Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“We’re back here again in the thirteenth of April looking at the amalgamation of blue-robed people gathered in Central Park. For those who don’t know, these people are followers of the Church of the First Gods, a pagan cult that has become popular in recent years. The cult worships what is believed by historians to be the first ever recorded depictions of a pantheon of godly figures in human history. And today, the thirteenth of April is what is speculated to be the birth date of the leader of said pantheon, the Heir of Breath.

“The Heir of Breath, as the name suggests, is believed to have inherited the universe from some speculated higher power, and breathed new life into it. Of course, that is not the whole story as other gods of the pantheon all have their roles in this creation myth, but his birth specifically is the cause of the celebration today as thousands gather in, as I mentioned before, the Central Park in Manhattan, New York.

“Today they will engage in their annual Wind Dance celebration in honor of the Heir of Breath. People from all over the world come to participate in the performance, which is a very impressive thing for what is, for all intents and purposes, a pagan cult. The celebration is taking in growing numbers since its strong beginnings thirteen years ago. The Wind Dance has now become a mark of the city’s tourism, bringing in as many come to watch the celebration alongside those that come to participate in it. This has been Sara Ryder for New York City News.”

A boy and his father sit in a kitchen, watching the news. It just so happens that today is the boy’s birthday. It has been thirteen years since he’s been given life, and also thirteen years since he’s been given a name. That name is John Egbert.

“This news report makes it official, son! Today is your birthday” John’s father smiled and mussed up the boy’s hair “I thought that having woken up to no cake might have thrown you off, but it really is today”

John had been smiling before his dad decided to mess with his hair, which elicited an undignified squawk from the boy.

“Come on dad, cut it out!” he said, trying to fix his hair, a futile effort considering how normally messy it is. But after registering his father’s words, he tilted his head inquisitively “I was wondering what was up with that. Don’t tell me you decided to give up baking!?” he gasped, suddenly horrified “I know I have been kind of a jerk to you about your habit, but please don’t give it up because of me, dad! You love to bake!”

“Now John, don’t be silly! I’m never going to give up baking, no matter how much you pester me. Still, good to know you care about my hobbies, son. I’m honestly touched” John’s father says genuinely with a fatherly smile, patting his son on the head without messing his hair this time around.

“No we're going to my brother's house and bake there, it's Jane's birthday too you know. So we thought it might be a good idea to throw a small get together and celebrate. The Lalondes are coming over too”

“What! And you didn’t even tell me?” John complained, but it didn’t seem genuine as excitement was shining through the grumpy façade.

“I just wanted to make you a nice surprise. So are you surprised?”

“Hell yeah, I am! Moving to New York was awesome! I finally get to have a real birthday party with friends over!” the exclamation punctuated by John doing a fist pump.

His father’s smile became a bit melancholy at this moment. Despite how cheerful John seems to be at all times, he could tell that his son used to feel pretty lonely in Maple Valley. Small town living just wasn’t what his son was built for, so a little less than a year ago Mr. Egbert decided to sell the house and move to New York to live closer to his twin brother and his daughter, Jane.

The great businessman that Mr. Egbert was, he managed to find a decent house for a price within his budget in the Queens and got John in one of the better schools in the region, same one Jane goes to. There he made friends with the Lalonde sisters, or rather he made friends with Roxy because he was already friends with Rose through the internet. Reportedly the girl was very surprised to see his son suddenly appear in the same middle school as her, but luckily the surprise was the opposite of unpleasant.

“So, when are we heading over to Jane’s?” John looked up from his finished bowl of cereal and asked his father. He could tell his son was willing to go immediately.

“As soon as you wash the dishes, brush your teeth, and change your clothes,” Mr. Egbert said as he grabbed his pipe to step outside and have a smoke “Don’t rush it though, I want the plates washed right”

“Yes sir, dad, sir!” John mock saluted and jumped out of his chair, taking his cereal bowl to the sink with him.

Everything in the household ran smoothly that day since John was way too excited to try to prank his dad, and as previously mentioned no baked goods were made, so no opportunities for Mr. Egbert to give his son a congratulatory pie to the face. Yet.

“I’m ready dad, let’s go!” John said as he walked down the stairs. He had one of his regular outfits on, the white shirt with a slime ghost that his friend Jade sent him on his last birthday, but with a slight change. Instead of cargo shorts, John was wearing denim jeans to his party, because this is a special occasion that requires a certain degree of elegance. And jeans really were the most elegant clothes he had.

Soon they both were jumping into the car and set off to the Crocker household to celebrate John and Jane’s shared birthday. It’s kind of incredible how the two managed to be born on the same day with a single year difference. If Mr. Egbert and Mr. Crocker had tried to coordinate it, it wouldn’t have been so precise!

They drove for only twenty minutes or so before spotting a house that looked strikingly similar to theirs stylistically speaking. Let it be said that the Egbert-Crocker twins have extremely similar tastes and had not previously agreed on getting houses of similar design. Like most things similar about the duo, it’s all purely coincidental.

Parking their car in the driveway, they noticed that it was empty. That either meant that they were the first to arrive or that Roxanne Lalonde had dropped her daughters over instead of staying for the party. Understandable considering how much of a busy woman she was, but it was a shame. Mr. Egbert had been looking forward to having a nice conversation with her over tea.

Mr. Egbert rang the doorbell once and waited three seconds before the door opened and an adorable buck-toothed smile greeted him at the door.

“Hello there uncle Jean! You arrived just in time, dad and I have just started preparing the batter!” Jane greeted him enthusiastically, a wooden spoon in hand and a mustache decorated apron over a grey shirt with blue sleeves. She smoothed over her shirt before stepping aside “Come on in!”

Before Jean could step inside, John sneaked past him and went right for Jane’s sides, engaging in a merciless tickle attack “Happy birthday Jane! Super rude of you to not say it to me first chance you got, but I forgive you”

“Augh, John, stop” Jane replied doubling over from the inflicted laughter “I’m warning you buster, I’ll smack you with this spoon” she threatened in-between breaths.

John stopped, afraid of the mighty wooden spoon which was a mighty weapon in the hands of Jane Crocker.

Calming down from the excitement, Jane straightened her skirt and apron as she recaptured her breath “Doing a tickle attack the first opportunity you get as soon as you step into my house? I hope you know that this means war, boyo” she declared with a challenging smirk.

Her features softened when her uncle scolded John lightly for his attack, and opened her arms to welcome her younger cousin with a warm hug when he approached again, almost sheepishly now “Happy birthday to you too, John” she said softly as they hugged “But you better watch your back, buster” she continued, whispering “this isn’t over until the day’s done”

No further words were traded for the moment as Jane’s dad appeared from the kitchen door to greet his brother and nephew. He was sporting a business casual look in contrast to Jean’s ‘serious business’ look, a blank apron, and the exact same type of hat as Jean.

“Happy birthday, John!” he greeted with a side hug and ruffled the boy’s hair “Welcome to my humble household. Your dad mentioned you like fruit gushers a lot, so I poured a bowl of them especially for you” he winked and nodded towards the table where a bowl of gushers did indeed await.

“Hell yeah, uncle Joel, you’re the best!” John declared his eyes shining like a puppy being thrown a bone. Jean gave his brother a bemused look, and Joel had to backpedal.

“Well, it’s for you but don’t eat it all at once, ok? If you eat too much candy you’ll crash before the afternoon’s over. And also maybe the girls would like to eat too, so be considerate of them, ok?”

“Pshh, when am I ever not considerate?” John handwaved, earning a deadpan look from Jane.

Jean and Joel then began to chat, Joel liberating his daughter from baking duty to spend time with John, letting Jean take over her duties instead. With that decided, Jane took off her apron and hung it on a kitchen chair and started leading John up the stairs to her room.

“Come on, Rose and Roxy are already up in my room,” she told him as she walked up the stairs.

“Ayyyyyyyy, Johnny boy! Happy birthday to the cutest birthday boy in the house!” Roxy greeted from the bed as soon as they entered Jane’s room.

“I’m the only birthday boy in the house, Roxy” John dismissed, rolling his eyes as he took a seat between her and Rose on Jane’s bed while Jane rolled over on her computer chair.

“Doesn’t make it less true!” Roxy continued “Wonk!” she said as she winked, smiling widely.

“Happy birthday John,” Rose said with a smile as she gave him a side hug and Roxy mussed his hair “I watched the news today like you told me to, and I’ve got to admit that those cultists performing the wind dance look absolutely extremely silly. Thank you for the recommendation.”

“I just couldn’t not share it with you. It’s so amazingly over the top, I made a tradition of watching it online every year. This is like the first time I managed to catch it live since it’s on local news and it was surreal! Anyone else catch it?” he asked, looking at Jane and Roxy.

“Hells yeah! It was actually totes kinda lowkey impressive the way they moved if I’m being honest” Roxy said as she got up and tried to imitate a move where she stood in on a leg, made her torso and remaining leg horizontal, and tried to look like a flag in the wind.

Of course, the only thing she succeeded at was at wiggling around a bit and falling face first back into the bed “I still don’t know how they manage that!”

“Well, I didn’t manage to catch it because I was busy helping out dad in the kitchen” Jane admitted, swaying about in her computer chair “But honestly it's not like I tried to watch it. I guess I don't see the appeal” she shrugged.

“What!? But it's like a fun birthday tradition! It's like the whole thing is made for us!” John argued in favor of the cultists.

“Well, I just don't feel that connection. Maybe it's because I was born one year before, but it doesn’t feel like it has anything to do with me” Jane defended.

“Hmm, fair enough” John conceded.

“John, when you say that the ritual was made for you, are you implying that you’re secretly the pagan god that the cultists are worshiping. That’s quite the scandalous assumption about yourself, I didn’t know you had that kind of ego” Rose noted in mock concern, a teasing smile forming on her face.

John just crossed his arms rolled his eyes again “Please Rose, if you’re going to try to tease me with something, pick something more realistic. I don’t even believe in pagan gods, why the hell would I secretly think that I’m their leader reborn?” he rebutted, ever the skeptic.

“Well, you do share a birthday with him” Rose continued, having fun.

“Yeah, well, so does Jane”

“True as that may be, the tradition only started in the year you were born. Plus, like she previously stated, she feels no connection to the ritual while you think it’s the best thing ever. In your own words, like it was made for you” Rose smile grew even more teasing as John grew flustered.

“It just tickles my funny bone exactly the right way, okay? It’s not my fault that I like it so much and it just so happens to fall on my birthday. I’m not a pagan god!” John denied vehemently.

“Rooooose, stop teasing John like that. Maybe he really is the Heir of Breath and you messing with him will do you no favors.” Roxy scolded her younger sister playfully, causing John to facepalm.

“Thanks, Roxy, but I was trying to argue that I’m not the Heir of Breath”

Roxy laughs “But John! What if you are? I bet it’s a hush-hush big secret of the universe that you are. But there is no secret that is big enough or small enough to escape Roxy Lalonde’s nimble hacking fingers” she declares, wiggling her fingers like a magician.

“Roxy, I don’t think you can hack the universe, no matter how objectively good of a hacker you are” Jane decided to interrupt before things got too silly.

“Aw, c’mon Janey! Have you no trust in me? I bet I could figure something out in a year or two; I bet the universe doesn’t even have a decent firewall” she decided confidently.

While they were both discussing the possibility of the universe being hackable or not, John turned to Rose, trying to change the subject “So, you’ve had any interesting dreams lately? Last time you dreamt that Jane was boobytrapping my locker with shaving cream, and that actually happened. And since today I hit her with a tickle attack, I wanna know if you might have any clue about her impending and merciless retaliation” He said the last part in a close whisper so that his cousin doesn’t overhear him.

Rose chuckled at his conspiring line of questioning “I haven’t had any ‘prophetic’ dreams involving Jane’s brutal retaliation, I’m afraid,” she sighs dramatically, as if regretful that she can’t be of any help, making John roll his eyes and smile “But I did have a pretty fun dream today. I can’t say I remember much of it, but I know that it involves you making friends with a rather large salamander that blows bubbles. And for some reason, the salamander awakens some sort of fatherly instinct and you decide that you’re going to adopt it.”

“Adopt it? What, like a pet?” John tilted his head in confusion.

“No, like a daughter” Rose deadpanned, face completely serious.

There is a pause. But after John’s brain is done processing the information, he bursts into a fit of giggles as Rose cracks a small grin at his infectious laughter.

“And then what, and then what?” John prodded her for more details.

“Well, your dad doesn’t let you be a dad because you’re too young, and the rest is hazy. It felt like something big, however.” Rose declared mysteriously.

“Well, I guess I’ll keep an eye out for any bubble blowing super sized reptile then, for it is the harbinger of something big,” John said dramatically and giggled.

“John, I’m disappointed in you. Salamanders are amphibians, not reptiles” Rose said, shaking her head.

“Pshh, I knew that! I was just testing you” John deflected, not meeting her eyes.

“Well, you sure know a lot of things. I guess you don’t really need my help with our biology homework for Tuesday” Rose shrugged, looking coy.

“Alright, alright I didn’t know! Happy? Now please help me out with biology homework tomorrow? Taxonomy sucks” he practically begged, amusing Rose immensely.

“Oh, you’re having problems with biology, Johnny boy?” Roxy said, jumping into the conversation, Jane now missing from the room “I can help you out if you wanna. I’m like, really good with genetics, and I won’t be cruel about it like Rosey is” she tells him with a wink and a nod towards her sister “What a sadist am I right?”

Rose rolls her eyes as John laughs at Roxy’s comment. Rose did have a bit of a sadistic streak once in a while. You could tell she took pleasure and amusement at watching people squirm as she verbally prodded them in their weak points. She says it’s all scientific interest into the human psyche, but she got way too into it to be just that.

John sighs dramatically “Y’know Roxy, I would really like to study with you rather than Rose, but we haven’t started covering genetics yet. We’re still caught up in old boring taxonomy, and since Rose is the one that likes zoology she’s my only hope”

“You hear that, Obi Rose Kenobi? You’re John’s only hope” Roxy jokes “Don’t let him down”

“Well, with such passionate plea and an endorsement from my most dearest sister there is no way I could say no. Very well, John, I’ll kindly help you out with the taxonomy homework” Rose said as if a benevolent queen would bestow a boon to a loyal vassal.

John had to control himself not to say something snarky right back because he really needed help. Biology was one of the subjects he actually mostly does well with, but the realm of taxonomy involved too much memorizing and not enough actual learning, and that is way too boring to garner John’s sustained attention.

Talk of school stuff dominated for a while as Rose commented that regular zoology is very simple when compared to the specimens in her Grimoire of Summoning the Zoologically Dubious. John rolls his eyes and says that that doesn’t count as real zoology and that he has no idea how her interest in that shit translated into real life skills. She tells him he’s just salty that he’s bad at biology in general, which he vehemently denies by saying he has like straight Bs in it.

Roxy interjects and says she can help him curve it to an A once they cover genetics for the finals. Rose rolls her eyes at her sister’s obvious attempt at getting an opportunity to spend time alone with her junior of one year.

Then the topic was changed to movies.

“Sooooo, anyone else excited for the new David Strider flick coming out two months from now?” Roxy commented from her new place in Jane’s abandoned chair, bouncing up and down on the thing’s hydraulics.

“He’s Dave and Dirk’s uncle right?” John asked rhetorically “Dave told me that the guy’s a movie maker, but I didn’t connect the dots for a while. It’s so surreal that our friends are directly related to a guy that’s producing and directing the hottest summer blockbuster of the year!”

“Yeah! I talked to Dirk before and they even moved from Houston to Cali so their uncle could film it.” Roxy added.

“What!? How long ago was that? Dave didn't tell me anything about it” John replied, shocked. Rose nodded sympathetically.

“Indeed, Dave didn't tell me anything about it either,” she said.

