Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"WELL THEN FUCK YOU AND THE HOOFBEAST YOU ROAD IN ON"

A young troll sits at his desk, having just concluded a quite well-articulated screaming session over an internet chat client. This troll, Karkat Vantas, has just been informed by one of his friends that they are working to reverse-engineer a video game they had found decorating the walls of some ancient ruin or whatever.

Karkat's rage, in this situation, primarily came from the fact he already knew this game was coming to begin with, and had been dreading it for half a sweep.

A couple sweeps ago, Karkat had on a whim decided to go searching for information on whoever the fuck had had the misfortune of spawning him into this retched existence, and what he'd found had certainly been interesting: He was some ancient forest warlock or the like, fighting against the oppressive hemospectrum with supernatural powers and dangerous occult knowledge.

According to the dark web message boards he was able to scrape this information from, he had been really powerful too. So much that Her Imperius Condescension had to show up to finally cull him.

All in all, the information had only made Karkat more afraid of getting found out even more somehow.

A few pedigrees after that, an old crate had spontaneously found itself on the stoop of Karkat's hive: its contents? A bunch of old antique magic junk, pretty much everything one needed to learn witchcraft. Who the hell sent it? - He still has no idea. Clearly Sollux had been wrong when he said the stuff Karkat was using to mask his deep web searches was not as "completely untraceable" as Sollux had described it to him as. The entire situation creeped him the fuck out, but he guessed that the fact whomever it is had sent this hunk of junk instead of calling in drones meant he wasn’t in any danger. Probably.

With trepidation, Karkat did find himself dragging the heavy crate up the stairs of his hive up to his respitblock to have a rifle through, and he found himself absent-mindedly flicking through the pages of one of many heavy tome that smelled of pungeant herbs he was not at all familiar with. And, on a whim, had recited one of the simpler incantations…

Holy shit… magic is real…

And so, despite having half-a-mind to throw out all his rubbish, he decided to make a decision to actively start practicing the stuff. After all he was already cullbait for any imperial drone who spotted a drop of his ghastly mutated blood, so why not throw some banned practices onto the big pile of barkbeastshit that was his existence. He'd never been good at any of this coding stuff anyway.

Magic didn't completely overtake his life - he still acted the same, still dreamed of becoming a legendary Threshecutioner, still spent half of his time making sure his lusus didn’t eat everything in the thermal hull again. It just became another part of his messy, confusing life.

Completely normal, except for the fact it gave him immense amount of power over reality, enough to probably beat most other trolls in a fight if it came to it - it never actually had, so far. Karkat would’ve been outed and culled long ago if he didn’t know how to stay out of trouble, and using any amount of magic was grounds to have a squadron of imperial shock drones glass an entire subgrub. So no, he had not told anyone about this, not even hid online friends.

But he still studied it all in the privacy of your own hive. And, while he had nobody else to measure it against, he wound consider himself with smug satisfaction as being pretty good at it. The incantations would flow from his coarse throat like a river of crystal clear water, drawing out the energies of himself and the universe; The magic literally flowing from him fingertips. It made him feel in control of his own life for the first time in ages. Unlike that game we were talking about earlier, which did not make him feel in control at-fucking-all.

Story aside, this game was a problem. Karkat had discovered it during a routine divination session just to make sure he’d make it another few days. Discovering that on your sixth wriggling day the entire planet was going to be destroyed by meteors was, obviously, a big pill to swallow.

Much to your chagrin, all the signs are glaringly obvious. Every crystal ball, every tarot spread screams the same thing: you have to play this stupid game, or you die - and nevertheless that there will be an increasing amount of chances to die once you are in the game, but it’s either that or die with the rest of trollkind. What a fucking bummer.

He'd tried to subvert fate, sure. But every ritual he tried in an attempt to alter fate in his favor came out a dud. It seemed this was a fixed point in the fate of the universe; Which meant he was gonna have to call Sollux back.

If this game is going to be played whatever, you are gonna be one of the idiots playing it.

Chapter Text

Your name is KARKAT VANTAS and you have just about 30 minutes ago managed to enter the medium, moments before a giant fucking meteor could decimate your hive. The lusus that raised you is now a holographic seizure-ghost that speaks only in riddles, which is strange because he couldn’t speak at all before.

Your tearful reunion with your recently deceased crabdad is currently being interrupted by one Terezi Pyrope taking it upon herself to remove your load gaper from your hygiene block and plant it down in front of you.

"SM3LLS PR3TTY T3RR1BL3!" she chortles as septic bile leaks out onto what’s left of your lawnring.

Yeah, it does smell fucking bad, maybe it wouldn’t if you hadn’t RIPPED IT OUT OF THE WALL. You can practically see her smirking at you over Trollian.

You are at your limit with this girl. Enough that… maybe… it’s not like drones can reach you here, wherever "here" exactly is… so screw it.

You scrunch your eyes shut and begin chanting, a long droning incantation in a long-dead language. An invisible energy swirls itself around the load gaper, and it begins to levitate off of the ground, propelled into the air by mystic powers.

Now to just lift it back up to- goddammit! Out of nowhere, a glowing blue cursor appears and grasps the load gaper too, pulling it in a tug-of-war with you. Whatever the circumstance, Terezi is clearly unwilling to abandon her newly-found control over your living space.

