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==>Karkat: Grumble about your shit planet.
The Land of Pulse and Haze was made for the specific purpose of insulting you. Your first objection - the seas of iron-rich mutant red blood - is for a reason obvious only to you, and you claim it’s because the smell makes you sick, although this is not untrue. It’s thick and cloying and hangs low in the air, clouds of fumes that don’t even make sense (blood doesn’t evaporate into red mist - does it? Ugh), and even if the color didn’t leave you horrified, it’s amazing you don’t vomit with every breath from the smell alone.
Your second objection is the rocky, jagged peaks and valleys that make up the dry 30% of the landscape. On Alternia, you went through maybe four pairs of soft shoes a sweep, and two of those pairs would be because you outgrew them. Here, you’re lucky if they last a day, torn up by obsidian points and sand-glass broken across the blood shores. The soles of your feet are tougher than the supple leather, and you would just abandon them altogether except you can’t stomach the thought of leaving bloody footprints in your wake.
If it weren’t for having to wrestle your stupid encryption modus, you’d just keep a pair of tough scalehide boots on until you encountered an imp. (It might almost be worth it if you were getting any faster at decoding the damn thing, but you think you’re getting worse.)
==>Terezi: troll Karkat.
You haven’t heard from Karkat in a while. That sounds like fun. Your husktop says that Karkat is an Idle Troll, but you’ve never known him to not answer.
— gallowsCalibrator [GC] began trolling carcinoGeneticist [CG] —
GC: 1 H4V3N’T S33N YOU FOR 4G3S >:[
CG: BLASPHEMOUS LIES. IT’S BEEN A FEW HOURS AT MOST
GC: BUT 4 YOU TH4T’S PR4CT1C4LLY FOR3V3R
GC: HOW H4V3 YOU SURV1V3D W1THOUT C4R3FULLY CH3CK1NG ON 3V3RYON3’S PROGR3SS 4T T3N-M1NUT3 1NT3RV4LS? 1T MUST B3 SOM3 FORM OF S3LF-TORTUR3!!
CG: HEY, TAKE IT EASY ON THE SHOUT POLES.
CG: AND WHILE I KNOW IT MIGHT BE DIFFICULT TO COMPREHEND, EVEN MY INFINITE PATIENCE CAN ONLY TAKE SO MUCH OF YOUR COLLECTIVE WHINING. OCCASIONALLY I MUST LET MY RAGE SPONGE DETOX.
GC: 1 TH1NK YOU 4R3 PROJ3CT1NG JUST TH3 T1N13ST B1T, K4RK4T!
CG: THIS IS ME, IGNORING YOU AND THE ABOMINABLE LEET SPEAK THAT DRIBBLES OUT OF YOUR MOUTH LIKE SO MUCH DROOL.
GC: >:[
CG: ALSO, ALTHOUGH PAST ME HAS BEEN ADAMANTLY AGAINST ANY SORT OF SIDEQUEST, I’VE BEEN ON A SIDEQUEST. KANAYA SUGGESTED THE PRIZE AT THE END WAS SOMEHOW ESSENTIAL TO MAKING THE BEST FROG AND AS LONG AS SHE’S DETERMINED TO COMPLETE THAT STUPID THING I MIGHT AS WELL HELP. IT’S PAINFULLY BORING.
GC: W3LL P3RH4PS TO 4LL3V14T3 TH4T F33L1NG OF D3SP41R WH1CH YOU B4TH3 1N 1F YOU 4R3 TH3 L34ST B1T 1DL3, 1 W1LL COM3 JO1N YOU
CG: NO. FUCK NO. DON’T YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO DO ON PROSPIT OR WHATEVER? THAT BIG PROJECT YOU WON’T TELL ME FUCK-ALL ABOUT EVEN THOUGH I
CG: AM
CG: YOUR
CG: LEADER!?
GC: L1K3 4 BOULD3R PUSH3D DOWN 4 H1LL, TH4T PL4N 1S NOW UNSTOPP4BL3 W1TH OR W1THOUT D1R3CT SUP3RV1S1ON >:]
GC: 1 W1LL CH3CK B4CK ON 1T L4T3R. FOR NOW 1 W4NT TO DO 4 S1D3QU3ST ON YOUR D3L1C1OUS PL4N3T
GC: W41T FOR M3 >:]
CG: HEY, IT’S MY PLANET. ASK MY PERMISSION FIRST
— gallowsCalibrator [GC] has ceased trolling carcinoGeneticist[CG] —
CG: GODDAMMIT.
