MSPA Fanfiction V: We're Going to Need More Wands

[SkaianRedeemer]

@zebtrestalala: Looks like it should be good! Looks like you've got most of the Trolls covered too! Looking forward to more!

[Hazel]

Yaaay my first fic on thread no. 5!

Karkat and Sollux have a moment while on the meteor.

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After the first few hours, people had begun to settle down. The cool gray of the interior of the lab was starting to present as far more uncanny and desolate than they had noticed at first, and a slow chill was starting to seep in, along with the quiet revelation that a door had been closed to them forever. There was no going back.

They milled around, mostly stubbornly rooted to a computer terminal, or bugged each other. Karkat, sitting under one of the long counters that held the monitors, had his knees drawn up to his chest, arms looped over them, thinking. Next to him was Sollux's lower body, feet next to his, shifting occassionally as he puttered on his computer. Even though he'd spent his entire life without company, the added company wasn't nearly as rage inducing as he had anticipated it would be. Actually, Solux's fidgeting was a little soothing; it was something to ignore, and it wasn't so overt that he couldn't ignore it.

Even with the human detrius, both physical and intangible, floating around, it was actually.... kind of okay. The trolls' presence seemed a small defiance against the cold impassability of the lab, and for some reason, that made him feel a little better.

There was a squeak of sneakers, and Sollux dropped down to join him on the floor against the wall. He scootched back, tucking up his knees like his friend, dropping his clasped hands between his knees and then clamping them over his hands. "Fuck it's cold in space" Sollux sputtered. Karkat glanced over, noting the violent gooseflesh that had broken out on his friend's arms.

"Tch," he snorted. "If you actually ate somthing while you were still on that miserable fucking planet, maybe you could actually thermoregulate, you skinny fuck."

"Whatever." Sollux's response was as dismissive as it was tired. He reached up to rub a hand against his forehead. "It's not like this place has anything to eat."

Karkat shrugged. "Ask Gamzee for some of his disgusting fucking soda, I'm sure he'd be thrilled to share."

Sollux shuddered. "Ugh. If it didn't require forced social bonding, I almost would consider it, even with the prospect of drinking that hideous crap." He hunkered down further, trying to make his skinny frame into as much of a ball as possible. At that distance, Karkat could see the small shivers working around his body. It was actually kind of fucking pathetic; he was wearing a long sleeved shirt, so he didn't feel the cold as much. Plus, his lusus actually got on his case for not eating, so he had a few more weight blocks than Sollux. He supressed a gag at the memory of Crabdad trying to force feed him gelatinous roe cubes. So. Disgusting.

Sollux smirked. "Oh, who's cold now, douchebag?"

"Not me, fucknuggets. I was thinking of your putrid condiment colored blood."

Karkat knew he had hit a nerve when Sollux's face dropped it's scuzzy little combination sneer-smile. God, handling this was harder in person. Actually, the look on the other troll's face brought back way too vivid snapshot memories of his too-still body speckled with smears of shining, dusky yellow. It made his heart drop.

But fuck it, he was sitting right fucking next to him, it's not like he's dead for real. Well, of course he was dead for real, you dumbass. He would have stayed dead for real if Feferi didn't have her shit together, and wasn't as altruistic and fucking crazy as she was. After he had reappeared on the viewport,Karkat had battled between feeling complete self loathing and despair against an immediate sense of relief, his mind ready to shuck of the unpleasant memory of a dead friend instantly. Now, remembering Sollux was pretty fucking lucky, it drew out something a little unexpected.

Pity.

He skidded across the floor, closing the foot between them, so that his shoulder would bump against Sollux's, his thigh and knee meeting the other boy's. Sollux jolted, looking kind of affronted at the intimacy. "What the fuck, dude?"

"Shut up, don't go all cluckbeast on me. You said you were cold. So I'm magnanimously sharing my body heat, you ungrateful fuck. It's not like there's anyone else around here that would touch your disgusting skinny ass."

"Fuck you, I don't need your charity heat." But he didn't move. He seemed to brood a little, though. With his chin on his knees, his words came out muffled.

"Fff. You need way more of my charity than my heat, if you ask me, but I'm willing to fucking put up with your inferiority in interest of your lack of hypothermia." Karkat shifted, leaning his head back against the wall. This was way more comfortable than it should have been.