"Wow, k4rk4t, you'r3 m4king scr33n t4st3s lik3 p4ssionfruit". Okay, so magic apparently "tastes" like passionfruit. Good to know. Only someone like Terezi could discover her friend has been practicing occult rites forbidden by imperial decree and instead still be fixated on licking her monitor.

"I DONT CARE WHAT YOUR LITTLE WRIGGLER BRAIN THINKS COLOURS TASTE LIKE", you retort. "LET GO OF MY LOAD GAPER".

Instead of typing up a response, Terezi just starts tugging at the load gaper even more incessantly, and you in turn focus more and more of your energy on pulling it your way. With the sound of tearing chitin, the gaper finally rips in two, dumping a burning, acidic pile of metabolic waste plummeting to the ground.

"Whoops, th3r3 it go3s" Terezi chortles.

Your rage reaches its zenith and you feel a massive burst of pent-up magic release from your mind. And elsewhere, in another plane of reality, Terezi Pyrope falls off of her chair.

"Ow, k4rk4t, th4t’s no f4ir" she chides, in a falsely-pouty tone.

"WELL ITS WHAT YOU FUCKING DESERVE"

"h3h3h3"

About a few seconds after you finally convince Terezi to start playing the game properly and start building your hive up, a bunch of little green monsters with claws like your lususes started showing up. It’s likely they're supposed to be the "enemies" of this game, and their main strategy seems to be to annoy the shit out of you.

And it’s fucking working.

You don’t waste magic on these fuckers - just because you have it doesn’t mean you're not deadly enough with your sickles. These things go down in just a few cuts, turning into piles of candied whatever.

Currently, Terezi is likely fearing for her life, dragging the corpse of her newly-born and newly-deceased lusus back to her treehive - a treehive which has a massive meteorite barreling towards it which will certainly kill her unless Gamzee finally gets off his stoned ass and starts playing the damn game. But, you don’t know about any of that, so your just pissed Terezi is taking so long.

While seething with your thoughts, suddenly, the ground starts to shake. You look over the side of your steadily-growing hive and see two absolutely massive freaks-of-nature climbing up towards you like thumb-mammals climbing a treestalk; Even the imps seem to be scared of them, running out of sight as they clamber upwards.

Those gigantic behemoths definitely seem like bigger threats to you. The game, whatever its purpose is, was now ramping up the difficulty for him.

You barely manage to slide out of the way before a massive hand comes down where you had been a split second ago. You swipe at one of its big, meaty claws with your sickle, but it merely chinks against its thick carapace. These things are going to take a lot more than the common imp.

The two of them begin attacking together, but luckily your learned athletic skills are sufficient enough to dodge out of the way of their strikes and pincerings. Their swiping claws have managed to take massive chunks out of your uppermost hive-layer.

When you reach the edge of your roof, the equidistant farthest point away from both of them, you slow down and try to concentrate. You need time, and a distraction - It’s time for the fucking magic to happen!

You quickly begin the process of casting a spell, stirring up the mana within you and stringing it out with your thoughts. There is a flash, and a swirling of mist, and suddenly there are multiple of you. The two ogres glance down at the dozens of identical Karkat's, not knowing which one to strike.

As one ogre bashes its claws into the building, you and your illusory doubles scatter; they work to distract the ogres with meaningless attacks while you, the real Karkat, slink away to a corner and begin to chant. In a twisted tongue you invoke old gods and horrorterrors to strengthen you, and in one quick burst of magic the hivecrete below one of the ogres comes to life, writhing upwards and forming around the ogre as binding chains.

The other ogre, seeing the magical energy still wafting from your fingers, lunges at you like an arena stickball player with 5 seconds left on the ticking machine. The collision flings you off your hive - quickly, you manage to dig one of your sickles into the crumbling sidelayer of your hive, slowing your descent.

As you hang there, you see the ogre staring down at you. It begins stamping its foot down, trying to turn your hive into wallstuffing so you fall to your death. Steadying yourself the best you can, you begin drawing up as much magic as you possibly can. And with the shout of a language not spoken for hundreds of solar sweeps, the massive beast finds itself frozen in a block of ice.

Just as you finish up collecting the metric ton of grist those two ogres dropped, your palmhusk pings with a notification - Terezi is back online.

"WELL GUESS WHOSE BACK. OH, WHAT WAS I UP TO? NOTHING, JUST FIGHTING FOR MY MISERABLE LIFE AGAINST TWO GIANT FUCKING ABOMINATIONS, WHAT ABOUT YOU"

"W3ll, i w4s 4lso trying not to di3" she replies, "W3r3 th3ir r34lly gi4nts? th3r3’s no w4y you b34t th3m both up without m3"

"I DID AMAZING AT IT, SO OF COURSE YOU WOULD MISS THE WHOLE FUCKING THING" you say, your magic flaring up around you again

"H3h3h3, th3 p4ssionfruit goodn3ss is b4ck"

You viscously concentrate on trying to make her fall off her chair again.

Chapter Text

Your name is KARKAT VANTAS and the world is mocking you.

More specifically, this planet is mocking you. The Land of Pulse and Haze, a sick joke - a planet that runs with rivers of your own filthy, cursed blood just to torment you. It pisses you off. If you ever manage to meet whatever cosmic being invented this stupid game, you will most definitely find a way to cut off their bulge.

