This Eridan is basically a study of what would happen if he was allowed to follow in his Ancestor's footprints after SGRUB, bearing in mind Eridan's bitterness, penchant for conquest, and nihilism. This is a study of what would happen in a scenario wherein Eridan is successful in his ambitions, and ascends to the throne of the Prince of Hope, embracing the role and empowering himself with it. It's a bittersweet AU, but a successful one.

All of it from the point of meeting an alternate Feferi onwards has been roleplayed out, but in arcs, with each arc succeeding in teaching Eridan the lesson he needs to make the next intuitive jump. A jump that will get him that much closer to what I mean for him to be, which I'll be playing here. Which is a confident Eridan suited to take over Dualscar's position as a very dangerous General if he wanted.

Given the nature of the platform he was roleplayed on, there were a lot of different headcanons being meshed together, so a multitude of multiple, separate timelines was a reasonable answer to explain inconsistencies. As such, he inhabits another timeline, separate from the canon alpha and its doomed offshoots, accounting for any differences in his biology that crop up due to headcanons.

Historically, his timeline continues along the same path as the canon timeline up until Eridan is put on Land of Wrath and Angels. Thereupon, impostors impersonated his friends sporadically. He'd try to talk to them, thinking they're his friends--if they could be called that--and ask for help with his quests on LOWAA, but the second he starts getting pushy and rude, the second he started getting standoffish and insulting, the impostors begin to get aggressive and point out all of his flaws. They threw them in his face and described how toxic he was to those around him. Conversations usually ended with the impostors telling Eridan to never speak to them again, but under the guise of his friends' chumhandles, he didn't recognize until later that there were even impostors until much later on, and by that point, he sounded confused, aggressive, and a little mentally off.

The Angels of LOWAA were frightening in many ways, and for a while, Eridan perceived them as a creepy threat due to their cryptic nature, and he wouldn't realize for a long time that they were protecting him.

But by the time he did realize they were helping him, he'd found out the impostors and learned how to spot them from his actual friends, and had conversations with them about his role as a Prince of hope.

When finally, after his nerves got the best of him and he hadn't anything in him to care about the consequences, he made the impostor's plans backfire out of spite.

Trying to tell an Ampora he's wrong and attempting to force them into doing anything will always backfire spectacularly.

( For the full story I base his LOWAA experiences off of: http://archiveofourown.org/works/397048?view_full_work=true )

That aside, his story runs parallel to canon with some inferences.

His scheme to have Feferi in his red quadrant, which would then open up his pale quadrant for Karkat, was a spectacular failure where Feferi was concerned. She rejected him, and Karkat was often too busy dealing with his own planet's quests and rounding up the other young trolls to tend to Eridan's every mood. Besides, the young Prince was much too proud to show how sincerely effected he was by the break up and rejection to anyone. Whining was normal and made it seem(and feel) like it had less of an impact than it did.

And so, Eridan was left to fend, mostly, for himself. To maintain his own temper and mood swings, and find ways to distract his mind or find solace and peace some other way. None really worked, but despite his whining, he was a troll of principle, propriety, and dignity, so he MADE it work. He had a name and reputation to uphold, after all.

It would take him some weeks to unwind from the events of LOWAA and come off of the plateau of stress he'd found himself on, and it was written off by the majority as mood swings from running from the Angels he'd managed to piss off and mass murdering them all.

To cater to his pride and ego, he let them believe that was all it was. He didn't like the fact that Karkat even SUSPECTED that he had began to unravel at the seams for a few hours, so he wouldn't let the others label him as crazy for talking about assholes that impersonated his friends and told him how toxic and dangerous he was(like they undoubtedly wanted to).

Things again fell on track with the canon timeline, with the exception that Jade was already talking to post-scratch Jake and coordinating efforts with Karkat to begin their SBURB session. Jade, Dave, John, and Rose were already working towards destroying their session quickly to merge with the troll's session, which would get everyone together within the same meteor-bound laboratory within a few month's time.

As that was being coordinated, Eridan suggested to Feferi that they join Jack, the Destroyer that the prophecies on LOWAA and the Angels had told him about.

The fight with Sollux ensued as Gamzee snapped, as well.

Sollux lost, and though he didn't go blind, his vision was severely impaired. Feferi, however, thought him dead, much as she did in the canon timeline, and attacked.

Kanaya saw Eridan raise his wand, and lunged for him. She knocked him to the floor, which made Eridan's Hope miss, but it did strike her deeply in the thoracic gills on her left side. She was K.O.'d from the hit and laid bleeding badly on the floor.

Karkat was stunned for some time, but after Terezi jumped in the fray to try and take Eridan's wand before Kanaya was injured, Karkat panicked and compressed Feferi's wound to parse the bleeding as well as he could.