Sollux scoffed. "You're lucky I'm not blowing my rape whistle."

"What the fuck is a rape whistle."

"I dunno, something I found on the internet. Those hairless fucking monkeys seem to like them a lot. Plus, they have imaginary internet police who come up and fuck people's shit up for stupid imaginary things."

Karkat considered this. "So, basically like troll society, just less real and with more breath-powered noise devices."

"Yeah, pretty much."

A beat of silence passed, the boys sharing the heat generated from their shoulders and knees touching. Karkat broke the silence, raspy voice appropriately quiet in the dead air.

"Hey. I'm glad you're okay."

"... yeah, me too."

Daaamn, that is some fine Sollux and Karkat banter.

[PingZing]

Kassie - Rose is gonna tear him to shreds.

...right?

Seraph - I adored this chapter. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed all the previous, but I wasn't really sold until this one. David's interactions with Yggdrasil were brilliant. I've never read House of Leaves, but now I'm pretty sure I'm going to. (My friends have been recommending it to me for a while anyway, but I keep being too lazy to go and actually buy it, and the eBook probably just isn't the same)

Sionnan - Oh wow, I feel like you nailed the Karkat/Sollux dynamic. I liked that you worked in how uncomfortable they were with actually being in each other's presence, that's something I don't see much, but like whenever I do.

draconicAlgorithm - That was simply adorable. Even though you referred to him as "Father Boxcars" in your notes, I can't help but think of him as "Pop Boxcars". He's a Pop kinda guy.


And now, for a continuation of my previously posted Candlelight and Clockwork
Chapter 1: Rose


Candlelight and Clockwork: Dave

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Dave walks in precisely twenty-seven minutes after his departure, looking the worse for wear. The sleeves and ends of his suit are singed, smoke is trailing from his head. He leans against the wall next to the door frame silently and adopts an air of detached nonchalance. Or he attempts to anyway; his facade is shattered when he loses his balances and topples to the ground in an undignified heap. He quickly rearranges himself with his back against the wall and his legs sprawled in front.

He shoots Rose a look that says What? I did that on purpose. Just wanted to lay down, s'more comfortable like that.

She replies with a look that says Of course.

Dave speaks up, “Bit of advice for you, Lalonde. If anybody asks if you want to be the Seer of Time? Don't accept.”

Rose brings a hand to her chest, and covers her mouth. “What? Mister Strider, are you implying that your role is actually...difficult for you?”

Dave snorts. “Nah, 'course not. Shit's as cool as ice water up in Santa's backyard. Just a bit of friendly advice from the master. Just don't think you'd be up to it, s'all.”

Rose rolls her eyes and stands up. “Good, then you can watch John for a while,” she says as she retrieves a bowl from the bedside table. “He fell asleep again shortly after you left. True sleep this time, rather than unconsciousness.”

“You got it, nothing a Knight does better than protect sleeping beauties.” Dave pauses for a moment. “What's with the bowl?”

“Soup. I made it shortly after your departure. Why?”

Dave's face remains impassive. “Soup.”

“Yes. What of it?”

Dave shakes his head and looks down. “Nothing. Not a damn thing. Go do whatever it is you're going to do, I've got this.”

Rose rolls her eyes again and leaves the room. Dave waits until he’s certain he can no longer hear her footsteps and levers himself back up into a standing position. He strides across the room and stubs his toe on the leg of the chair Rose was sitting in.

“Augh, gogdammit, fuck!” he snarls into his sleeve, and collapses into the chair.

John opens his eyes and blinks blearily before rubbing them. “Dave? ‘zat you? Wha’re you yellin’ at?”

Dave quickly arranges himself on the chair and leans back nonchalantly. “Yelling? Who’s yelling? Can’t have been me, I never raise my voice above a suave fuckin’ baritone.”

John stares at Dave for several seconds too long in the way of the just-awakened or the too-drunk. Dave leans back in the chair and props his feet up on the bed. “What?”

John squints at Dave, paws at the bedside table for a moment, and then slaps a hand to his face. Finding his glasses there, he returns his gaze to Dave. “You don’t look so good, that’s what!”

“What the hell are you talking about? I look fantastic. Never better. The pinnacle of manliness. Bond’s got nothing on me.”

“Your hair’s smoking.”

Dave drops his feet to the floor and leans in closer. “Know why?”