“Whaaat? That was more than a year ago! Davey didn't tell you guys at all?” the only answer Roxy got was them shaking their heads “Well… the one that told me was Dirk, and it was in a throwaway line in chat. Maybe Dave just didn't think it was important?” she tried to justify “Oh! Or maybe he just wanted to surprise you both by taking a selfie on the red carpet in the world premiere of Cool and New Web Comic, and sending something like ‘take a gander at my new home bitches’”

Rose cracked a small smile “That does sound like something Dave would do. However I dislike being kept in the dark like this, and he will suffer by my hand one way or another. But for now, he is off the hook” she dramatically spoke.

John chuckled at her antics before returning to the topic of the movie “So the movie’s name is Cool and New Web Comic, right Roxy?” he looked at her and she nodded in response “So is it about a webcomic or based on a webcomic?”

“Actually, John, it’s neither” Rose interjected.

“Really? So is it like a reference to something?” he asked, confused.

“Yes,” she smiled knowingly, as if in on a secret. He waited for her to elaborate but she remained silent.

John sighed. “Are you going to tell me what the reference is?”

“Hm? What reference?” she played dumb.

“You know what, nevermind. What’s the story about? I watched one of Mr. Strider’s movies before and it was at the same time terrible and also the best indie movie I’ve ever seen.” John told the sisters with a grimace and then a humorous chuckle.

“Right? They got that Tommy Wiseau-like kind of vibe, but self-aware. Like it’s not trying to be bigger than what it is, but reaching excellence regardless” Roxy gushed “Which one did you watch?”

John was caught off-guard by how much Roxy seemed to admire David Strider’s work. John thought himself a cinephile, but Roxy was straight up doing an artistic analysis “Umm, it was The Respiteblock, I think. A character-driven drama/comedy featuring a mythological alien race was bold. I’m not qualified to say if it paid off or not, but the fucked up romance thing was hilarious. Like seriously, what are even quadrants?” he asked, confused.

“I dunno, it looked like some kind of polyamory but with specific emotions attached to it? Troll myths are weird, yo!” Roxy shrugged “Tho I wished our romance was tilted towards polyam like theirs is. Le sigh” she says the last part while also sighing.

John snorts “Yeah, that way you could have a boyfriend and a girlfriend at the same time without society calling you greedy” he joked.

“A bi joke inside a poly joke, Johnny boy? Truly a man after my own heart” Roxy giggled, making Rose roll her eyes “Buuuut, maybe I’m after two girlfriends instead. You don’t know my true heart’s desire” she teased.

John shrugged “Hey, whatever makes you happy, right? The boys in our school are a bag of fucking dicks, so I can see why you wouldn’t go for them.” He makes a joke and nods sagely.

“They still pick on you for hanging out with us and Jane during lunch break?” Rose asked subtle worry seeped into her voice.

“Nah, they learned not to mess with me after the jello locker incident. They could never prove it was me either” he grinned mischievously.

“I’m surprised they didn’t try any retaliation after that” Rose commented, amused.

“Eh, I mean, Josh did try to jump me with a couple of friends on the way home, but…” he hesitated.

“But…?” Roxy prodded.

John craned his neck to see if there was anyone coming. Seeing no one he still brought his voice down to a whisper “Ok, I’ll tell you, but don’t tell Jane that I told you, alright?”

Roxy nodded enthusiastically while Rose gave only a crisp, amused nod.

“Alright so I was heading home with Jane that day, so when Josh tried to start shit, she tried to shut him down with words. He… well, he called her a ‘fat bitch’ and a ‘buck-toothed beached whale’ and went past her to grab me.”

Roxy gasped in disbelief “No way!”

John nodded sympathetically “Yeah, it was bad. The only thing worse was Josh’s broken nose when Jane immediately socked him right in the schnoz. Oh, and then she kicked him in the balls so hard it knocked him out” John retold with pride in his voice.

“Holy shit that’s so badass!” Roxy whisper shouted with glee, while Rose’s eyes widened in awe.

“I know right?” John remarked with pride in his voice “His buddies really hesitated after that, so I punched the one on the right in the jaw, and then he also went down. The last one ran away really fast after that” he finished recounting.

“And why didn’t Jane want you recounting her amazing feat of bravery to us?” Rose asked after he was done.

“Well, she was a bit embarrassed, to tell the truth. She’s supposed to be the responsible one, right? But she really went all no holds barred on Josh despite herself, and she really doesn’t wanna be reminded that she lost her cool because of his name calling” John laughed sheepishly “But really, don’t tell Jane I told you this”

“Don’t tell Jane you told them what?” A voice came from the doorway revealing Jane looking at John with narrowed eyes.

“Jane! Uh… welcome back” John greeted her nervously “I was just, uh…”

“Telling us how friggin awesome you are at kicking ass!” Roxy interrupted excitedly, making John facepalm at his own disgrace.

“John!” Jane gasped at her cousin “I trusted you to not talk about that! I’m very disappointed in you, mister!” She scolded in an almost motherly tone.

“I’m sorry, okay? The girls were asking about what happened after the jello locker incident, and I couldn’t just take the credit! You’re, like, a super integral part of the story!” He tried to justify “And it’s Rose and Roxy! They won't judge you for losing your temper.”

“Yeah, Janey, relax! You went through, like, the best course of action. That Josh guy is gonna think three times before he ever tries to mess with John John or call you names ever again” Roxy said, giving Jane the thumbs up.

“Indeed. I have to say I am very impressed with both your strength and your protective instincts Jane. There is no reason to feel embarrassed” Rose said with an empathetic nod.

“Well shucks, you girls are making me blush,” Jane said, her face indeed becoming a bit pink.

John released a sigh of relief at the positive reaction, only to have Jane return her attention back to him with narrowed eyes again.

“I wouldn’t be feeling relieved just yet, if I were you, buster!” Jane warned him “Now come on, I came up here to tell you guys that the cakes are ready” she beckoned.

The kids got up from their sitting places and started following Jane down the stairs, the smell of baked goods now wafting through the air.

Arriving at the kitchen they were greeted with twin fatherly smiles “Ah there you are kids” Jean smiled “John, can you help your uncle set the cakes on the table?”

“Sure thing, dad” he answered with a nod.

While John and Joel were in charge of setting the table, the girls helped Jean with cleaning up the kitchen. With so many helping hands to go around it didn’t take too long before they were all seated on the table, John and Jane with individual cakes set in front of them as they stood side by side at the head of the table, thirteen candles on John’s cake and fourteen on Jane’s.

Jean and Joel started clapping and singing Happy Birthday, with Rose and Roxy following along, leaving the birthday boy and girl to stand awkwardly not knowing whether they should be clapping along or not.

But hey, that’s part of the charm of a birthday party, right? So John wasn’t complaining much.

After the song was over, it was time to blow the candles. Jane went first since she’s the oldest, closing her eyes as she made a wish.

And then John blew on his candles, but when he closed his eyes to make a wish, the unmistakable sound of a spring-loaded mechanism sounded off, and John was hit right in the face with a significant amount of cake.

“Augh!” John exclaimed, trying to wipe his face as he heard Jane laughing mischievously at his side.

Looking down he now saw a hole right in the middle of the cake from where a spring-loaded platform hung limply. The rest of the cake was intact, but it seems that the center of it had been propelled directly into his face.

“Hoo hoo hoo! They say that revenge is sweet...” Jane paused as she wiped a bit of frosting from John’s face with a finger and licked it “And I’ve got to say that I very much agree with that sentiment”

After a couple of laughs were had at John’s expense, he was allowed to go up to the bathroom so he could wash his face.

“Ugh, I didn’t expect Jane to try to get back at me so quickly. The spring-loaded cake is a classic, I should've seen it coming” he complained to himself as he rinsed his face off with water.

He can’t simply leave it at that. Letting Jane have the last laugh would leave his Prankster’s Gambit at an all-time low, and he would not have it be like that, no sir!

His train of thought was interrupted by a crashing sound coming from outside the bathroom window. Curiosity entering his mind, John went straight to the window, opening it wide so he could take a peek outside. He didn’t know what he had expected to find, but it certainly wasn’t what he saw.

“Is that an… orange salamander?” he asked himself in confusion.

Indeed, there was a bipedal orange salamander confusedly dancing in his uncle’s backyard. Every time it opened its mouth, blue bubbles came out before either popping or retracting into its mouth. Rose’s words from earlier today echoed in the back of John’s mind, as fatherly instinct swelled within his heart.

“Holy shit, that’s my daughter!” he declared to himself, instinctively knowing that that orange salamander is, somehow, very much his daughter.

This happy revelation was sadly interrupted by the appearance of a hulking black mass crashing through his uncle’s back fence, something akin to a portal seemingly hanging back right behind it.

The hulking black figure was around nine feet tall and about half as wide, big white tusks protruding from out of its mouth, along with several pointed teeth protruding from its underbite, making its ugly, mean looking face look even more intimidating.

The mean-looking thing locked its eyes on the poor dancing salamander and appeared to grin. The salamander, noticing this, recoiled in fear. Had she been trying to escape from that thing?

As the big ugly thing advanced on the poor salamander, John felt anger boil inside himself. He grabbed the closest thing he could find, which happened to be a bar of soap, and threw it with surprising accuracy at the head of the creature.

“Hey ugly! Why don’t you pick on someone your own size!” he yelled in challenge, despite not being even remotely close to being that giant thing’s size.

The monster’s head snapped back slightly at being hit by the flying bar of soap, and it turned its attention to the boy glaring at him from the second story window. The monster growled.

“What in Colonel Sassacre’s good name is happening out here?” John saw both his father and his uncle step out into the backyard, Jane, Rose, and Roxy hanging around the back entrance, all of them looking at the monster with some degree of concern.

The orange salamander immediately ran behind John’s father for safety, glubbing in relief at the possibility of being saved.

“Dad! Uncle Joel! That thing is after my daughter!” he pointed an accusing finger at the hulking monster.

“Daughter?” he looked down behind his legs at the cowering bipedal salamander before smiling kindly and patting her on the head “You’re too young to be a father, John! You have some growing up to do before you can adopt a bipedal salamander!” Jean yelled up at his son.

The monster in front of them roared in displeasure, making all of them turn their focus back on to the big ugly thing.

“We’ll talk about this later. Right now I’m going to help your uncle clean up some trash from his backyard, isn’t that right, Joel?” Jean smiled at his brother.

“Well if you’re offering so kindly, there’s no way I can refuse your help, Jean” Joel replied with a tip of his hat.

John and the girls watched on with bated breath. Jean and Joel are, by definition, excellent strifers, and to see them working together is a spectacle of a rare kind.

This was going to be a hell of a fight.

Chapter Text

A young salamander stands inside of an unopened planeshift portal. This salamander is feeling an immeasurable amount of nervousness due to the task of utmost importance that was assigned to her, and only her.

For some reason, this salamander had been picked by hand from her village in the Kingdom of Shade by a very impressive cabal of mages that go by the simple name of Cult of the First Gods.

Open worship to the First Gods was very common in the world she belonged. As a matter of fact, there was a patron god for each of the four kingdoms, hers being the Heir of Breath. This division surprisingly didn’t lead to zealotry and claiming one god was superior because it was universally agreed that they all made this world together under the leadership of the Heir of Breath.

The existence of these gods was also not debated due to the precise way that the world was divided into quarters, each with its own unique biome the suited the needs of the local population. There was literally no other excuse for that except intelligent design, which makes the existence of the First Gods hard to disprove.

The Cult was different from the mainstream religion on the basis that it was composed mainly by actual friggin arcanists and mystics that managed to form a connection to the World Tree.

The World Tree was the source of all magic in the universe. When the gods used their combined powers to create the World Tree, it became a conduit of their godly energy. The use of that energy to perform supernatural feats is called magic, and its existence was somewhat part of the common knowledge, at least in this world named Consortia.

“Now young one, do you know why you are here?” the creature double her size that was conducting the magical ceremony asked her. The creature is what is known as a human, or at least that was what she was told. Humans are the dominant species of the plane called Earth where the soul of the Heir has apparently resided in for about thirteen years now. Despite that, the human mages haven’t been able to localize the Original God in his mortal form despite their best efforts.

Legend tells that Original Four of the First Gods were once also humans, born to a planet by the name of Earth, but their Earth was destroyed, which left them homeless. Despite the destruction of their home planet, the four gods managed to escape each to a different planet. These four planets of  Consortia's ancestors are what is believed to have been the template that was used to make the four distinct biomes of each quarter of the planet.

The ancestors of Consortia helped the Original Four ascend to godhood through a completion of personal quests, but how exactly that happened is lost to scripture. There were complications, however, and the Original Gods were unable to create a universe by themselves, which lead to the Heir of Breath initiating a process called the Scratch.

It is unknown what the Scratch was exactly, but it resulted in the gods turning back time to a different starting point so that the Noble Gods might ascend in their place. This would have resulted in the annihilation of the Original Gods and the ancestors of Consortia, but the Heir of Breath, Knight of Time, Seer of Light, Witch of Space were nothing if not crafty and managed to outrun the Scratch and arrive in the new timeline exactly after the ascension of the Noble Gods, which led to the team up that eventually created the universe and the World Tree.

Of course, this is only the part of the mythos preached by the church, the Cult instead affirms that this is only the version known by Consortia. There were at least four different versions that combined together tell the whole story, and one of those versions is from the perspective of the humans.

Speaking of humans, the human mage in front of the young salamander was different from what she expected. She knew humans were supposed to be tall, but this one is double her size. No scales like the turtles, iguanas, or nakodiles of the other kingdoms, but skin.

Only this skin was not humid and glistening like hers, but dry and covered in… hairs? What is hair anyway? She didn’t know, but human’s head was also covered with it, and all of it was brown.

She couldn’t give a better description of the human because they were shrouded in shadow. That, and also because she had never seen a human before, and because of how foreign their features are, she couldn’t trust herself to describe it in a non-generic manner.

But the human had asked her a question, so she shook her head in negative. She knew she was handpicked to go to Earth, but she didn’t know why.

“You are here because you share a special bond with the Heir of Breath!” the human declared dramatically to her and to the rest of the congregation “Your soul is bound to his from an ancestral tie that connects you! You see, the soul of the Heir has reincarnated into the mortal coil around thirteen years ago. We have tried to find him and reach out to him, but it was not to be. The prophecy foretold that only after his thirteenth birthday would the true power of all reborn gods begin to truly flourish, and only then they could be found by magic” he explained.

Casey was intrigued by this declaration, but wanted to know where exactly did she fall into this? She glubbed out this question, which made the human smile.

“You’re an important conduit to the Heir, little one. Like I said, your souls are intertwined. We have detected that you are the reincarnation of the salamander necromancer that was adopted lovingly by the Heir of Breath and served directly under the Seer of Light for a period of time” the human raised their hands and declared “Yes, it is believed that you are that salamander reborn, and so you have a natural affinity for finding the Heir. It is also believed that you might be the key to finding the Seer of Light as well. That remains to be seen, but we do trust that the first of the Original Four is within your reach.

“What do you say, little one? Do you think you are up to the task?” the human knelt and looked into her eyes.

There wasn’t much that Casey could say to that. She didn’t really feel like there’s the soul of a necromancer daughter of a god residing inside her, but really what could she possibly know compared to an arcane school of worship? She was just a simple mushroom farmer’s daughter. A farm she was supposed to inherit someday but apparently, destiny has bigger plans for her.

Still in doubt, she reluctantly nodded.

The human smiled.

“Then I wish you good luck on your journey,” the human said as he stepped away, leaving the young salamander alone in the altar that contained the portal.

“You will not be transportalized directly to Earth, my Chosen One, but instead will be walking the branches of the World Tree itself so your soul can truly attuned to it. After that, you’ll be feeling a pull towards the direction of the Heir. Follow that pull until you end up on Earth, do you get it?” the human explained and then asked.

The young one nodded her head in understanding. That was a pretty succinct and straightforward explanation of what she was supposed to do.

“Ah and one last thing! Be on guard for any spawn of Skaia, alright? We don’t want you to die crushed by an ogre, so if you see any of those dark creatures, steer clear.”