Your hive gets tall enough to reach the first of seven gates, you hop through and what do you find? More of your own fucking stupid-ass candy red blood! This planet has oceans of it!

Unlike the lonely outcropping of vantablack stone your hive was transported onto, these islands are connected by bridges with towers between them, all made of the same black substance and practically dripping with blood and bile. How wonderful.

You travel on the bridges since there’s really nowhere else to go, killing an army’s worth of cannon-fodder imps as they come at you. Eventually the tedium is broken up when you suddenly find something other than an underling; Your not sure what it is, but it looks like some kind of burrowgrowler - or, as it is known in highblood dialects a skink.

"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU", you growl with your usual intensity.

The weird bipedal lizard creature turns to you. "SMICK SMICK SMICK!", it chants, like a bizarre cry. "That is the Great Hole! But don’t worry, one destined to close the "Great Hole" will soon arrive! SMICK SMICK!", the skink joyfully proclaims, completely ignoring your actual fucking question.

It gestures towards something far away in the distance, above the massive sea of blood. If you squint, you can make it out - a portal, like the one above your hive, except this one has blood gushing out of it like a hose. It looks small from here, but you can tell it must be massive up close.

"SMICK SMICK SMICK! When Shezmu arrived to this land, he opened a grand gateway, pouring down the blood spilled up on Skaia! Only the Knight can possibly force him to close it!"

"WHO THE HELL IS THE KNIGHT?"

"SMICK SMICK SMICK!", it repeats. "They are the hero that will get Shezmu to close the "Great Hole", of course!"

"THATS WHAT YOU JUST SAID! CAN YOU GIVE A DESCRIPTION OF THE GUY, ANY NOTICEABLE DETAILS!"

"Oh i've never seen him! Nobody has! But he’s gonna make Shezmu regret coming to this planet when he-"

"THEN YOUR USELESS! YOU CAN SHUT THE FUCK UP NOW IF THATS THE ONLY THING YOU KNOW"

"Okay!" It says with much enthusiasm, "I will shut the fuck up! SMICK SMICK SMICK!"

After whatever the fuck that conversation was, you continue on, down the crumbling black cobblestone viaducts linking tower to tower, killing any imps you see as you go, until you happen upon a tower bigger than any of the others, crawling with imps and liches.

The liches are stronger than imps, strong enough for you to have to use your magic on them. With one hand you decapitate one of them with your sickle, while from your other hand you expel a blast of great light that turns another lich to dust; there are a hell of a lot of them but eventually you make it inside.

The central chamber is made of the same black stone, with a canal of blood flowing through it. Suspended over the canal, just floating there, is some sort of large crest made from solid iron, with something inscribed on it.

You instantly recognise the inscriptions - basic magical glyphs, the alchemical sort. You concentrate and begin to project waves of subtle magic outwards, towards the crest.

At its prompting, the glyphs begin to activate, as you expected. The iron instantly transmutes itself, becoming a blob of crystal clear water which immediately splashes down into the river of blood, mixing with it as if it was never there.

You really can’t see what the fucking point of doing that was, but you go up a few rungs of the echeladder. Apparently meaningless quests are the name of the game now; you can tell that you’re going to get bored of this shit very quickly.

Now, finally, you have some downtime, so you settle down on one of the roomier islands and start setting up a few things. Instead of trying and failing to use your jank-ass Encryption Modus, you use your magic to summon to you the supplies you need from your hive.

You begin with a tarot spread, but its results are the same as the last seven times you checked - nothing but doom and gloom in your future, it seems.

Next comes some simple rituals, like for luck and success and whatnot; not particularly powerful, but still helpful, and if the tarot is to be believed you'll need all the saving graces you can get.

The next is the hardest part for you: meditation.

Meditation is an important part of magic. Through focus and dedication you can strengthen your aura, increasing the amount of magical energy you can output. However, you find the process of meditating completely and utterly infuriating.

It’s not that you can’t concentrate, it’s just that you find anger make your magic stronger than calmness does. Your hate fuels you, like in one of those old space operas. But alas, increasing your power will most definitely be necessary for what comes next.

You get into a kneeling position, making yourself as comfortable as possible as you close your eyes and begin forcefully clearing your mind. You try to just envision nothing but blackness in your minds eye, but there is a creeping discomfort around you.

As you clear your mind of thoughts and open yourself up to the universe, a single feeling begins to intensify - it feels like you’re being watched

In another plane of existence, the First Guardian of this world stands in his study as always, silently contemplating, on a moon somehow untouched by the destruction of the planet below it. Doc Scratch is a pragmatic mind, and unseen variables do not suit him.

He had spent a long time before the game even began rooting out anyone whom even had the slightest chance of compromising the plans of his master. The Team Charge Debacle was the most of it, leaving several players whom would’ve been amongst the most powerful now heavily wounded or even dead.

However, somehow the young Vantas's studies had gone completely over your pearlescent head-dome, as if some force obscured your wandering gaze from them until now.

Yes, this will need to be dealt with.

Okay, good, so the staring is gone. What the hell was that? Whatever, meditation is stupid anyway, your done for now.

