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Karkat woke up in a classroom. It was a human classroom, but not that he’d know that, since “schools” on Alternia were much different. But Karkat could tell he wasn’t on Alternia, since the atmosphere here was lighter, and much thinner. It was getting a little difficult for him to breathe. He stood up, fought his way around a bunch of small tables and chairs (seriously, who needed so many little ones?), and made it out into the hallway. There, he saw Nepeta and Tavros exiting rooms of their own.
“Does anyone have one fucking idea what’s going on here?” he asked loudly.
“N-not at all. Did you wake up in a room, with a lot of smallish, useless tables, and chairs?” Tavros asked back. Karkat nodded emphatically, and Tavros wondered at the strange workings of this mysterious place. Suddenly, the PA system crackled alive with static. A horribly scratchy voice cleared its throat and began to speak.
“Attention students, report to the gymnasium immediately! Your orientation starts there!” Tavros and Nepeta shrugged and looked to Karkat, naturally deferring to the leader of the group. Karkat swelled with pride, but only a little bit. It made him woozy. He took a few deep mouth breaths, and motioned at his companions to leave.
After like ten minutes of wandering around and not knowing where the fuck they were going, they finally staggered towards the gymnasium. They would have walked straight past it, had Nepeta not scented the air and seen a pair of blue wings slip through the door.
“It looks like Vriska’s here too, let’s go!” she cried, dragging Tavros and Karkat with her. As they burst through the doors, the other nine trolls turned to look at them. Various expressions of panic and annoyance were displayed as the black and white bear standing on a podium cackled.
“Well well well, it seems like the class has all shown up! Welcome, one and all to Hope’s Peak Academy! You are this school 79th class; I hope we have a great year together!” A great deal of confusion was expressed by the listening audience, since none of them knew what an “academy” was.
“This place is going to be your home for quite a while, so you might as well get yourself acquainted with the place! We have such amenities as a cafeteria, a library, a pool, for you swimmers out there, dormitories, and a recreation room!”
“What the fuck’re you goin’ on about? Where are we?” Eridan shouted, shocking the bear.
“Eh, what do you mean? You’re at Hope’s Peak Academy, in Japan!” the bear insisted.
“What the hell is a Japan?” Vriska asked. The bear started sweating.
“N-never mind any of this!” I am your headmaster, Monobear! This is your school now, and guess what? You’re all trapped here! Not one of you will leave this school ever again!” The declaration was met with a lot of blank stares. Monobear hurried his explanation along.
“You will all be trapped in this school for the rest of your lives! There is one way out, though. If you’d like to graduate, you must kill a classmate and not be found out!” This declaration was met with more blank stares. Terezi’s voice found its way out of the crowd.
“What is this, like a preparatory academy? Is the Condesce trying to get us to kill even sooner? What’s with forcing kids to grow up so quickly nowadays?” Monobear seemed terribly confused by this.
“You were already being raised to kill? W-what are you all talking about? Does this not shock and terrify you? Do you need some motivation, or perhaps some punishment? Stop staring at me like that!”
“Mmhm, excuse me Mr. Monobear. Do you know what species we are?” Feferi piped up.
“Humans, aren’t you?!” he cried out. Feferi shook her head sadly.
“We have grey skin, and horns! How did that not tip you off?” she exclaimed. The bear put his head in his paws.
“I’m colorblind! And I thought the candy corn was just a dumb fad you bastards are going through!” Gamzee chuckled amiably, as he always did.
“Your transportalizer missing a screw, my brother?” he asked. Monobear shook his head and made a staticy noise. He fell face-first onto the podium, and rolled around and moaned agonizingly. This went on for several uncomfortable minutes. When he popped up again, he had a renewed vigor about him.
“Alright bastards, listen up. You are gonna engage in the good old-fashioned High School Life of Mutual Killing or I’ll kill you all myself. One by one, slowly, in all the executions I have set up. See what kind of despair that causes,” he said, and his calm words seemed to draw the attention of everyone in the room.