Wait, crushed to death? When the young one opened her mouth to protest, the plane shift had already started as the circle began to glow with green and blue light and with a sudden burst of energy, the Chosen One was no longer in Consortia.

She didn’t feel her eyes closing, but when she opened them again the environment around her had completely changed. No longer was she standing in a clearing surrounded by bioluminescent mushrooms with a night sky filled with the moving starlight that was actually just a lot of lightning bugs.

Instead, her feet were planted on what could only be described as an unusually large tree branch. How unusually large? Well, you could probably have around fifty salamanders march side by side on this branch, and the ones on nearest to the edge would not be at much risk of falling over the side.

Standing on top of it, some curvature on the surface of the branch was noted, but in the practical sense, it was basically flat and easy to walk on. And if you’re impressed with the wideness of it, then the length would blow your mind, because it seemed to go on forever.

The Chosen One looked behind her to see if the same was true in the other direction, only to be faced with an immeasurable wall of bark.

Looking upwards the wall seemed to extend itself for infinity, with thousands of branches of differing sizes protruding from it. Looking to the side and downwards gave the same visage of a great wooden wall of bark with an uncountable number of branches of all kinds of shapes and sizes.

Yep, this is, without doubt, the World Tree.

The empty space around the branches seemed to be some kind of thin mist that obscured the horizon at a big enough distance, so the Chosen One couldn’t really tell what lay beyond in her journey.

However she definitely felt the “pull” that the human mage had described to her, and since that was her only guide, the Chosen One decided to follow this sensation to wherever it might lead her.

The mage had made the Tree sound scary, but he didn’t mention how friggin boring it could be. The Chosen One had been walking for about two hours now without seeing much of anything besides branches and trees. Sometimes the path would branch out, and the pull in the Chosen One’s gut would show her which path to take.

The path had been steadily going downwards ever since the first split, and the branch she was on could barely contain seven salamanders abreast, by her estimates. Furthermore, there are now way more branches in close proximity with several points of intersection between her path and the other branches, making so that she has to climb over or duck under some of them to resume towards her destination.

The pull got stronger and stronger the more she progressed, and at four hours of exploration, she couldn’t tell if the discomfort in her gut was because of hunger or the pull just being that strong.

Suddenly she is faced with a surprising sight, as her path ends in a clearing, which is weird considering how she’s not in a forest or anything, but that’s the best word that could be used to describe her destination, as tons of small branches intertwine and mingle to form a circular shaped platform among the sea of wood and nothingness.

From the center of the clearing, the wood rises from the platform in the shape of a spiral, reaching upwards for about thirty feet before seemingly vanishing where the tip would be.

The Chosen One started moving towards the spire before she could even think, the pull of her soul becoming so strong she could only notice that she had approached the strange object when she was already touching it.

Most of the wood of the Tree had been covered with bark, but the spiral monument before her was made of smooth and polished wood. It seemed to have footholds and groves that would make it easier to be climbed. The structure of the spire seemed to be of sturdy make, with the intermingling wood being thick at the base, like ten feet across, and only half as thick on the highest point where it abruptly ends.

At the point her hand touches the spiral she feels the whole thing pulse with a power that resonated with her soul. As soon the contact was made, she knew what she had to do.

Right as she was about to step a foot onto a foothold to begin her climb, the sound of something heavy crashing against the wooden ground made her look behind her. What she saw did not please her at all.

A giant inky black hand propped itself on the border of the wooden platform, followed by another hand of the same kind. The hands made a pulling motion with their new leverage and a round inky black head peeked out from the edge.

The creature climbed onto the platform as the Chosen One was paralyzed by shock. The hulking black figure was around three salamanders tall and about half as wide, big white tusks protruding from out of its mouth, along with several pointed teeth protruding from its underbite, making its ugly, mean looking face look even more intimidating. As soon as she had seen this thing she knew that it could crush her in a single hand like she was nothing but a twig, so she did the first thing that came to her mind at this moment.

She started climbing.

The inky black hulk of a monster roared in response to her flight response and started dashing forward at a heavy, not too fast charge. The Chosen One was small and weak, but she was fast and nimble as well, and since the spire was apparently easy to climb by design, she had climbed the first twelve feet before the slow but heavy creature crashed into the spire hard enough to make it shake.

The Chosen One held on steadily despite the monster’s attempt at knocking her off the spire. She resumed her climb steadily before looking down to see if the monster was doing anything else to impede her progress. He was.

Having failed at reaching her from the ground, as the Chosen One had escaped his reach soon after his attempt at knocking her off, the hulking creature was now clumsily attempting to climb the spire despite being too big to use the footholds.

However what he lacked in nimbleness he made up for in strength, so despite the disadvantage, he was making progress using his strong arms and grip alone, and frankly this fucking terrified the Chosen One so much she started climbing faster, and soon enough she had reached the point where the spite simply disappeared into thin air. There was nothing more to climb.

She looked down and saw the monster slowly but surely making progress on his climb, his huge limbs making it so that he’d reach her in no time despite his speed.

Desperate, and still feeling the pull on her soul to keep going upwards, the Chosen One reached her hand into the empty air where the top of the spire disappeared, and she felt the illusion disappear as a glowing green portal made itself appear, the rest of the spire appearing along with it.

The Chosen One sighed in relief at not hitting a dead end and resumed her climb through the portal, which was apparently quite extensive from the inside. She looked up trying to spot the tip of the spire and it was far, way further than she had wanted it to be.

Suddenly the Chosen One felt her tiredness catch up to her as the prospect of climbing this perilously high traverse, but an angry roar reminded her of the alternative, so she steeled herself and pressed on.

Reaching the end of her climb the spire was getting too thin and the footholds were getting smaller and smaller. As she was about to reach the tip, her foot slipped off a foothold, making the Chosen One hang by one hand as she looked down instinctively…

Right into the open mouth of the ogre. If the Chosen One could scream, she would have, but instead, she blew out the biggest spit bubble that she has ever produced in her life and scrambled to find a new foothold, dashing upwards towards the end of the spire and into the unknown.

The first thing the Chosen One noticed as she jumped into the portal was the sudden shift in gravity. On one second she was charging upwards and on the other she was falling sideways, hitting the ground with a crash.

Ugh, not a soft landing. What the hell did she even fall on? Oh, ceramic lawn decorations. Or at least they used to be, as they now lay broken and sad on the impeccably cut grass. Well, that’s tragic, but at least she didn’t cut herself on them.

The Chosen One got up from her fall and started looking around to get an idea of where she was at. The day was incredibly bright, so the place was nothing like the Kingdom of Shade, but not bright enough to be the Kingdom of Light. No snow meant no Kingdom of Frost and no lava meant it absolutely was not the Kingdom of Clockwork.

Does this mean she was actually on Earth? Oh glub, oh shoot, this was too much to process. So much that the Chosen One just started dancing in place glubbing to herself what her next step should be. She could still feel the pull on her soul, but it was very faint now that she was not in the presence of the conduit of all magic.

Her dancing was rudely interrupted by the sound of a truck running through a wooden fence, only it wasn’t a truck but instead a very buff and tough looking fella that had been pursuing her for a while now. How the hell did he manage to climb all the way to the top? That spire was way too thin at the top for him to have any sort of leverage!

Well, that was a mystery that was to remain unsolved because the thing grinned and started advancing upon her with the slow certainty of a predator that has now definitely cornered their prey.

The Chosen One recoiled in fear of the monster knowing she could not stand a chance facing it head-on. As she tried to figure out how she could escape, the monster’s slow and calculated approach was halted by a bar of soap hitting him squarely in the face.

The creature paused, startled, his head snapping back slightly from the impact as an angry teenage voice shouted from behind the Chosen One “Hey ugly! Why don’t you pick on someone your own size!”

The Chosen One looked back and upwards to where the voice came from to see a slightly buck-toothed human… boy? Yeah, probably boy, with black windswept hair and a pair of glasses on his face. He was absolutely not even close to the monster’s size, but it appeared that it was indeed him the one to shout out that outrageous challenge from a house’s second-floor window.

The monster switched his focus from the Chosen One to the boy at the window and left out a low growl.

“What in Colonel Sassacre’s good name is happening out here?” a deeper, more mature voice came from the ground floor as two new humans stepped out into the yard. They appeared to be identical in height, face, and hat choice with the only difference between them was that one of them was wearing his white dress shirt normally and the other with the sleeves rolled up and with suspenders.

The Chosen One didn’t have to think twice and immediately ran to hide behind the legs of one of these strong looking adults.

“Dad! Uncle Joel! That thing is after my daughter!” the kid at the window pointed an accusing finger at the ogre. Wait, daughter?

“Daughter?” the adult echoed the Chosen One’s thoughts as he looked down behind his legs at the cowering bipedal salamander before smiling kindly and patting her on the head “You’re too young to be a father, John! You have some growing up to do before you can adopt a bipedal salamander!”

John… for some reason that name felt familiar to her. She could feel a stir inside her soul. Yes, that name sounded… fatherly.

The monster in front of them did not care about her musings and roared in displeasure, making all of them turn their focus back on to the big ugly thing.

“We’ll talk about this later. Right now I’m going to help your uncle clean up some trash from his backyard, isn’t that right, Joel?” the adult nodded at what could only possibly be his brother.

“Well if you’re offering so kindly, there’s no way I can refuse your help, Jean” the brother by the name of Joel replied with a tip of his hat.

The now named Jean and Joel were now in an intense stand-off with the yard invading ogre, the twins slowly splitting away from one another with the intent of attacking from two directions instead of only one.

The monster’s 8-ball-like head swiveled around, trying to keep track of both twin humans at the same time, stepping back to keep them from surrounding him easily.

The twins seemed to take see this as an opportunity and rushed forward at the same time to meet the ogre.

The one on the right, Joel, began to throw pies of shaving cream at the beast, hitting it square in the face and abdomen with enough force to stun the monster and slathering it with cream.

While this distracted their opponent, the other twin, Jean, did a sliding tackle at the beast, swiping it off its feet.

The big fella fell to the ground just in time to receive a running punt to the head, as if his head was a big black football.

The creature saw stars as one of its tusks was sent flying back into the portal from the strength of the kick, but he was still alive and he was still angry.

With a mighty roar, the fallen monster raised both its meaty hands and struck the ground hard enough to cause a tremor that made the brothers lose their footing. The creature rose to his feet and tried to use both fists to smash Joel, who rolled out of the way.

The monster wasn’t dumb however and didn’t let up, taking a step forward and kicking Joel on the stomach hard enough to send the man flying, skidding to a stop close to the feet of the Chosen One.

The young salamander was about to fret about the fallen fighter, but he slowly got back on his feet and dusted off his clothes.

“Are there any grass stains on the back of my shirt, Jane my dear?” Joel asked one of the humans watching from the doorway.

“Uhm, yes dad, it’s kind of all over your back” his apparent daughter, Jane, confirmed.

“Oh darn it, and I had just gotten it back from the dry cleaner as well” he sighed in defeat and pulled out a pipe and a lighter and began to smoke “Guess I’ll have to go back there this Monday again” he commented nonchalantly before taking a drag.

Meanwhile, his brother Jean was taking on the ogre one-on-one and it seemed to be going well for Jean despite the size difference between the both. The ogre was obviously strong, but so was Jean who also had the advantage of being faster. Fast enough to dodge most of the big swings that headed his way while repeatedly hitting the monster with quick jabs to the chest to wear the beast down.

“You know, I thought we were supposed to be doing this together, Joel!” Jean complained to his brother without looking back, as a lapse in attention could be lethal.

“I’m just having a small smoke break, you can handle yourself in the meanwhile, right?” Joel replied jokingly, walking forward into the fray while still smoking.

“If this is revenge for the lawnmower, I’m not apologizing. It was out of fuel when I borrowed it, so I just gave it back the way you gave me” the twin bantered as he managed to slide between the ogre’s legs and climb onto its back, holding onto the creature’s neck in a chokehold.

“Fine, fine, I’ve had my fun. Talking of flammable stuff, heads up!” Joel warned as he pulled out his lighter again and threw it at the ogre, the flame still lit.

Jean kicked himself off the giant as soon as he heard the warning, and when the lighter made contact with the stumbling monster, he went up in flames immediately.

By the gods, how can shaving cream be so flammable?

The monster appeared to have the same question in his mind as he furiously attempted to put out the flames, but they were spreading too fast. Soon enough the creature stopped rolling on the floor and opened its mouth to roar, but no sound came as it finally succumbed to its injuries and died, dissolving itself into a black mist.

And from the black mist remained a handful of multicolored crystals, as if they were a reward for defeating this mighty foe.

“Holy shit dad! You and uncle Joel are amazing together!” the young boy from before yelled from the window before scrambling away from it. Not even a moment later he appeared again, this time next to the girls that had been watching from the door “Where did you even learn to fight like that?”

“Nevermind that, what the hell even was that thing?” the girl from before, Jane, demanded to know.

“I have no idea, sweetie” the man named Jean answered Jane while ignoring his apparent son’s earlier question “But it does seem like it was after this little cutie for some reason.”

“Oh yeah, my daughter!” the familiar boy ran towards the Chosen One, embracing her with a tight hug. Suddenly the pull on her soul surged as she felt an immediate connection with this boy. Somehow, for some reason, she felt extreme comfort in his hug and hoped that it would never end.

“I’m so glad you’re safe, Casey” he whispered and it suddenly all connected inside her brain. Casey… that was her name. The name that was given to her by the Heir of Breath eons ago. She had found him.

“I don’t know John, Casey seems like too tame a name to me” one of the blonde girls that had been watching the fight stepped forward and crouched next to where John held Casey in his embrace. “This is a salamander that has faced darkness itself and survived. What about Viceroy Bubbles Von Salamancer?”

“No way, Rose! I’m not giving my daughter a stupid goth name just because you think my name choice is ‘too tame’! Casey is the perfect emotionally appropriate name because-”

“Because it’s the name of the daughter of the protagonist from Con Air, I know” the human girl, Rose, said with a roll of her eyes “How about a compromise then? Casey Von Salamancer is a good name as any, right?” The girl said with a twinkle in her eye. There was something special about her that Casey just couldn’t quite put a finger on.

John seemed to ruminate it for a while before finally nodding in agreement “Fine, that can be her full name. But I’m only gonna call her by her first name.”

“Sounds fair to me” Rose replied him with a playful smirk.

“What do you think, Casey? Do you like your name?” he asked her with such love in his eyes and kindness in his voice, that she could only glub happily in response.

She had actually found the Heir, and he was as much of a good boy as she could have expected.

Chapter Text

It was about midnight on the weekend when Karkat’s world was came crashing down on him. Nothing could prepare him for the absolute mayhem and frustration that was about to crush his mood for the rest of his nights.

“Fuck! God gibbering fuck! What did I do to fucking deserve this?!” he yelled, torso naked as he pulled his favorite sweater out of the garment demoisturizing apparatus. It had shrunk, irreversibly so, in a manner that he could hardly fit over his head. Kanaya had warned him that the garment was made of woolbeast fur, and thus should never go into the dryer, but he was in a rush and forgot to heed her words.

Now her gift to him was ruined, all because he spilled grubsauce all over it during lunch and then rushed to throw it in the cloth disinfectant tumbling trap and then right into the garment demoisturizing apparatus, just because he wanted to look good while attending the book signing of his favorite up and coming author Undall Escher, who wrote “An intriguing soulbound relationship between a human and a young troll who happened to be hatched on Earth due to the political persecution of his revolutionary Ancestor that led to troll life coexisting with humans in a familial setting similar to those of humans. The titular couple has a romantic relationship ill-defined by the quadrant system, face adversity due to the humans’ weird views on sexuality, reconcile, and then enter the romantic relationship for realsies this time, I promise. Some other stuff happens, but that's spoilers, c’mon!”

It was a work of genius that mixes sci-fi with fantasy with, of course, his favorite genre that is romance. And the ambition of the work is palpable by its title that calls out the reader for expecting regular titling conventions and teases the reader with insights into what to expect from the fantasy alien race that are the so-called humans. This hot new take on humans that makes them territorial and gives them innate magic related to romance is something that no other author has ever done before, so Undall had Karkat’s undying admiration for their boldness.

