Chapter Text
"Cyan, no!" Yellow begged, they loved it when humans did that. "Please, don't do this!"
Cyan let themself smirk openly. They had nothing left to lose. They had won. Yellow was the only one left now. All they had to do now is deal with her, and they would claim yet another flawless victory. They pull out their wonderfully sharp knife and advance slowly, savoring every moment.
"Oh, Yellow. Sweet, naive Yellow. Hopefully, this teaches you a lesson about trust." They almost purr as they creep within killing range. "Shame you won't live long enough to utilize it."
Wasting no more time, they plunge the blade directly into the human girl's chest. It slices easily through her suit, and then her flesh. Her body spasms as blood bubbles out from the wound.
Yellow gasps and her mouth wrenches open. Cyan grips the knife tighter, eagerly anticipating the agonized scream. "Cyan! Rise and shine, it's time to get up~"
"What?" Cyan is so taken aback by Yellow's cheery tone that their hand comes away without their knife in it.
The human's paling face contorts into the most crazed and bloody grin Cyan has ever seen. "C'mon! Wake up! You don't wanna be late~"
Cyan jolts into wakefulness with a gasp; they are absolutely drenched in sweat. They had been in the middle of a wonderful dream, before it took a terrifying turn. The impostor can't help but groan lowly when they hear the source of their torment continuing to pound on their door. "Cyan~"
"Alright, alright." they say, managing a relatively civil tone. "I am awake." They roll over, glancing at the clock beside their bed. They were fortunate that their native planet had a similar time cycle as Earth.
04:30
Their anger grows ten-fold when they see the time. Taking several deep breaths to calm themself, they speak in a slightly less civil tone. "Yellow, are you aware that it is four o'clock in the morning?"
"Yup!" Their currently least favorite crewmate cheerfully chirps from outside their door.
"And we don't need to leave for our mission until six?"
"Yeah, well, about that," Cyan is slightly pacified by the sheepish tone in the human's voice. Not nearly pacified enough to stop imagining the many ways they could kill her, though. "Captain White decided that, since we have a new crewmate and want to celebrate, instead of warping directly onto the Skeld, we'd take the scenic route in a mini shuttle!"
"What."
Cyan's flat tone is either not enough to dissuade Yellow from her excitement, or she was simply that oblivious. "I know! Isn't it great? It'll be like we all get to go on a roadtrip together, but in space! Oh, and yesterday you were saying how we wouldn't have much time to socialize before our mission, but that's not a problem anymore~ We'll all get to hang out and learn more about each other, it's gonna be so great! So come on! Get up and get ready so we can go!"
"Hold on—wait a moment. I want to be certain I'm understanding this correctly. You decided, last minute, to take the impractical, long route rather than the instantaneous one, because there is a new person on your crew?"
"Uh, pretty much, yeah." Yellow's slightly muffled response comes, completely nonchalant.
"And disregarding that, the alternative would be utilizing a complex manipulation of space when you could simply land the ship at the spaceport?"
Yellow's response takes a little more time. "Uh, no, we actually couldn't. See, taking off and landing a big ship like the Skeld is a lot harder than a little thing like a shuttle. You have to make sure everything's calibrated right, and that nothing will explode. Or implode. Or catch on fire. It's one of the first things we learn about ships, y'know?"
Cyan has to put their fist in their mouth to hold back the frustrated cry that wants to come out. It's not like them to make mistakes like this! Fortunately, though, they know what to do to salvage the situation. "Mph. Well, excuse me for not being at one hundred and two percent whilst being abruptly awoken at four in the morning!"
"Just drink ungodly amounts of caffeine," Yellow replies, not sounding at all sympathetic. "It's what we all did to wake up. WE're not good enough friends for me to share my soda with you, but I'm sure you could grab some coffee or tea on the way. Course, you might not be able to do that if you don't get out of bed already!"
Cyan grumpily rubs their eyes as the ship soars away from the spaceport. They were still feeling groggy, even after downing three cups of strong coffee. This was far from the ideal start to a mission, but they would persevere. They had before, and they would now. Although, they thought to themself maybe I can squeeze in a short nap before we arrive at the Skeld?
"Hey guys!" Yellow calls, much too loudly for this hour, and in this small of a spacecraft. "Wanna sing some traveling songs?"
Or not, Cyan thought with great annoyance, and something similar to anguish.
"What sort of songs did you have in mind, Yellow?" The captain asks, seeming not at all perturbed. Although that would somewhat make sense, given that this whole disaster was his idea.
"Well, the crew anthem, of course!"
To Cyan's relief, they didn't seem to be the only one confused about this. "We have a crew anthem?" Blue asks with a raised eyebrow.
"We do now. I wrote it last night. Well, more like I heard it in a dream, but that's kinda the same thing, right?"
"You wrote it in a dream." Green deadpans.
"What, you mean to tell me that I'm the only one who has incredibly vivid musical dreams with choreography so awesome and songs so catchy that no broadway show could ever compare? … Ugh, whatevzies. The point is, ordinarily I forget the way the songs sound as soon as I wake up, and just remember their awesomeness. But this time I remembered one, and I want us to sing it."]
"How?" Green asks, though he seems just as done with this whole thing as Cyan already feels. "We can't learn the words and tune of a song that doesn't exist."
Yellow actually looks a bit offended at the crewman's statement. "It does too exist! And I'll sing it for you right now! Then you all can sing along!" She clears her throat, and begins.