What’s up next? Well, you could go searching for that "knight" guy the consort oh god dammit the knight is you, isn’t it! it’s some kind of magical destiny bullshit! Is that what this game is about? Fighting some guy to stop him dumping blood on a bunch of skinks?

Your next goal should probably be finding the exit portal back to your hive, wherever that is. Well, okay then, time to get going OH FUCK!!!!!!!

A piercing pain shoots through you like a knife! Oh wait, it is a fucking knife! Some guy just FUCKING stabbed you! Some weird alien dude dressed in all back completely took you off guard and now you’re fucking bleeding!

FFUUUUUUUUUCK! Your disgusting, pathetic, mutated blood is fucking pouring out of you! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! You can barely muster a healing spell in a condition like this!

Grasping your back, you turn to properly face your attacker and try to put on a courageous face. And Jack Noir stares down at you with a look of confusion. He really needs to start asking for pay.

Chapter Text

Your name is KARKAT VANTAS and it turns out the guy who stabbed you was pretty cool. The agent, who introduced himself as Jack Noir, took a liking to you and helpfully filled you in on what exactly you’re supposed to be doing - defeating the Black King and Black Queen. He’s written up a plan called OPERATION REGISURP to knock the Black Queen off the board, leaving you and the others to take the Black King.

It also turned out that both teams were in the same session all along, which wasn’t much of a shock to you as the whole magically predicting the future thing kinda clued you into that part.

And then… you failed. You failed to bring Sollux into the medium on time before the Vast Glub fried his insides like oblong meat products. Thankfully, Feferi was able to resurrect him somehow, so no problem. Only you still feel fucking devastated about it. Death is confusing without the finality.

You’ve taken to travelling between planets now, gradually making your way up the escheladder and becoming stronger. You were on Gamzee's planet, the Land of Tents and Mirth, and left Jack there to start doing whatever he plans to do.

Now, you are on a planet you don’t know the name of, but you figure from the order of your entries must be Tavros's. A desert of red-orange sand beneath a scorching yellow sky, the wind only making the heat more direct.

Suddenly, you get that feeling again, even more pronounced than before. You’re being watched.

As you turn to look, their is a flash of green light and a crackling of ozone. There is nothing there, but clearly something was. Weird.

Further into the desert, from over a sand dune, comes a group of imps with worried expressions on all their faces. They’re not trying to attack you, and thanks to the glowing brown dot on their foreheads you can figure out why. They beckon you, so you follow them.

Over the hill, you see a gathering of imps, and even a few ogres. The crowd parts as you near them, and in the middle of them is a shocking sight - Tavros, sprawled out on the ground, wounds leaking bronze onto the sand, his rocket car overturned nearby.

"TAVROS! ARE YOU OKAY? WHAT HAPPENED!"

"mY COMMUNING, dOESN’T WORK, oN BASALISKS", he mutters with pained breath. "vRISKA WAS RIGHT,,, sHE LEFT ME HERE, aND I ALMOST DIED, jUST LIKE SHE SAID I WOULD"

Fucking Vriska. God, you hate her. I mean you hate most people, even those your allegedly friends with, but Vriska is just… the fucking worst. And what is she even trying for with Tavros anyway? She clearly wants it to be romantic, but she's already in a textbook kismesissitude with Terezi, so is she trying to go for red romance? If so, why is she being such a dick to him. It makes not goddamned sense to you, and that’s with an encyclopedic knowledge of troll romance movies.

All you know for certain is that she’s a bitch.

"SHUT UP! IF VRISKA ABANDONED YOU HERE ITS NOT YOUR FAULT, ITS HERS YOU COLOSSAL DUMBASS"

Tavros looks up at you, shocked and confused, but grateful.

You pick him up and use a little magical energy to heal up his cuts and bruises before plopping him back onto his rocket car.

"hEY, kARKAT, hOW,,, dID YOU JUST DO THAT" he mutters, surprised. Clearly the news about you having inexplicable magic powers hadn’t gotten to him yet.

"I'LL EXPLAIN LATER".

You hitch a ride clinging to the back of his rocket car, which makes it a lot easier to travel across the sunbaked planet. Tavros's literal army of underlings are following behind on foot.

"SO WHAT NOW? HOW MANY OF YOUR PLANET'S QUESTS HAVE YOU DONE YET?"

"vRISKA SAID TO JUST SKIP PAST THEM, tHEY'RE MEANINGLESS"

"THATS STUPID", you reply. "SHE JUST DOESN'T WANT YOU TO GET STRONGER"

"rEALLY?"

"YES, REALLY. BECAUSE SHES A BITCH"

A look of confusion, then heavy contemplation comes over Tavros's face for a few moments before changing to an expression of determination. He turns his head to you and says, with mustered courage, "i THINK, i WANT, tO GET STRONGER".

You’re taken aback at the declaration, even though it really isn’t much of a declaration, but you’re proud of him all the same.

A thought crosses your mind - a possibility of something you could do, to help him. Something you never thought you would do. But you can, you totally can… okay, let’s do it.

You concentrate, and a sudden, burning flame appears in the palm of your hand. Tavros looks at it in awe.

"YOU WANTED TO KNOW HOW I DO THINGS LIKE THIS. HOW ABOUT I SHOW YOU"

Your name is TAVROS NITRAM and you have learned a lot. Enough that when you see Vriska again, your anger finally boils over. You're ready to show her what you can do.

