Why should they go out to fight?

[biiowiired]

Who| The Ψiioniic biiowiired and YOU
What| Arriving and scoping out possible escape routes
Where| Central commons, District 9 floor, gym, a street outside a train station
When| dec 01-02. Threads below won't happen in the order they were posted.
Warnings/Notes| mentions of slavery, abuse, language, lisping, Alternian society's (and Psii's) insensitivity towards the disabled

Training Center: Central Commons

He fucked up somewhere, but how? He was always so careful, so fastidious, so goddamn paranoid. And he didn't even have any memory of a fight, let alone capture. Did his friends make it out ok? Exactly how badly did he fail to protect them? He'd had no inkling of their deaths, no vision, nothing.... So they were alive, at least.

He couldn't fail to notice the voices of the dead were gone, now that he'd arrived here. He never thought he'd miss them, but now would be a really great time to have apeshit psionics up his sleeve. Trying to call up a bit of energy in his fingertips as he was marched towards the living quarters was fruitless. He was frustrated that he couldn't simply level this place and rocket out of here.

Once alone, the tall troll leaned his shoulder against a wall. His hands shook. A few reporters turned their heads to eye the wan Tribute with grey skin, fiery-colored horns, and scars head to toe. He had been dressed in clothes that weren't his, but accents of his District's yellow suited him anyway. He was a yellowblood, a slave caste on Alternia. Now he was a slave once again.... He wanted to retch. He knew from experience exactly what that entailed.

Training Center: District 9 suites dining area

He didn't have eyes for the wasted luxury on District 9's floor, only on possible escape routes. Reinforced windows, people guarding all the exits, and who knew what the city borders were like? His eyes were wide and alert, slightly manic with the knowledge that he'd have to endure and escape captivity all over again. He wanted to check every room for electronic bugs, but he curbed that impulse in front of the ever-present Peacekeepers.

Eventually he'd had enough of metaphorical buzzing against glass he couldn't break. He cornered one of the servants(?) in the dining area, speaking in a low mutter:

"Hey. I know you can hear me. Talk to me. How long have you been here? When do the peathekeeperth change shiftth? What'th border patrol like? Hey. At leatht tell me to get lotht if you're not going to thay anything."

Training Center: Gym

There was no point working out in the gym with the next arena just a few days away. But it was always good to get an idea of the competition.... God, if he was already thinking of his fellow slaves that way, how would he fare in the arena? He didn't want to fight anyone; his real enemies were the ones in the Capitol pulling the strings.

And yet there he was, in a suitably dark corner, his red and blue eyes scanning every Tribute. He was looking for strengths and weaknesses. Fights among slaves back home weren't unheard of. If anyone here really bought into this killing game, he'd have to watch his back.

Capitol: Street outside a train station

He squinted against the sun, hardly daring to believe he could go out during the day and not be horribly burned. Damn the curfew anyway, he was nocturnal. He groggily kept to the shadows, rubbing drowsiness from his eyes. He was clearly marked as an off-worlder, Capitol fashions having not quite reached the point of grey skin, orange horns, and eyes in bright red and blue, schlerae and all. He'd also shrugged off the attentions of the stylist (for now), which meant his hair was still on end from worrying fingers through it, and he looked like he could use a meal and a good day's sleep. Both were available to him, but he didn't have much time to waste.

He was willing to bet that his best chance of escape would be after he left much of the Capitol's surveillance, en route to the arena. Other than a jet, the train seemed to be the fastest way in and out of the city. Psii hung around the entrances, scoping out the station. He knew Peacekeepers would be watching all points of exit. He'd probably come up dry on escape plans today, but what was he supposed to do? sit and twiddle his prongs in his respiteblock? train in the gym to kill people who should be his allies against the Capitol slavers? He didn't want to die, but he also didn't want to spin his wheels in their shitty Games.

Comments

Gym

[ka_sera_sera]

The majority of the prisoners here boast deadly skills of one type or another. There was a time and a place in which Roland's own skills were incredible, unique; here he's as close to being just another face in the crowd as he's ever been, and there's no reason to hide them.