So of course, of fucking course that his plans would be ruined by his own fucking personal failings! Now he was late for the book signing and his sweater was disastrously ruined. Cursing his luck, Karkat ran upstairs quickly, which got him a reprimand from his crabdad, whom he had startled while watching Game of Highbloods.

If he was being honest with himself, his plans were technically not ruined, as he was able to throw on a long-sleeved shirt and just head out to the book signing anyway, but the loss of his favorite sweater, which was a gift from his moirail by the way, was still a big blow on his night.

There was absolutely no way he was going to tempt fate and say there’s no possible way things could go even wronger, but the thought going through his head might have already tempted fate well enough, so Karkat just put his book in a backpack and exited his hive with purpose to grab the bus that’d take him to the mall where the book signing would happen.

“Bye Crabdad” he waved at his lusus, who was still entertained by the medieval television show. The crab lusus released a squeaky growl in return that probably meant ‘bye son’.

Karkat ran towards the bus stop at full tilt, arriving just in time for him to barely miss the bus. The adult bus driver had seen him coming too but just smiled smugly before closing the door on him and taking the fuck off.

“Come back here you fucking bulge-sniffing, nook-breathed sorry excuse for a bus driver! I swear to the fucking gods I’ll report you to the heiress personally for this shit, and you’ll be kicked off the planet faster than you can say ‘I’m gonna get stabbed by space pirate!’” Karkat ranted emptily at the backside of the bus, attempting to memorize its license plate. A futile effort considering the thing was speeding away so fast it was like it belonged in a shitty movie about a bus that can’t slow down or it’ll explode.

Fuck, whatever, Karkat will just wait for the other, which is bound to come in half an hour at most. Alternian public transit wasn’t the best thing in the galaxy, but it wasn’t atrocious. Fuck, that could be the motto of all of trollkind in a way. Troll society was far from being the most perfect thing in the galaxy, but there was always a niggling feeling that it could’ve been way, way worse.

Crime rates were high, but at the very least they were considered crimes. The Hemocircle promoted a technical fairness among the castes, considering that the iron caste was technically above the tyrians and below the burgundies at the same time. In practice, the cold-blooded highbloods were still more politically expressive, but the Alternian Labor Party, founded by Karkat’s own ancestor, the Signless, ignited life into the lowblood political movement.

The Signless was the first iron-blooded troll in ten generations to actually make it out of the brooding caverns, which speaks either of the rarity of the blood caste or to the unsubtle attempts of making sure there’s no “circle closer” alive to contest highblood hegemony.

Obviously, something went wrong, or rather right if you’re a lowblood, because the Signless was everything the mythical iron-caste was said to be. A unifier of people, he used his authority over the tyrian throne to create the more or less equal society in which they now lived in. The previous Empress was absolutely pissed, of course, at the political revolution that the Signless started with his labor party, but his superiority over her was more than just a religious legacy of back when trolls all lived in mud huts. The Signless had actual power over her by means of control over the concept of blood. He was a magic user.

They eventually came to blows, the Signless and the former Empress. No one knew exactly what happened, but in the end of the night, no traces of either troll’s bodies remained. They were both gone, the Empress survived by two heiresses and the Signless survived by two descendants.

It was decided by consensus of both the low-blooded Chamber of Commons, headed by the Labor Party and the high-blooded Council of Nobles, that these surviving wrigglers were to be taught together to eventually assume the positions of their predecessors so that there would not be a second confrontation like the 100-Day Battle.

So Kankri and Meenah, the two eldest descendent and heiress respectively, were currently off-world being taught whatever the hell they needed to learn so they could co-run an intergalactic empire together while Feferi and the other descendent were kept in Alternia as both backups and regional rulers.

Which might’ve been a good idea considering that Meenah Peixes seems utterly uninterested in being a responsible ruler and Kankri Vantas was an utterly uncharismatic person.

Only one problem with this plan is that the second descendant of the Signless seems to be missing! The Alternian Labor Party having no idea where he ended up after leaving the brooding caverns with his Lusus.

That’s because Karkat Vantas was actively hiding his blood color from the public.

Don’t get him wrong or anything, but Karkat didn’t wish for something pathetic like a “normal life” or a “peaceful existence”. He just… didn't want to end up a failure like Kankri.

He hears it all the time, how much of a disappointment his broodmate was. How his petulant attitude was a sign that the iron caste was nothing more than highblood wannabes, and that the divine hemocircle died with the Signless, or was a lie from the start.

He hated the burden that his blood had put upon him, but he also wanted to live up to the legacy of his forefather, and he hated that even more. So he hid, to protect himself from public opinion, but also so that he could better himself and grow organically into the leader that everyone wanted him to be.

Fuck, the leader that he wanted to be!

Introspection while waiting for the bus was a bad fucking idea, but luckily one of his friends decided to troll him online at that exact moment.

gallowsCalibrator[GC] has begun trolling carcinoGeneticist[CG]

GC: H3Y K4RK4T!

GC: HOP3 YOU 4R3 3XC1T3D TO B3 4T YOUR L1TTL3 BOOK S1GN1NG P4RTY B3C4US3 1T M1GHT 3ND UP B31NG 4 LOT MOR3 1NT3R3ST1NG TH4N 1T'S SUPPOS3D TO B3 >:]

CG: WHAT IN THE GODDAMN WORLD ARE YOU EVEN GOING ON ABOUT, TEREZI?

GC: OH SO YOU H4V3N'T H34RD? TH3R3'S 4N 4L13N ON TH3 LOOS3!

CG: CUT THE CRAP, TEREZI, THERE ARE NO SUCH THING AS ALIENS. IF YOU THINK I'M GOING TO JUST LAY DOWN AND LET YOU DECEIVE ME, THEN YOU'RE SORELY MISTAKEN, YOU BULGE SNIFFER!

GC: WOW SOM3ON3'S CR4BBY TOD4Y

GC: YEAH, WELL, FUCK YOU TOO!

GC: OH K4RK4T YOU S1MPL3 FOOL DON'T JUST ST4T3 YOUR D3S1R3S OUT LOUD L1K3 TH4T 1T'S V3RY 3MB4RR4SS1NG >;]

CG: IS THERE ANY PURPOSE TO THIS CONVERSATION, OR DID YOU JUST DECIDE IT WAS ‘FUCK WITH KARKAT DAY’

GC: 4WW YOU'R3 BLUSH1NG

CG: TEREZI, I SWEAR TO THE GODS I'M THIS CLOSE TO BLOCKING YOU.

GC: OK F1N3 1'LL STOP

GC: BUT 1 W4S T3LL1NG TH3 TRUTH MR GRUMPY P4NTS

GC: TH3R3 H4V3 B33N R3PORTS OF 4 STR4NG3 NON-TROLL 3NT1TY 1N YOUR 4R34.

GC: 1 C4LL3D 1T 4N 4L13N BUT HON3STLY 1 H4V3 NO 1D34 WH4T TH3 TH1NG 1S S1NC3 1 ONLY H34RD 4BOUT 1T FROM TH3 N3WS

GC: SO K33P YOUR 3Y3S P33L3D B3C4US3 TH3 CR34TUR3 S33MS TO B3 4RM3D 4ND D4NG3ROUS.

CG: SO LIKE A REGULAR DAY IN ALTERNIA?

GC: YOU T4LK 4S 1F CULL1NG W4S ST1LL 4 TH1NG

CG: FINE, FINE, I'LL BE CAREFUL THEN, YOU FUCKING LUSUS.

GC: BUT 1F YOU G3T ST4BB3D PL34S3 T4K3 4 S3LF13 OF TH3 WOUND

GC: 1 W4NN4 SM3LL YOUR BLOOD COLOR >:]

CG: FUCK OFF.

carcinoGeneticist[CG] has ceased trolling gallowsCalibrator[GC]

Ugh, why the hell did she feel such a need to just go out and push his buttons like this? It's fucking maddening!

But she did have a message to deliver, and Karkat is not enough of a fool to not heed the words of a friend, especially not one who is a future legislacerator.

Karkat was really doubtful that whatever she was talking about was really an alien, but what kind of non-troll creature could it be? The way it supposedly made the news, he was doubting that it'd be something as simple as a rogue lusus. Maybe some lab experiment? Nah, that's just as a ludicrous B-Movie sci-fi concept as an alien.

Bah, whatever, he'd just watch his back as usual, but keeping an eye out for weird occurrences this time around. Speaking of weird occurrences, the bus seems to be early this time around.

Karkat got up from the seat and signaled for the bus to stop, and it actually did! Fucking amazing.

The driver was an olive girl who looked young enough to have just finished bus driving school if that was a thing. She smiled at him and even seemed satisfied with her job, so yeah, she's definitely new at it.

Karkat was polite and greeted her before running his bus card through the automatic ticket gate before finding himself an empty seat by the window. The trip to the shopping mall where the book signing would be happening wasn't short but it wasn't too long. He could read his book a little bit more to pass the time, but the more he thought about it the more curious he became.

Eventually, he succumbed to his curiosity and pulled out his phone.

carcinoGeneticist[CG] has begun trolling twinArmageddons[TA]

CG: HEY ASSHOLE, WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THE ALIEN THAT SUPPOSEDLY MADE LANDFALL AND IS LURKING AROUND ALTERNIA IN MY GENERAL AREA OF LIVING?

TA: kk, why the giibberiing fuck are you a2kiing me about thii2 2hiit?

TA: aren't you 2ome kiind of dumb 2keptiic that thiink2 that aliien2 don't exii2t?

CG: I DIDN'T COME INTO CONTACT WITH YOU SO YOU COULD “SCHOOL ME” ON HOW MUCH OF A DUMBASS I AM FOR NOT BELIEVING IN EVERY UFO SIGHTING I HEAR OF.

CG: DICK.

TA: u2iing human iin2ult2 now? ju2t how iinto that book are you? fuckiing nerd.

CG: YOU MUST BE SORELY MISTAKEN IF YOU THINK I'M GOING TO JUST LAY DOWN AND TAKE IT WHEN A GUY LIKE *YOU* TRIES TO CALL *ME* A NERD!

CG: JUST FUCKING TELL ME ABOUT THE ALIEN ALREADY AND I'LL FORGIVE ME THE SLIGHT.

TA: fiine, whatever.

TA: 2o the aliien 2eem2 two be completely black, liike an adult troll, but about our 2iize, 2o the popular theory of iit beiing a rogue lu2u2 ii2 out. iit 2eem2 two be weariing black clothe2 a2 well, and a hat wiith no horn hole2… becau2e iit doe2n't have horn2.

CG: WOAH, WHAT THE FUCK? NO HORNS? THAT'S SO FUCKING FREAKY.

TA: diidn't peg you two be the kiind of troll that'd fiind that freaky, con2iideriing how much you liike human2 iin liiterature.

TA: aliien fucker.

CG: ALRIGHT, I'M DONE. GOOD FUCKING BYE, SOLLUX.

carcinoGeneticist[CG] has ceased trolling twinArmageddons[TA]

It's fucking sad sometimes how Sollux could be considered Karkat’s best friend when he's that much of a fucking asshole all the fucking time. Calling Karkat an alien fucker when Sollux is the one who actually gives a damn about sci-fi.

So what if Karkat is a little intrigued by the mythical race called humans? It's not like he was fucking obsessed with them, he just liked reading stories and novels that featured them. Still, Sollux would call him a hypocrite anyway since humans do count as aliens, even in mythology.

Curse you, Undall Escher and your awesome writing skills! You have corrupted the mind and soul of an innocent troll and now he thinks about humans during his spare time! At the very least Karkat didn't proclaim himself humankin like that freak of that was Eridan’s broodmate. Looking at his blog, that Cronus guy has a lot of misunderstandings about humans and yet he wants to be one so bad. He's also a fucking creep that hits on everyone he interacts with. Gross.

Karkat’s stop was coming up soon, so he stood up and pulled the stop line to signal the driver. He thanked the bus driver, who smiled at him and tipped her cap, and stepped out of the bus, basically at the door to the mall’s entrance, and so he walked in.

Now to get to the bookstore an- shit! There's a huge queue reaching out from the Barnacles and Noble-bloods. Maybe it's not for the book signing, only if he could just give a peek inside and check… sigh, it was for the book signing.

Gods damn it all! Stupid grubsauce, stupid sweater, stupid adult bus driver and stupid stupid Karkat! It's like all the stars aligned to make sure his endeavors for the night would fail absolutely! There was little more he could do except accept his rotten luck and head to the back of the line to wait an excruciating amount of time to meet his idol.

“Hemoanon, huh?” commented the bronze-blooded boy at the back of the line when Karkat went to stand behind him. Oh joy, a chatty one.

“Yeah, got any problem with that?” Karkat bit back, not too aggressively, but clearly annoyed at the unsubtle prodding.

“Hey man, I meant no offense! I just mean… You don't need to hide your blood color, man. There's nothing wrong with being a lowblood. Show off your colors, shine brightly! You'll catch way more flack by hiding” the bronze blood insisted, assuming a lot of things about Karkat and then criticizing him for it “Mayhaps you'd be interested in joining the Labor Party? I gotta tell you, it feels liberating.”

This is not the first time he's criticized for being publicly secretive with his blood color, but it's the first time anyone's been so blunt about it. Then again, this dude had the looks and attitude of a propagandist or maybe a recruiter, so maybe it's not that surprising.

“Man, leave me the fuck alone, alright? I'm here for getting my book signed and meeting Undall Escher, and not for political recruitment. Besides, you're assuming a fuck-lot of things about me, and buddy, that's called acting like a real wiseguy. If you treat every hemoanon like they're some meek lowblood looking for liberation, you're bound to piss off some disgruntled blue blood who's hiding from his destiny as bureaucrat!” Karkat began to rant, against his better judgment “And boy, when that happens, my only regret will be that I won't be there to watch in glee as you get punched into the next fucking perigee!”

Karkat was usually politer when telling strange trolls to mind their own fucking business, but this guy pissed him off majorly with an impressively small amount of words. Plus, there was some feeling of safety from the fact that the other guy was the same blood caste as Tavros, and Karkat could not honestly envision someone with even a passing similarity to his friend to be particularly aggressive.

The most important thing to happen on that fateful night suddenly decided that this was its cue. When the bronze-blood recruiter opened his mouth to supposedly continue the argument, his expression shifted to one of surprise as he suddenly pointed at a space directly behind Karkat and screamed “Alien! It's the alien! Watch out, he's got a knife!”

Karkat turned around to look at what the recruiter was hollering about, as did almost everyone around them, only to find himself catching a knife right between his shoulder and the troll version of a collarbone. Not a lethal injury by any Alternian parameter, it didn't even hurt that much, but Karkat screamed regardless.

First of all, because he was face to face with the alien, and he matched the description that Sollux had given him: Black, hard, carapace-like skin that had a glossy look to it that reflected light. His eyes were like slits, or at least the one Karkat could see was, as the other one was covered by a white eyepatch. He wore a black trench coat and a black fedora-like hat, but with no horn holes, and with good reason since there were no horns in sight.

The alien's mouth was set in a sneer as he stabbed Karkat, but as blood gushed from the wound, it started to look almost like a smile. Which brought Karkat to the second reason to why he was screaming.

His blood.

He could hear the murmurs around him as he and the alien locked eyes, Karkat’s left hand covering the wound as he tried and failed to keep his candy red blood inside his body. Bright red, he heard some of the trolls around him say. Iron caste, others would add. The bronze-blood from before was now looking at Karkat in wonder.

Others were less focused on him and more focused on the alien, assuming combat positions and summoning their weapons from their specibus. The alien ignored them, looking at his bloody knife with what could pass for glee and then looking at Karkat with satisfaction.

“Well well well, that was easier than I thought! First runt that I decide to greet and it's the right one from the get-go” the alien says in a gravelly and raspy voice that sounds just like Karkat imagined a human uncle would sound like.