"What’s this?", she smirks, "Are you challenging me, Toreadum8ass? Do you really think you can defeat me?"

"yES, i THINK, i MIGHT" you retort with spite, and to her intense shock your arm suddenly bursts into flames.

You do still lose, but seeing the smirk ripped off her face just momentarily is enough for you.

Chapter Text

Your name is KARKAT VANTAS and you have managed to force yourself into meditating for like an hour.

You are really, really bummed out about the whole Sollux dying thing, even though he turned up alive, so you’ve decided you are going to go and apologise to him in person. However, the way the gate system in this game is set up means that Sollux's planet is literally the hardest one for you to get to.

You are going to fly there.

Flying is very much an advanced application of magic. That’s why you have spent so much time stockpiling as much magic as your body can hold, here on top of your now-towering hive.

Okay it’s go time. You begin cloaking yourself in an aura of magic, just like a psionic would. Focus… focus… and we have liftoff!

FSHOOOOOOOOO!

It’s exhilarating! Within seconds, you’ve left the atmosphere and are now soaring through the incipisphere (which thankfully has air in it). You feel so alive! So free!

Then there is a flash of green, a ripping of ozone, and you are gone.

You awake one the floor of an elegant foyer, every surface covered in baize. Backended by the synchronistic ticking of thousands of clocks, a being roughly resembling a man steps forwards.

One of several books you found in your Ancestor's old trunk was some sort of bestiary: a book on gods and horrorterrors and great beings of unknowable magic. Its description were grandiose and flourishing, but not one of them is preparation to really meeting a being of such awesome power. The first guardian; the man in the moon.

He's like nothing you’ve seen before - a cue ball in a well-tailored suit, standing with a poise only available to one in complete control of their situation. On the more metaphysical side of things, you can sense the power radiating from him.

"Karkat Vantas"

"WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU" you say, though you have an inkling of who you’re dealing with.

"I know you already have a small inkling of an idea of who I am, child". God dammit, some idiot who thinks he’s all-knowing. "My name is Doc Scratch, and I am the First Guardian of your home planet".

"IF YOUR ALTERNIA'S GUARDIAN, THEN YOU BETTER'VE BROUGHT ME WHEREVER-THE-FUCK TO SAVE IT BY PUTTING A STOP TO THIS FUCKING GAME OR SO HELP ME GOD"

An echoing chuckling sound emits itself without origin from his bulbous white orb of a head. It’s really creepy actually.

"I am afraid that is not how this works. This game you were formerly a player in is in actuality part of the analogous reproductive cycle of the universe, an act greater than anything you can fathom. My role in the process is, or rather was, to protect the planet from destruction before the reckoning began."

That is a lot to take in. "REPRODUCTION? A NEW UNIVERSE? THATS WHAT THIS FUCKING GAME IS FOR?"

"Yes, indeed it is. Though unfortunately, I will not be allowing you to take part in it."

A sense of dread settles over you like a shadow. "WHAT- WHAT THE FUCK. WHAT DO YOU MEAN!"

"I have certain plans I have been tasked with making come to fruition, and you have risen to be a rather… unexpected variable when it comes to predictable outcomes. Rest assured, the game can still be won without some of its players"

"SO WHAT! I'M SUPPOSED TO JUST FUCKING STAY HERE! BULLSHIT!"

You lunge at him, sickles in prime position, magic energy pulsating across them. Before your sickles can even scratch his bakelite skin, you find yourself violently teleported backwards. You hit the floor with a sickening thud, your sickles clattering to the ground.

"Apologies, but compliance is necessary. Damara, please escort our humble guest to his new sleeping quarters"

On command, a troll enters the room. For just a second, you think it’s Aradia, the resemblance is almost exact, but thinner, and last you heard of Aradia she was in some robo-ghost body or whatever. Whoever she is wears her sign, and looks at you with a combination of frustration and pity.

"私と来て" she says in a language you barely understand. You yell "FUCK OFF!", and she grabs you by the hem of your shirt and pulls you out into the hallway. Doc Scratch closes the door behind you.

"LET GO OF ME YOU DICK-SHITTING WOOLBEAST!"

She continues in silence until she abruptly plops you doen halfway down the corridor, in front of an elegant stained glass window. Oh.

Oh…

Out in the abyss, the eternal star-studded blackness of space, you see your planet… what’s left of it. Every landmass pockmarked with craters, every sea evaporated, rivers of molten slag tearing through it all.

You just can’t handle it. You break down. You cry.

"黙ってろ。"

"FUCK YOU, IM TRYING TO MOURN MY FUCKING PLANET"

You wipe the tears out of your eyes and turn to her. She seems… pitying… actually, she seems disappointed in something.

"彼はあなたをここに留めておくことはできません。"

"THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN?"

"私の運命は私自身のものではありません。あなたの運命はあなた自身のものです。離れる。"

"HELL YEAH MY DESTINY'S MY OWN, BUT THERES NO WAY I CAN ESCAPE THIS FUCKING PLACE! IM NOT EVEN IN THE MEDIUM ANYMORE!"