His speed and accuracy, therefore, are obvious. As is his weakness. No hiding the two missing fingers on his right hand, the way it makes his grip weak and clumsy, so he works on it in the open. His hold on the sword's hilt isn't good enough yet but it's stable, which will do.

"Need some help?" He doesn't look around, may as well be talking to himself, but he means to address the figure lingering in the corner of his eye, too still in this noisy, active place. "Can't use any of these weapons simply by staring at them."

[biiowiired]

Psii had his experiences taking down skilled melee fighters with psionics, but that didn't stop morbid thoughts of how it would feel to be sliced open by this sword-wielding guy. He didn't have his powers now. He might as well be a tiny bug waiting to be squashed. Having tasted the freedom to use his power, it was all the more torturous to be caged again. Back home, he could levitate large boulders just by staring at them.

Psii's face pinched with sarcasm as he stepped closer to talk properly. Even while he did this, he took note of the man's missing two fingers. Psii wasn't staring at the weapons so much as the people wielding them.

"Yeah, thure, let me jutht pick one up and thtab you in the fathe." He rolled his eyes. Trolls could joke about killing left and right, but this was still a serous matter. "You know that'th what they want, to watch uth to kill each other."

[ka_sera_sera]

Roland turns to meet the man as he speaks, but doesn't quite lower his sword. He didn't live to the age he has by assuming people are joking when they say things like that. A sword stabbed at his face would not make for the strangest first meeting Roland has ever had.

The sword lowers a little more, though, at that second sentence. Odd to realize that, though that same thought has been so present through most of his time here, Roland has rarely said it aloud, nor heard it. It's nearly refreshing, hearing it like that.

"Then defend yourself." With the words he tosses the sword, gently and, most importantly, vertically enough that it'll do no damage to anyone should it not be caught. "For your sake, you ought to know how. You need not kill, but to survive your next arena you'll need to live long enough to be interesting."

[biiowiired]

He snatched it out of the air well enough, having a good eye from all the time he spent sniping with psionics and dodging attacks. But he had no fucking clue what to do with a sword once he had it. He wiggled his wrist a little, testing a weight heavier than he was used to. Any melee weapons he ever carried were small and concealable. Knives were good, and he could finagle a shiv or a hook out of junk, too.

"Are thwordth the only weaponth we're allowed in the arena? Becauthe I doubt I'm going to become a mathter at them in a few nightth—or dayth, thinthe apparently everyone'th diurnal here." He lowered the sword. "Look, I wath watching you. I know the outcome of thith fight already. Why don't you thpar with thomeone who actually knowth what they're doing?"

[ka_sera_sera]

"Then don't spar with me." Roland's eyes flick over the other man's grip, analyzing it, then move back up to meet those disconcerting eyes. "Throw the sword down and walk away. But do something. There's a way to watch the rest of us, and this isn't it. See to yourself first, hone your skills if you have them, and the rest will have to follow."

He pauses. Sighs. "And not during the night, if that's what you're used to. Curfew. New, are you?"

D9!

[reassures]

Nill isn't exactly in the suites very often or for extended periods of time, but it is where she lives, and pass for the curfew or not she still needed to return to sleep or to make food if she felt like cooking. She's actually headed for the kitchen when she walks past the dining room, and about halfway across she has to stop to really look over the troll that's bugging one of the poor Avoxes.

Four horns. One red eye and one blue eye. Odd way of talking. The guy looked too old, but the resemblance was certainly there. Was it Sollux? Grown up? It's hard to imagine they'd put him in the same district Sollux had been in otherwise. It takes a moment to realize that the Avox he's talking to is starting to look more and more distressed, and Nill quickly pulls out her notepad to write on it, making her way over almost immediately.

She makes a gesture at the troll, offering him a small smile, before lifting up her notepad for the Avox to see. After the Avox has read it, she holds it up towards the new guy.

There's a message at the top, obviously for the Avox, that reads it's ok. you can go.

And below that is another message, more directed at the new guy.

I can answer your questions.

[biiowiired]

If it weren't for the curfew, he'd sleep in a hovel somewhere in the city. Anything to keep as many eyes away from him as possible. As his bad luck would have it, he was put in the same district his descendant had left. People would notice him, if only because he looked like someone else.