“Fuck! You call that a greeting? What ass-backwards kind of fucking planet do you come from, douchenozzle!” Karkat ranted in clear annoyance and despair, his eyes shifting around to all the trolls in the mall now looking at him. His life plan was ruined, there was no way he could escape the political attention when there were so many witnesses that could confirm his blood caste.

“Oh, did I blow your cover? My bad, I just didn't know of any other way to confirm that you're indeed the troll brat I was looking for” his voice sounded amused like he regretted nothing of his actions.

Karkat’s blood pusher almost stopped as he paid attention to the alien's words for the first time “You were fucking looking for me? Why?” he asked, his voice laced with suspicion.

The alien smiled wickedly as shadow coalesced around him and he extended a hand towards Karkat “If you really want to learn more, you can come with me.”

“And why would I do that, you prick!” Karkat shouted defiantly, clutching his wound more fiercely.

“It's up to you, actually,” the alien said with a shrug “I was only supposed to find you, and now that I have your blood, I will always know where you are” he points out, waving his bloody knife at Karkat’s face. “I could just go now and leave you alone with all these lovely people. They seem pretty interested in you, now that you're bleeding.”

Fuck, that bastard noticed or somehow already knew that Karkat was not very interested in having his blood broadcast to the world. If the alien left now, Karkat would be left to face the music alone, nothing able to stop people from questioning him or taking him to the Labor Party, in the case of a certain bronze-blood recruiter.

Knowing that he realistically only had one choice, Karkat sighed and clasped the other man's hand with his own “Fine, I'll go with you. But if you're gonna start explaining shit, then you better start with your name.”

“Call me Spades Slick, kid” he replied as the shadows now began to engulf the both of them “I'm glad you decided to collaborate. I'd say I have a feeling that we're going to be good friends, but I don't particularly believe in friendship” Slick continued, smugly “But among all the people who I hate, I feel like I'll hate you the least.”

And with those parting words, Karkat Vantas and Spades Slick were no longer there.

Chapter Text

“...And that is the reason why fungi are closer to animals than to plants. So if you have a buddy that claims they’re vegan but they eat mushrooms, don’t hesitate to call them out. Sure it might sound pedantic, but since you’re only doing that to peeve them off that’s a moot point” the science teacher finished explaining a mere moment before the bell rang.

Despite the fact that the teacher was known for being a bit of jokester and making normally dull explanations sound fun, John was not paying attention at all in class. In fact, when the bell dismissed them, he was practically bolting out the door and climbing the stairs to where the eighth graders have class.

“Club room key, club room key, gonna grab the- oof!” John chanted to himself in a sing-song voice before being stopped by a collision with a human wall. Maybe running in the halls is dangerous.

John barreled over the human wall, the both of them falling down in a heap, John's glasses flying off his face.

“Ouch,” he said grabbing for his glasses and putting them on his face, having a look at the person he had run over. He stood up and offered a hand “Are you okay, Chad?”

Chad was an eighth grader, and easily the biggest guy in Sassacre Middle School and star linebacker in the school's football team.

“Ugh, I'm fine, thanks for asking,” Chad said, grabbing John's hand and pulling himself back up.

He was also a pretty all around decent dude.

“I'm sorry for running you over” John apologized.

“Hey, no worries man! You sure you're not interested in trying out for the team? They're gonna need a replacement for me next season, and the way you barreled through me, you might just make the cut” he laughed and slapped John on the back.

“Oof. Pfft, yeah, thanks but no thanks. I only like playing for fun.”

“Such a fucking waste, man. I'm pretty sure you could play any position you set your mind to” Chad tries again.

“Dude, please, we've been over this.” John rolls his eyes “I'll see you later, I'm in a hurry” he says in parting before running again towards Roxy's locker.

John's always been one of the most athletic kids in school despite the fact that he looked like, and by all means was, a huge dork. Gym class was always either fun or a breeze for him, and thus he was always being scouted by his nicer classmates. He always refused, he liked playing sports for fun if not at all, and being an athlete sucked all fun from playing, because ironically it “wasn't a game anymore” since winning was all that matters.

And if playing a game isn't fun, then you shouldn't be playing at all. Games were made for fun and anyone who said otherwise need to maybe re-evaluate the meaning of the word “game”.

Speaking of games, John had reached the lair of the school's resident gamer girl and president of the Minecraft club, Roxy Lalonde. He approached just as she was closing her locker door, a keyring dangling from her fingers. When she finally noticed his approach, she turned to John with a smile “Oh there you are John! I was about to go looking for you.”

“Yeah, I'm late, my bad” John chuckled sheepishly “I kinda bumped into Chad while running down the hall,” he tells and Roxy winces “I know, basically a car crash, right? But we were both fine so he tried to recruit me as a replacement for next season.”

“Well look at you! If you took him up on the offer you'd easily be the most popular guy in school next year” Roxy poked at him teasingly.

“Bluh, no thanks. I don't wanna be some superstar athlete, or whatever the middle school equivalent of that is” he said, making a face “I just want the keys to the club room, please.”

Roxy chuckled teasingly and puts the keys in John's hand “Here you go, Egderp. Your, uh, ‘package’ is safe in there.”

At the mention of the “package,” John snapped out of his grumpy face, choosing instead on giving Roxy a toothy smile “Thanks again for doing me this favor, Roxy. I think have just reached favorite Lalonde status.”

Roxy gasped dramatically “John how can you say that?! Rose is your best friend! She's my dearest sister and you spurn her just like that? How dare you!”

“I uh- I didn't mean that! I mean, no, you're great and I did mean that, but yeah Rose is my best friend and I appreciate her, so I guess she's my favorite Lalonde but-” John gets interrupted from digging himself into a hole by Roxy's bubbly laughter.

“I'm pulling your leg, you dummy,” she said as she messed up his hair affectionately “You're my favorite Egbert too,” she continued, but it's not like it's fair. He and Jane had different last names so she could say stuff like that without stepping on anyone's toes by accident.

John thought to bring that up but didn't because recess didn't last forever and he had stuff to do. Instead, he decided to say something productive “Are we having club activities today as normal?”

“With your package there? Unlikely”

“Do you and Rose wanna hang out at my house after school, then? Dad doesn't come home until about half-past six, and I might need, um, help” he suggested, wearing his intentions on his sleeve “Especially on the ‘getting home’ front. Because of the...”

“Oh shit, that's true. Alright, I'll talk to Rose, I don't think she'll refuse. I think she'll be delighted to help out. Why didn't you want to recruit her help for smuggling the package inside the school anyway?”

John crossed his arms and gave her a look “Do you even know your sister? I have the same classes as her in a lot of periods, and you just know she’d use that knowledge to psychologically torture me all day, especially since she wouldn’t approve.”

“Ha! Yeah, I can see that. ‘My dearest teacher, I have something very important to disclose about John’ and then she’d pause dramatically and then say something like ‘his glasses’ prescription is outdated so he needs to sit closer to the whiteboard’ and look at you all smugly while you’re all sweating bullets or something” Roxy said, giving her best Rose Lalonde impression, making her voice sound decidedly more formal and making dainty gestures with her hand.

Honestly, it’s kind of hilarious how Rose constructed this whole ladylike gothic persona for the public when in reality she’s just a big gaming nerd with a general obsession with wizards and the occult and a general understanding of psych 101. Some think she’s some kind of intimidating beauty out of their league, some think she’s a stuck up, um, bitch, while others just think she’s a weirdo and maybe an actual witch. For John, she’s just always been Rose, his best friend who is very infuriating sometimes, but most of the time is a very fun person in her own special way.

Roxy is a mirror of Rose in some ways, her love for wizards and gaming being one of the common grounds they share, and that really helped John befriend the eldest Lalonde sister as quickly as he did. But while there were lots of similarities, that just made the differences between them quite a lot starker. For starters, Roxy was a lot more open about her feelings than Rose will ever think of being, and as consequence, her humor was more sincere than Rose’s constant dry wit and sarcasm. Roxy is also more outgoing and fun-loving than her sister, making her quite easier to talk to and play with, comparatively.

Not to say Rose wasn’t fun! In her own way, she could be even more fun sometimes, but she was never as straightforward as her sister, which was what made Roxy refreshing in a way.

“Flawless imitation,” John said with a snort and a small roll of the eyes.

“Thank you, I practice” Roxy replied with an exaggerated bow.

They both laughed at their shared silliness before John remembered: “Ah, I really gotta go now, I only got like twenty minutes by now.”

“Oh shoot, you’re right! Run along, egg boy, and don’t make a mess in the club room” she said, giving him a slightly hard pat on the back.

“Oof, you know pretty well that if there’s a mess it’s never my fault” he replied cheekily before starting to run off “Thanks again for the keys!”

“I’m serious!” Roxy shouted at his back, but he was already halfway down the stairs again by this point, the fastest feet to have ever run through Sassacre Middle School’s corridors. Pfft, maybe that’s why the track team tried recruiting him last week.

The club rooms were technically out of bounds during recess because of some administrative rule or another about how they shouldn't be in use during school hours, so John had to be sneaky.

He pretended to go to the restroom closest to the hallway where all the club rooms were located so that he could see if there were any teachers or hall monitors in his way. To his luck, the teachers' lounge was having free donuts today, so Mrs. Crenshaw decided to skip out on her duties as a disciplinary to grab a bite. She probably needed it too considering how skin and bones the old hag seemed to be.

John had nothing against old people or thin people in general, really, but the disciplinary was like his natural enemy in this school, even though that's no one's fault but his own. Because really, man, a middle schooler that insists on being a prankster is technically not in the right, ever, but at least she could've been nicer whenever she talked to him! Like sure, he deserves the punishments, maybe, but her saying stuff like “you hold back everyone you like by acting like a fool” or “when everything falls apart, know that it's your fault” is definitely taking it a little too far.

Not dwelling on the thoughts about mean old ladies, John successfully snuck into the corridor, key in hand, and dashed straight to the door with a Minecraft creeper sticker glued to it. He opened and closed the door quickly behind him. No sooner than that and he was immediately attacked by a yellow mass of glubs and hugs.

“Aww, Casey, I missed you too” John returned the hug to the salamander, sweeping her off her feet and giving a little spin. What else could he do after learning fatherly behavior from the best?

“Sorry for leaving you here all alone, but I brought you some snacks,” he said pulling out some packets of slim jims from his pocket and offering them her. John didn't really know what a humanoid salamander eats, but since small ones eat insects, one Casey's size would probably eat meat, right?

Casey didn't seem to mind as she nimbly opened the wrappers and ravaged their contents, glubbing in delight. John wasn't sure if smuggling her inside the school was a good idea, but he just couldn't leave her home alone after all she went through.

No one had a clue what brought her and that ogre thing into uncle Joel's backyard. The Crocker-Egbert family wasn't the savviest to whatever machinations were in place, and they weren't very eager to start prodding. The consensus was to keep what happened between all of those present, with John's dad promising the Lalondes that he'd have a chat with their mom the following week. No one dared to even think about contacting the authorities, because everyone has seen E.T and cute aliens like Casey deserved better than whatever the feds might have in store.

The strange jewel-like materials that the inky black ogre released upon death were collected by John's dad, who thought it would be wise to show the artifacts to Ms. Lalonde when they decide to have their chat. Ms. Lalonde was a renowned scientist in her area, whatever that may be, John had never thought about asking before to tell the truth, so John's dad thought that she may help identify what they might be.

“So, what were you up to the whole time you were here?” John asked as Casey was finished with her treats. She glubbed in response and took him by the hand to the one desktop computer provided by the schools for their club activities. Fortunately, they all had their own laptops which were frankly better than what the school had to offer, so there was no fighting over this limited resource.

The computer was on, with a headset attached and the screen showing a game of Minecraft. Seemed like Casey was playing on creative mode and had begun to build a nice looking building that kinda looked like a complex pipe organ of some kind.

“Woah that's starting to look amazing!” John exclaimed, excited but confused “Did… Did Roxy teach you how the play? You're honestly smarter than I gave you credit” John laughed a bit sheepishly and patted her head. To be honest, he didn't even think that Casey would be intelligent enough to even understand what a computer is, but there she was playing Minecraft arguably better than some other human players.

Casey glubbed happily, graciously accepting the praise and continued to show John her blue and gray building as she added more and more to it with the intent of completing it eventually.

Their cute little father-daughter bonding moment was unfortunately interrupted by the unmistakable sound of the club room door open and closing and an unmistakably familiar deadpan voice  “Really John? You're hiding our little miss Salamancer in here?”

“Um, hi Rose! I can explain…?” John tried, giving her his best winning smile.

“For as much as I want to enjoy playing the role of the disbelieving housewife in this cliché, I encourage you to try again” she responded in a clipped tone, crossing her arms over her chest. Her expression was one of annoyance, but there was also a hint of amusement in there, like a parent catching a child doing something reprehensible but funny, like flushing a bath bomb down the toilet.

“How'd you know I'd be here?” John asked, dropping all pretense of looking guilty. He didn't really regret bringing Casey here after all, especially since Roxy, the sneakiest person he knows, agreed to help him all the way.

“I dreamed it, as a matter of fact. Thought it was just a silly thing, but I decided to check it out anyway. I was right last time anyway” a smirk danced on her lips “and it seems like I'm right this time as well.”

“Yeah, right,” he rolled his eyes “You're definitely pulling my leg here” John squinted his eyes at Rose skeptically. Sure, Rose sometimes has dreams that can be described as borderline prophetic, but they're all just coincidence based, right? She has to be playing a prank, and not a good one at that.

“Your loyalty to skepticism would be admirable if not for the fact that most evidence points to the fact that I, indeed, have the ability of foresight” she walks up to him and flicks him on the nose “or did you forget that I foretold the arrival of our precious little girl.”

“My precious little girl” he mumbled possessively, rubbing his nose “and that could've been a total fluke! Like, how can you be some type of Oracle? It's not like magic really exists, right? It's fake as hell… Right?”

“Can you really say that with conviction after what happened on your birthday party, John?” She looked at him dryly, her tone challenging.

“Of course!” he insisted stubbornly, even though there's no real fire to back his words “For all we know Casey could just be an alien on the run from the bad aliens.”

“So you readily accept aliens, but the possibility of magic is too ridiculous?” She challenged him again, which John surprisingly responded to with an eye roll.

“Of course, like are you hearing yourself now? Sci-fi has always been closer to the realm of possibility than fantasy! You're only insisting on all this magic talk because of your wizard fetish.”

“Magic is real and I can prove it,” Rose continued undaunted, ignoring the fetish comment “fifteen seconds from now the fire alarm is gonna go off, and we'll be attacked by a terror hag, and there's nothing we can do to stop her!”

Rose seems out of breath when she finishes this sentence, eyes wide as if surprised by her own words. A tense pause.

“Rose wha-” and the fire alarm rang. Rose's eyes gained a panicked quality.

“John, we gotta go”

Rose grabbed the young man by the wrist and physically dragged him out of his seat towards the door. She opened it with fierceness, her eyes scanning the corridor for any sign of danger before turning back to John “I know you probably don’t want to believe me, but I swear to you John, I just had a vision and it’s not good. We have to get to your house and quick, or else we’re absolutely undeniably doomed.”

“What the hell is happening?” John asked, absolutely bewildered and also concerned at the sudden shift in the attitude of his best friend. Rose was always calm and collected, so this is definitely treading new ground “And what about Casey? We can’t let people see her!”

“Don’t worry about Casey, as long as she sticks around us, no one will notice her, please trust me on this,” she said, looking back at the small salamander who was now looking as fearful as Rose sounded “Grab her hand and don’t let go. I know you’re fast so I won’t drag you along, but please follow me. I know this is weird but you need to trust me.” Rose was biting her lower lip nervously, something she rarely did. It freaked John out to see her looking so antsy.

“Of course I trust you, you’re my best friend,” John said seriously “I don’t know what the fuck you’re going on about, but I’d follow you to hell if you took me there because of how much I trust you.”