"あなたはできる。 あなたにはその力があります。 そして彼はあなたが去るのを止めることはできません。"

You’re starting to figure it out. This being is a "guardian", so it is not in his nature to harm you directly. He’s supposed to be an impartial protector of reality, but he seems to have been given new goals by some higher power. A being stronger than a First Guardian? Whatever that being is, you'd rather never come face-to-face with it.

"あなたには魔法がプレゼントとして与えられました。 使えよバカ。". And with that she nods at you and leaves down the hallway without you.

Okay. Use your magic to get out of here, seems simple enough. You still have plenty of that magic you stockpiled, now just to use it. To escape. To be free! To get the hell out of here! YOU'RE NOT GOING TO LET HIM KEEP YOU HERE! YOU ARE GOING TO BE IN CONTROL OF YOUR OWN FUCKING LIFE! YOU CAN!

Again there is a breaking of ozone, but this time red fills your vision.

You open your eyes and find yourself on the ground with two trolls looking up at you.

"Kk, what the hell are you doiing?"

"O)( dear, are you okay?"

"SHUT UP. I'M JUST GOING TO LIE HERE. FOREVER"

Chapter Text

Your name is KARKAT VANTAS and so far, so fucking good.

Operation Regisurp went off without a hitch, ending the threat of the Black Queen before the reckoning had even begun, and so had the concurrent operation to have Jack exiled before he could obtain power for himself.

You definitely feel like a fucking ass for betraying Jack, he was the first friend you made in this godforsaken game, but your own divinatory practices confirmed what the weird voice in Terezi's head had told her - if Jack was allowed anywhere near that goddamned ring, he would’ve killed you and everyone else without even thinking.

All of you are now busy consolidating your strength - alchemizing new weapons, purchasing Fraymotifs, whatever the hell Vriska's been doing - but most importantly, the time has come to face off against your Denizens, in which you will be presented with THE CHOICE.

Through forcing yourself to listen to the inane speeches of LOPAH's native skinks, you’ve learned that Shezmu dwells within the torrential pillar of blood that eternally flows from the battlefield through the gateway he created with his unmatched mystic power, and that you must barter with him to close it and allow the planet to return to its former not-soaked-through-with-mutant-blood state.

You’re not planning to just ask nicely.

You levitate about the limitless sea of blood - you’ve gotten really good at flying by now, among other things. Things like beating the absolute shit out of monsters.

Chanting in a dead and decrepit language you raise your hands into the air and cast a massive fireball, the biggest you’ve ever made, directly into the unending titanic fountain with a massive splash.

"KNOCK KNOCK, ASSHOLE! WAKE THE FUCK UP!"

In response, something writhes from within the horrific candy-red waterfall. A colossal slitherbeast, bigger than any ever conceived, with the sharpened beak of a talonscreecher large enough to pierce mountains - towering, blood-soaked, grotesque.

After meeting that man on the moon, the sheer power he radiated, a giant fuckoff monster just seems anticlimactic.

"Knight of Blood," it says with a commanding voice, "you challenge me? You believe you can defeat me in a fight?"

"YES I AM, IDIOT.

You might have bit off more than you can chew with this fucker.

You may be flying, but that doesn’t mean you’re

lunges at you, though never completely leaves the blood. It occasionally dives in fully, sucking up blood and spitting it out like a pressure-cutter jet.

And to top it all off Shezmu's a sorcerer of the same calibre as you - he sends a cloud of floating daggers at you, and as you fly to the right to avoid them they change direction to lunge at you again. Your counter-spell, which transfigures the daggers into harmless snow, barely manages to get past its wards.

In your defence, you hold out for one hell of a long time. It’s only when he sends the seventh volley of screaming ghosts at you that you finally start getting winded.

"You are defeated, Karkat Vantas," he says as your power wanes from exhaustion, "inevitably so, for as long as my fountain persists I am indestructible, and nothing you can do can stop it. So I will give you THE CHOICE"

"FINE," you pant, "LAY IT ON ME YOU FLAMING SACCHARINE SACK OF SHIT"

"I give you two options, and nothing more. In the first, you allow yourself to die. Die for this planet and for your friends, and I will close my gateway and be gone. In the second, I will claim the life of each and every one of your friends, one by one, their lives ended because of you. Make your choice, Knight"

"WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF CHOICES ARE THOSE", you reply. You die? Everyone but you dies? The second choice would make the game literally unwinnable with everyone dead, but call you selfish but you’d prefer to be alive to see the end of this goddamned game that has already taken SO MUCH from you.

"This is THE CHOICE. Now, what is your answer, Knight of Blood"

"IM NOT DOING EITHER OF THOSE"

The giant beast recoils slightly in surprise, before its features morph once again into a look of superiority

"You think

"YOU KNOW WHAT, I DONT CARE WHAT YOU SAY THE OPTIONS ARE! YOU KNOW WHAT? I BET I COULD CLOSE THAT PORTAL RIGHT NOW, WHETHER YOU WANT ME TO OR NOT!"

Shezmu glares at you. "You are a fool, child. A pitiful troll like you could never hope to match my power. Only one such as I, who have toiled and laboured and sacrificed millions, is truly fit to control the world!"