Well, almost everyone. Kanaya, ever the sensible and intelligent one, had been trying to catch Vriska’s eye for quite some time. Ever since killing had been brought up, she knew it would be unavoidable. And since it seemed the strange bear knew nothing about Alternia, he probably didn’t know anything about Sgrub either. Vriska fluttered her wings in annoyance, but conceded to eye contact with the jadeblood. Vriska was very aware Kanaya wanted to kill her to prove to Monobear that they would do what he wanted, but she wasn’t quite sure that she was up to it. She scanned the room, and saw Aradia standing prim and proper and seeming very interested in descriptions of murder Monobear was talking about. Vriska motioned at the lowblood with her eyes emphatically at Kanaya. She held up her hand as if holding her dice, and faked-rolled them in the other god tier’s direction. Kanaya seemed to consider it before shrugging slightly.
Aradia turned around, seeming to notice that she was being thought about. She smiled charmingly at Vriska, who made a motion that seemed to say ‘Okay, okay, this sounds crazy but hear me out.’ Aradia watched patiently. Vriska made the dice-rolling motion at Aradia again, and made a jabby motion that implied she would die. She then pointed at Kanaya, who pretended to chainsaw Vriska in half. The lowblood considered it for a moment before shrugging and nodding happily. Vriska fist-pumped. But the cycle wasn’t quite complete yet.
She flickered eight pupils over to Sollux, and looked back to Kanaya and made a little explodey motion with her hands. Kanaya flinched. Vriska wanted to kill her too, and she could concede to that only due to her rainbow drinker status. It was sort of unfair though. Vriska and Aradia could just pop back to life in no time at all, but Kanaya would have to heal back slowly from being electrocuted. If that’s what it took though, she would do it.
It seemed as though Monobear had been describing gruesome ways in which to kill the trolls for quite some time, but the girls’ business wasn’t quite done yet. They both stared at the back of Sollux until he slapped at the nape of his neck and turned slightly to look at them. Kanaya took out her tube of lipstick and made a jabbing motion at Vriska, who stuck out her tongue and closed her eyes. The blueblood then pointed at Sollux and made a sparkly motion with her hands, which she aimed at Kanaya, who also played dead but much less convincingly. He looked at them like they were crazy for a while. They listened for a moment to Monobear’s description of how he’d kill “the wimpy metal one.” It was a little harder to hear now, since everyone was panting louder than before. The thin air on Earth wasn’t doing them much good. Sollux sighed, followed by a few deeper breathes, and waved his hand at Kanaya as a go-ahead.
But Vriska went first. She pulled her dice out, giving Aradia an evil look. Aradia decided to play along and beg for her life.
“Vriska, what are you doing? Why do you have your dice out? Vriska, NO-!” Vriska had already rolled her dice when Aradia started protesting, and they slowly settled into the combination that equaled death by stabbings. Out of nowhere, a dozen spears stabbed their ways through Aradia’s body, one by one until she was suspended in the air, limp and momentarily lifeless. The reactions from around the crowd started out with general surprise, morphed into sudden understanding, and became faked shock. Anything to fool Monobear and help the cause.
The jadeblood cried out in fake anguish. She had never been really close to Aradia, but she seemed to be a nicer gal when not a ghost. She uncapped her lipstick and rammed it into the girl standing next to her. Vriska did a great deal of shrieking and flailing to make it seem like she was actually surprised, or going to die.
Kanaya shook Vriska’s body off her lipstick. Everyone listened to the ‘splat’ as silently as possibly. The heavy breathing wasn’t very silent. Kanaya, with shaky hands, applied the lipstick neatly. She made eye contact with Monobear and licked the blue off her lips. He seemed to be in shock. He also seemed to not notice that Aradia’s god tier powers were fighting to bring her back to life, but she kept dying as a result of a spear in all her internal organs.
Sollux turned around, puffing himself up. “Kanaya, how dare you!” he shouted. He was a bad actor. She rolled her eyes.
“This is no time for theatrics, Sol-!”Her derision was cut off by Sollux activated his psionics and blasting her with a dual optic hit. She screamed just to be convincing, although it did hurt like a bitch. Her body was raised a few feet in the air, and then she crumpled and hit the floor. Sollux turned to Monobear, sliding his glasses back onto his face. “Am I free to go now, have I won?” It wasn’t as suave as he wanted it to be. He was panting as though he had just run a marathon. As if someone flipped a switch (someone probably did), Monobear snapped out of his shock. He didn’t notice Vriska’s sudden reawakening, or Kanaya’s shifting in her uncomfortable position on the floor.