Kanaya, Eridan, and Terezi continued to struggle. Kanaya managed to take Eridan's wand and almost bite a chunk out of Terezi's arm. The injury gave him room to throw her off of him, and with Kanaya as the sole restraint, he, as a highblood, was able to overpower her and grab his wand. Before he took it, he shot a hole through her stomach, and after she died, he threw her off, glared at Terezi, Karkat, and Feferi, and stalked out to go find Vriska. He was aware that Gamzee had stalked off into the meteor, but he wanted a good match to burn his energy and take his anger out on, not another slaughter.

But, before he could find her, a revived--and glowing--Kanaya found him. In shock, he stood almost paralyzed as Kanaya charged at him with her chainsaw. But instead of dying, he screamed and stumbled backwards, and just as the chainsaw was starting to cut into him, instead of taking another STEP back, his legs gave out and he fell on his ass. She went to swing again, but he was already scuttling and panicking back onto his feet to run off. Eridan's body, in a response of fight or flight and a desperate bid to keep him alive, was running off of endorphins that numbed his body to any pain, and adrenaline as he left a clear trail of blood all the way to the little cranny he huddled away in to hide. He'd taken his cape off and was trying to stop the bleeding, but passed out as Kanaya hunted him down.

She found him easily, but Karkat was already screaming over the P.A. system that no more deaths were to be tolerated. They needed EVERYONE they still had alive to help with getting past Jack. They couldn't spare any fighters.

Kanaya carried him back, and along with Feferi, they underwent sloppy, back-alley operations to close up and cauterize the wounds, and Eridan's innards were stuffed back in him as well as they could be.

( This is a really old and out-of-date picture, but it's a good reference of the chainsaw scar: http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_md7o3id1eU1rxv4cv.png )

Eridan's middle was cut through halfway, about to where the navel would be in the front, but it only goes an inch or two inwards from his waist in the back since, as Kanaya was cutting into him, he fell backwards. As such, his intestines and liver were badly damaged. Until he was able to get professional reconstructive surgery, he had to be extremely careful about how he ate and drank or he'd exacerbate the already bad stomach pains. That episode exhausted a lot of grist to make medicines and tools needed to close them up, and it took a month before him and Feferi were well enough to walk around.

He found out Karkat took Gamzee on as a moirail, and his bitterness increased exponentially. Why would Karkat take on Gamzee, whom had only snapped(as Eridan could tell) due to a lack of soporifics? What made Gamzee so deserving, when Eridan was the one who was there for him? When Eridan so CLEARLY needed a moirail for so long, and was so CLEARLY interested in Karkat, why Gamzee?

During their recovery and afterwards though, Feferi, so as to set a good example for the others and try to be benevolent and merciful, gave Eridan chances to apologize, and was now the only one that would even tolerate his presence.

His apologies were all crap, though.

Full of justifications and attempts to play the victim, or he'd find ways to put the blame off elsewhere and demand apologies from others, instead. He had his reasons, but he was so fixated on all the sleights against himself that, while he felt tremendous guilt for what he'd done, he focused on what wrongs were done against himself. He couldn't fully face and accept what he'd done, nor admit it, because there were so many reasons the others should be apologizing to him. And if they could just see how they'd treated him, how they pushed him--a highblood with no moirail--closer and closer to the edge, then Feferi would see it wasn't ENTIRELY his fault and forgive him.

But that's now how the world works.

Eventually she shunned him as well. The first of the humans arrived a week after she cast him off--John, Jade, Rose, and Dave. Jade didn't like him, and Rose and Dave would, in their own ways, only tell him he was wrong to have done so. They didn't outright avoid him, but they didn't validate him. John didn't like him, but was only cold, not rude.

The trolls and kids hurried to get the new teenagers--Jane, Jake, Roxy, and Dirk--into the game, trained, and prepared with weapons and hoards of grist.

As they were coaching the kids, Eridan got involved and tried to make new friends, having given up on any interaction with the others outside of bitter coldness and insults. Dirk and Roxy bit. The others warned the new four about Eridan, but after some apprehension, those two were the most understanding. Roxy was wary, but friendly because she suffered from her own demons and understood the importance of second chances, having began sobriety, herself. Dirk appeared neutral before Eridan began to understand and read his personality better, and found the elder Strider could relate to his emotional turmoil and failed good intentions. No one knows a Prince better than another Prince.

But once they were in, Sollux and Roxy hacked into the game's programming on either end, and with Jade's Space powers, they were able to link up different points in time and transportalize to the meteor, skipping a LOT of canon events. Eridan associated with Roxy and Dirk, and had to watch them get weird stares just for being tolerant of him.

But they stuck with him and gave him some hope.

That also served to make him cling to his guilt, though. Guilt he tried to kill and bury underneath stubborn pride.