"NO, WE ARE FUCKING DONE HERE, NO MORE DISCUSSION. I HAVE BEEN TOLD MY ENTIRE LIFE WHAT I CAN AND CANNOT DO. AND I. AM DONE. PLAYING BY YOUR RULES"

Harnessing every ounce of mana in your body, you begin a spell of rage and instinct that refuses to take no for an answer. The cries of your Denizen are gutteral, a cross between a hissing and a cawing, but its protests mean nothing to you. With the full force of your magic might, you force the portal closed yourself.

With the outpoor stopped, the blood that was literally like an ocean before drains away before your eyes, revealing the land underneath. A verdant plane, its grass now flattened and bleached red, but soon to return to vibrance now that the hero has come at last.

Without the constant flow of that visceral life-giving goodness, Shezmu begins to writhe, to shrivel up like a vinefruit in the hot Alternian sun. It shrinks to the size of a log - looking like some kind of large, deformed worm laying their in the field, its parched skin begging hungrily for a drop of blood.

You fly down there, and it’s a sorry look you standing over it like that. It looks up at you, and it grins - a genuine, happy smile. And it whispers to you, "Good job, Knight", and it vanishes in a puff of red smoke.

Chapter Text

Your name is KARKAT VANTAS and you feel fate has cheated you out of a lot of things, but this takes the fucking cake.

After everything, the Queen was deposed and it came time for killing the Black King before the Reckoning made Skaia look like a hole-carved dairy brick. It took everyone working together to finally take the fucker down. In the end, Vriska pulled out some bullshit fairy power, which it would’ve been nice of her to use from the fucking start.

Then finally, when everything is done, all the denizens slain and planet cores cracked open, after the arduous time you had with you and Kanaya going out sailing to find fucking frogs, you are finally done.

The doorway stands before you: as soon as you turn that knob, you will enter a universe of your own creation.

Oh, wait - that would imply that the universe didn’t despise you personally.

Instead, the door gets cut in fucking two and who should be behind it but Jack Noir, back from the dead somehow and dressed in full barkbeast cosplay. You haven’t even comprehended fully what just happened when Aradia picked you all up and launched you to some fucking meteorite in the middle of nowhere.

You’ve lost count of how many days you’ve spent here, every stupid thing just blurs together. It’s taken every ounce of your fucking patience, and several binding spells, to keep your teammates (who don’t seem to comprehend the fact they are the last of their fucking species) from culling each other over petty grudges.

At some point, you all came in contact with some parallel universe full of soft white-skinned people, four of whom were playing their own world-ending-slash-creating game, and being absolutely terrible at it.

They all proved to be insufferable, but somehow less insufferable than most of your teammates, so you've started spending most of your time talking to them and trying to talk them out of doing things that are batshit fucking stupid.

It quickly became apparent both that this was the universe you had just created, and that the version of Jack currently hunting you down like a demented barkbeast was their fucked-up accidental creation. The worst thing is you couldn’t even try to prevent that version of Jack from becoming too powerful because it would just create a worthless doomed timeline.

During what little time you can spare, you study like never before. You consult ancient tomes on powerful spells, you gage the future through omens and signs. You’re looking for something, anything that can get you out of this

Until, eventually, it comes to you in a dream.

"Jeez Karkat, these stairs go on forever. Where are you even taking me? You’re just trying to 8ug me, I know it!"

"JUST KEEP FUCKING WALKING. IM NOT THE ONE WHO DESIGNED THESE FUCKING STAIRCASES"

Vriska's not your ideal troll to hang out with, but it stands she is probably one of the strongest trolls here.

"Ugh, if this takes any longer I am throwing you these stairs, nug8one-first"

"YOURE LUCKY I HAVENT THROWN YOU DOWN THESE STAIRS MYSELF FOR ALMOST CULLING TAVROS", you retort. Just hours ago Vriska had tried to pick a fight with him for no reason, and he had bull-headedly nearly accepted before you convinced him it wasn’t worth it.

"JUST SHUT YOUR IGNORANCE SHAFT AND KEEP CLIMBING, WE'RE ALMOST THERE"

Panting slightly, the two of you trudge your way up the final level and swing open the rusted metal door to the observation deck.

"Oh look, nothing! Ok Karkat, it’s time to go. And 8y go, I mean it’s time for me to push you down those stairs. Sayonara, crab-boy"

"STICK AROUND FOR A FEW SECONDS, YOU WILL WANT TO FUCKING SEE THIS"

You gesture out into space, where distantly a small dot can be seen, like a star shining in the void; there aren’t any real stars visible, from here or anywhere in the medium.

The dot grows as it approaches, becoming a troll-like figure wreathed in glowing crimson stardust bid by beautiful carmine wings: Aradia, not dead, not a robot, dressed in blood red and trailing stardust. She stares down at you and Vriska with a wide, load-eating grin.

Frankly, you are relieved your dream was real and not just some fever-dream analogue caused by unruly stress.

Vriska looks frightened, as she should be, since she’s the reason Aradia was dead in the first place. You’ve been told the last time the two of them met, Vriska got beaten into a literal pulp.

"Eek, uh…….. Hey, Aradia…….."

"hello"

Aradia drops her wings and lands onto the observation deck, snort-barrel to snort-barrel with the cerulian. Vriska, with all her bravado, is looking more nervous than you’ve ever seen her.