"There's no need to make a fuss, cause in our crew there's nothing sus. We do our work, complete our tasks, every mission done, efficient and fast! We're careful who, we choose to trust, So you can always, count on us. Don't blow your top, don't make a fuss. We can be sure, there's nothing sus. No scary plans, no funny tricks. We're just your average, crew 456."
Yellow's voice cracks shrilly on the final note, causing her to trail off and burst into giggles. Cyan winces, and they see Red doing the same out of the corner of their eye. Everyone else claps. "That seems like a pretty good summary of what our crew's about, yes." Purple surmises, letting out a soft giggle of her own.
'I don't know, I feel like the rhythm of the song could use some work." Blue states, staring off into the middle distance. "A little more length wouldn't hurt, either. A chorus and a few more verses. About what our tasks actually are, maybe?"
No, Cyan thinks with an inner-smirk; they have perfected the art of not showing the expression on their face. Let her think she's safe.
"Speaking of tasks," The captain cuts in. "I'd like to take this time to be certain you were all given the list of tasks needed to be performed on the way to polis. They won't be as extensive as your last batch, seeing as this is just maintenance needed to be performed on the Skeld as we travel."
Everyone, except White, pulls out their iMira and begins tapping through it. "Finally!" Yellow cheers, still much too loudly for Cyan's liking. "Someone else gets to empty the trash for once." Given the smoldering look on Green's face, the impostor guesses that he is the one assigned that task.
No uploading or downloading data for any of us, either." Blue adds, looking very relieved. "It's not a hard thing to do, don't get me wrong, but it's so boring!"
"You'll probably have to do it again once we reach Polus," Red remarks, still mostly focused on their phone. "Oh, crap."
"What is it, Red?" Yellow asked, looking up from her own device.
"It looks like Cyan's tasks didn't go through."
Ice flows through Cyan's veins. What are you planning, Red? They wonder, making a conscious effort to keep their breathing even. Because if you intend to betray me, I will hijack this ship and drive it into the nearest black hole. This wasn't the ideal way to complete their mission, but it was a way. DON't get them wrong, sacrificing themself wasn't on their bucket list, but if that's what it took…
"Oh, no worries." The captain assures. Compared to his serious behavior the day before, he was oddly jovial today. But that could've been because it was just the crew around, and no higher ups.
"I still have the files, I'll just send it again."
White takes out his iMira and taps on it for a while. Moments later, Cyan's phone pings. "You should check to be sure it's the right one," Purple advises. "Better to be safe than sorry."
Cyan complies, opening the notification. Immediately, something seems off. Rather than the document they expected, a video file had been delivered to them. It was called Cyan_Tasklist though, so they open it. As soon as they did, a strange song began playing. Although they'd never heard it before, Cyan couldn't help but think it sounded a little familiar.
Everyone freezes. Then, Yellow starts to laugh. The others join in moments later. Even Red is chuckling.
"Blue!" White exclaims once his chuckles disguised as a coughing fit subside. "Have you been renaming my files again?"
"Maaaaaybeee?" Said crewmate draws the word out, trying to look innocent, but failing miserably. Cyan feels a hint of gratefulness that they are not an impostor; they would be worse than Red.
"No matter how many times you do it, you won't change my mind about downloading video games on the Skeld's computer."
At this point, a deep masculine voice began crooning over the music, and Cyan found their attention divided between listening to the bickering and the lyrics. Once they realized the song was some mushy drivel about romantic love, they decided the former was more worth their time.
"Not that this isn't Blue's fault," Yellow was saying. "But why do you have a copy of Rickroll saved on your phone, captain? That meme's been dead for at least a hundred years."
"Says the girl with a twenty-first century sense of humor!" Blue scoffs before the seemingly flustered captain can respond.
"Hey. My memes are fresher than our food rations."
"That's hardly an achievement," Green scoffs. Nonetheless, Cyan spots that he is subtly bobbing his head to the music.
"They're not that bad," Red puts in their two cents. Yellow's eyes dart to meet theirs.
"The food, or my memes?" She asks, in a lower voice than usual.
"Both." They reply flatly, but are quick to add "Hey, I haven't seen enough memes to make an unbiased judgement!" When they see Yellow's eyes narrowing.
She sighs. "I guess that's fair, but come on, guys!" She turns her attention back to the rest of the crew. "You've got to admit, twenty-first century memes were pretty darn good."
Purple nods. "I like the ones where they joke about there being flying cars in the future, and then cut to something random and weird found on the internet."
"It's a little infuriating, though." Blue cuts in.
"Why?"
"It's been a long freaking time since those memes were made, and we're almost to the point where casual space travel is a thing, yet there are stillno flying cars!"
"They have a point," Yellow eyes her crewmate with a sudden interest. "I mean, we've definitely got the tech for it now; so why no flying cars?"
Red sighs. "Yellow, if they won't allow you to drive a normal car, they definitely won't let you have a flying one.'
Yellow scoffs. "As I've said a million times before, those garbage cans were just begging to be smashed!"
"Yeah, I was wondering why you weren't given a license, but that answers that," Green mutters. His foot is now tapping to the beat. He is definitely enjoying this "rickroll" song.
The conversation devolves into more chaotic territory from there. Highlights include what sort of garbage cans raccoons preferred to steal food from, the possibility of black holes being sentient and the methods of establishing communication with them, why it was so hard to find quality rubber ducks these days, and the correct way to hang a toilet paper roll. Cyan contributed the best they could, but they were beginning to get an odd feeling. A hunch that, maybe, there was more going on here than Red failing to do their job correctly. What that was, though, remained to be seen.