“Why?”

“It’s because I’m hotter than the sun, and the game just can’t handle me. I sizzle, bro. Why d’you think I got the Land of Heat and Clockwork?”

John’s face twists in to a quizzical frown.“…Dave, are you trying to seduce me?”

Dave looks down and rubs the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “Yeah bro, that’s exactly what’s going on here. Trying to insinuate myself directly into your pants. Nothing higher on my list of priorities than that.”

John looks down and wrings his hands together. “Because…I think we’re kinda young for that, you know? But…” John looks up. “Maybe when we’re older?”

Dave freezes and makes a strained choking sound. His face twitches involuntarily as he attempts, and fails to form words.

John bursts into laughter.

“HaHA! I got you good, Dave! You should see the look on your face! Oh man, that was classic!”

Dave swears and grabs the nearest object he can find, and hurls it at John. John has a split second to wonder why Rose has a plush doll that looks like Casey the Salamander before catching it full in the face. This only makes him laugh harder, and he begins to cough, tears running down his face. He breaks into a full-blown coughing fit before recovering and chuckling weakly.

“Haha, ow. Don’t make me laugh like that, that hurts. But that was so worth it!” says John, wiping the tears from his eyes.

“Not cool, bro,” Dave mutters.

“Hehehe…sorry Dave. I couldn’t resist, it was just so easy!” John says.

“Shit…I guess I should have seen that coming; no one can beat you in a prank-off. You are simply yadda yadda yadda, I’m too goddamn tired to finish up the meme, but you get it,” says Dave.

John frowns and peers quizzically at Dave. It’s unlike him to not relish every second of an in-joke as he tells it. Besides the cosmetic signs of wear and tear about his person, there are other subtle things John begins to notice. The way dark circles line his eyes, visible even in darkness and behind sunglasses; the way he hunches ever-so-slightly to the side, as if he can barely remain sitting, the way his temper is frayed to paper-thinness and whipcrack-strength. The way he stares at nothing in the moments between speech, as if he’s forgotten that he should be paying attention to anything. The way it takes him a moment to register anything John says.

John realizes Dave is truly and completely exhausted.

“Hey…Dave…are you okay?”

Dave’s head snaps up to stare at John. “Yeah, I’m fuckin’ great. Why?”

“You look really, really tired, man. Have you not been sleeping lately or something?” John asks, worry written all over his face.

Dave scoffs. “Hell no, the Sandman and I are best buds. Drink at the same bars, visit the same clubs, play the same golf courses. I know the names of his kids and what kind of car he drives. We’re like this, man,” Dave says, pointing at John and crossing two fingers and holding them up.

“Dave,” John says, worry plainly evident in his voice now, “I’m over here.”

Dave swivels two inches to the left and makes eye-shades contact with John. He grimaces. “…fuck.”

“When was the last time you slept, Dave?”

Dave looks away, even though his shades and the darkness already hide his eyes from view. “It’s been a few days, man. I haven’t slept since we started playing.”

“But we’ve only been playing for a few hours, what do you mean ‘a few days’?”

“Knight of Time bro, remember? It’s only been a few hours for you, but I’ve gone back and done it over and over again. Shit starts to blur together in your mind after a while.”

“But you’ve been going to sleep and doing stuff with your dream self, right? What about then?”

Dave shakes his head. “Naps. The less time I spend with the evil space-calamari Rose enjoys so much, the better. I’m telling you man, it’s like they’re trying to fondle your mind with their limitless flagella. Stranger danger to the max right there.

“But yeah, turns out time travel’s a pretty shitty power. Know why?” Dave leans forward and grits his teeth. “Because it owns you. Yeah, it’s bailed me out of some pretty sick jams, but most of the time it’s a massive pain in the ass. I only do it now because if I don’t all the badass future mes won’t even fucking exist to have saved my ass in the first place. I get chronologically strong-armed into doing half the things I do.”

Dave’s expression fades completely. “When I got a chance, I started exploring all our planets, seeing what they were like. I figured why the hell not? I had all the time in the world. I was on yours when Jade entered. You know Jack was on your planet then, right?”

John nods. Dave sits up straight, and what he does next shocks John.

He takes off his shades.

