human handlers of a massive DDoS on the tower’s servers, but the attack is just a smokescreen to turn their eyes away from the security breach that’s about to happen.

“Code?”

“875639,” you think and you watch as he takes out what appears to be an eyeball, complete with dangling optic nerve, from a compartment on his belt.

He wiggles it teasingly at you and you grimace. “Look.”

“Eugh!”

“It’s a Mod,” he clarifies and upon closer inspection (the optic nerve just a connective wire), it is, and you wince at the poor sap who has lost their sight twice now. The power from his armor is enough to bring the singular Mod back to life and he holds it up to the retinal scanner. The safe door blinks green, accepting the security measures and a pneumatic hiss issues as the metal door swings open.

For a second, your mind wavers, like a dampener being turned on too close by but you chalk it up to weird physics. Perhaps two Sidesteps are not mean to occupy the same space at the same time. You look to him to see if he notices anything but it seems like he doesn’t.

According to schematics, there should be motion detectors and alarms, but those have been turned off by the rootkit. Inside the safe is a metal briefcase and you have to wonder what it houses. Whatever it is, it’s valuable enough that he’d come all the way here to get it.

But since he’s preoccupied with the case, you see the gun before he does and you don’t get to warn him fast enough before he lifts it. The displaced weight snaps a rope and in turn pulls the trigger, like some fucked up Rube Goldberg machine. You shove him out of the way as the bullet streaks past and bite back a curse as it pierces through the joint of where the chestplate and pauldron meet, where your suit happens to be less armored. What are the odds, you think.

“Well, well,” a voice behind you says, with the signature click of a cocking gun. “Instead of one little mouse, I’ve caught two.”

You recognize the slimy voice, even without seeing the person - Javier Xuan, notorious business mogul. Corrupt as they come in these parts. He has a news segment where he extols the wonders of “his” inventions that makes you turn off the television every time.

“What do we have here?” Xuan continues. “Do you like my little trick? Old fashioned, but it works--”

Apparently Paris is a quicker draw than you are since he yanks the gun from the rudimentary rig and fires, point blank into Xuan’s forehead. You stare in horror as the man crumples lifeless to the ground, a marionette with its strings cut.

“Huh,” he muses coldly, staring down at Xuan’s body. “He was in his office in my world.”

“Paris!” you think in alarm. “What have you done?”

You look to him and his helmet may hide his face, but his thoughts are furious with rage, incoherent enough that you can’t get a handle on them. His Rat King chitters incessantly, trying to soothe him.

Klaxons blare and lights flash red around you, and you know you’ve done your job perfectly to turn off all of the security, so there must be a separate system - sure enough, Xuan’s Modded eye pulses red in time with the flashing lights and you have to hold back a bitter laugh. A Mod with a dead man’s switch. You suppose he must have dampeners installed as well, as he escaped your mind sweep earlier.

“You okay?” he asks, voice distorters turning it into a low growl.

“Yeah,” you reply. There’s blood seeping into your skinsuit but you’ll live; the nanomesh weave acts like a bandage until you’ll peel it off later. You’ve had plenty worse. You’ll live to see plenty worse too.

He crouches down and plucks out this Xuan’s modded eye as well, claws on his armor serving him well. There’s a sickening sound as he takes the trophy.

“Sorry we didn’t see eye to eye,” Paris gloats, waving the Mods in the dead man’s face before shoving both of them into the utility compartment on his suit.

“Paris, that’s disgusting.”

He shoves the body further into the safe room, locking it without even a glance back, and you have to marvel at the lack of remorse at all. Just another mission complete.

“Well then, let’s get out of here.”

---

“Did you really have to kill him?” you ask, leaning back in the ragged computer chair in your warehouse hideout. “Now there’s going to be an investigation, and guess whose ass the Rangers are gonna go after? Me!”

“He was already dead in my world,” Paris says loftily, taking a strip of gauze from the first-aid kit for cleaning. “Might as well have a matching set. Now hold still.”

He daubs at the wound (not terribly deep but still left a good angry tear in your arm) and deftly applies antibiotic with a cotton swab. He has to sit close enough to you to treat your shoulder and from this distance, you can see stubble growing along his chin. Dark eyes gaze from under long lashes and you have to begrudgingly admit it’s a good look on him. And you think he hears you, since he smirks, the asshole.

“Ow!” you yelp. His fingers move quickly against your skin but the ointment still stings like hell when it makes contact.