If he was rude, it was because he was desperate. Better to be an ass and get everyone out of here alive than roll over and die for his new masters because he was too scared of offending other slaves. He glanced back and forth from the Avox to Nill.

"....Am I thurrounded by muteth? Wouldn't they have culled you by now?"

It was an honest question from a perplexed troll. On Alternia, those with disabilities were usually culled. Sure, it was terrible these two people couldn't speak, but Psii wasn't going to waste time simpering and fawning when they could be planning their escape. His mind was already whirring, weighing the pros and cons of having mutes in his party. No untimely shouts when they needed stealth, but shouting was also a great way to warn someone of an attack....

[reassures]

She definitely hadn't imagined the lisp. That's good to know. She's still not really sure what a lisp is, exactly, but either this guy is in fact Sollux or... has the same thing going on as Kankri, Karkat and the Signless do. Though she's still not clear on just what exactly that is.

Nill watches the Avox leave, her expression quietly worried, before returning her attention to the Psiioniic again. Shes getting pretty fast at writing responses these days, but it still takes her a moment.

it works differently here.
the only mutes are the avoxes and I.
are you Sollux?

[biiowiired]

"No, wrong troll. You mean there'th thomeone walking around who lookth like me?"

Maybe someone with the same mutation. Probably a lowblood. A possible ally? He needed to know more. Not every downtrodden lowblood was willing to fight for freedom. The thought of ancestors and descendants didn't even cross his mind. He never believed that highblood bullshit. Just another excuse for them to lord their ancestor mythology over lowbloods without the means or lifespans to find out their own ancestry.

"What'th an Avoxth?"

Central Commons yup

[carnagecarnival]

For all this place is and what all up and motherfucking means, it's been good. He's been good. Just in this little slim pocket of time, he feels like he could actually make to be almotherfuckingright. He's still laughing as some thing what got said as he's stepping out of the elevator. With how he feels, it just seems right at to him, seeing that flash of yellow. It's natural-- of course his ghost would still be here.

But then he stops, and slowly he turns back to face the ever-lingering spectre. He's younger. Still not quite young as all he himself is, but younger. His flesh is repaired just as Mituna had asked it to be after each return. His face ain't ashen from death no more, from the last he saw his moirail. Mituna's hair is shorter, like his own was now, but for the braids in front. Those braids he kept just for this troll right here.

This troll what his first true friend unquestioned. The troll who laughed with him, stuck with him through each trial. The troll who held him when he was damn near close to losing his mind. The troll who'd inspired him, gave him reason to turn his back forever on all the dreams he'd had once of being Highblood.

The golden goat's skull around his neck, tucked under his shirt, feels like it's being pulled. He doesn't fight it, he doesn't waste no more precious time, he just goes.

His feet are moving, slow, then fast, along with his breath. "Mituna..." is the first whisper. Then, "MITUNA!"

Without a thought, he goes up to that bony ass troll and he wraps his arms right around.

[biiowiired]

Psii had his scars, but only the ones from his first time in slavery and from living as an outlaw. While he never expected his future to be particularly bright, he was at a point in his life where he was rising from harsh beginnings. He was a follower of the Signless. He was among people who wouldn't use him as a ship's battery. He might be in more danger because of his rebellion, but having tasted freedom, he could not go back. Here, being made a slave again hurt more the second time around.

Psii (naturally) only heard the second call of his hatchname. But he was too late to react, suddenly enveloped in several pounds of troll. Most trolls only initiated bodily contact to kill each other, and his first instinct was to defend himself. One hand darted to draw a knife that wasn't there, because of fucking course he forgot they'd stripped him of his weapons. He twisted and shoved at the troll, who looked nothing like anyone who knew his hatchname—oh shit.

The mere suggestion that a Subjugglator might be in the area would have been enough to make him shake in his boots. Face-to-face with a troll of the paint, all dissembling was forgotten. His eyes widened for optic blasts that wouldn't come, and his pump beat double-time. Initiate may have wanted raw emotion, but this probably wasn't the kind he expected.

"SKREEEE!!!!"

Several Peacekeepers turned their heads.