Rose’s smile would look almost gentle if it wasn’t for the dangerous look in her eyes “That’s comforting to hear, John. Now as the people usually say, let’s get fuck out of here”

They ran through the halls going right past several of the fire exits the would lead directly outside. John thought about asking, but the way Rose didn’t even look in their direction probably meant they were bad news.

She led him left and right and right again, and the school was strangely and eerily quiet and empty. Sure the fire alarm made everyone rush to get out of the building, but in no uncertain terms did enough time elapse for the whole building to be evacuated.

They got to the entrance hall of the school quicker than John thought possible, but he wasn’t complaining. Rose rushed to the main doors, eager to push it open and escape the suddenly more oppressive than usual atmosphere of the middle school building.

It didn’t budge.
“What? How the hell- I know this was the right way out, why the hell is this door locked?”

“Your powers as a seer don’t make you infallible, young godwoken” a sinister phlegmy voice spoke from behind them as Mrs. Crenshaw walked down the stairs of the main hall “I took precautions in case you managed to detect my dimensional traps by the fire exits. Seems like a good old physical lock can work wonders sometimes” the old lady had a smile on her face, but it wasn’t anything close to gentle.

“Mrs. Crenshaw, your voice sounds different. Are you sick?” John decided to ask for no particular reason except to maybe break up the tension. The teacher did not appreciate his efforts.

“Foolish boy! Making jokes even in the clutches of your enemy. I still can’t believe that someone like you was the first of the godwoken” she growls as her visage of a stern middle-aged disciplinarian began to dissolve and in its place the wild-eyed eldritch look of a woman that was at least twice that age. Her pupils were the size of pinpricks, her hair bone white and long, literally flowing behind her, as if unaffected by gravity. She has no nose to speak of and tentacles seemed to spout from where her fingers would be. “I’ll take great pleasure in consuming your soul and making your powers mine”

“Ok, yikes, I know you didn’t like me, but now you’re just being harsh”

“Harsh? Harsh?! You’ve been a thorn in my side ever since you enrolled in this school! I take no pleasure in knowing you are godwoken to the soul of the Heir of Breath, but I will take extreme pleasure in ripping it away from you and erasing your existence!” suddenly one of her tentacles extends and grasps John with surprising strength, lifting him above the ground.

Rose immediately grabbed one of her knitting needles out of her backpack and attempted to stab at the appendage to force it to drop John, but it was too nimble for her to manage to get a clean hit.

John yelled in pain as the tentacle began to crush him. His arms started to feel numb as blood circulation began to cease from the pressure and yet he struggled and struggled to get free. He needed to get free, he needed to get away and take Rose with him. He-

As he was about to feel something click, the pressure redoubled and John was positive he felt a crack from somewhere on his body. He yelled in pain again as the hag continued to laugh.

“By the elder gods does this feel good. When I’m done with you, annoyance, I’ll have a little chat with your friend Rose. There is much that I can learn from the godwoken of the mythical Grimdark goddess” her smile widened “There is much potential within you, you know? Maybe I don’t even need to consume your soul. Perhaps you would prefer to become my apprentice, hm?” the hag suggested with sadistic glee.

“I’ll kill you in your sleep, you bitch! Let go of John now!” Rose yelled before rushing at the hag with a needle poised to stab her. The witch only laughed in response, ready to lash out with another one of her tentacles.

But before anything of the sort could come to fruit, a loud clang was heard by all as suddenly the Terror Hag dropped to the floor, rolling down the stairs where she stood. Behind her, a very familiar and welcome face was standing holding what looked to be a fire extinguisher with both hands, poised in a way that indicated that she had just swung it around.

John fell back to the floor, freed from the evil appendage as Rose looked upon her sister in disbelief.

“Like, what the fuck is going on here, guys?”

Chapter Text

Karkat stumbles suddenly into existence, tripping over nothing and falling face first onto the floor, an audible FUCK resonating through the halls of wherever the fuck this place may be.

When I say “stumbles into existence” it might quite be taken literally, for whatever that void-like coalescing shadow that had enveloped him was, it felt for either a second or an eternity that Karkat Vantas ceased to be a physical entity that existed. The dread that comes with that realization attempts to settle in but is rudely interrupted by a light, but forceful, kick to the ribs by an impatient gangster sorcerer, or sorcerer gangster, whichever feels more appropriate.

“Shit kid, if you’re gonna go and have a breakdown after experiencing just a little bit of Void magic then maybe you’re not cut out for all this,” the carapacian man says with a mocking smile, his raspy voice anchoring Karkat to reality once more.

And a growl is the first thing that comes out of Karkat’s mouth after his mind sets back into place. He’s already up in arms, poking the rude, suit-clad alien right on his vest covered chest with an accusing and relentless claw “I never fucking implied that I was ‘cut out for this’ in the first place, you piece of shit! The only reason I accepted to come with you was that my only other option was to be mobbed by a bunch of overeager or angry trolls demanding ‘answers’ to my blood color”

The sharp claw didn’t phase Slick, feeling to him more like a mild version of a friendly greeting than the accusatory gesture that it was apparently supposed to be, and that drew a smug grin out of the normally grumpy man “Well tough luck, you little shit, because whether you like it or not, your blood color might just be the least of your worries if having all eyes on you is something that you’re afraid of.”

Karkat’s defiant demeanor refuses to die down “Oh please, this isn’t about something stupid as stage fright. Of course, a dumb alien like you wouldn’t know the meaning behind my blood color”

Slick meanwhile pulls out a cigarette from his breast pocket and lights it nonchalantly. After a drag he speaks with an air of superiority “Kid, I know more about you and your planet than I’d normally be bothered with, but I had a job to do and I can’t let my reputation take a hit for having bad info. I know all about your stupid blood politics” Slick’s smugness intensifies “And if you hate the special position your candy red blood leaves you in, then, kid, you’re gonna absolutely loathe everything else that’s about to happen today”

“W-what the fuck do you mean by that?” Karkat demands, but Spades Slick ignores him in favor of his cigarette. When he’s done with it, Slick throws in on the ground and crushes the butt under his heel.

"Walk with me”

“You didn-”

“Don’t make me stab you again, kid!” Slick interrupts the start of the young troll’s tantrum “Just shut up and walk with me. I ain’t gotta explain shit to you, but I can take you to someone that might care enough to”

That shuts Karkat up… for the moment. For the first time now he manages to take in his surroundings. The architecture around him has a Gothic look to it, colored in a pallet of gold and royal purple. The combination felt like it should clash, be diametrically opposed, but these are complementary colors, so they go together very well. No idea where that thought came from, maybe the hemospectrum? Blood politics is the last thing Karkat wants in his mind right now, so he just lets it go.

The architecture is still beautiful by itself, regardless of color, with the tall spires, wide halls, and decorated bridges. Unlike like the spartan Alternian constructions, blocky and utilitarian, these were meant to evoke a sense of awe and beauty instead. Noticeably it wasn't a perfect aesthetic, as the lack of variation of shapes and colors became more obvious the longer Karkat walked with his “guide”.

“Couldn't you have ‘voided’ us closer to where you're taking me? This place is, like, really easy to get lost in. Where even is this place?”

A deep sigh comes from the adult carapacian “And you were doing such a good job keeping quiet, kid” he gropes at his breast pocket as if thinking about pulling out a new cigarette, but he let's go of it. “As a matter of fact, yeah, I probably could've, but take me by my word, little man, you're gonna appreciate this brief amount of privacy before you get to meet the council of bozos”

“‘Kid’, ‘little man’, I got a fucking name, you prick! Repeat after me: Karkat Vantas. Is it so damned hard? Kar-kat Van-tas.” He says slowly and deliberately as if speaking with a small grub or a senile old lowblood troll. The gangster releases something that's a mix of a growl and a low chuckle.

“You got brass, kid, I'll tell you that much. Sure, fine. Karkat”, he sounds out the name with some bite to his tone, but that's just how Spades Slick talks, “you'll come to appreciate this little bit of peace and quiet I gave you before you meet the council. Holier-than-thou assholes, is what they are.

At the mention of “holier-than-thou assholes” Karkat shudders, memories of another Vantas haunting his past. Sure, he's being dramatic and his “brother” could've been plenty worse, but he could've been much better too! He's glad they haven't met in person at all after he reached 3 sweeps of age and disappeared from the public eye entirely, but the utter political failure that Kankri became sometimes makes him think that things might’ve been different if he'd stayed.

“What do they want?” Karkat asks tersely, already detesting the idea of this meet-up.

“Ever heard of the term Godwoken?” Slick’s smooth face was now turned towards Karkat. He shakes his head, and Slick pauses for a bit and then heads to lean over the railing of the bridge they were crossing. The building up ahead was the biggest one yet so this might be their last stop.

Slick pulls a smoke and lights it, still looking at the distance. Awkwardly, Karkat waits until he turns around to continue to talk. He doesn't. Instead, he gestures for him to approach without looking at the young troll’s direction. Hesitantly Karkat approaches and leans over the railing as Slick takes a drag of his cigarette.

“Alright, so I'll try to explain it to you better than those pompous fools would, not because I care about how well you understand, but out of spite towards the council. So listen well Karkat, or don't, I don't give a shit.” He exhales roughly, a lungful of smoke dissipating into the wind. Karkat feels the cold wind and it sends a shiver down his spine.

“The source of all magic comes from a higher power. Some scholars will say it's not magic, that magic is stupid and fake, but honestly, those nerds are fucking weenies. If I can't call this magic, then what is it supposed to be?” Slick looks distractedly to his left hand where shadows now coalesced.

“The source of all magic comes from the gods long gone, some even long forgotten, but it's the gift they left for this universe in the shape of the World Tree. Now I'm not going to wax poetic about how if the universe was a frog, the world tree would be its spinal column. As a matter of fact, frogs are odious creatures and I don't want to seriously ponder the whole universe being one for even one second” Slick growls, and Karkat is taken aback by both the weird metaphor and the gangster’s hate for frogs, but the man changes gears and continues past that hiccup.

“Getting back on track, magic has rules; rules that are directly linked to the mythological roles of the gods that, directly or indirectly, brought forth the creation of this universe.” Slick takes another puff of his cigarette and exhales again “It's not my job to explain to you how the mechanisms of magic works, as a matter of fact, I don't care for them, so I never bothered to learn them myself. So I'll get to the actual point of this impromptu lesson. The Godwoken.

“So the gods disappeared from the universe after the creation of the World Tree, but where'd they go? Some theories said that they went back to their place of origin, to whatever existed before this universe. These are wrong, obviously” Slick gives Karkat a smug side glance as if sharing an amusing secret.

“Right now it's become clear what happened to the gods. After finishing their creation they had a choice. And they chose to become mortal again” he said that last part with some distaste in his voice, as if he wouldn't pick the same if presented to whatever the choice was.

“Why?” Karkat echoed is the sentiment. To give up immortality and control over creation seemed like a chump move, to not say it more rudely. Karkat never coveted power, like the way the Condesce did, but to freely give up a position of power, especially ultimate power, seemed naive at best from a pragmatic point of view. “And they all agreed to it?”

Slick shrugged “The hell do I know, kid, I wasn't there. But their reasons for doing so are understandable, if not something I'd do myself. High lore points towards two main reasons that led to their choice: reason number one was that becoming mortal would bring the forgotten gods, the ones who died before creation, back to life; reason number two was that by becoming mortal again they'd manage to escape fate and avoid suffering from their Ultimate Hubris.”

There's a pause in the gangster’s explanation. Karkat doesn't know if it's for dramatic effect, or if he's just taking a break to continue smoking in peace, but when he doesn't seem inclined to continue, Karkat prods “So? What is this “ultimate hubris” that the gods feared so much that they'd give up fucking godhood to avoid it?”

Slick looks uncharacteristically pensive for a second but just grins “Well, kid, think of it like this. The gods had powers that allegedly would grow forever unimpeded, and they would eventually reach a state referred to as Ultimate Self. However, the way the mythological roles work, the Ultimate Self could not be achieved by all of them at the same time, and do not work the same way. Depending on the how and the who, the ascension into Ultimate Self would be a descent into madness and narcissism. Imagine that? An egomaniac broken god with power beyond understanding. If you've been paying attention, you can probably figure out how this ends.”

Karkat looks into Slick’s eyes and the gangster’s mouth spreads into a mean grin. Hesitantly, the young troll nods, the outcome would be as tragic as it was predictable.

“Smart boy!” Slick’s grin doesn't go away “So they’d all eventually off each other or a tyrant would rise among their ranks and force the rest into a state of supreme subjugation. Either way, it's game over, Karkat. Peace is not an option. Happiness is not an option. Would you give up power and immortality in their place?”

Karkat glares defiantly “Would you?”

“Ha! No fucking way, kid, but then again I'm a mean fucking son of a bitch, and this type of moral quandary would never phase me. My ultimate self would be sitting on the top of a throne of dead gods and I'd be smiling the whole fucking way up the pile” this cruel statement is followed by Slick unexpectedly reaching out to mess Karkat’s hair, leaving the boy disgruntled “But you? I know for a fact that you'd pick the opposite.”

Karkat’s glare intensifies as he slaps the gangster’s hand away “How can you be so fucking sure? You think you have me all figured out? Fuck you, asshole, you don't even know me!”

Spades Slick seems unimpressed by his tantrum. As a matter of fact, he cackles at the boy's fiery temper, which kicks up Karkat’s rage up a notch, but before he could kick into second gear, Slick interrupts him.

“Godwoken. What does that word mean, in the context of all that I've told you? This is a rhetorical question, keep your mouth shut” Slick warns before he could get interrupted by the whatever barrage Karkat would be prone to release. “In some ways, the Godwoken are the antithesis of the Ultimate Self. When the gods made their choice to become mortal, it came with a caveat. Their souls would slumber for a small eternity until the right time came for them to reincarnate into the mortal world, yadda yadda, and that would help them hold onto their original ‘true selves’, whatever that may be. The point is, their soul is still godly and their reincarnations are in mortal bodies. Those mortals born with a godly soul are the ones called Godwoken.”

“And what the hell does that have to do with me?” Karkat asks petulantly, but the sheen of sweat building up on his forehead betrays his true feelings. Slick laughs as it's painfully obvious that he's realized the truth.

“Come on, you little shit, don't make me spell it out for you. What any other reason would I have to bring you in the way I did.” he pokes a claw at the young troll’s chest to emphasize the truth “You. Are. Godwoken”

The truth hits him like a sledgehammer, and his cold sweat intensifies, but he slaps Slick’s hand away in rebellion “Fuck off!”

“It's the truth, kid. When I bring you in there the council will tell you the same but with pompous words” the gangster states and flicks his finished cigarette off the bridge, the embers painting an arc over the air as it falls into the abyss.

“First you expect me to believe that all this bullshit about gods is real, and then you expect me to just trust your word that I'm like some fucking avatar for their souls? Give me a break!” Karkat swings back, skepticism on full throttle. Or was it denial? Something tugs at his gut, but he ignores the feeling.

“Their souls? Nah, kid, Godwoken don't work like that. There's only one soul per mortal body, and that includes you. You're supposed to be the Knight of Blood.”

Blood. It was always about blood when it comes to him, isn't it? His curse, his legacy, and apparently his destiny seemed to be intrinsically tied to the candy red liquid that ran through his veins. He wonders if Slick is mocking him, but an alien like him wouldn't have the full context of what being part of the Iron caste meant, and how that affects him. He seemed to know enough to use it to identify him, that it made him special, but he wouldn't have any of the contexts into why exactly it mattered that his blood was red. Right?

The coincidence was strong enough to shut him up, and Slick smiled at the sight of Karkat gritting his teeth.

“Blood is the essential element to bring forth what the council has in mind. Tell me, do you believe in gravity?” Slick asks, and Karkat thinks it's a stupid question.

Gravity isn't something that you believe in, it's just something that is. Bodies that have mass attract each other, and the more mass it has the stronger the attraction. It is a scientific fact, not a belief system. So Karkat just looks at Slick as if he's dumb. The gangster just continues unimpeded.