"You, uh, look gr8"

"i’m sure y0u can agree that resurrecti0n d0es w0nders f0r the b0dy, d0es it n0t?"

Vriska chuckles to herself nervously, which Aradia reciprocates with

The business of humbling the shit out of Vriska done with, Aradia

"s0, what’s the plan, karkat?"

"YOU’RE DEFAULTING TO ME? I THOUGHT YOU WERE SOME KIND OF EXISTENTIALIST TIME GOD?"

"well, y0u are 0ur fearless leader" she grinned, like a demon.

"DAMN STRAIGHT I AM! AND I DO HAVE SORT OF A PLAN, SO YOU TWO BETTER LISTEN UP!"

Your name is JACK NOIR, or BEC NOIR now apparently, and you are starting to get bored. You haven’t seen a living thing in hours, on account of you killing every living being you had seen.

You know there are people out here somewhere, those ones that escaped you back on the victory platform.

You’ve decided to pass the time with the creative decimating meteorites in as many ways as possible.

Then suddenly there was a giant crab flying at you.

You’re back as KARKAT VANTAS again, with Aradia and Vriska in tow. You’ve decided to begin combat by charming together a cluster of nearby meteorites, binding them together with crackling red energy into the giant shape of a crab (your spirit animal, of course).

The Magnificent Meteor-Crab only lasts seconds, sadly, before Jack slices them down into space dust. With the distraction it caused, the three of you all got in range to strike like purrbeasts.

He teleports out of the way of all three of you, but now with a gash curtesy of Vriska's cutlass. Blood spurts from the wound and floats away in droplets. Red blood. You try not to think about that.

With a howl, the wound closes up and Jack raises his only arm. From the Ring of Orbs Fourfold pours forth snaking, red tendrils of deadly red aether - the Red Miles, the ring's ultimate trump card.

You barely have time to throw up a shield spell around you before the miles hits. Aradia manages to dodge somehow with her fairy agility, but Vriska is not so lucky: she takes part of the assault straight on, tendrils of redshift matter ripping gashes open on the edges of her body.

Is she focusing trying to steal his luck? He's part-First Guardian, basic tricks like that aren’t gonna work on him; if they did, you'd've turned him into a cluckbeast already.

"HEY SPIDERBITCH, ARE YOU OKAY OVER THERE?"

"How a8out you mind your own goddamned 8usiness, Karkat"

You’d retort with something clever, but you were busy rocketing yourself out of the way of Jack's swordstroke to respond. From the tips of your sickles you fire bolts of fire, lightning, and acid against him like arrows, but the guardian is too swift for your projectiles to hit.

"here, all0w me"

Aradia zips over soon after and, with a wave of her hands, Jack is sealed in place by temporal power. With a flick of your hand you cast forth a volley of steaming fireballs straight at him. And then Vriska swoops past you, wings fluttering like mad, and attempts to make a swing at the frozen Jack - you say she attempts to, because she doesn’t look where she’s going and flies right into the path of your fireballs like an idiot.

Jack breaks free again, the fireballs that managed to not his Vriska breaking the seal placed upon him, and you grab Vriska and roll through the air, dodging his swooping attacks before you manage to quickly grasp some freezing powder from your pocket and blow it in his face; the distraction is just long enough for Aradia to freeze him in time again.

"GET OUT OF THE WAY NEXT TIME, DUMBASS"

"Don’t get in MY way, 8ossy8ulge"

"SHUT IT"

You mutter insults under your breath as you wreathe healing energies through her body. You absolutely, truly despise her, but you can’t afford to lose anyone at the moment.

You glance back up at Aradia, still with that same fucking grin. What is with her? Still, you prefer her to Vriska.

"ARADIA, CAN YOU KEEP JACK CONTAINED FOR LIKE TWO MINUTES?"

"i'll try"

"GOOD ENOUGH" you say, as you turn to Vriska.

"OKAY YOU JACKASS, HERES SOMETHING THATS GONNA LET US ALL MAKE IT OUT ALIVE: TEAMWORK"

It takes awhile, but eventually you manage to make Vriska listen to someone other than herself for long enough for her to agree on a plan.

You and Vriska commence your attack: Not a physical attack, a mental one. Ceruleanbloods are born and bred for mind control, and you know charms to affect the mind too. Together, the two of you fill his head with all manner of grisly nightmares, pumping him full of visions of the horrors that lie even beyond the furthest ring, the kinds of things that scare the dreaming dead.

At that moment, Aradia removes the bindings on him. He’s disoriented, clutching the sides of his skull, his canine ears ringing from your psychological assault. Simultaneously, co-operatively, the three of you strike.

Aradia's Black Inches flay lines around Jack's torso; Vriska slices the ring off his finger with her spectral cutlass; and you, with a sickle pulsing with mystic energy, chop off his head.

The three of you fly back to the Meteor Lab with verdant fervour and all that - Bec Noir, the monster that undid the gift this goddamned stupid motherfucking game promised you for all your suffering. What to do now? Who knows, but you’ll get there.

"Good work team, asshole dead in record time. I mean, o8viously it was mostly me who culled the 8itch, 8ut I’ll admit you two helped"

"YEAH, YEAH, PUT IT ON YOUR FUCKING RESUME. NOW, LETS ALL GO BE GODS"