[carnagecarnival]

They were smaller scars. Minor in comparison to what the helm had done to him, even if scars from slavery were nothing to shake up at.

Neither was that reaction. Even if he hadn't been avoxed before, ready to flinch at slightest provocation, he'd have jerked back at the sound. As it is, he steps away like he's been burned.

He doesn't remember.

No. No, no, no, he doesn't know that. He doesn't know. It could be just be... reaction instinctive.

His head turns, catching glimpse of them peacekeepers. He has to settle this. It's his job. It's what all he's here for.

He holds his hand up, defensive, asking the other troll to ease. "Mituna, it's me, Kurloz. DO YOU REMEMBER? You gotta get your settle on, these motherfuckers won't take kind..."

[biiowiired]

He looked around for a weapon, anything he could improvise. A lamp perhaps, or a Capitolite's hat pin. He tried to fight down the bile of his panic and call on his intellect. Even if he somehow managed to waste this clown, how would he escape a city full of armed enforcers clad in bone-white armor?

His eyes darted to the mess of enemies he'd collected in the space of two seconds. He had a choice between Peacekeepers and a Subjugglator who.... was making placating gestures at him? Psii didn't like most others of his kind, having seen the worst in trolls. He didn't trust him. This troll knew his hatchname, probably hacked some records back on Alternia. He knew. There was no point playing innocent, he was a rebel caught. Why didn't the clown execute him on sight? Did he want to toy with him first? In front of all these people?

His breath hastened, and his hand shook as he braced his claws against the wall. All his instincts were screaming at him to push off and run, but he knew he'd just dash into the waiting arms of the guards. If he kept from fighting, those assholes would leave him alone. If he could just.... calm down.... and draw up the terms of his culling with reasonable discourse.... God, Signless's pacifism could be fucking dumb sometimes. Psii didn't want to die. He had shit to do.

"I don't remember shit. Why don't you thave it for the arena like all the other athholeth?" His voice shook. It was one thing to say he didn't believe in the hemospectrum, quite another to openly defy it. But if he was caught, he was caught. There was no saving face. "I'm not taking orderth from you."

It took all his willpower not to flinch, expecting to be struck.

D9

[pythianjudgment]

Terezi is a little tired when she heads back towards the District 9 set of elevators. It is hard work when you are trying to keep up with a Strider and their crisp, cool shenanigans. When she hears the whispering, her ears pique curiously and at first she attributes it to some dumb suitemate of Dave's. If it wasn't for her innate sense of curiosity, she wouldn't have bothered to find out who is was.

It is probably a good thing that she is so curious, then.

The scent of this new tribute hits her nose, and she has to stop in the doorway. A few thoughts flit through her mind--the fact that her matesprit's moirail is back, the fact that he now has a new moirail, the fact that he's trying to talk to an avox... That last one hits her, and her stomach feels like it might drop out. This is bad. This is really bad.

"You know they're not going to answer you, don't you?" she asks from the doorway. She half hopes that she's still dreaming. But she knows that she wouldn't be having a dream like this.

[biiowiired]

"I'm.... kind of gathering that, yeah," he answered, still half-puzzled.

He hated being in the dark about anything, new places included. He gave the Avox a strained, awkward look. He should have brought a pen and paper, but one doesn't think of such things when the disabled are usually culled on Alternia. Speaking of which, this young troll was blind. First mutes, now blind kids. This was looking less like a death match and more like a mass grave. He grit his teeth into the smile of the desperate.

"What ith thith Dithtrict made of anyway, all the dithabled? Ith thith how they cull people here, throw them in death matcheth? Let me gueth, I got put in for my lithp."

He was a little wary of a strange troll, especially since he couldn't tell what her color was. No sign and no adult irises. But she hadn't mauled him yet, so he took that as a good omen. He spoke more freely than he would have if he knew she was a tealblood.

[pythianjudgment]

Terezi is not a particularly mauling type, fortunately. There will be no maulings on her watch. Not by her or anyone else. Still, his response to her question does not fill her with good feelings. In fact, it's just the opposite.

She gives him a brief look of pity--the platonic kind--and sadness before trying to shove her feelings back into their proper places. This is going to be brutal... Not for her, but for the people she cares about. One person in particular.