“Gravity refers to the attraction between two bodies. Wait, that’s magnetism too, right? Fuck it, either work for this stupid metaphor” Slick shrugs as if saying take your pick. “But anyway there’s a universal force that affects everything in the universe. You can’t escape it. Some may call it fate. That’s what brings the Godwoken together, at least in theory. And Blood is an aspect of bonds. It intensifies this natural gravity Godwoken have to each other. It’s why I was tasked with finding you specifically. You’re some kind of key to bringing all the other kids that are Godwoken like you together.”

“And why are you telling me all this? Pretend that I believe you and that I’ll take everything you said to me right now as fact. I’m not dumb, I know that some of this stuff you told me has to be classified. I’m no stranger to manipulation, and it seems you fucking pulled the rug on any successful attempt this council of yours would have of luring me in with information. So what do you have to gain by spilling the beans like that?” Karkat interrogates, his political acumen sharp despite himself.

Slick smiles and it’s as smug and mean as his regular ones, but there’s something more there. A sparkle in the carapacian’s remaining eye “Kid, I don’t know if you noticed yet, but I fucking hate the council. They’re a bunch of hoity-toity mages with a stick up their ass because they prefer to be scholars and not get their hands dirty as I do. I’m their best agent so they can’t get rid of me, but I won’t pass up an opportunity to subvert them when it presents itself to me. Ever.” He pats Karkat on the shoulder “Besides, I told you before, I don’t hate you as much as I hate everything else, kid. You’re alright. And I’ll be a dead man before I let Broderick Scratch tie you to his puppet strings unprepared.”

Karkat still felt skeptical, but perhaps he should trust the likes of Spades Slick for now. It appears that he has no more words would be traded by them, as Slick pushes away from the bridge railing and continues to lead Karkat towards whatever awaited him in the castle-like structure. As they walk in silence, Karkat can’t help but wonder who is this person whose name Slick spoke about with such venom?

Chapter Text

The subway ride is silent and cold, an air of worry and seriousness by the two blondes that flanked him. The people of New York are indifferent to his suffering despite the fact that a young boy clutching an obviously broken arm should be a worrying sight for any empathetic adult in the vicinity. But perhaps this is an unfair assessment considering that no one else shared their passenger car except for a passed out homeless man.

This is ultimately a blessing since right across from them sat an orange salamander the size of a toddler, thinly disguised by a black hoodie that was considerably oversized on her. Weirder things than her have probably inhabited the New York subway system before, John thinks, but Casey's an actual supernatural creature, and if someone notices that could spell trouble to a bunch of middle schoolers like them and, as her father, John refuses to forsake his little Casey.

Thoughts about actual fatherhood enter his mind for the first time and John feels older than his thirteen years for a fleeting moment. He plays around since Casey came into their lives, but in this fleeting second, he wonders if he'd actually be a good dad. He's got a great one to model himself after, but… it gives him an uneasy feeling of inadequacy if he thinks about it. So he stops, and he's thirteen again and in pain. The Lalondes must have noticed him wince because not after long there's a caring hand on his shoulder and a gentle squeeze on his healthy hand.

"John, how're you feeling?" Roxy's eyes are indecipherable. What happened at school made her cautious, but she hasn't freaked out at all after Rose's explanation. As a matter of fact, her only concern right now seemed to be John's broken arm. And the way she was gingerly and affectionately holding tight to his hand was probably making him blush.

He tries to hide his embarrassment behind a smile, but it turns into a grimace "Could be worse. Could've been both arms."

"And we all know how much of a loss that'd be for a healthy teenage boy" Rose speaks up for the first time since they left school and Roxy laughs. John feels like something flew over his before figuring out the dirty joke behind her words. He squawks indignantly.

"I'm glad my condition amuses you enough that you're talking again" John grumbles and nudges Rose with his shoulder, giving her a knowing look "Feels like I should be asking you if you're okay. You've been out of it ever since you picked me up from the club room."

"I'm… fine." Rose bites her lip and looks away. John looks over to Roxy who sighs.

"She's been complaining about migraines since your birthday," she tells him hesitantly.

John looks back at Rose who chuckles.

"My own sister, a snitch. And here I thought you were good at keeping secrets."

"You know secrets don't fly when we're talking about something like your health, lil Rosey. C'mon, tell us what's wrong" Roxy prods, quite literally.

She pokes her sister enough to get her hand slapped away and a stern glare. The glare crumbles when Rose finds herself without a defense and so she sighs.

"Okay, I had been having some strange migraines, until this morning, but that's not what's bothering me. What's bothering me is that now that I've had a big vision of Mrs. Crenshaw attacking our group, my headache is gone. As if all the pain was just a build-up for whatever this power I have really is." She bites her lip mutely, mulling over her words "I'm just… thinking about what this all means. It all definitely started with Casey, since I did foresee her arrival in my dreams, as silly as they had seemed. But if we’re being targeted by some sinister Eldritch force, then whatever this is, it's more than just fun, games, and raising a cute salamander."

The words linger in the air heavily, seemingly making the ache on John's arm intensify. He sneaks a peek at Casey and she's looking at him with a worried visage. He smiles at her and she cutely blows a bubble back at him. He thinks that even if this might be indirectly her fault, John thinks it's worth a broken arm to have her in his life.

"We can think about this later." John says to Rose "We can look for meaning and purpose behind your powers after we're somewhere in safe. If you're feeling fine then that's what matters. What we need right now is some kind of game plan. Where do we go from here?"

John can see the gears in Rose's head start turning as she tries to come up with something, but it's Roxy who breaks the silence.

"I think we should go to Janey's house," she says and gets two looks of bewilderment in response. It doesn't phase her. "I mean, we're only two stops away from where she usually jumps out, right? And the witch probably wouldn't think of looking for us there. I mean, not at first."

John snaps his fingers and nods enthusiastically "Roxy, you're a genius! And Jane didn't go to school today, so she'll be there to help us!"

"Are you sure this is a good idea, Roxy? We'd be mixing Jane up with this mess, and there's no guarantee that Ms. Crenshaw won't find us." Rose looks at her sister and warns. She receives a confident grin in return.

"Puh-lease, Rose, you know I've already mentally calculated the variables in this situation. Jane's place isn't only closer but she also knows first aid, and that'll definitely help with our John problem." This elicits a small 'hey' from the aforementioned problem, but Roxy continues unimpeded. “Also, as you might remember, the epicenter of the whole thing with Casey was at Jane’s house, so like it or not she’s definitely in the list of peeps that are involved with this stuff.”
John scratches his cheek with his good hand “Hadn’t thought about that, but you’re absolutely right. Jane needs to be in the loop. Maybe we should try messaging her before we come knocking on her door.”

“Way ahead of you,” Rose says, fiddling with her phone. She types something out but then frowns “Can’t seem to get a signal, however. And no wi-fi hotspots available to piggyback from. Guess we’ll have to wait until we’re above ground.”

Silence returned to the passenger car as their plans were made and the kids now only had to wait. The first stop came and went, and the only other straggler that shared the subway with them left. It was only a boy, two girls, and a salamander.

Now that silence reigns, the pain in John’s arm keeps flaring again, and he can’t ignore it. Damn it he feels like crying, but would rather not lose face in front of a conniving friend like Rose or a cool older girl like Roxy. He seeks comfort in Casey’s naturally cheery demeanor.

Her legs were still swinging freely and a hood covered most of her face, but she sat there happily and quietly glubbing to herself as if singing a song to pass the time. As she notices John looking at her, she tilts her head in curiosity before happily blowing the biggest salamander bubble he has seen her made since they met. John laughs immediately after it pops as do his two friends. Casey looks almost smugly satisfied with herself for getting this reaction.

All of a sudden the lights flicker off and the group stops laughing. The darkness is occasionally interrupted by lights on the tunnel walls, but they’re only enough for John to catch glimpses of his companions’ faces… and something else.

John saw its shadow move before the thing itself did, but it was enough to pull Rose out of the way as the fell into the floor. He landed on his bad arm and his injury screamed! Or maybe that was John himself, as he couldn’t avoid the tears that came to his face this time around.

He tries to roll to the side, but he feels his leg being pulled by something slimy and rubbery. He tries to crawl away and kick at the thing, but his vulnerable state made his efforts seem like a Magikarp splashing around uselessly.

He is about to curse his luck when he sees a small flash of light coming from above a loud bang that makes his ears start ringing. The flash happens again, and again, and John supposes that the loud sound also repeats itself, but is not sure due to temporary deafness. All he knows is that the grip on his ankle slackened, and that is enough for him to pull his foot free.

John tries to think what to do next, but someone hooks an arm under his shoulder and he’s already being pulled to his feet. He hears a voice, but it sounds muffled. It’s definitely female and it’s calling his name, so John assumes it’s Roxy who’s pulling him away from his attacker.

The lights come on as suddenly as they went out, and John spots the thing that was pulling at his leg, and it’s an amorphous mass of tentacles and eyes and teeth that was now oozing green ichor from what seemed to be three gunshot wounds. John looks away from the thing, its visage bringing him disgust and an unnerving sense of wrongness. When he does that, he sees that it was indeed Roxy the one who helped him to his feet, and she was also the one who defeated the monster, as she now held a smoking gun on her other hand.

“What the fuck!” John yells, and it summarises his feelings about both unusual things being presented to him. The fact that he can hear his own voice means that at least his eardrums didn’t rupture from the loud bang of what he now deduces were gunshots.

A second passes and then a minute. Everyone is breathing heavily from the adrenaline rush, and Rose pulls out a knitting needle to stab at the dead thing. It, fortunately, remains unmoving. As the ringing in his ears eventually starts disappearing, John liberates himself from Roxy’s grasp and starts asking the important questions.

“Since when do you carry a gun with you, Roxy?!” he doesn’t want to sound rude about it since she rescued him, but his voice sounds exasperated regardless.

Roxy looks are her hand as if surprised that she’s holding a gun, and she looks extremely confused “I… I don’t! I’ve never owned a gun in my life” she tells him, and it’s the truth. A great markswoman she might be, thanks to the practice she did with her mom when they hung out one on one. Still, her mother has never given her a weapon and she definitely had no permit to carry. “I just thought about wanting to protect you guys and then suddenly I was shooting at that thing. What is it anyway?” she asked at Rose who kept prodding at it with her needles.

“I think… I think this legitimately might be a shoggoth, albeit a pretty small one” she sounds genuinely stunned as if such a thing wasn’t even in the realm of possibilities for her.

“What’s a shoggoth?” John asks, interested in how Rose was able to identify such a strange and unsettling creature by name.

“It’s… it’s in one of my books, the Grimoire for Summoning the Zoologically Dubious. It’s also one of the most notorious eldritch creatures depicted in the works of the notorious racist and fearful pioneer of the cosmic terror genre, H. P. Lovecraft,” she explained, looking up at John and Roxy with a sincere expression of awe in her face. “I never thought I’d see one of them alive and in the flesh, outside the pages of my books.” She says and then smirks, looking up at her sister, “Although I guess I can’t say it’s alive any more thanks to a certain someone.”

Roxy harrumphs at the accusation “Well excuuuuse me, Rose, if I ruined your first meeting with an aberration by saving you guys’ lives!” She says in exasperation, but it’s not quite sincere. She knows her sister is only teasing since that’s what her mentality defaults to when she’s nervous and trying to hide it.
“Okay, one thing at a time,” John intercedes before the Lalondeness can kick into full gear. He notices with the corner of his eye that Casey was clinging to the back of Roxy’s leg, very agitated by what’s happening, so he gives her several pats on the head before continuing. “So this shoggoth thing tried to attack us when the lights went out. I’m guessing it had something to do with it?”

“Oh yes, most definitely.” Rose confirms with a nod “As a matter of fact, keep your guard up Roxy, you might have some more shooting to do,” She says and John feels Roxy stand with her back to his, tensing up at Rose’s warning.

John’s eyes dart around the room, looking for signs of more enemies trying to engage him. He is surprised by the intercom crackling on and telling that they were approaching their destination. After several tense seconds, two things happened at once: the doors that connected their passenger car to the others opened allowing a swarm of black tentacles, green eyes, and sharp teeth to start advancing on them from both sides, while the intercom came alive again with the distinct sound of a maniacal laugh.

The kids huddled together, screaming in terror, with Roxy not knowing what to shoot, but it seemed that fortune was on their side because it was at that time the train had come to a halt, and the sliding doors at the side opened to their freedom.

John didn’t even have to think before pulling Casey along and dashing out of the accursed transport, Roxy and Rose right on his heels. The adrenaline makes him forget the pain as he hauls ass in the suspiciously empty subway station.

He hears the squelchy sound of the shoggoths in hot pursuit, and damn if they aren’t faster than they look. With no one else around, John’s internal ‘fuck it’ emitters activate and he yells “Fill them with bullets, Roxy!”

She obliges immediately as if she’d be doing that anyway. The pops of the bullets firing do not make his ears hurt like last time, probably to the relatively more open space, but holy fuck are they loud. The screeches of the shoggoths pierce the loudness, however, as they seem more intent on catching the kids after the bullets hit.

It was the four of them versus at least twenty of those abominations, and only one of them had a gun. The odds were not looking in their favor, so the kids zeroed in on the stairs, their main escape route.

As they climbed, they could hear a swarm approaching from a different direction. As they reached the top of the stairs, they could see that there were another twenty or so shoggoths blocking their path to the right, forcing them to run to the left.

“God damn it, that was the way out! How did they get there?” John cursed their luck.
“I don’t know, but I feel like my powers should have warned us of this. Why didn’t it” Rose replied, equally cursing the unreliableness of her newfound abilities.

Roxy was silent, focused on fending off the mass of writhing blackness, but despite killing off several of them, they just kept coming, and soon enough she runs out of bullets.

At the same time, the group as a whole runs out of luck, as they are faced with a couple of bathroom doors at the end of the hall and nothing else. It’s a dead end.

Unwilling to give up, Rose throws open the door to the women’s bathroom and ushers them in, the four children barricading the entrance with their bodies the best that they could. It was no use, however. Their stamina was going to drain eventually, and the overpowering mass of Eldritch beings was sure to reach them eventually. Eyes scanning around found no escape point available. It was over.

…

It can’t be over! John looks at the strained faces of his daughter, his best friend, and her sister who he had a growing fondness for recently. They didn’t deserve to die in a dirty public bathroom like this, with him unable to help due to his broken limb. He felt useless, he felt like he should be able to do something! Anything!

…

He would do something. He would save his friends.

The resolve in his heart strengthens as the feelings of protectiveness towards the ones he loved in significantly different ways broke a wall in his heart that he didn’t even know was there in the first place. Abruptly he stops pushing wraps his good arm around his best friend and looks towards the other two. “Quick, grab onto me. I have a plan” he yells.

“John, what are yo-” Rose starts to protest, but he silences her with a look of steely resolve. He gives this same look to Roxy and Casey, as his whole body starts to glow blue.

“Please… just trust me” he smiles, the same goofy smile that all his friends say is the most endearing thing about him “I finally know what to do.”

Roxy and Casey immediately grab on to him, Roxy hugging his chest with closed eyes, her gun clicking onto the hard floor, and Casey hugging his leg and not letting go, her frantic glubs drowning even the noise of the unholy monstrosities on the other side of the door.

This same door breaks down moments afterward, the shoggoths swarming into the female bathrooms, ravenous for godwoken blood.
But they find only an abandoned pistol on the floor, and the faint smell of godwoken sweat left behind. Their quarry had disappeared without a trace, leaving only a single object to remember them by.

And it smelled as much of the void as the abominations themselves.

…

Several blocks away from there, a yell of surprise is heard all across the neighborhood coming from a disgruntled member of the Crocker household.

“John! What are you doing in my room!”