John’s eyes widen as Dave turns face him. Dave’s eyes are sunken and bloodshot, and without the bulky frames hiding his face, Dave looks small, fragile and hollowed out. John barely even notices the strangeness of Dave’s red eyes. He realizes that Dave isn’t looking at him, so much as looking through him; remembering.

“My Bro was there too. He and Jack were fighting, and Davesprite too. And then Jade entered, with her hellbeast devil-dog prototyped with her sprite. And then fucking Jack Noir…” Dave trails off.

John gasps as the realization hits him like a hammerblow. “Is…is your bro okay?” He asks, but he already knows the answer.

Dave just looks at him. Stares past him. Squeezes his glasses so hard they creak.

John doesn’t even think, he lunges from the bed and wraps Dave in flying hug. Dave freezes and remains as stiff as a board while John squeezes the life out of him.

“Egbert, what the hell d’you think you’re—” Dave begins.

“You need a hug, so you’re getting a hug, Dave. That is really all there is to say on the matter.”

Dave hesitates before he tentatively returns the hug. “Fine. Just remember one thing, John.”

“Yeah? What’s that?”

“If you tell a fucking soul about this, I will make you never have happened.”

“You got it bro.”

They stay like that for a while.

--

When Rose returns, Dave is fast asleep on the bed and John is sitting in the chair, watching over him. Rose shoots John a questioning look and John just shrugs and says “He needed it more than I did.”

Notes

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Wow, that got really angsty near the end there. Didn't intend for that to happen, but if Dave's going to spill his guts to anyone, it'd be John...and hey, it least it ended on a disgustingly sugary happy note.
Hm, now that I think about it, it's sort of ironic that the least reserved of the kids is the one least willing to tell John about herself...
Also, italics are evil things. I always forget they don't carry over in copy-paste, so I have to hunt them down in the original document and they are so easy to miss.

[arcaneCalligramancer]

PingZing that is adorably awesome and I am offering you one (1) unironic fistbunp.

[sebastian]

NEW THREAD WUT

No internet means I miss things. I'll probably go around reading this thread once I post this.

ANYWAY. I got this idea from reading Daddy Droog fics + finding fanart of of Daddy Droog and Papa Slick. (I have no idea if anyone actually calls him Papa Slick but I'm rolling with it.) They made me think "Hey, what about Boxcars and Deuce?" So here's Boxcars. I'll probably do Deuce later, too. :I

Kitten

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Notes about Father Boxcars: HB is a pretty laid back dad. He's content to let Nepeta make her own decisions on a lot of things. It is for this reason that she is allowed to wear her baggy clothing, even though it makes her look a bit like a hobo. HB doesn't seem to mind, as long as she's happy. He also taught her quite a bit about fighting hand-to-hand, which she prefers over using guns. They had to work together to adapt a style of her own, since she is much smaller and more agile than HB, but she's deadly in her own right. HB doesn't have any qualms about leaving her home alone. Like the other MC kids, she can take care of herself. Also, she has taken up HB's love of attempting to pair others together. She has a shipping wall in her room that she uses to stay up-to-date on all the possible pairings. HB almost always refers to her by the pet name "Kitten". If he calls her by Nepeta, it means she's in trouble.

EDIT: Okay, responses to stuff on this page.

@MSB: Oh god, I love this so far. It was only made better by your avatar. I only just stopped myself from laughing hysterically.

@TT: That was so good! I think you really hit Rose's personality. I always felt like the passive/aggressive duels she had with her mother were one-sided, and that she was just, in a way, overreacting. But you hit the nail on the head. Great job.

@Path: Oh jegus Slick and Sleuth. I love those two interacting, even though that's the first actual fanfic I've read of the two of them.

@Sionnan: Those two just don't interact enough in canon. I think you got them down perfectly.

@zebtrestalala: That was not very bad. Shut up. D< I really liked how you portrayed them all. To be honest, I'd like to see more of this. Although, I can't for the life of me guess who Candice is. :x Nepeta maybe?

I like it. Now the only thing missing is for Deuce to adopt Gamzee.

Which would make a weird kind of sense, if you think about it, who else but Deuce would let a child eat sopor slime?

[lantadyme]

@Sionnan: I find it hilarious that the leader is hiding under a table and not dealing with anyone. Karkat is obviously the best at his job. His interactions with Sollux are some of my favorite, not gonna lie. Thanks for sharing.
@PingZing: Your dialogue is so snappy, man. They are all so in character, and I love how Dave and Rose don't even have to speak to argue with each other. John is the best bro.