"No, you did not get put in this District for your lisp, nor were you put in this game for your miserable excuse of a disability." She can say that only because she is pretty sure that being blind trumps his weird speech impediment. "I am actually in a completely different district. And if you want to consider lack of common sense as a disability, then I would have to say that my district is the one in trouble."

All joking aside, she's not sure where to start in catching him up to speed. How does she even go about asking whether he remembers anything about this place?...

"You don't remember anything about being here, do you?"

Probably like that.

let's hope i can keep my thread timelines straight

[biiowiired]

"It wath a joke," he sighed. "I wath trying to inject a little levity before my inevitable demithe in the arena."

Psii didn't think his problems were enough to be called a disability. He was touched in the pan, heard voices, and had piss for blood, but none of those automatically slated him for culling like being blind. He thought of Signless too, born a pariah and marked for execution on sight. Signless. Psii had received the news that he failed to protect him twice over. The Empire culled him back home, and Panem imprisoned him here. He quelled the clawing grief. Two people were in the middle of talking to him.

He turned to the Avox still standing there as if waiting for something. That unsettled Psii, prompting kindness born of uneasiness. "....I can tell thith converthation with my fellow troll ith going to take a while. I'll try talking with you later, when I've got paper. I'm thorry for bothering you." The Avox obediently disappeared, leaving behind an uncanny feeling in Psii's gut. Silent, quick to follow orders.... like a ghost from Psii's past.

"No, I don't remember jack thquat," he sighed at the troll. He suspected people who knew the Helmsman would keep asking this, but that didn't make it any less tiring. Facing slavery again would be easier without more emotional bombs dropping. Thanks, assholes.

"Ath far ath I can tell, I'm fresh Alternian meat. And not a helmthtroll."

He may as well get that out of the way for everyone who remembered him. He repressed a shudder. He couldn't lose his cool in front of strangers. Weakness meant culling, and why should the Capitol's death matches be any different?

"Call me the Ψiioniic." And nothing but.

Commons

[69problems]

Things for a while have been more or less quiet for the Signless, if not downright good. He's more or less healed from his most recent losses, his romantic life is stable, and despite the weight of the Games on his shoulders he feels genuinely hopeful for better things in the nebulous future.

That all crashes down around his pointed ears when he sees the familiar red and blue eyes and double horns from across the common area. This isn't the first time he's had this unpleasant deja-vu, only the last time it wasn't actually the Psiioniic, just a troll who looked very much like him.

This time it's the real thing. He knows the look of his best friend, knows the shape of his face and the way he stands and how he looks when he feels wary and uncomfortable. Why would they bring him back? Is it because he and the Initiate have grown so close, is it an attempt to add more drama to their budding pale relationship? Just once, he'd like to have something good without it becoming a complicated mess.

Everything in him wants to turn and leave. The Psiioniic -- the Helmsman -- wants nothing to do with him as of the last time they talked and he has no reason to think things would be any different now. On the other hand, he's already repaired one bridge he thought was long-since burned beyond saving. Maybe this can be another.

"Helmsman?" he ventures, uncertain and reserved, keeping a healthy distance in case his approach isn't welcome.

[biiowiired]

His head jerked up. That voice came with a barrage of opposites: the happiness of seeing a friend among all these strange alien faces, but also the sick feeling the mention of helmstrolls gave him. What he called him was clearly a title, and there wasn't another troll in sight. He felt betrayed. You were supposed to be his best friend, Best Friend. He stared at him, furious, but thankfully not murderously so. It took more dick moves than that to be rid of Psii's friendship.

"Thith ithn't the time for thick joketh, jackath," he hissed, marching over to Signless. "Why don't you tell me how I fucked up and got caught by thethe alienth while you're at it, and altho why you didn't follow all our contingenthy planth and hide when I wath captured, and then I can punch you for calling me that."

His voice gave the barest tremble at last. This was all wrong. Signless wasn't supposed to be here. Psii had enough to worry about escaping on his own, but now he must protect his friend. His friend who had never been through slavery and clung to his pacifist ideals harder than a barnacle to a sea dweller's ass. Signless was fucked. They were both fucked. Psii didn't have his powers. He had one job, and he failed to prevent all this.

