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hopepetal · 7 months

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My piece in the fourth edition of the @trafficzine! I wrote about Impulse's boogey kill on Pearl :)

(Spot the boatem knights au reference in the fic lol)

Read on AO3!

Enjoy! :)

The curse looms over Impulse like storm clouds over the sky, and he thirsts for time like grass for rain. He catches his breath as the curse settles on him, choosing him as the boogeyman.

He releases the breath through his mouth, quietly forming the words “not the boogeyman” with his lips. It's not the truth, but it sounds enough like it for no one to suspect a thing. He's gotten good at lying, at deceiving and backstabbing, over the course of the life series. He and Skizz are different in that way. Where his friend remains honest and loyal, he weaves treachery and lies into his words.

Impulse isn't strong enough to be honest. That, in his opinion, is one of his greatest flaws. He's too weak to hold any true loyalty to his team– he supposes that's why the thought of just killing one of them crosses his mind instantly.

No, he rebukes instantly, if I kill too quickly, they might want to do a reroll. He thinks back to the first boogey, how Grian had claimed it wasn’t “entertaining enough”. How Skizz had died twice in quick succession, just because there hadn’t been enough suspense to make things interesting.

Impulse joins the bad boys and Tango in teasing Grian– he’s well and fully asleep, passed out on the llama– and pretends that he isn’t thinking of killing every single one of them. He thirsts, thirsts for time in a way he knows is just beginning. It will get worse over time, so he’s been told, and that is not something he’s looking forward to.

They have a brief conversation about the bread bridge and gold. Jimmy’s upset with Joel, Joel is flusteredly trying to explain, and Impulse somehow manages to keep a pleasant smile on his face the whole time. He ignores how his fingers twitch, itching to grab onto his sword and swing it right into one of the bad boys' chests.

Impulse and Tango manage to leave without spilling any blood, leaving the two bickering bad (bread) boys behind. The trek back to their base is mostly silent– Impulse is trapped in his thoughts for the most of it. He wonders once more if he should just get an easy kill on his teammates, or if he should tell them about him being the boogey.

He almost does tell them. Instead, he innocently asks “anyone the boogey?” and feigns ignorance and joy when they all confirm that they aren’t. He supposes that’s one good thing about being the boogey; he doesn’t have to spend the entire session worrying about whether someone was lying to him or not, watching his back and fearing for his life.

Everything continues as normal. Skizz pulls Tango aside to talk while Etho begins placing red concrete in the water, watching it harden before mining it. And oh, it would be so easy to kill them– they’re not even looking! Their backs are turned! None of them even have their weapons drawn, so lulled into a false sense of security that–

No.

He can’t do this. Not again. He won’t betray his teammates. He’ll just have to find someone better to kill.

There’s Scar, running over the hill and pulling Skizz aside. Impulse draws his sword but the other is too quick to disappear around the tower with Skizz in tow, claiming that it’s a “private meeting.” Impulse looks between Tango and Etho with a nervous chuckle that has no actual anxiety behind it. He knows Skizz is safe. Scar is green, after all, and the only one who could really put Skizz in any danger is Impulse himself.

“Scar could be the boogey for all we know,” he points out, the smile on his face a contrast to the more serious words he’s saying, “are we sure we want to leave them alone?”

They leave Skizz alone with Scar anyway. If he was in any real danger, they’d get him out of there. There’s a team meeting (“Three quarters of a team meeting!” Tango jokes) and they begin to discuss skynet. Impulse makes his worry over falling off quite clear, and suggests that he goes and grabs some ender pearls.

He does exactly that– the monotony of mining and healing and trading does enough to take his mind off of the ever growing thirst in the back of his throat. His communicator buzzes in his back pocket when he finishes up, Tango sending an excited response when the notification goes out. The communicator buzzes again as he begins to trade, and he wonders why in the void’s name did anyone ever think that achievements were a good idea. He gets what he needs, though, clutching eleven ender pearls in hand before returning to the surface.