“You big baby,” he says, signature sharp-tooth grin stretched across his mouth. “Get over it.”

“Might I remind you that I took a bullet for you,” you grit out, fists clenched.

“Please, it barely grazed your shoulder.”

“Barely??” you say, indignant. “Look at it!”

“I am looking. Of course, I’d rather play doctor in a different way,” he says, taping the gauze in place. “If you weren’t being so difficult.”

You flip him the bird with your good hand, remembering his gesture from earlier and he lightly bops you on the nose in return. You take back everything you thought earlier about him looking good because he’s as infuriating as he is handsome.

“So, what’s in the case?” Although you think you might have an inkling, with Javier Xuan’s recent billion-dollar investment in GeniTech.

“Something one of a kind,” he says, placing the final pieces of medical tape to secure the injury. “But I needed two.”

“So you decided to hop dimensions to get another one?” you ask, incredulous. “Will that even work?”

“Who knows. Only one way to find out.” His grin is brilliant as he looks at you, obviously pleased that his plan played out well.

“I feel sorry for your Los Diablos,” you say dryly, sliding your hoodie on carefully and trying not to disturb your arm.

His eyes study your shoulder, and there’s an odd, almost tender look in them. How is it that the both of you are telepaths yet it’s so difficult to tell what he’s thinking?

“What?” you ask, and your tone is a little more caustic than you meant it to be. His eyes have moved from your shoulder to your face and you have to fight to keep from flushing.

“You get a new scar now,” he says. “That one will be our story.”

“Please go.” You pinch the bridge of your nose to stem off your headache. The entire mission has been a headache. “Back to your world. Now.”

He leans down to draw eye level with you, hyena grin on his face. “Aw, I was going to kiss it better.”

“Leave!”

He throws his head back with joyous laughter as he takes the suitcase and merrily walks to the doors but before exiting, he turns back. “Get some rest! I believe we have an ice cream date,” he says with a wink.

“I fucking hate you,” you call as he vanishes, and you sink back into the chair, adrenaline finally running out and weariness hitting your bones all at once.

But you smile anyways.

#fallen hero: rebirth #sidestep #mikoto uehara #jace paris #my writing

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ask-these-fantrolls · 5 years

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EP 1. A Bad Night In

"Sister dear," his voice was one she hoped to never hear again in all her life. And, yet... here she was- sitting in his disgustingly lavish hive, surrounded by his painted walls and imagery of the Messiahs that brought her more anxiety than solace. The night was a beautiful one; warm breezes bristling through the trees, the moons so terribly beautiful in the sky. It was the type of night that she and Ponpon should have been out playing together! And, in reality that was what they had planned... Harona sighed, sipping very scarcely from the bottle of Faygo that her dear hemobrother Driguz had provided.

It had been sweeps since she last tested the wicked elixir and, honestly? This RedPop tasted just as vile as she remembered. She held her dear puppet moirail tighter in her arms as the Ringmassacre came to sit closer to her. He always did have an issue with respecting anyone's personal space... "Come back to us. You know it's been far too long," he smelled of floral soaps and sickening perfumes- things you know for a fact were only used to mask the ever-present scent of blood on his skin.

"No," it was curt answer- too straightforward for a troll that didn't know the meaning of the word 'no', "thank you, brother... but that isn't my life anymore.”

"Raised an altar-girl, always an altar-girl~" he crooned with a laugh, settling in closer to her. Driguz wrapped an arm around Harona, pulling her closer and petting one of her long braids, "Honestly- the way you deny your heritage is absurd... won't you be happy to be surrounded by friends and family again dearling?"

Eugh. You always had hated his pet names. You always had hated him. Always persistent, always irritating... always got what he wanted. It really was no surprise that the two of you shared a pitch quadrant once before! His desire to pick on and tease her could only ever be outweighed by her own ability to fluster and terrorize him. That was long past, however... Driguz was such a jealous troll. Nothing ever satisfied him- no matter how dedicated she was, no matter how much attention she paid him. He always wanted more of Harona, and all of Harona.

The clown began to slowly free her hair from her closest braid, taking pleasure in how immediately poofy it became. A true juggalo hairstyle! The reason she insisted on keeping it tied up like a damn prude never did make sense to him. Harona leaned away from him, holding Ponpon just a bit tighter as the puppet patted her arm gently, "I... I have everyone I need, Drig. Nobody at the church is my family or my friend."