[69problems]

The expression on his face as the Psiioniic stomped toward him was not one of worry for a friend -- it was one of real fear, fear that he'd overstepped a boundary, that he'd ruined a tenuous peace, that everything was going to go back to being painful and difficult again. It took a few seconds for him to process what the Psiioniic was actually saying, to beat down the fear and sort through his words.

Oh. The gears in Signless's head screeched to a halt and then began to work again, now with several radically different assumptions about how this conversation was going to go. He was not going to lose his best friend again. For some reason he'd been blessed with an opportunity to undo his past mistakes and to have the Mituna he remembered back in his life, and he was going to hold onto that until someone pried it from his cold, dead claws.

"There is a lot that I need to explain to you. It may take a while, so I'll be sure to let you know when I'm done, at which point you can punch me however much you feel is appropriate." Talking to the Psiioniic was no longer a thing as easy as breathing. The usual familiarity simply wasn't there any longer and so what might have been a joke before came off as disturbingly sincere.

"I don't know how they captured you and we weren't taken at the same time -- I've been here for over half a sweep now. You wouldn't have noticed me missing; time is strange here and it isn't uncommon for two people to be from wildly different points along a shared timeline." His voice got heavier and heavier as he spoke. He knew what he was leading up to and he knew he couldn't hide it, not when he'd gone and said the word, not when the Psiioniic would find out eventually anyway.

"That is why I addressed you as I did. I knew another you here, a you from thousands of sweeps after our time, who had been a helmstroll. You know I would never joke about something as horrible as that."

[biiowiired]

Even if he wanted to go through with his threat, he'd have only punched him once. (Well, maybe twice.) But that hot air deflated when he heard Signless had spent half a sweep as a slave. His eyes softened. He wanted to give him a hug, awkwardness be damned, but Signless gave off a strange air of untouchability.

No wonder he'd looked so scared when he approached him with his usual hotblooded griping. Psii didn't want to think what they might have done to Signless while he was here, but his loser brain thought of it anyway. Fear conditioning. Corporal punishment. Torture. How could Psii have let this happen to his friend? He'd joke about punching being a come-on, if Signless didn't look so serious, and if Psii didn't feel so sick.

"But you can't jutht fuck up time without...." he trailed off, letting him finish. He wished he hadn't.

He closed thin fingers over his mouth, and his knees buckled. He put his free hand against the wall, trying to keep himself standing as the world swung. No, he couldn't afford to lose it here. Weakness was cause enough for punishment. Being constantly watched by Peacekeepers was weighing on him, pushing him back to the slave he used to be. He fought it, but moments like this could break him.

He no longer saw anything in front of him, and this was bad, he could be ambushed at any time, picked on for looking different, attacked for being a heretic. He had a purpose that was more important than sinking to the floor in a gibbering mess. He needed to keep vigilant for Signless. Keep it together, Captor. He slowly removed his shaking hand, hoping he wouldn't suddenly vomit.

"I need a pile," his voice was a quiet, pallid rustle.

Where the fuck even was his block? ....Fuck that anyway, it'd be cold and scentless and severely lacking in piles. He could deal with this. He could. He just needed this one thing, one goddamn thing, and everything would be fine. (No it wouldn't.)

street outside

[crabmunicator]

Karkat had gone out for a reason today: pastry. One of his early discoveries here was a good bakery, and while the circumstances at the time weren't the best - he'd left the tribute center after a confrontation with the Initiate - the place had since become a favored destination outside the tower.

And sure, he didn't need to go there. Back in the tower, he could surely ask an Avox and have whatever pastry he liked made for him. But it was something in the act of going out, of finding a place specifically for it, that felt nice. Besides, he didn't much like the idea of being waited on by servants who couldn't so much as speak.

It was on the way back, treat in his hand and half-eaten, that his eyes caught on a set of paired horns. Paired. He knew those. But they were set higher than he remembered, and as his gaze dipped down, the troll owning them looked older in general than either of the Captors he'd yet seen. Was that... was that Sollux's ancestor? And what the fuck was he doing hanging around there?

"Hey, Captor!" he shouted, and set his feet moving again to jog over.