And– oh boy, there’s Bdubs and Scar on the opposite bank, yelling about something incomprehensible. Things usually are that way, with the clockers. Cockers? Whatever they were calling themselves. Upon noticing Impulse, they wade through the water to join him, bringing their dogs with them.

“How are you, Impulse?” Scar asks in his pleasant voice, a smile on his lips as Bdubs helps him out of the water while rambling about something “blasting him all over the place”.

“I’m doing great, how are you–” Impulse begins, but is interrupted by Tango falling from the sky and crashing into the water with a demonic sort of squawking.

Bdubs is unphased by this, shouting out an excited “hi, Tango! That was cool!”

Tango clambers out of the water and immediately is staring at the small puppy shaking water out of its fur. “That dog’s head is way too big for its body,” he points out, and Bdubs shrugs and says something about the cuteness factor.

Impulse pulls out the ender pearls stashed away in his inventory. “Since you guys are friends…” He hands one to Bdubs before throwing one to Scar. “...do you want one of these?”

Bdubs’ eyes widen, and he takes his pearl with a grin. “Stasis chamber?” he asks enthusiastically, and Impulse smirks.

“You never know,” he says with a shrug, before turning and handing a pearl to Tango.

He takes out some of the building bloodlust on the zombies that spawned in the tower (flamboyant, Bdubs calls it, to which Tango exclaims disbelievingly through laughter that it’s stone, one of the most basic building blocks). Impulse makes some joke about how Tango and Etho are competing for best accidental mob farm, and tries to hide how he relishes in the zombies’ demise.

Monotonous work seems to help keep the murderous urges at bay, so Impulse volunteers to help Tango with the bubble elevator. Tango’s busy explaining to him what the plan is when Skizz drops into the water from above, splashing them both and spooking Tango. “Guy knows how to make an entrance!” Tango yelps, to Impulse and Skizz’s laughter.

“I hate to interrupt, but…!” Skizz makes his way over to Impulse, looking up at him with wide eyes. “Impulse! Do you have any ender pearls, buddy?”

“Oh yeah!” Impulse replies easily, and hands Skizz two ender pearls– the yellow name would need them.

…not like they help much anyway, because not that much long later, Skizz falls off a ladder and dies. Again. There’s a brief discussion with Tango– how did it happen? Why did he die?– and then Skizz returns, yelling about how he doesn’t even know what happened.

“Are you the boogey?!” he asks Impulse as they’re climbing back up the tower, and it takes everything Impulse has to keep moving up that ladder, to not freeze at the realization that Skizz thinks he did that on purpose. And, if he had, if he claimed it as a boogey kill– it would count! He could take this and the curse would break and…

No. He wouldn’t.

“I didn’t boogeyman you!” he insists over Skizz’s shouted accusations, “you fell on your own accord! Don’t you be blamin’ the boogey!”

“I’m gonna blame somebody!” Skizz spits, pulling himself up off the ladder. “What happened?! Why is this hole here?!”

“It’s under construction–!” Impulse splutters– “I tried to tell you that!”

Skizz keeps yelling, and Tango’s laughter echoes from above. “Oh, I love the bickering,” he wheezes, and Impulse shoots him a glare. “Sorry, sorry, not helping.”

“I lost another hour, man!” Skizz cries. “I keep dying so much!”

Impulse gives him a weak smile, chuckling softly. “Okay, okay, but let’s talk. That was my fault, right? Because I’m the one that put the hole there?”

Skizz shakes his head instantly, dismissing Impulse’s concerns. “Nah, dude. Not at all. Of course it’s not your fault!”

Impulse frowns, tilting his head slightly to the side. “But you just said it was,” he points out, and Skizz winces.

“Ehhh, heat of the moment sort of thing. Ya know?”

Impulse laughs. “So if I happened to be boogey…” he trails off for a moment, testing the waters, before continuing. “...would that have counted?”