Sollux and Roxy, again, hacked into the game's programming and re-created the prize door. They made a mad dash for it together, trolls and humans, and made it without Jack intercepting, luckily.

As they opened it, everything in the old universe was destroyed. Jack, Calliborn and Calliope, the Empress, and Lord English. Nothing but those twenty survived into the new universe.

Skaia then made them a planet they could live on all their own and revived trolls from all castes and ages--from grubs to elders, maroon to violet--and humans of all races, creeds, and ages. Almost five million individuals total were revived to inhabit this planet that the kids named Prospero.

Karkat would have ruled, but due to his status as a mutant, which outraged Eridan and did NOTHING to help ANY relations, refused on the grounds that no one knew how long he would live. Besides, the elder trolls would not accept anything less than tyrian on the throne. So it was, Feferi and Sollux jointly took the crown as matesprits, and Dirk was elected by the twenty to represent the humans.

They all went their separate ways with Eridan electing to join the naval branch of the military. He was allowed into the Armed Forces, the Prosperan equivalent of the active forces of America's troops. He ran a vigorous campaign and went through officer's school, rising through the ranks while he submitted application after application, request after request to be put in the Royal Guard.

Feferi would never accept an apology, but if he could only SHOW her his utter dedication and just how sorry he truly was. How sorry he was that earnest apologies were coming too late. How sorry he was to hurt her. Maybe. Just maybe. She might begin to forgive him.

After ten months, he was allowed in the Royal Guard--the Emperor and Empress' equivalent of the Secret Services. He was reduced to a lowly seaman though, simply for being who he was. Still, he took it and ran with it, grabbing onto it and clinging desperately to the thin thread of hope.

Military training took a toll on Eridan's personality. Where once there was a clever kid with raw talent and a plasma rifle, there was now a trained soldier. Boot camp taught him that he was GOING to be held accountable for his actions, and that there would ALWAYS be someone stronger and smarter willing to come along and beat his ass if he stepped out of line. The Officers couldn't harm him by Feferi's new laws, but the other seamen sure could if he made life hard for them because he was too stubborn and proud. And boy did he get his beatings. But he learned.

He retained his identity, but he now thinks as any modern soldier would in terms of units. He was selfish and proud, he was a creature of logic and tradition, bound by the old ways of Alternia that he's romanticized in his head from pre-SGRUB nights of FLARP with Vriska. He's a creature of loyalty, ambition, determination, and a creature with murderous intent. He was still reckless and mouthy back then, and despite his training, was still very verbal about thinking hismelf better. That still hid his wounds. It hid the mountainous guilt in his heart, and that guilt bound his power and strength as a Prince of Hope. It made him fearful of being a Prince. It made him hate being a Prince. It made him try to hide and kill that title and everything that came with it, because that title ruined his life.

It was the title's fault. He didn't ask to be the Prince of Hope. He didn't want to.

But time changes all things.

As he rose through the ranks in the Royal Guard again, going through Officer's School again, getting certified and allowed to rise to Ensign with a major in Special Forces training, he pushed to create his own Task Force that was to jointly work with the Army branch of the Royal Guard and the First Intelligence Task Force. Working alongside that Task Force to help snuff out the rebels was a way to show his loyalty and dedication to Feferi. How hard he was willing to try. But Sollux wasn't going to make things so easy for him.

The elders appointed as Generals and Admirals helped push his Task Force through, having recognized the symbol Eridan bore as the legendary Dualscar's. None of the elders, especially the highbloods, liked the new, unifying laws of peace that Feferi pushed, and given Eridan's nature, they expected great things from him. Things that would pull in their favor.

And they would be right to expect, because Eridan's idea of 'helping' Feferi was not just to WATCH or CONTROL mounting rebel forces and terrorist attempts, oh no. His idea of 'helping' her was to start a civil war.

A war that would scare a population he would render helpless, and FORCE the people to rely on the government for help. And during that war, he could easily pick off the louder and more troublesome members of the opposition to make examples of them as well. Instill subtle fear while taming them and making them dependent. He would hand a struggling and slowly crumbling empire over to Feferi.

It was a great idea to someone with Eridan's ideals, and while it was true that his efforts would accomplish that end and it would be a good end for Feferi, Aquarius is a sign of logic, renowned for its near complete separation of emotion and logic to the point where emotions are almost foreign and hard for Aquarians to understand. Feferi bearing Pisces, the aqueous symbol of emotion, would not like this idea. But she would never know.

Eridan put his training to use and completed his meticulous plans to begin the war, and for three sweeps, he struggled with finding holes in his own ideas, planning for different scenarios and consequences--everything was so thorough, just as his military training had taught him to be. After three sweeps, his plans were ready to be put into action, and it was about that time that he discovered the multiverse.