Here's some weird Terezi fic featuring Sollux.

Mind Your Manners

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She wakes up for the first time with her eyes burned black on the inside, black as high midnight, and for a second Terezi wonders where all the light has gone.

She can't see. There's simply nothing.

Then the pain hits, crippling and throbbing like hot darts plunged into her eyes sockets, like the bite of a terrible featherscaled venombeast injected directly into her forebrain, and then she sees more than just black. Then she sees flashes of colors she's never witnessed before, each one pounding in agonizing time with the toxic pain spreading through her face and each torturous heartbeat.

It's agony. It hurts hurts hurts and she screams in the silence of the forest, an ugly hopeless hateful lilting that echoes and echoes and Terezi knows she's gone. She's finished. There's no way she can keep up with Vriska like this. Deep down inside she doesn't even know how she got out here, out of her hive and into the forest, but she blames Vriska all the same.

Seems like a safe bet.

The pain is stomach-turning but somehow she makes it back to her hive. Somehow, pawing through the forest on her hands and knees, headbutting trees in her blind scramble through the darkness. She can't see anything but she can smell the leaves, the mushrooms, and she can hear the animals watching her—watching and waiting with all their teeth and strength and power against one lone, blind, abandoned troll child. She can't help but imagine teal blood on their mouths and the pop and snap of rending bone.

Terrified and stumbling, her heart beats faster and that makes her eyes pound with shining sparks of red-hot agony. Terezi is still sobbing to herself as she finally finds the rungs of the ladder that leads up to her home, her fingers locking around the wood as if she plans to never let go. She fumbles upward, her whole body trembling with the fear and the pain, and once she's inside she slams the hatch shut; sits on it and locks it and sobs into her hands. Safe. She's safe. But she's still finished.

She collapses there on top of her entrance hatch, on her back and facing upward, staring blind at the ceiling and her eyes won't stop watering. They ache and she wants to wipe at them, but even blinking is agony right now.

What happened? What happened?

All she can remember is spinning justice on Vriska. She'd gone to bed and then there had been dreams of yellow, but after that, what? What?

She can't remember.

The sobs hitch in her chest. Terezi trembles on the floor in the middle of her hive, curling up around herself, and somehow she falls asleep.

For nights she roams her hive blind and alone, her hands smudging along every surface and her shins picking up bruise after bruise. Her skin must be black and teal, ugly clouds of off-yellow and off-blue thrown in for good measure. The bruises hurt, but not nearly as much as her eyes do. They burn like fire and they never stop running. Every time she wakes up she's dehydrated and her clothes are soaked with tears.

She eats whatever she has in her storage room and some things that aren't. Some things that she knows are insane to eat but she chews on the chalk all the same, relishing the texture of it. She knows that once she runs out of food she's in trouble. It scares her, but not nearly as much as brutal animal mauling does, and she's safe inside. She would ask for help but without sight her computer is all tapping keys and warm monitor; she can only put nonsense in and get nothing out.

She sits on the floor in the middle of her room and hugs her scalemates, and with her mouth curled into a frown she whispers to them that she's a little afraid. She's never really thought about the culling before but is this how it feels when you sit waiting, knowing that they're coming for you and not able to do anything about it?

Maybe if she had an active lusus and not just the promise of a lusus, things would be different. Maybe. But she's utterly alone now, no one to take care of her as she adapts to this debilitating roll of the dice.

The scale is not tipped in her favor, not at all. A quiet black rage builds up underneath the fear—because she knows this is all Vriska's fault and how is it fair that Terezi herself won't get to be the one to stab that huge betraying bitch through her blue bloodpump and watch her die?

It's after a week and a half, a long ten nights of blind, painful roaming, that she finally crawls into her recuperacoon, buries her head under the ugly slime, and opens her eyes.

It's stings like seven kinds of hell and a painful moan slips out of her mouth, the bubbles tickling their way past her face, but after a solid minute the aching starts to ease and that alone is enough to make Terezi want to cry all over again. Except with relief this time.

That day when she dreams, something whispers to her in colors and smells and tastes, and she doesn't understand a single word but she trusts it because it makes her feel safe. It makes her believe she's not doomed. She wakes with a start and a smile on her face and even the dull pain behind her eyes can't ruin that night. The next day and the next she hears the same whispers, the whispers she can't understand, and she walks through a dream-city blind with the voice guiding her. She doesn't understand and she still bangs herself up from head to toe, but she's getting better. She doesn't trip as often.

