Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It wasn’t a good ship, but it wasn’t a bad ship either. A dimensional spaceship, the D.S.S. Sburb was speeding around in outer paradox space and time, zooming past dimensions and dimensions that have yet to collapse.

Unfortunately for Karkat, as the captain of the D.S.S. Sburb, some problem had occurred.

Karkat sighed as he stopped the D.S.S. Sburb, muttering to himself, “Gamzee, how many times have we been through this?” The answer was probably a thousand times. No, wait, that would be a huge underestimate — the actual answer would have to be a million times or at most, a billion times.

He dropped down from the helm, then turned right, going through the barracks were the Alternia trolls slept. After going into the engine room, he flipped up onto the roof, then down onto the platform. And Gamzee was standing there, turning around as he noticed Karkat’s prescene.

“Here. Go take a look,” Gamzee directed to Karkat.

Karkat stepped up to the monitor. Yeah, everything was fine. Power supply was 413 liters, engines are on, and even the power is being conserved.

“Okay, it better say the same thing when I get back up to the helm,” said the now-angry Karkat. It was probably another prank of Gamzee’s — something he always like to do. Turn off the engine, get trolled by Karkat, turn it on, then act as if shit didn’t happen when he gets here. Karkat decided to abscond from this room, since he had just finished doing business here.

As he was walking back to the helm, he was nicely greeted by his ancestor, Kankri, with a sudden delivering of, yet again, another one of his speeches.

“Karkat, I—”

“Okay, look — before you recite another one of your essays, I have this to say: I need to get back to the helm, and I don’t want you interrupting me. Got it? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to abscond.”

And with that, Karkat absconded. He ran past Kankri, flipped his gravity, turned left, then flipped off the roof onto the captain’s platform.

He started up the engine, and within a timeframe of a mere four point one three seconds, was already blasting through paradox space or time or whatever it’s called.

Unfortunately, another problem had already occured. With a flash and a shake throwing him off, Karkat quickly looked at the monitor. However, the alarm had just turned on and already explained what was happening — dimensional interference.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!” shouted Karkat as he sped off the helm, unluckily bumping into his ancestor.

“Karkat, what is going on? And could you please explain to me why the alarm—?”

“It means that we have dimensional interference and if we don’t evacuate this fucking ship we’re morbidly fucked!” Karkat exclaimed as he rushed over to the ship’s teleporter, which was just ahead. Kankri, on the other hand, decided he had no time to question Karkat’s rude profanity, and quickly made his way to the teleporter as well.

Some of the trolls were already there, some of them even already teleported off the ship. Karkat rushed, and then made his quick abscond with Sollux.

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Karkat felt relieved when he finally got teleported off the ship. Hopefully he could — oh gog, where the fucking shit are the others, again?

Unfortunately, his ancestor also got teleported off the ship with him.

“Oh, great, it’s you. Look, before I stand here doing nothing but listen to your shitty opinions, I have to go. Bye!”

“Karkat, do you have any idea where we—?”

Unfortunately, Karkat had already flipped onto the roof above the spike pit ahead and made his way across. Kankri, on the other hand, did not pay attention to what Karkat was doing. He was, instead, searching for his location.

“Hey, I’m over here, fuckass! You don’t have to look around anymore, thank me later!” informed Karkat.

Kankri was looking at him from across the spike pit. The pit was indeed very wide, too wide to jump across.

“Karkat, how did you get over there?”

“By flipping, you dumbass. Gog, Kankri, didn’t I tell you how to get across shit like this?”

“I don’t remember you instructing—”

“You don’t need fucking ‘instructions’! It’s a simple fucking big-ass field of spikes, no enemies in the way, and you have a clear roof to flip up on!”

“But Karkat—”

“No butts, or I will fucking kick yours! If you can’t figure out how to get across things like this, then I might as well leave you here to recite another one of your essays,”

Karkat sighed. “You know fucking what? Here. I’ll demonstrate how to get across this, since you clearly don’t know jack shit.” He flipped up onto the roof, walked across, then flipped down to Kankri. “See?! Was that fucking hard?!?!”

Kankri watched Karkat carefully, and thus, didn’t have time to answer his immediate question. He imitated Karkat’s exact moments, being careful about where to land.

“…Okay, now answer me — was that so fucking hard?!”

“No.”

“Good. Because I already know this dimension is full of simple, straightforward places that you, although can remember a quadrillion word-long essay, can’t seem to know how to get across.”

“Karkat, I feel that your insults aren’t necessary—”

“If they aren’t necessary, then prove it to me by not being such a dumbass around these spikes!”

Kankri had nothing to say. Karkat sighed, then made his way over the spike pit. “All right, Kankri, come on!”

Karkat flipped up, and landed on the roof very high from the ground. Kankri followed suit.

The beta troll walked over and came into contact with a gloube that contained a letter C in it — although he just passed through.

“Karkat, may I ask, what exactly is this?”

“It’s a checkpoint.”

“And what is a checkpoint?”

“You use it. Then if you die, you get sent back to it.”

“If you die?”

“Yes, if you die. Did I fucking stutter, bitch?”

“No. But isn’t getting sent back to an earlier place you visited extremely problematic?”

“Sure, go spend your afterlife if you want. I will be safe and use this extremely useful checkpoint that you have a million fucking irrelevant concerns about.”

“Karkat, please—”

“Please what? I think it’d be much better if you would just shut up about what you’t going to say, whether it be relevant or not, and just watch and fucking learn as I maneuver around these obstacles!”

“Karkat, I must note of the fact that your profanity—”

“I DON’T FUCKING CARE ABOUT WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY!” Karkat yelled, flipping him off. “At this rate, I may as fucking well just leave you here to solve these things by your-fucking-self, because YOU AREN’T HELPING!” And with that, he ran off the platform, upside-down, going up to the next challenge.

Kankri followed his dancestor, trying to see what he was up to.

“Nepeta! Hey, Nepeta!”

Meulin shouted out to her dancestor, as she (her dancestor) was falling infinitely, thanks to the wrapping nature of the room they were currently in. “NEPETA!”

“Aww, come on Meowlin, why can’t I just enjoy myself?”

“Nepeta, we really need to reunite with the other trolls!”

Obeying her ancestor, Nepeta dropped down from the infinite pit of warping.

They were in a red-colored room that had a background which seemed to move — almost as if hinting which way the room wrapped around.