Their timeline frequently did business with outside timelines since his own still had its Matriorb. Kanaya hadn't freed it from her captchalogue until they reached Prospero and found suitable caverns. They made deals with other timelines to supply Matriorbs and other resources to help expand commerce, keep the economy moving somehow, and to try to gain allies. So the concept of the multiverse wasn't really NEW to Eridan. Plus, he remembered Kanaya mentioning a guide to everyone that she could connect to in Paradox Space.

But he'd found one of many websites that link up to the same server in the Void that many timeline's Rose..s upload their player manuals to. Thereon he joined with the user url 'holydestruction,' a terrible pun on his own curse and a wish to denounce it, and met a few individuals that would shape the next two years of his life and leave a lasting impact.

The first would be a Feferi from another timeline.

He struggled and fought, never allowing himself to use her as a substitute for his own timeline's Feferi. She wasn't his, but he wanted to be her friend all the same.

If she could forgive him--since her timeline's Eridan HAD killed her--then there was hope that his Feferi could forgive him. But hope was a dirty word to him, so he dare not give those ideas words.

He was so delicate around her. Not with her, but with himself. He was walking on eggshells, the fear of his own capabilities, the fear of failing and alienating himself subtly creeping around like a murderer in the night, hiding around the corners of the walls of confidence and pride he'd began to perfect.

He'd gotten angry in her presence once, and she was scared. So scared. She was dead, but still scared of his wand--which, by the way, was no longer the wand Kanaya had originally given him. Now, no matter what he tried to alchemize together, he only created the Mercurial Scepter due to remnants of the game's influence permeating the very young world. Her fear and the memories of how he'd alienated himself from the troll he truly cared for due to his wrath stopped him in his tracks. He didn't let loose a lightning bolt of Hope, but instead clenched his wand and turned to storm off.

She followed, but she need not calm him down.

Eridan, even in canon, has always been a troll with monumental self-control compared to the other kids considering everything he's been through. Even if it's borne from pride and the idea that he is royalty, and should therefore set an example for the others, it is self-control none the less. The military only served to temper it and hammer a sense of responsibility into his head, so he cinched his anger quickly and reigned himself in. Besides. He'd been so long without a moirail that he was used to looking after himself.

They shared conversations, and as Eridan pushed his way up the ranks and started setting up the pieces for war in his timeline, he became closer to this foreign Feferi.

They became good friends, and he dedicated a lot of his free time to her, trying to subconsciously make up for his mistakes with his own Feferi by biting his tongue and spoiling her. She constantly chided him for his hemoism and elitism whenever it rose, and he learned quickly that if he wanted her to be happy, he couldn't talk about anything in relation to the dull embers of ambition that still clung desperately to life in his heart. So he became everything she wanted, afraid that if he didn't, he would fail and be damned to pariahdom. Afraid that he would fail and be everything the others of his timeline said he would be on the meteor. Afraid that The Prince would ruin everything for him again.

So he pretended he was happy and tried to convince himself that he was happy being something he was not for a long time.

Early on he met another Eridan from a different timeline(he quickly got used to the idea of alternates). One that had embraced everything about himself and ruled as a tyrant. Eridan, now known by the nickname 'Holly' to differentiate himself from his alternates, was at first annoyed by this alternate and laughed at how people fought and opposed him at every turn.

But he watched that alternate, known as 'Stitches,' with wanting jealousy. Something stirred in his heart as he watched Stitches give precisely zero fucks about all the hate he was given, as he watched Stitches laugh in the face of their hate. As he watched Stitches work with fell grace and dignity, moving like a silk spectre and eviscerating all that he touched. But his destruction was controlled. His destruction was a well-practiced orchestra with him as the maestro. Holly was in awe as this artisan of destruction carved his name into the memories of others with tyranny. At how he made other people ask for the opportunity to kneel at his feet.

He wanted it more than he wanted anything else, but the alternate Feferi, now his matesprit, platonically hated Stitches and feared him, so Holly hated him, too. But he never forgot.

He could not fear such a force, but he could hate him and find a reason to do so.

Everything was going fine in his timeline meanwhile. He was pushing through the ranks quickly, the elders giving his ego nudges to try and push him to get the results they wanted. Results that would somehow put them back in power. He seized the opportunities, and his Task Force put him in a unique position to be hand-fed all the information he would ever need. To have a corner of the underground market reigned in and under government control. It gave him opportunities.

As he continued towards his goals without uttering a word to anyone, he met an alternate of Karkat and became moirails, and the Horror Terrors started to creep in.

The Terrors demanded Feferi return to the Void and tend to the dream bubbles that they had made. She refused, wanting to stay with Holly. They did not like that, so to force her, they crept into her mind like poison.