She wakes up hungry, her hands shaking from low blood sugar, and she shuffles through her hive slowly, hands on the walls and leaving trails of slime in their wake. She finds her storage room and she knows how empty it is by the echoes. There's not much food left and when she runs out of things to eat, then what? Rationing only gets her so far and she can't live on air. Learning to walk in her dreams isn't going nearly fast enough and a troll who can't be self-sufficient is as good as a corpse—starved and desiccated in the middle of her abandoned hive.

Terezi chews on dried meat and insects and then goes back to her room, sitting in the middle of the floor again and smelling. Licking her toys. Trying to recreate the tastes and smells that guide her in her dreams.

A mutinous part of her thinks that maybe the sun didn't just burn out her eyes, but maybe part of her brain too. How crazy can this possibly look? Licking her toys and wandering blind and giggling through her home?

Trusting a dream enough to balance her entire existence against it?

But Terezi knows it's utterly and completely real. It's the ultimate truth. She has nothing else to fall back on, and although she doesn't have a lusus, she believes that this dream can get her back on her feet again. So she licks her scalemates' eyes and angrily sinks her fangs into their plush bellies when she tastes nothing more than boring plastic.

"T-thee?"

The voice starts her out of a dream. Terezi sits partially awake on her floor, still tasting dream flavors and covered in half-dried sopor slime. She must look like a madwoman. She listens hard and takes shallow breaths, and then it comes again. So she hadn't just imagined it.

"T-thee, are you up there?"

"Hello?" she whispers, and even her voice sounds strangled. She remembers that lisp but what was his name? They'd worked together recently through Trollian but she'd only met him in person two or three times, and then only by tangent through Aradia. Something with a lot of S's in it, which she'd always found slightly funny.

"Sollux?"

"T-thee, could you fucking anthwer me if you're even thtill alive up there?" He mutters something to himself afterward and with that Terezi knows it's him.

"Sollux!" she yells this time, standing slowly and shakily with her hands spread out. Her balance is getting better but she's not one hundred percent stable yet. She wanders slowly over to her window and paws at the locks to get them open, then strains the window itself open afterward. "Sollux!"

"Thhit, you are alive," he calls back from somewhere on the other side of the hive. He sounds a little surprised. He'd probably expected her to open the hatch and let him inside since that would be the sane thing to do. But Terezi doesn't exactly feel sane right now. She still feels paranoid of cullers and other monsters and she's not letting anyone in except maybe Karkat.

"Oh my god, what the hell happened to you?" Sollux says, suddenly just yards from her face.

Terezi yelps, arms coming up to protect herself as she flinches backward. How did he get up here so fast? How did he—? She's sitting on her rear on the floor once she remembers that he's psionic or something and that he can levitate. "Stay away," she says, her voice surprisingly calm. Her heart is hammering in her chest and it makes her eyes pound. She closes them and drags a hand through her slime-encrusted hair.

"Thorry, thorry," he mutters, trying to soothe her and not any closer than the last time he spoke. "I'm not—" He breaks off, and when he speaks again his voice drips with guilt and self-loathing. "I'm not going to hurt you."

Terezi feels a little stab of guilt herself. The last thing he needs is to be reminded that the last girl he visited ended up eye-blasted into the other side of oblivion.

"I know. Sorry, guess I'm a little paranoid right now." She sighs and faces him again, and as she gets to her feet slowly she opens her eyes.

"Holy thhit," he whispers.

Terezi makes herself grin, feels it pulling at her face. Yes, look at her burned out eyes. They must look impressive from the outside. "So I'm going to take a shot in the dark and guess that Vriska isn't as dead as I'd planned?"

He doesn't say anything at first and when he does he's a little closer than before. Not much but enough to get a better look at her eyes. "I haven't been thitting around thtaring at my computer really. No gloating though. I think thhe'th gone thilent."

"Damn it." Angry, her jaw sets into an ugly frown and she slams a fist against the windowsill. She'd played her white-text-guy card and somehow Vriska managed to have something in her hand to counter that? Terezi hopes she's at least super maimed. Something worse by far than the stinging pain behind her own eyes.