"Ah-!" The man gasped, draping himself over her as per his usual over-dramatic fashion, "You wound me, Onona~ We're friends, whether you like it or not!" His laugh sent chills through her spine. It had been so long since she last heard it... and yet it was still all too soon. She swatted his hands away as he wrapped his arms around her- an excuse to hold dominant over her while he continued to free her unruly hair.

Driguz looked surprised, but just for a moment. His face soon turned to an expression of cold ire, "You truly do hurt me like this, dearling. Haven't you even stopped to consider what I need?" He rested his chin in his palm, propping his elbow up on his knee, "I was forced to assume all of your excess work when you just up and left us! Don't you know how stressful that is?"

"Culling lowbloods has never been stressful to you." Perhaps snapping back at him wasn't the best idea... but by this point you found it hard to truly care, "What would you even know about stressful? You've never even needed a moirail,"

"And I'm better for it I'd say! I hate to break it to you, but you know that keeping around a creepy little puppet won't bring him back from the dead, right?~"

It took every ounce of her self control not to deck him. I wouldn't even need to have him as a puppet if you hadn't... She cut off that train of thought. Ponvah's death was her fault. It was her choice to bring him back to her respiteblock to spend time. It was her choice to indulge in his silly fantasies... She should have known better not to allow her moirail near such a classical viewed kismesis... she would never forgive herself for putting him in harm's way like that, "You don't know anything about Ponpon-"

"Oh *yes*, the magical haunted dolly! Of course," an unruly giggle escaped him before he returned suddenly stoic, "You're delusional Onona. That thing is just a product of your own self pity and chucklevoodoos. You don't really think the dead can be brought back so easily, do you?"

Harona could feel herself shaking- though if it was anxiety or anger she wasn't quite sure. Ponpon was real. He was real and Druguz was just too stupid to see that. She took a deep breath, closing her eyes for long enough to steel herself. Driguz took this as an opportunity to pull her last hair tie out, drawing an irritated look from behind Harona's now freed mop of hair.

"Why did you invite me over today Driguz. Though it's not hard to imaging you only calling me here to ridicule me, it's a little hard to stomach the thought of you not being a bit more... extravagant about it,"

A disgusting and unfettered laugh confirmed her suspicions. Oh Harona- you truly are a delight... "You got me dearling! I actually did have something to talk to you about... It's the church-"

"I'm never coming back."

"Okay well how about we shut up and take turns talking like civilized beasts and not tiny children, hm?" He huffed, shooting a cross glance to the puppet who was now glaring at him, "We're getting a new priest transferred in. The Calamitous Camister or something. I've heard... Hm- well, the things I've heard of him are great!"

She rolled her eyes in response.

"No no, listen Harona. For me he's just peachy. And most highbloods, for that matter... but..."

"...But what?" It was unlike him to actually worry about anything... who could have Driguz- the Ringmassacre known for stopping shows just so he could beautify a lowblood before killing them so they could have an acceptable corpse- actually second guessing himself?

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose before continuing, "But he evidently likes to bring lowbies in as parishioners. I don't know why and it makes me sick... but I know you tend to hang around the lower echelons of society nowadays. Do be careful, yes? I'd hate for my darling Onona to be caught in the crossfire.”

Harona stared blankly for a moment. That was... what? Was he giving her *actual* advice? A real warning and not just an insult? Or a trap to be walked in to?! She blinked, averting her gaze to the floor. Ponvah looked up to her with a similar look of weariness and unease... it was a strange thing to hear from him to say the least... but getting the warning was dare she say, something she appreciated? Harona stood from the couch, snatching her scrunchies back from her ex-pitch as she turned to leave. She didn’t believe him. There may or may not be a new pastor on his way, but Driguz was definitely not being forthcoming about his reasoning for telling her.

"I'll keep that in mind... thanks, Druzy." The least she could do was indulge him with an old nickname... She did not stop to listen to his giggles before leaving- she didn't stop for anything as she made her way back hive. It had been a long time since they got a new priest... who was this guy, and why would he choose their small time church to come preach at? She couldn't just discount Driguz' words simply because he was the worst troll she ever met. If he was right about this guy... if he really was up to something and bring lowbloods into the church... then maybe she would have to pay this Camister a visit sooner than later.

#homestuck #fantroll #Ona #Driguz #narrative #main plot #i hope you guys?? enjoy reading????#if you want to read it that is;;#If anything needs to be tagged as a TW just let me know! i don't /think/ anything in this one needs it but who knows #episodes #also feel free to ask questions!

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