She had psychotic fits. She would hallucinate and speak in tongues, she would get violent and threatening, which was dangerous since she was a Witch of Life. She would say the words that cut Holly most. The words that reminded him of the deeply ingrained fear of himself, and of his might. How his learned responsibility as a soldier and dignity and pride as a noble only masked it, and how he was still toxic to those around him. How everything was still his fault. How he still ruined everything around him. But she wouldn't remember anything after he calmed her down.

He had to dedicate every free moment he had to her, going so far as to get special permission from his superiors to take his work home so he could watch her. She had a moirail, a second alternate of Eridan's known as Mora, and he often tended to her, but they had started to grow distant after some time, much to Holly's dismay, so a lot of the duties fell onto his shoulders. She favored Holly anyway, so she put most of the burden on him by default.

From sun down to sunrise, he made sure she ate, slept, and restrained her. The hallucinations became worse, lasted longer, and it was harder for him to reach her. She carved terrorspeak into his walls with her claws until they were torn-up nubs. He had no time for his moirail. He scarcely had time to eat or sleep for himself.

But an Ampora is loyal. Dualscar was loyal. Eridan was loyal, and still was, to both his own Feferi, and to the lesson that he learned on the meteor. The lesson that he was dangerous, poisonous, and hurt everything around him because of how selfish he was. So he couldn't deny her needs. The punishment of pariahdom and villification he suffered on the meteor made sure he never forgot that he was a selfish piece of shit and was lucky to have the mates he did. So he did not abandon her, but it wore him so thin.

He started to distance himself. He NEEDED time, and so he MADE time for himself. Feferi disliked this and started painting him as negligent to the public at large, despite how he still tended to her. She began to get upset as the terrors toyed with her mind and made her think Eridan didn't love her. So she played games of 'the amount of time it takes for Eridan to notice a thing and fix it is equivalent to how much he loves me.'

This wore him thinner.

Finally, one night, the tension broke. He thought she'd finally went to sleep, so he left the room to go do his work. When he returned an hour later to check on her, she'd flown out of a window and dove into the ocean. Holly contacted her on Trollian, but was met only with blame for abandoning her and more insults. Worried out of his mind and on a razor's edge since he couldn't see his moirail, he was close to snapping, but he held it together.

He tried to distract hismelf with the website while talking to Feferi, trying to coax her into giving him information that would help him locate her in the vast oblivion of the ocean. He needed that distraction. Someone talking about a bad night caught his attention, and so he spoke to that individual. It was, surprisingly, another Alternate of Eridan's known as Vvaticide.

The two exchanged information, and Holly found out that Mora's distance was due to his interference with Vati's moirail. Vati lead him to the conclusion that Mora was cheating on Feferi with Vati's moirail, and with this information, he was pushed over the edge. Wrought with guilt, worry, stress, and now righteous fury, he closed all windows, told Feferi to fuck off, and messaged Mora.

It was another meteor incident, except this time he lured Mora to his hive to attack him and threaten him on Feferi's behalf. His attempt was successful, but his threat was the axe that justified Mora leaving Feferi. The terrors released her from their hold to show her what Holly had done, and for the second time he was proven to be dangerous. Proven to be toxic, and a hazard to everyone he loved because of his anger. Because he lost control.

His guilt and hatred of The Prince was justified, because Feferi blamed this incident on Holly. Mora made sure of it.

Holly and Feferi were drawn deeper into Vati and Mora's quarrel, and Feferi continued to paint Holly as negligent and uncaring. Mora, Vati, and Feferi were shoving and forcing him to dedicate thirty hours a night, ten nights a week to her--time no one possibly had--because they didn't know he already spent every waking moment he could with her. By this point, she was forced to make a deal with them--she would be possessed by a Terror until such a time as she harvested ten-thousand souls to feed them.

He sank to a new emotional low as Feferi's conditioned worsened, but Amporas are as stalwart as they are loyal. He would endure this. He would overcome this hardship and he would look like a hero. He would roll his sleeves up and FIND a way to help all of this. By sheer determination, he kept going because he wanted to be revered. Because he had to. His lessons on the meteor taught him that he could not be himself, so he had to be what others wanted. And they wanted someone to fix their problems and bring everyone together as a fearsome force, so he would. He had the training as a soldier--an officer--to do it. He would do it and still push his plans in his own timeline forward.

Mora and Vati plotted to kill Holly, using his attack on Mora and terrible job as a matesprit as justification. Feferi was his shielf. Mora made sure Holly knew that the only reason he was alive was because of Feferi. He was reminded constantly, everywhere he turned, of how dangerous The Prince was to everyone he cared about.

But he wanted to be a great troll.

A great troll like Stitches.

No. Better.