"You dropped off the map right after thhe did," he says, again a little closer. "I kept waiting for you to methage me or thomething conthidering I helped you out with the planning on that thing. I wath kind of pithed at firtht, but after a week I jutht got worried."

"Worried about me?" She doesn't even know him that well.

"Aradia wanted revenge. Now thhe'th dead," he says, his voice quiet and not thrilled to be talking about that, but doing it anyway. "I had to know if I'd ended up killing you too."

"C'mon, like I'm going to blame you for this," Terezi says, motioning at her eyes. "We both know it was her."

"Yeah, probably. Thtill doethn't change that you both have uthed me ath a fucking pawn in your thtupid revenge planth. I thould jutht go hole up in my thhithive rethpiteblock and wait around for everyone I know to go off the deep end or die horribly."

Oh, so he's in one of his bad moods today? "I didn't use you. I asked for your help and you volunteered."

"Look, can I come in? Thethe treeth are giving me the creepth out here."

That makes Terezi pause. Her hands curl into fists on the windowsill but she understands where he's coming from. It wasn't that long ago that she was exposed and terrified of monsters lurking in the dark. The trees are full of animals and a troll from the city like Sollux probably isn’t used to it. "Yeah, that's fine," she says, stepping to the side and waving him in the open window.

"Thhit, your eyes. That lookth really painful," he whispers once he's inside, and Terezi ignores him long enough to shut the window after him. "Can you thee anything?"

"Nope. Not a thing. It's as dark as a deathcave in an eclipse."

"Gueth that ecthplainth why you look like a thopor-thlime addict."

Terezi reaches out and bats at him, following his voice, and grins as she actually connects with the back of his head. "You are such a jerk. I don't know why Aradia even liked you."

He doesn't say anything for a long moment and Terezi winces a little.

"Sorry."

"Whatever," he mutters back, his voice dejected.

"You haven't heard anything from her?"

"Thit, T-Thee, I wath there. I blathted her entire houthe into a crater. Her blood wath all over my clotheth. Aradia'th dead."

She'd read his messages when it had first happened, watching his text fall apart into a red-and-blue nightmare of twos and hate speech everywhere. The grammar hadn't even been recognizable through the dualities and she still isn't entirely sure of what happened back when he came out of the mind honey stupor. Hearing him say it now though, hearing how hushed and broken his voice is, resigned and guilty and angry, she gets a little of how it's been eating at him.

A guy like Sollux hoards up these kinds of emotions and lets them stew until all that's left is poison, and what he doesn't use on cussing out other people and hating himself sits in a hollow deep inside and never goes away.

Terezi doesn't really understand that. When she hates, she hates openly and completely, and she works toward a goal to tip the scales back to level ground, whether through apology or bitter revenge. She knows that quality in herself is what drew her to Vriska in the first place. The girl had been dealt an ugly hand with her lusus and Terezi has always been fond of a challenge—how to balance something like that out.

It had been different when they were just random trolls no one cared about. Playing games and helping her friend had been fun. It hadn't mattered then. Somewhere along the lines though, Vriska had gone off the deep end and stabbed her in the back; stabbed everyone in the back. Now Tavros is crippled and Aradia's dead and it's all gone to hell, and Terezi hasn't only failed one friend, but two more plus herself.

Sollux is obviously hurting, and she's not the best person for this but she isn't about to just leave him to cry alone in his hive forever.

"Hey, are you okay?"

"Jutht peachy."

"I'm serious. Talk to me, smart guy. That's why you came over here, right?"

"I came over to find your corpthe because I wath thure Therket had killed you too." A pause as he finds his honesty. "And maybe, I dunno, root through your thtuff afterward. I could alwayth uthe another computer."

She has to laugh at that. And it feels good to laugh again, although strange on her face. It's been a while since she did more than squint at things and try to make herself understand her new dark world. "I bet my screen is all covered in ugly yellow two text, huh?"

"You got thome from KK too, and I don't know who thith green one ith with all the athtericth." She hears him pull out the chair to her computer and sit down. "Thome roleplay thhit?"

"Yeah, something like that."

"Lookth thtupid."

"Hey, quit snooping. Just because I can't see that stuff anymore doesn't mean it's not private." Terezi steps over her floor and goes to grab the back of her computer chair. She gets his shoulder instead and for a second neither of them moves.