==>Be the other guy.
You’re Karkat again.
Terezi is not company that you want right now. You don’t want any company. You’re not lying when you say you need a fucking break - although maybe it doesn’t matter, because you must be getting close to the end of this dumb sidequest. Imps are spawning all around you (you remember when it was a mindscrew to see those black-carapaced miniatures of your lusus scrabbling about; now, you hardly give it a thought); a few fly over on buzzing wings, some twisted remnant of Tavros’ lusus. A few tentacled horrorterror-Feferi-goddammit-why-the-fuck-did-you-prototype-your-lusus types sort of flop out of the blood sea to your left. They’re not fast, but their scream has a chance of paralysis effect and does damage, and you don’t want to be bleeding from your ears ever again thank you very much.
You equip HOMES SMELL YOU LATER and bend down.
==>Karkat: Elevé.
Things you are capable of doing that nobody knows about:
- An acrobatic fucking pirouette off the handle, and not out of rage.
- flipping yourself, not just your shit.
- pas de poisson.
Scythes are tricky weapons. You’re nowhere near a master, not that you’re about to admit that to anybody - as if they’d even know what you’re talking about. In fact, generally you look as if you’re flailing around like a tool compared to anyone who has the first clue what they’re doing.
But the blade is on the inside of a wicked curve; a hook-and-yank is the most basic of attacks, and it’s still unlikely to take off a troll limb unless you’re ungodly strong, which you’re not - not yet, anyway. It takes skill and finesse to get the sharp end of the weapon around anything, and if you can’t do that you’re just smacking around blunt flimsy clubs. You have to get in close and personal with things that have fangs coming out of their ears - and you wish you were using hyperbole.
Luckily your level is off the hook and these imps are pretty low. The problem then becomes that Sgrub isn’t turn-based, and there’s fifteen of them and one of you.
No fucking problem.
==>Karkat: fifth position into tendu.
You wear character shoes, no matter how many pairs you have to alchemize to keep yourself in them.
This is why.
This is not the smooth floor of your practice room in your hive; your toe pushes aside worn volcanic rock and bounces on the rough. You barely notice; it’s been a long time since you practiced on your crabdad or air.
Right now is the calmest you ever are, and you’re still furious: angry at the imps, angry at this planet, angry at sidequests, and angry at Terezi. But your world narrows down one of you, fifteen of them.
You raise your sickles and your eyes; three flying imps. You’ll take those ones first before they dump poison on your head.
==>Karkat: jeté.
This game has turned your legs into monsters. You take a four-foot leap and wedge your sickle into the joint between an imp’s neck and torso; it makes an awful, pathetic sound (all the ones that look like Tavros’ lusus do) and it’s black smoke.
You spot your landing by dropping your eyes, not your chin; a crab imp scuttles towards the spot, snapping its claws wide. You land lightly on the balls of your right foot, bending your knee into impact, left extended behind you, and put the weight of your fall behind your right arm.
One clawed arm goes flying off; with a twist, the point of your scythe is buried in its head, and it’s gone.
Behind you, a tentacled thing has thrown its octopus arms at your extended left toes.
==>Karkat: attitude pirouette.
You whip your foot back and out of the way, swinging your left arm back to compensate without looking in a backwards arc.
The tentacle monster beheads itself on your weapon.
When you arc your left foot forward to arabesque position, you kick a spider-8itch monster in the fangs. It hisses and falls back. You smirk into your collar.
Three monsters down in three seconds of combat; these things are lower-level than you thought. If they weren’t game constructs - if these were musclebeasts or barkbeasts on Alternia - the remainder of the pack would flee by now, or feast on the carcasses of the fallen instead of you.
Instead they swarm in tighter, eager to die, because that’s their only function: to give you boondollars and level hikes.
==>Karkat: Fouetté en tournant.
You spin.
This used to make you dizzy until you figured out to focus on one point every revolution; now you’re just immune to the nausea because your planet already makes you too fucking sick to feel any worse.
The imps throw themselves at you. You slice, stab, and kick them away, turning, always turning, sighting each one before it can get close enough to break your skin, rising a little more on your toes with every full spin.
==>Karkat: En pointe pirouette.