“You all are crazy, all of you! How could you just kill so mercilessly, with no motivation?! You’re all animals, monsters! I’m afraid to be in this school with you! Someone, get me out!!” Monobear screamed. As if someone had heard him, a trap door suddenly appeared off to the side of the podium. Monobear opened it up and jumped down, his last words “Sayonara, bastards!” echoing in the gym. The silence-except-for-oxygen-starved-heavy-breathing was held for a few moments before Equius grunted and fell to the floor, gasping and holding his head in his shaky hands. Nepeta and Feferi rushed over to coddle him. Karkat knew it was his responsibility as a leader to find a way for he and his fellow trolls to breathe before they died. He stared off into space, space being Feferi. Specifically, her gills. They weren’t functioning right now, but they fluttered occasionally, as if trying to draw some air out of…
“THE POOL!” Karkat shouted. Everyone looked at him like he was crazy. Gamzee, having a great understanding for how his moirail’s mind worked, walked over to the mutant and clapped a hand on his shoulder.
“You’re a genius, my brother,” he whispered. He turned back to the other trolls, all crowded around Equius now, and said “He’s right. You know how water is thicker than air? Miraculous, and the solution to our motherfuckin’ problem!” The other trolls looked at the pair with a vague sort of understanding. It sort of confused them when Gamzee made sense. Nonetheless, they all crowded out the door and found their way to the pool.
There weren’t pools, per say, on Alternia. Some highbloods owned small, walled-off sections of the ocean in case they were entertaining seadwelling dignitaries. But there weren’t many of those, considering most seadwellers would never set foot in a lower troll’s dirty, stagnant cess pool. That’s how Karkat, and by extension Gamzee, assumed what an Earth pool was, by the similar names.
The pool was very different from the cess pools of Alternia. It was clean, had a slight current, and was criss-crossed with some floaty ropey shit. Feferi, ever the water-loving sea dweller, was the first to jump in. After detangling herself from the floaty ropey shit, she delivered her verdict.
“It’s so… not thick, and bittersweet! But it’s still water, you all should jump in!” she said delightedly, diving under again and taking a lap around the pool. Equius was unceremoniously rolled into the water, and when he resurfaced he was breathing a little easier. Everyone stripped down to various degrees and jumped in. Except for Aradia, Kanaya, and Vriska. They made their way to the showers to clean up. No one really wanted to swim in a pool of blood, not even Kanaya. Eridan, refusing to disrobe, dipped a hand in the water. He hissed and pulled back, pacing circles around the pool instead.
The water was thicker than the air they were used to, but thinner than Alternian water, but better than Earth air. For many of the trolls, this was their first time swimming. Feferi started up a lesson of sorts for Sollux, Nepeta, Terezi and Karkat. It was difficult for her to teach something she was born knowing how to do, but she got it eventually. And so did they. As the previously murdered girls came back and worried about how their wings and undergarments would react with the water, Sollux doggy paddled over to where Karkat was currently treading water.
“Hey, Kk, we should get Ed into the water,” he said, struggling to keep his head above the water. Karkat just sort of stared at him.
“Why, so you can have a caliginous splash fight or whatever?” Karkat scoffed, trying to cross his arms but almost sinking. He swam back towards the pool wall, Sollux following.
“No, fuck you. I’m just concerned. Everyone’s been in the water already and closer to not dying, but he hasn’t. He’s slowed down since he started pacing and he sounds like a dust annihilator being turned on and off,” Sollux explained, trying not to look at the highblood in question. He was indeed gasping in a way that sounded like the noisiest of cleaning equipment.
“Not my problem. If the nookwipe wants to die rather than indulge in some Grade F Earthian Water, it’s not my duty to throw him in,” Karkat explained. Sollux rolled his eyes, and pulled out the big guns.
“It’s your duty as our leader to make sure we don’t die,” the yellowblood said. Karkat squinted at his friend.
“You, pulling my rank on me. What a ridiculous fucking universe we live in,” Karkat said disparagingly. Gamzee, overhearing the conversation, drifted over slowly.
“Karkat, I’ve got to say I motherfuckin’ agree. We can’t afford to lose a single pal to this crazy atmosphere.” Gamzee did not turn his head or even look at his friends; he just kept staring at the ceiling. Karkat sighed loudly, dunking himself under one more time. He intended to go over and talk to Eridan when he resurfaced, but instead smashed his head against something terribly solid and metallic that very nearly knocked him out. The terribly solid and metallic thing was also pulling him down with it, and in his near-unconscious there was little Karkat could do about it.