Use of his surname might not have been the most polite address, but it was the best he could manage for lack of knowing his title. Or... well, he'd heard his title before, but could he be expected to remember it? For all he cared most of the dancestors could be Carlos, and those were trolls he'd met.

[biiowiired]

Psii was still recovering from the revelation that he was the Helmsman, and, to a smaller degree, that his best friend Signless was dating a Subjugglator. The constant monitoring and curfew did the rest, sapping every bit of freedom he might have tried to grasp at. Even as a slave, he had more moments to himself than this. How else could he have managed to hear Signless's word and be inspired to escape?

He wasn't sure if going outside to see the sky was a relief from the stifling Tribute Tower or a mockery of his lack of flight. With his powers, he could save everyone so easily....

When he saw the troll hailing him, he thought he was Signless. What was he doing, calling out his hatchname for everyone to hear? Even back home, he'd kept it from most people ever since he'd run away from slavery. Not many people knew his hatchname, including the Capitol (he hoped). But as the nubby troll drew closer, Psii saw he was much too young. In fact, he'd bet he wasn't even an adult. Psii wasn't that old himself, but he wondered what possessed a young troll to approach an older stranger.

He remained where he was. He stared silently at Signless's younger doppelganger, two thousand theories running through his head at lightspeed. The Capitol had brought in an earlier version of Signless for shits and giggles; the bullshit highblood stories about ancestors were true; and if they were true, then Signless had an ancestor of his own; Signless had begotten a descendant by conspiring with Dolorosa, who helped him get his mutant jizz to the Mother Grub; the Capitol was experimenting with cloning.

Whatever he was, he was just as idiotic as his best friend could be. Psii wasn't about to admit Captor was his name. Information withheld was always a good weapon.

"Talking to me? I'm the Ψiioniic. What do you want?" Maybe if he gave his title right away, this stunted double would actually use it.

[crabmunicator]

"Ψiioniic, I should have guessed," Karkat answered readily. He hadn't meant the disrespect, not even from him, and hopefully the quick correction would make things easier. He'd rather not rehash the mess that had gone down with the Initiate, but as this troll looked far from a clown cultist and gave him no bad attitude, he figured that chance was in the low numbers.

He still had his half-eaten pastry in one hand as he came to a stop before him. He'd worry about finishing it later; for now, it served an extra device to gesture with.

"I guess I don't really want anything," he went on, "but it's hard to miss the guy who's clearly my former best friend's ancestor when he's hanging around doing who knows what. Considering I try to style myself as not a complete asshole, I should at least introduce myself, owing to the fact a miniature Signless probably isn't what you expect. Have you met up with him yet, at least?"

Honestly he had no idea how long the Psiioniic had been here, but his seeming lack of specific recognition implied a shorter span of time. Everyone who'd been around longer seemed to know his past self. Besides, standing around uselessly like this didn't seem to imply any grand knowledge of what he was doing.

[biiowiired]

Excuse you, tiny not-Signless, he was trying to plot out an escape route. You try figuring a way onto a train to the outside with no powers, no connections, and no tools.

....Yeah, he was totally useless right now.

He had to admit, being called Captor was preferable to the fucking Helmsman. God, what possessed people to think that was ever a good idea? Didn't they know what a helmstroll was? This put Karkat in a better light. Psii appreciated not being called a ship's battery.

He shrugged, catching some of Karkat's flippancy. "Anthethtorth are a bunch of highblood crap. You could have come up with a better thtory. Like the Capitol manufacturing cloneth of my betht friend." The barest of pauses. "Yeah, I've talked with him."

More accurately, he'd found out he was the Helmsman, broken down, and had to be led to a pile. His lips pressed into a thin line before he schooled his face blank. He was already calling up his smattering of habitual subterfuge twice as often. It was just like old times, under the watch of overseers. Suppressing tells. Hiding seditious talk. Trusting no one.

Why hadn't Signless mentioned his doppelganger? Well.... ok, having one wasn't really the biggest news. There had been much more important things for Signless to go over, like Psii's future self being here in the past, and presence of highbloods who were apparently not murderous, at least not towards him, so please don't kill them in a fit of panic, thanks.