Well that might have been a little stupid. You have shoes for this, lost somewhere hopelessly in your encryption modus, but as it is your toes hold out for half a turn before your curl them over. You feel friction heat a second before the leather tears and you’re twisting on bare knuckles against obsidian rock.
To be honest you barely notice; your right sickle has a half-cut-open imp trapped in it, and with a sharp flick you throw it into a rocky outcropping. It dies with a little squawking noise.
At the same time one of the last of the flying beasts zings by your ear, too close for comfort, its wings buzzing.
You’re going to kill that thing on principle. Specifically, the principle that anything that reminds you of Sollux’s bees pisses you off.
==>Karkat: Back layout and half-twist.
Troll society doesn’t have gymnasts. If they did you’d be at a Troll Olympics level of height on that leap.
You’ve never thought of yourself as strong or powerful, not with characters like Equius around to compare yourself to. You’ve never in your life thought to weigh yourself. But at this point, you’re pretty much what anyone would call ‘wiry’.
This is not a valued trait in troll society. But good riddance to it if they couldn’t appreciate your pas de poisson; your horns and heels are within a couple of feet of each other before you whip your legs over your head, spotting the flying imps below you.
Their backs are defenseless. You cut one’s wings off; the other, buzzing angrily in your face, you hook into your sickle.
When you hit the ground, it’s crushed between the flat of your blade and the rock.
Silence, except for your breathing. Your legs shake a little from the sudden exertion; a deep longing cuts into your blood pusher for a brief moment as you miss flailing your ash-stained sickles at your lusus.
It’s your fault he’s dead; you have no right to mourn. Besides, he’s technically hovering around your hive now, able to talk, but once the game is over you’ll never see him again. You really suck.
You notice that you’ve scraped all the skin off the knuckles of your foot. No big deal because you’re alo—
Wait, no, Terezi is coming to meet you.
Shit.
==>Karkat: Elevé.
Just ahead you can see, now that the required sidequest battle is over, a golden chest sparkling against the rock and painfully out of place. It actually glitters even though the light of the Green Sun barely penetrates the reddish fog-haze of your planet.
You rise smoothly, looking away from the prize, and glare balefully at the blood-water; you can hear the scuffling sounds of Terezi making her way across the rocky shore, humming something tuneless and terrible.
Then, with a deep breath and grimace, you throw yourself into the red sea.
==>Terezi: Arrive just in time.
You come around the corner at the same time as you hear a splash.
Karkat is in trouble! Well, not really. With a sniff you can smell he’s flailing in the blood that makes up the lakes all over Pulse and Haze, which is not a sweet smell. The scent of the color is overwhelmed by the iron filaments that saturate everything here. “Fuck, fuck!” he swears, and you cackle; you can’t help yourself.
“Looks like I arrived just when you needed me!” you say, and take your time coming to where Karkat has stilled in the shadows. You can smell the angry lines between his brows, the downturn of his mouth, the bags under his eyes - the stench of exhaustion. “Clumsy as ever.”
“I can get up myself, thanks,” Karkat snaps, but he accepts your offered hand anyway. “I didn’t need you at all. As you can clearly see - smell - the stupid sidequest is over. The badguys are all dead. You have shown up during the boring conclusion in the worst movie ever, where the audience is pelting the screen with grubcorn and soft fruit and demanding some sort of satisfying resolution be offered, such as the death of the director.” He says most of this in one breath. He has a crazy lung capacity.
You can smell sweat under all that iron; and warm musky scent of Karkat’s weird, soft shoes; there is a slight whiff - just a small one - of proper cherry-red.
Karkat is a pretty good liar, you have to admit, but nothing gets past your nose. But that is a conversation for another time! For now you will play along.
“I suppose I will have to satisfy myself with being the dastardly dame that rides in at the last minute, sweeping off with the hero’s prize,” you say, turning towards a champagne-flavored gold chest.
“Hey, hell no, I’m taking that back to Kanaya’s planet. You can stay here and sniff cherry all day if you want,” Karkat retorts, elbowing you aside. You shrug and let him.
==>Karkat: Claim prize.
You’re not sure you’ve got Terezi as fooled as she pretends. She’s annoyingly smart and she likes to play stupid games for girls, so who knows.
As you bend towards the chest, you almost wish Terezi would ask.
But she doesn’t, and you’re so embarrassingly bad at combat, so that’s just—
—fine.
fin