And when that thought came to mind, he clung to it. He latched on for dear life. For the sake of his mental health, he latched on and never let go. He romanticized a kismesissitude with a troll that would very likely kill him. A black romance with a troll that had conquered everything. That spat in the face of everyone who told Stitches he was a monster and would amount to nothing. Stitches became everything. And Holly wanted to be better.

But to be better, he had to pull through this. So he struggled, but he did.

He would be a troll with the fearsome grace of a wraith. A troll who conducted himself with discipline and dignity. A troll DESERVING of the name Ampora, of the violet flowing in his veins. He'd seen ancestors come and go in the multiverse and held no respect for them(save a few passing individuals). But Stitches was the benchmark by which Holly would measure himself, not Dualscar. Stitches was the one that ruled with an iron fist. Stitches was the one the multiverse feared and hated, Stitches was the one they kneeled to, and Stitches was the one who embraced his title as Prince. Who tamed the title, who turned it into a finely tuned weapon. Who conquered The Prince and became an artisan.

It lit the fire in his heart, and Holly began to understand that the purpose of the Prince, then, was not to overcome the stigma. The purpose of the Prince was to grow. To tame. To embrace. And once the title was embraced, once he could accept it wholly, he could begin to tame it and wield it with deadly proficiency like his rifle and wand.

He pushed for Feferi to auspistice between himself and Vati so he could solve this problem like Stitches would have, and after some weeks, they began getting along. Begrudgingly. But it developed slowly from there. Vati eventually saw what turmoil Holly face and vindicated him. Unlike Karkat, who suppressed and chided Holly's more ambitious thoughts, Vati encouraged them.

He saw how Vati(who had bargained off his soul to the Terrors to save another) and Mora(blackmates now with Vati) hated what they were, but still wielded the concept of Hope to deadly effect. He holds tightly on to the hope Vati had that Holly would be the best of the three--Holly, Vati, and Mora.

They were not as good as Stitches in his mind.

Stitches didn't hate himself. And he didn't apologize for who he was.

Holly clung to that idea obsessively, but it lit a fire in his heart that held him together. Cracks came up as Holly's moirail committed suicide, and he retreated again. Vati, whom had become tentative friends with Holly in the months since their auspisticeship began, took pity on him and kept an eye on him. He was there while Feferi demanded more from Holly, and Mora kept at his heels.

But he made it through.

His relationship with Feferi died out after her revival as her regular self, and Holly had developed a serious abandonment complex brought on by the events of the meteor, his moirail's suicide, Feferi's required suicide so she could bargain with the Terrors, Vati was made to forget everything by the Terrors as punishment for failure to uphold his end of the bargain, Vati's matesprit--whom he'd been friends with for some time--was killed, all so very close together. Within a four-month span. Were it more spaced out or came at a time when Holly wasn't so bogged down by Feferi demanding Holly dedicate everything to her to PROVE to her waning trust that he pitied her(jealous of how close Holly and Vati were getting, pale-wise), he could've handled it. But it all came at terrible timing.

The idea of being pitch with Stitches and Vati's watchful eye kept him from falling apart completely.


As things crumbled with Feferi, he only had Vati to hold on to, so he did. Vati had fleeting memories that would later become clearer and piece together over time until everything came flooding back, but until then, Holly returned the pale notions and stayed with him. It held Holly together along with his unhealthy obsession with Stitches.

His plans had been put on halt in his timeline due to his own wavering mental stability, but the good thing about trying to push for civil war is that once the gears start turning at all, they can only pick up momentum. So for the half-sweep this went on, Holly only had to give it passing nudges of violence here and there when he could. Otherwise he stuck strictly to his work while his relationship with Vati flourished during his recovery.

It took some months, but his spirit came back to life with a firery roar.

With the help of Vati and a grimdark Rose that came along as a black suitor, and over some more months, he came to terms with his black feelings for Stitches, and he regards Stitches as a role model and beautiful memory.

It was because of Stitches and his obsession and his terrible experience with the alternate Feferi that he was no longer apologetic for the events on the meteor. Feferi would not accept his apologies or hear him. She would not so much as glance at his sweeps of service, so he would not care if her empire was torn apart.

His civil war was no longer justified as a means to unite her empire, but as a means of revenge on Sollux, the 'Golden Boy' of his timeline. The one he was going to nail to the cross for everything everyone had done to ruin his life up until that point. For everyone that made him fear himself, his capabilities, and for everyone who tried to tell him that he was dangerous, toxic, and unworthy of anyone's pity or hate. He would do it by embracing his title of Prince of Hope.

His plans changed and he enlisted young soldiers by way of lies and deceit.

With Vati at his side, encouraging him every time the nagging lessons of the meteor dulled the fire of his spirit and giving him pointers on ways to profit from fleeting opportunities(Holly was a slow planner that dealth with long-term, and for a long time, was very bad at playing things by ear. The opposite was true for Vati.), he was a force of nature.