Something registers in Skizz’s brain, and he looks right into Impulse’s eyes. “I would’ve counted it. I really would’ve.” It’s an offer, almost. Skizz is giving him a way out of this. A way that Impulse has decided already not to take, but a way out nonetheless. “Are you the boogey, then?” Another offer. This time, it’s a chance to come clean and be honest with his teammates.

Impulse hardly doubts that Skizz knows he’s boogey. They’ve been friends for decades now, and Skizz knows Impulse better than anyone else ever could. It’s part of the reason why Impulse is so glad Skizz is on his team and not an enemy; Skizz would be able to see right through him were he to lie or try and deceive anyone.

“No,” Impulse practically breathes out, and tries not to wince when he sees the disappointment shine so briefly in Skizz’s eyes. “If I was boogey, I wouldn’t be going after you guys.” Relief swells in his chest when he sees Skizz relax and give him a slight smile. At least Skizz knows he can trust Impulse– the nice thing about knowing when someone is lying is that you know when they’re telling the truth as well.

“I know,” Skizz tells Impulse, before weaving a little lie of his own. “I didn’t think you were boogey!”

Your ‘secret’ is safe. For now.

They’re immediately distracted by Tango’s noisy complaints about how he built something wrong, his distressed sounds making Skizz laugh. Impulse joins in as Tango laments his mistake with a long, drawn out wail. Skizz’s laughter is infectious, and they quickly begin to tease Tango over the error. For the moment, things are fine, and Impulse almost forgets that he’s cursed. Doomed to either kill or die.

Well, he’s doomed to die no matter what he does, but the game is all about delaying the inevitable.

When Skizz is gone, Impulse whispers the truth to Tango. He’s the boogey, and Tango laughs a little nervously at that before muttering that he’d figured, that question earlier had tipped him off. They joke about it for a moment before Tango confesses that he’s actually really nervous and Impulse is quick to reassure him that he has no plans of targeting team T.I.E.S. Tango nods, lowering his shield, and begins to figure out a plan. It ends up being quite simple– get TNT from Etho, then drop it from the sky and kill someone.

They end up meeting Skizz on Skynet, high above the ground with a drop that would spell death for anyone unfortunate enough to fall. It’s dizzying, looking down at the ground, players like ants below them. So small. So fragile.

Impulse wants to kill.

“Why don’t you just do it?” he asks Skizz, voice quivering with barely held back excitement when his friend says he wants to blow someone up. Adrenaline is coursing through his veins, his blood turned to fire from the curse’s rage.

Skizz can’t kill any yellows– that’s fine. Impulse will do it himself.

He lights the first block of TNT and watches it fall.

“...are you boogey, dude?”

Impulse is silent.

“You’re boogey.”

“You knew that,” Impulse murmurs, and Tango and Skizz erupt into laughter.

“You are!” Skizz crows triumphantly, and Impulse can’t help but grin, expression turned maniac from the bloodlust.

His eyes shine red.

The want becomes a need.

“You’ll help me, right?” Impulse breathlessly asks his teammates, ignoring how his hands won’t stop trembling as he peers over the edge, gazing down at the drop that would sate his thirst, that would give him what he needs. All he has to do…

Skizz smiles, and he would’ve wrapped an arm around Impulse’s shoulders were they not in constant danger of falling to their deaths. “‘course, dippledop. What are friends for, if not to help a guy kill someone?”

…is kill.

“Who do you want to kill?” Skizz asks, and Impulse considers his options. They’re allied with the clockers, and team T.I.E.S stays true to their allies.

The bad boys, however…

“How about Joel?”

It’s perfect. He’s right beneath them, too caught up in his own duty of protecting Grian to pay attention to the sky. Impulse can hear his own heart beating, can feel the sweat dripping down his neck, can taste the blood as he bites down too hard on his cheek, can–

Footsteps that don’t belong to any member of T.I.E.S are picked up by ears far more sensitive than anyone else’s, and Impulse looks up to see Pearl running over Skynet with her diamond hoe in hand. “Pearl’s coming,” he warns, “Etho’s behind her.”