Sollux and Gamzee managed to drag Karkat and the terribly solid and metallic thing back to the surface. The thing turned out to be Tavros, who had been walking around the perimeter of the pool and slipped and fell in above submerged Karkat. After the two lowbloods coughed up a lot of water, and Karkat decided the lump on his head probably wouldn’t kill him, the three amigos started working on their plan to get Eridan in the water. The three became four as they filled in Tavros, who was floating on his back in the water with his legs hooked over the side of the pool. He said he didn’t have much to add, but he didn’t intend on moving for a while.
As the boys sat there and brainstormed, Feferi noticed the absence of a few of her students. She scanned the pool and saw them all in the deep end corner, looking like a cross between constipated and contemplative. Contempstipated. She made her way over to the corner and scared the metaphorical shit out of everyone when she popped out of the water.
“You boys look like you’re thinking hard about something,” she said cheerily. The four shrugged in unison. How creepy but indicative of their closeness as a group.
“Eridan’s killing himself by being a water snob,” Sollux said off-handedly. Feferi sighed and put her head in her hands. She would have done a megane(kko) thing like pushing up her goggles but they’re fucking goggles they can’t be pushed up any higher.
“He’s always been such a diva. Spending 99.99% of his life outside of the water and all. I think you guys are the ones who can get him back into the water! I believe in you~!” she explained. The four boys nodded sagely. If they wanted him in their pool and by extension their friendships, they would have to do something super-dramatic and swim-related. They waited around and shot the shit until Eridan’s current lap around the pool made it to their deep-end corner.
Eridan’s attempt to be rude and condescending to Tavros by stepping on his robo-legs failed when he tripped and stumbled, landing face-first on the concrete with his ass in the air. He blushed hard enough to make it look like someone had laid an eggplant across his delicate cheekbones. Or an aubergine, if you’re into that sort of thing. He stood up huffily, flipping his cape around to make himself seem bigger. Feferi laughed at him, setting her chin on the edge to stare up at him.
“Eridan, you’re dying. Please get in the water,” she pleaded, batting her eyelashes for extra emphasis. He scoffed, swishing his cape one more time.
“I would rather die… than set foot in a… horrid cess pool like this!” he announced. Everyone already knew this and paid him no mind. His proclamation was punctuated by spluttery, heavy gasps that were painful to listen to. Feferi shook her head like a five year old had just called her a ‘doodoo head.’
“Don’t be such a drama queen, Eridan! This is so much nicer than all the cess pools I’ve ever been in. You can see the bottom, there’s a nice current going, and it’s not littered with skeletons or dead bodies! We don’t want you to die, silly. You might be a huge basshole, but we still want you around!” Feferi’s speech did nothing to move Eridan emotionally or physically. After a few moments, he took another step, intending to walk away. Sollux called for him to stop, and prepare for an emotional monologue.
“You’re a bulgemunch. A nookwhiff. Basically a living waste chute, given all the shit you spew. But you’re our bad person who isn’t necessarily a bad person. If you actually fucking die because you’re too much of a stuck-up prissy highblood to put yourself in a filthy landdwellers pool, it will go down in history and people will laugh themselves to death every time they hear the name “Eridan Ampora.” That’s definitely not an illustrious military career. None of us here can swim for you. I can’t swim for you. You have to learn to swim for yourself. If getting you in the water means I have to engage in some stupid black-flirting splash fight, so be it. What do you say?” Sollux held one hand out to Eridan. He stared at it for a moment. His fins fluttered once.
“I don’t need your fake fuckin’ caliginous advances, you mudlubber,” he sneered. As he was about to walk away and leave everyone heartbroken, Feferi’s hand shot out of the water and grabbed Eridan by the skinny ankle. She pulled him into the water with amazing strength and held him under, laughing the whole time.
“Bitches say shit, and they ain’t saying nuthin’ a hundred muthafuckas can’t tell me nuthin’,” Feferi said joyfully, putting on a pair of sweet shades and making out with Equius because he’s the only guy left to serve as the Mikoshiba Seijuurou to her Kou Matsuoka.
The crowd cheered, just like the end of Evangelion. Yeah, you know what I’m talking about. Look it up on Youtube if you don’t. Eridan was relieved of his cape and scarf and actually began enjoying himself, the trolls lived at Hope’s Peak for an undisclosed amount of time, the story ended, and the mic dropped.