The Terrors would interfere two more times with Vati, which left him a panicked wreck for a few weeks each time. The first time he was taken for punishment, but returned, and Vati returned to find Holly had isolated himself and began clawing at his scalp while huddled in the darkness of his own room. He returned in time enough to pull Holly back from the precipice, and while Holly tended Vati's injuries and soothed his troubled spirit and mind, Vati didn't leave Holly's side. Holly would get anxious and panic if Vati was out of sight for more than a few minutes, but he proved he wasn't going anywhere. The second time, finding such light punishment didn't work, they put him in a body foreign to Holly, right before his eyes. Adjusting was hard, and Holly was a wreck for some weeks again, but Vati assured him it was the same person inside, and so Holly was calmed enough to settle in and help with the transition as the cultures of two individuals clashed inside one body. His loyalty to the individual that kept him sane and supported him through everything; that pitied him for who he was, wanted to be with him for who he truly was--not the facade he was taught by the meteor's incident to keep up--was unyielding. Vati had earned every bit of Holly's trust and affection by merit.

After those episodes, things continued full steam again. His abandonment issues gave way to a controling nature, but it was turned inward rather than outward due to his military training and the inspiration from how Stitchwork handled himself always with dignity, strict discipline, and above all else, grace.

His military training put the lives of hundreds in his hands, for he was a Lieutenant Commander by that point, and oversaw a number of operations throug the Task Force he founded. His natural penchant for self-control in high-stress situations, and the Ampora way of taking action instead of complaining benefited his military career. He was equipped to handle stress with a smile. Stitches gave him an example to function with class. How to hold himself on a higher plane so others would think him better simply by how he carried himself, dressed, acted, and how he chose his words. And Vati taught him how to BE the part, not just ACT and fake it until he made it. But how to execute all of this. And by his own design, he had learned to be so thorough and careful, because one slip-up would have him hanged by Sollux. And he would lose.

So none of the soldiers ever knew it was Holly contacting them. None of them knew what it was they were doing. He compartmentalized everything. He used gangs and the tension already ever present in the forced coexistence of humans and trolls, the tension between high and lowbloods that knew the Condesce's rule to spark the flames.

Holly had the finest blackmail, the sweetest bribes, so compliance with the anonymous messages was necessary. And when anyone could be paid off to kill an individual to make a point, and then the assassin killed in a planet where it was still easy to get away with murder(to the outrage of humans and human-sympathizers), he was halfway there.

The economy saw a stretching gap between upper and lower class. Neightborhoods, cities whole were divided into areas unsafe for anyone outside of the native social circle. The compartmentalized soldiers sent the messages indirectly to the heads of the insurgency he was investigating--feeding them information that was sometimes true, others false to keep Sollux from ever getting past suspecting Holly of orchestrating anything.

Holly stayed behind the curtains and paid off directors and producers to tell handlers how to move their marionettes. He was untouchable.

Sollux suspected out of sheer spite and because of the marked change in Holly's demeanor over a sweep.

But Eridan was the Prince of Hope. He wouldn't let Sollux get farther than unproved suspicions. He encouraged the suspicions, just to make Sollux appear paranoid and to play with it, but he couldn't reveal himself yet. To do so would put a face to all of the empire's problems. It would make everything seem manageable.

Kill Eridan and then everything else will fall back into place.

That would give Sollux hope, and he wouldn't allow that.

He had to overwhelm Sollux. Make him think that everything was crumbling, and that no matter how hard he tried to fix one problem, dealing with one problem would make ten others crop up. It would all be Sollux's fault for being a terrible leader. Unfit to drag along Feferi's coattails and drink from the chalice of nobility. It would all be his fault, and there would be no hope of salvaging the empire no matter how hard he tried.

Terezi started to investigate Eridan, and so he purposely framed himself for many petty crimes, and Terezi, wanting as badly as Sollux to see Eridan burn, would personally handle him.

But he was a highblood, and one whose web of connections now spread far and wide.

He knew the elder trolls circled him like vultures, waiting and watching for the opportunity to seize the freedom and power they had under the Condesce's rule. THey watched Eridan, suspecting he was realizing his position as Dualscar's heir(though by this point the name Dualscar was meaningless to him. Stitches held his respect). They helped push Eridan along and gave him the means to do whatever it was that he was doing--and some heard whispers and had large and small parts of the story, but none of them would talk. They didn't care why Eridan did it. Just that he did. So they framed some lowblood off the streets, and each time, Holly was let free.

He kept up that game of cat and mouse with Terezi, making her cry wolf over and over until the police force apologized for bugging Eridan and taking him into custody. As months passed, he was released in hours.

Karkat still hated him and scorned him and his reprehensible behavior. Gamzee was still missing in action, and Eridan swore to kill him, but not because he was still bitter over Karkat.