Now this…

This is his target.

It’s not every day the universe presents him with the perfect opportunity and means for revenge.

(Deep down, Impulse doesn’t really blame her for what happened in Double Life. But the boogey curse changes a person down to their very core, at least until they kill.)

“Let me shoot her,” Skizz whispers, and Impulse has to bite back a cry of frustration when he shoots. He misses, thankfully. Impulse has to do it, has to be the one to kill her. Otherwise, and this he realizes with growing certainty, he’s going to die. And soon.

Pearl yelps as the arrow flies by her, wings fluttering behind her as she comes to a halt a few feet in front of them. “What’s going on here?” she demands, smiling, not taking her near death seriously whatsoever.

“It’s not safe here,” Impulse tells her, and he knows the softness in his voice is only because of the bond they shared in their home server, only because he still considers her family.

Family is not enough, and Impulse realizes this as bloodlust washes over him once more, the curse reaching its peak. He carefully steps forward, keeping an expression of concern on his face. Tango realizes what he’s doing and gives him the space to move around so that he’s face to face with Pearl. She still suspects nothing, her words lighthearted and posture relaxed as she banters with Tango and Skizz.

It’s perfect.

Impulse takes the ground out from under her feet, and Pearl falls.

Maniacal laughter erupts from him as he watches her fall, listens to her rapidly fading scream of terror, and finally sees her die. “Boogey!” he cries, to the laughter and cheers of his teammates. “Done!”

The curse recedes, Impulse taking a shaking breath as a weight is lifted off his shoulders. His hands still shake slightly as he continues to laugh, more out of relief now than from excitement and glee.

And Impulse…

Impulse killed Pearl.

Maybe, in a world different from this one, he would've seen her fall and know she'd be caught on wings as strong as their owner's love for her. But not this time. Not in this world.

As he drinks in the time– Pearl's time, ripped from her dead hands, quenching his thirst and soothing his parched throat– the vice grip of the curse over his heart fully lifts, and Impulse realizes what he's done.

It's a necessary evil, he knows, and Pearl will forgive him eventually. She always does. But as he thinks back to the kill, back to Pearl's scream and broken, useless wings spreading in an attempt to catch her fall, Impulse feels... more than a little guilty.

He doesn’t have time for guilt.

“Ohhh…” he breathes out, leaning against Skizz, “oh, that– I feel so much better. That feels so much better.”

Skizz helps support him, keeping him steady. “You all good, dippledop? Is the curse gone?”

Tango and Etho step closer as Impulse nods. Now that the bloodlust and adrenaline have faded away, Impulse feels tired, exhaustion settling in fast. “We’re all good,” he gets out, smiling weakly. “Though I think I’ve made a new enemy today.”

Tango waves him off with a grin. “Hey, whatever happens, team T.I.E.S will have your back.”

Skizz lets out a cheer, Etho nodding along to Tango’s words. “Yeah, man. Don’t worry about it. You just did what you had to do. No harm in that,” the masked man points out, and Impulse finally relents.

“All right, all right. Let’s get down from here, though– I still don’t trust myself up here.”

Later, Impulse will apologize to Pearl and say that it wasn’t really him. It was the crazed boogeyman version of himself, his mind driven mad by the ever growing bloodlust and need to kill. He won’t truly mean it, and she won’t ever accept his excuse for an apology.

In the end, that’s not what matters. The betrayal, the lies, the deceit and the fake apologies– none of it will matter at all. In the end, they will both fall. Nothing they do can stop the ever flowing river of time.

Time keeps ticking. Sand continues to fall through the hourglasses that measure their lives.

Impulse lives today, but tomorrow he will die.

#my writing #limited life #traffic zine #impulsesv #team ties #pearlescentmoon #life series #ethoslab #tangotek #skizzleman #grian #joel #jimmy

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