Chapter Text

Life under the Hemocircle was in ways extremely different from, and yet also disturbingly similar to life under the Hemospectrum. In terms of societal impacts, there was the de facto abolishment of the ‘superiority by birth’ way of thinking that came from the circularity of the new system. Sure the iron caste was superior to the tyrian caste now, but it was by also by all means below the maroon caste. Does that mean that the previously called “rust-bloods” were superior to the tyrians? Well no, because the bronze-bloods were above them, and were the mustard-bloods, so on and so on until you reached tyrian and iron again.

So what they had now was a de jure egalitarian society where the life of the lower castes would not be thrown away at the pleasure of the highbloods anymore. Culling became a crime, all civil servant positions assigned to the explicit purpose of enforcing the old social structures were thereby made non-existent and the law system was completely overhauled. It was a true social revolution! And yet…

Historical materialism dictates that true change in social structure comes not from ideas but by significant shifts in material factors. If the forces of labor and production remain the same, then even without a caste system to divide them, the reality was clear for all to see.

In Alternian society, those who were rich in the old regime remain rich, and those who were poor remain poor with very few exceptions among them. The terms “highblood” and “lowblood” are still thrown around despite their lack of relevance, because they don’t actually denote caste anymore. They denote class.

Those born into the colder blood castes still benefit from the privileges of the social hierarchies of their ancestors. Thousands of sweeps of history don’t fade away overnight, and thus the current political situation in Alternia is eerily similar to the old one, with the one major change being that ‘low-bloods’ now had a voice, and they refused to let themselves not be heard.

This led to the creation of the Chamber of Commons in opposition to the sole existence of the Council of Nobles. Both cabinets of government hold about equal legislative power, but while any troll can be a member of the Chamber, no one below teal blood has been able to hold office in a Council seat for more than a sweep due to frustrations due to stonewalling from high-blooded peers or plain old political assassinations in the cases of more stubborn representatives, not that anyone could prove it.

This tipped the scales in favor of highbloods in the new political scheme as they could theoretically have seats in both parliaments while stonewalling their opposition when they do the same.

At least, that’s how it was before the lowblood-led Labor Party gained an unexpected but very welcome ally in the sea dweller-led Radical Ecologist Party.

The sea dwellers were always considered outliers amongst the highbloods even during the days of the Hemospectrum, with a deep a bloody rivalry existing between them and the land-dwelling high-blooded trolls that inhabited the coast. Half of the reason for the conflict was xenophobia due to the cultural and biological differences between sea dwellers and land dwellers, and the proximity of the sea dwellers to the seat of power of the Empress, and the other half would be the disgust the sea dwellers would feel towards the pollution the land-dwelling trolls would dump in their oceans.

When the social barrier of the Hemospectrum was broken, the lowbloods and the sea dwellers discovered they had much in common, both in terms of environmental policy and in terms of contempt for the attitude the land-dwelling highbloods put up.

And so, seeing eye to eye with land-dwelling trolls for the first time in Alternian history, the violet-bloods became staunch supporters of the Labor Party and extended their policy into the Council of Nobles by means of their own Radical Ecologist Party composed entirely of violet-bloods.

In another time, another life, Eridan Ampora might’ve thought that the only way to end plastic pollution of the Alternian seas would be to completely eradicate the entire land dweller population; however in this time, in this life, Eridan Ampora is a militant supporter of the REP who truly believes that with the help of the Labor Party, his lifelong dream of seeing his home clean is achievable without genocide.

He’s thought about it before, yes. A lonely and angry kid who had never met a land dweller in his life, Eridan was a prime target for the Nautical Nationalist Alliance. Online forums dedicated to sea dweller supremacy engulfed his free time, and not even Fef could dissuade him from the ideology that was slowly poisoning his mind. That is until she introduced him to Karkat.

Feferi often talked to Eridan about Karkat, enough so that he became jealous. That did not help at with Eridan’s growing vision that land dwellers wanted to steal everything he and his caste held precious, but alas he agreed to meet with him face to face, just so that Fef would get off his case and maybe finally understand why sea dwellers and land dwellers could never get along.

Their first meeting was… chaotic.

Karkat kept calling him a xenophobic asshole and at one point threw a milkshake at his face. Honestly, he did deserve it considering how he’d said that he’d help Fef abolish both parliaments and find and kill the iron-caste scion when she eventually rose to power and then subjugate all the land dwellers by melting the ice caps and making ocean out of land.

He said all that when Fef herself had taken a bathroom break because she’d realistically shoot him down immediately, but he really wanted to intimidate this hemoanon upstart who thought he could get into the good graces of the future empress! Honestly, he was just jealous because he thought Karkat was stealing his moirail.

After the milkshake, Fef came back and non-romantically mediated their aggressions. She made Eridan listen to Karkat’s rant about the plight of the lowbloods, and how they were as much as a victim of the highblood neglect for environmental causes as the sea dwellers, and that Eridan should shove his head out of his ass and actually pay attention to what’s happening in Alternia instead of sharing memes about land dweller crime rates.

Of course, he didn’t change his mind immediately, but Fef didn’t want to give up hope on her moirail, and Karkat was happy to oblige her requests for more of these meetings/debates. He was all too eager to have a captive audience for his rants.

When Karkat decided to physically drag him, with the help of Fef, to a joint Labor and REP rally protesting the illegal dumping of micro-plastics into the ocean was when Eridan finally saw that sea-dwellers and lowbloods. You see, the factory was entirely highblood-run and had been so for generations. They used to have lowblood slaves as their workforce, but now they had lowblood sweatshop workers after the Alternian legislative overhaul. It was then that the other shoe finally dropped, and Eridan realized that land-dwelling highbloods were the only ones that were fucking over the sea dwellers, and the sea dwellers weren't the only ones getting fucked over. He and Karkat had a common enemy.

Of course, that was assuming that Karkat was a lowblood, but even if he was a highblood who hid his blood color that just meant he was a caste traitor, and that was fine by Eridan. Karkat was a stand-up guy with a solid moral backbone and a good head on his shoulders. Once his xenophobia was out of the picture, Eridan could truly see why Fef held him to high regard. His blood color didn't matter, and maybe that's why he kept it hidden.

Now, turning on his TV, Eridan wishes that the reason had been that simple.

The TV showed the same news tagline in almost every channel: "Missing scion of the iron caste discovered at a book signing is kidnapped right afterward by alien creature."

Eridan feels a mix of disbelief and despair. Disbelief at the fact that one of his closest friends was the missing piece of Alternian politics this whole time, and despair at the fact that, right after this shocking revelation, he was immediately abducted by a complete outsider.

A shaky vertical video of the situation unfolding makes it seem like Karkat was bleeding from a stab wound and apparently having a conversation with the alien. After a beat or two, he takes an anguished look at the crowd around him and then takes the alien's hand and disappears into the void.

Thousands of questions go through Eridan's mind when he sees the scene unfold. Did Karkat go willingly? Was he threatened? Why was he hiding his identity? Did Fef know?

…

By the gods, did Fef know?

His fingers are already moving on his phone before he could register what he was doing.

- - caligulasAquarium[CA] has begun trolling cuttlefishCuller [CC] - -

CA: fef, did you knoww?
CA: you kneww it all along didn't you?
CA: about kar
CA: i’m freakin the fuck out fef
CA: not only is one of my best friends gone but my moirail has been lyin to me
CA: tell me i’m wwrong

He waits for a response with bated breath. Hours pass but they’re actually five minutes. Eridan can’t take his eyes from his phone until he sees a line of tyrian text appear.

CC: -Eridan…
CC: You’re being really unfair!
CC: It’s not like it was my secret to s)(hare, not to mention that I’m also worried sick about Karcrab!

Eridan becomes self-aware about his outburst as soon as she chastises him. She’s right, he flew off the handle when he should’ve been trying to reassure her. Karkat is Fef’s friend as much as he is his, but for some reason being out of the loop embitters him.

CA: wwhy didn’t he tell me anythin?
CA: i’m a very understandin person
CA: evven if i’m not directly related to the executivve powwers of alternia like you, i’m his friend

CC: -Eridan, the more people who know )(is secret the easier it would be to accidentally get out!
CC: I only really knew who )(e is because we’re )(atc)(mates and knew him from grub)(ood.
CC: And )(e swore me to secrecy! 38(
CC: I just couldn’t tell anybody even if I reely wanted to tell you, Eridan.

And now comes the feeling of shame. He’s made his moirail upset over something she had no say over. He really oughta be blaming Karkat, but even so his worry for the crabby troll’s wellbeing overrides this blame shift almost immediately, and considering how he got kidnapped immediately following his blood reveal, Eridan could see the point over Kar’s secrecy, as much as it hurts his pride.

CA: wwell…
CA: if it’s like that then i apologize for my behavior fef
CA: i reely didn’t wwant to make you feel upset by somethin out of your control
CA: if you say you reely wwanted to tell me
CA: but couldn’t
CA: then i believe you wwholeheartedly
CA: and i’m sorry

CC: 38O
CC: -Eridan, you’re apologizing!

CA: yeah… no need to rub it in fef

Eridan grumbles in real life. Sure, he was too prideful sometimes, but he knew how to apologize… right?

CC: I’m sorry, it’s just t)(at I reely can’t remember the last time you apologized for acting s)(itty.
CC: But I do appreciate it! Glub glub glub glub 38D!

Eridan smiles despite himself. Fef really didn’t waste time calling him the fuck out but at the same time her bubbly nature and disposition to forgive him makes it that he doesn’t mind it at all.

CA: i’m glad you can see beyond my previous shittiness
CA: but let’s discuss somethin else that’s arguably more important than me apologizin

Eridan’s eyes narrow at his screen as he feels his resolve harden. Fef was tyrian blooded and the heiress to her sister Meenah. She could easily come across the resources to do what he was about to suggest. Hell, she might be planning to do the same thing already, so he needed to make his intentions clear

CA: howw are we goin to find kar?

CC: ...So you’re thinking about it too, )(u)(?

CA: it’s the first thing the came through my mind after I stopped freakin out yes
CA: i knoww you keep your ear on the ground wwhen it comes to political stuff
CA: wwere there any signs that there wwas a plan to find and capture the iron caste scion?

CC: I )(eard nofin aboat it w)(en consulting with my regular sources, unfortunately.
CC: I mean, nofin out of the regular.
CC: Karcrab’s secret identity has been the )(ottest missing person ever in all of Alternian )(istory, so other trolls looking for )(im isn’t uncommon.
CC: But using an alien to locate and kidnap )(im? T)(at’s way too )(igh profile to fly under the radar like that, glub glub. 38(

Eridan bit his lip hard enough to draw blood. What he was about to suggest went against everything he believed in, politics notwithstanding. It actually physically pained him to type this out, but after seeing Karkat disappear like that…

CA: wwhat about… your less orthodox sources fef?
CA: did they havve any information to givve you?

CC: -Eridan, do you mean my… Occult sources?
CC: You know, t)(e ones that deal with… magic?
CC: Magic t)(at, in your own words, is fake as s)(ell?

CA: YES
CA: GODS DAMMIT YES
CA: do you havve to make it so painful for me fef?
CA: havve i not suffered enough?

CC: 38P
CC: Just a little payback for all t)(e sweeps you kept mocking my knowledge of the occult.
CC: And if magic was fake we’d still be living under the rule of the Empress.

CA: and i havve already told you that i havve my owwn theories about howw the signless *actually* defeated her imperious condescension
CA: but i’m wwilling to give you the benefit of the doubt for noww
CA: wwe need all the help wwe can get if wwe plan on being successful
CA: so your little occult friends could *probably* be of help

CC: Glad you could see t)(e light! Glub glub glub glub glub!
CC: As a matter of fact, I do )(ave a source tied to who )(as some info into the secret magic community.
CC: If I krill them a bit for information, they’re bound to let something slip.
CC: But assuming we’ll get the information we need, where do we go from t)(ere?

Eridan ponders a bit before sighing. He knew exactly who he needed to contact, as unpleasant as it was to go beg them for help. Still, he’s lain his pride aside multiple times today for the sake of his closest friends, so he might as well do it again.

CA: wwe should probably recruit a team to help us
CA: and as much as it pains me to do so
CA: i knoww exactly wwhere to start

CC: You don’t mean…

CA: i do mean

CC: But s)(e’s terribubble!

CA: wwell, yes
CA: but she actually owwes me a favor belivve it or not
CA: and considerin howw much she likes anoyin him
CA: she might havve a vvested interest in this endeavvor

CC: Bluh!
CC: If you say so, Eridan…

CA: I do say so fef

With a heavy heart, Eridan changes tabs on his trollian and looks at the contact on his phone with a piercing glare. Last time he talked her was when he had to carry her to shore after a big fucking fiasco of a naval battle at high seas. She bitched and whined at him the whole way, but in reality she owed Eridan big time considering she wouldn’t have survived the ordeal due to exhaustion and dehydration if it weren’t for him. The shore was fucking miles away, and she didn’t have a fraction of a sea dweller’s swimming speed and endurance.

Eridan sighs for what feels like the hundredth time today. He had to have done something terrible in a past life to have his hand forced like this. Think of your friend, Eridan. Think of Karkat.

He hardens his resolve and types the accursed message.

- - caligulasAquarium [CA] has begun trolling arachnidsGrip [AG] - -

CA: as much as it pains me to say it
CA: i need your help wwith somethin
CA: consider this me collectin that favvor that you totally owwe me
CA: and be grateful it’s somethin simple

AG: Siiiiiiiigh.
AG: If it isn’t Ampora and his unnecessary and frankly super annoying dramatics.
AG: 8ig deal, I owe you a favor, just get over yourself, ugh!!!!!!!!

CA: I kneww it wwas going to be this wway
CA: wwatch your pride or you’ll end up slippin on it and fall into a big ol pile of hubris
CA: i savved your life and noww you do me a favvor
CA: it’s that simple

AG: St8p saying that!
AG: Marquise Spinneret Mindfang could have survived to reach the shore, and there’s no way you can prove otherwise!

CA: that’s true

AG: ????????
AG: So you’re agreeing with me that I don’t owe you any stupid favors?

CA: no
CA: I’m agreein wwith you that yes marquise spinneret mindfang could havve gotten out of the situation vvirtually unscathed
CA: but plain ol vvris?
CA: nah
CA: you can’t evven throw your stupid dice in the ocean.

AG: Fuck you!!!!!!!!

Eridan smirks at the sight of Vriska’s frustration. Half a sweep ago there was no way that he could actually keep up with Vriska in terms of banter, but even since Karkat started coaching him in regards to relationships, Eridan finally learned how to properly talk back to her. Too bad their kissmissitude still fell apart after that high seas fiasco. Honestly, though, that was a pathetic display from both sides, any healthy dose of respect necessary for the romantic rivalry to work had sunk to the depths of the ocean alonside both of their ships.

AG: Just tell me what you want already so we can end this sorry excuse for a conversation.

CA: alright alright i wwas gettin there
CA: so
CA: kar got kidnapped by an alien
CA: that’s a thing that has happened
CA: so me and fef are going to track him down and i need your help
CA: but most importantly i need terezi’s help
CA: and i needed to use you as a proxy

Okay, that was partially a lie, Vriska’s help would be very welcome as well considering the resourcefulness of the pirate wannabe, but it was too good an opportunity to diss to let it pass.

AG: Ugh, not you too!
AG: Terezi has already 8een chewing my ear off about it.

CA: so you’re in?

AG: I guuuuuuuuess…
AG: I really have no choice if I’m 8eing 8ombarded in 8oth port and star8oard a8out this.
AG: Fuck it, I’m in.
AG: And count Terezi in too, I guess.

Eridan sighs in relief at how easy it had been. Honestly, talking to Vriska could be like pulling teeth, but apparently she had already started to succumb to the whims of her moirail to put too much of a fight.

Him and Fef might be in need of more than just the two Scourge Sisters for this operation to work, but knowing Vriska it would be no time before her and Terezi start recruitment on their own.

...

They are Godwoken, all of them, and yet they do not know it. They pull themselves towards each other naturally, and yet they do not even notice.

Karkat is the perfect catalyst. After all he is the Knight of Blood.

Do you believe in gravity?