He wasn't bitter, not when he'd found his compliment and destined moirail in Vati. Not when they shared countless nights nagging, arguing, pranking, cuddling, talking, plotting, and dreaming so sweetly together.

Because Gamzee, subconsciously, represented double-standards. How Gamzee could get away with and be forgiven for what Eridan could not.

Vriska was commissioned by Sollux to help detain known lords in the underground circuit, and Rose printed a gazette that combatted the hundreds of tabloids flooding the cities and grocery store counters. None of this stopped him.

In fact, Holly pushed for Sollux as a false kismesis and LET Sollux keep a close eye on all of his movements. It was false for both of them, but Holly didn't care. He let the tabloids follow them and report rumors and such as they wanted, letting Sollux scoff or get pissy as if it would matter in the end. By this point, Holly had private subordinates from other timelines that worked for him and helped orchestrate his chaos in this timeline. He preyed upon another timeline's Captor, weak and downtrodden, and used him to set up another network. One for his business and to piddle around on so the Emperor would think Eridan up to nothing but flash games and work, and a personal, separate network that held all of his contacts, plans, information--everything.

He was rubbing it all in Sollux's face at this point.

He encouraged gang activity, sending messages and hints that the insurgents should begin paying off small gangs to do their dirty work again. To forge and blackmail arms dealers and drug companies so they could corner markets and widen the financial divide and create controversies. So they could expose the forced underhanded deals after so many months of working together to the police anonymously and create a scandal that would injure the public's trust in their governing bodies.

All it took was one raid. Lowbloods and humans stormed a highblood neighborhood and killed as many as they could. Police and military tried to intervine, but public outcry at occupation worsened the situation. Highbloods wouldn't be stopped, anyway. Their retaliation was as swift as it was violent and messy. It all went downhill from there, and a month later, civil war was declared.

Holly and Vati celebrated that night and marked it down as a night to celebrate for sweeps to come.

Humans and Lowbloods formed weak bonds at first against highbloods and what midbloods that defaulted to their side. Military and police forces were ignored and killed as acts of terror to subdie lowbloods. As humans became outmatched, they clung desperately to lowblooded forces, who began to feel used as canon fodder against highbloods, and so they parted ways.

It was all chaos after two sweeps.

Holly had intervined, and the vultures had profitted off of the chaos. Genocide was the next step, and again, Holly need not ever directly interfere. He learned from watching Mora, Vati, and Stitches that indirect tampering was the best route to go. Let people's fears and paranoia fuel their actions, and learn how to manipulate their expectations so that nothing could ever be directly pinned.

Holly sent a typed confession of everything he did to Terezi and signed it with a fudged version of his signature.

She presented the evidence, of course, but she'd cried wolf so many times, that all Holly had to do was say that wasn't his signature, present documents that had his usual signature on it, and he was let off the hook with no investigation.

Sollux knew, but he couldn't do anything with the empire locked in civil war. The government held no power, and no one cared. Terezi was driven mad, knowing she had Eridan dead to rights, but no one would believe her because she fell into his games and black flirtations of playing cat and mouse with the law.

Humans became an endangered species, and Feferi was overthrown. A violet blood took Feferi's place. One Holly didn't care to learn the name of.

The night came where Holly held audience with Sollux and struck the final blow to his emotional and mental state, rubbing Sollux's face in everything. Not to gloat, to but break the final straws that held Sollux together. To smash them into tiny pieces and BURN them.

And he did.

It was exhilirating. It was freedom. It was success.

He could pity and take care of his moirail. He could take care of and protect his friends and subordinates. And he could OBLITERATE his enemies. He was EVERYTHING they said he could NEVER become. The Prince had awakened.

He was drunk with success, and as despair enveloped Sollux, he kidnapped the troll and toyed with him. It took six sweeps for the night of his victory to come, and this was his right in his eyes.

He stretched his legs again, just pushing himself, seeing how far he could go with Sollux. Experimenting on methods of mental and emotional torture until stopping everything and treating him with platonic pity. Protecting and sheltering him, enforcing that the foul treatment was Sollux's fault, that Sollux made him do it, but that was over now. Sollux knew better. He knew how to behave. He brainwashed and evoked Stockholm Syndrome. After another sweep, Sollux was happy to become Eridan and Vati's Helmsman.

He got bored with Sollux, and with his point proven to everyone in his timeline--or the ones still left alive, anyway--he is drawing up plans to move on to bigger and better things.

He cares not for the crown, merely the chase of power. He likes the title of General and the act of warmongering too much to care for the responsibilities of the crown. In fact, he abhors the crown, and finds it disgusting for anyone but a tyrian to hold it(thought out of duty he will act as a steward to the crown until a tyrian can take it). He cares only for bettering himself, and following his ambition.