Sollux pushes the chair back into the middle of the room, pulling away from Terezi's hand. "Thorry."

Seems like they're just going back and forth with the apologies tonight.

"It's okay."

A long silence hangs for a while, Sollux not talking and Terezi not sure what to say. He'd come to check on her and that's a little flattering; that he had cared that much, even if it was mostly for his own conscience. She's tired, though—tired of trying to teach herself to see with these new weird senses and of constantly failing. She's tired and hungry and still a little scared, and it's long past beginning to wear on her. She feels her posture sagging. She leans back and sits against the edge of her computer desk, blind eyes dipping closed at the sudden exhaustion.

"I know I've been asking you a lot of favors lately, but I need some help."

"I can probably thet up a thcreenreader. I don't have the equipment but I can find thome thtuff for you."

Terezi's eyes pop open again and despite the pain that causes, she just stares at him. "What?"

"Tho you can read chat. And other thingth I gueth." He says it like she's crazy, and she feels a little crazy for not having thought of that sooner. "That'th what you were athking, right?"

She laughs again, and it bubbles out in an insane giggle instead of the chuckle she'd been intending. "No, actually. I was going to ask if you could get me some food," she says, grinning wide. "I'm about three nights from starving!"

Sollux' freaky mutant brain must screech to a shuddering halt at her manic display. For a while he says nothing, and when he finally gets some words in his mouth they only translate to sputtering sounds.

"What the fuck are you talking about? You live in a foretht like thith and your luthuth can't find you food? I thought mine was a gigantic idiot, but I gueth I wath wrong. You win the gold thtar."

"No, stupid! I don't have a lusus."

"How can you not have a luthuth? You'd have been culled or eaten by now."

Terezi grins again. "I know! I'm just that good."

It's more than that. It's the creatures her lusus sent to bring her up out of the trial caves when she was tiny. The mental nudge that had suggested she build her hive in a tree for safety instead of a lawnring. All the times she had somehow stumbled along sustenance while out in the forest looking for food; and even now she's sure her lusus has been in her life, guiding her—just never as an active partner like most troll children experience. That had never been a problem for Terezi until now.

Blind like this, she doesn't know how she can survive without help. She needs time to learn how to see with the tastes and colors and smells, and now her hands are shaking again from lack of food. The Cheshire grin slides from her lips and she probably looks pitiful like this, trembling and blind and half-starved skinny. She faces Sollux and she sniffs, and it doesn't paint a picture in her mind like in her dreams, but she does taste a hint that he will help.

"You're going to owe me," he says, his voice barely a whisper. Terezi owing him a favor could come in very handy, and her fondness of balance guarantees she'll follow through on it.

"That's fine by me," she breathes, her limbs heavy. "The green text girl, arsenicCatnip. Can you message her later and tell her I'm cashing in my favor and I need her to bring me some fresh kills? Say her beloved Dragonyy'yd tyrant demands it."

"Dragonyy'yd?"

"Just say it. She'll run you around in circles otherwise."

"Thhe'th not going to try to roleplay thhit with me, ith thhe?"

"She might, I don't know. Just tell her to knock it off and she usually listens." Terezi shrugs, suddenly a little dizzy as her blood sugar tumbles. "I can owe you for the screenreader in the mean time, too. Sound good?"

He hesitates for a moment but he responds soon enough. "Thure."

With that one word the energy seeps out of her. Her legs collapse and she sinks to the floor, sitting in a pile of food wrappings and eviscerated toys and leaning hard against the leg of her computer desk as her head spins. This is part of the reason she's been spending so much time sleeping lately, this embarrassing collapsing thing. Sollux jumps to his feet and crouches down next to her, his hands gripping her shoulders and the scent of his clean clothes in her nose.

"Are you okay?"

"Little dizzy," she whispers through a half-smile. He's so close now she can smell his grey skin. He smells like ozone and sour honey and she can taste the difference between him and the rest of her room. She's been sniffing these rooms for days and suddenly he's here in stark contrast to everything she's grown so used to. A vague picture forms in her mind—a chalky blotch of mustard-on-teal—and that simple sensation is enough to make her heart soar.

She sees it. The visualization is there.

Terezi balls a fist in the neck of his shirt and hauls him closer until their faces are only a breath apart. Sollux struggles in surprise, sputtering his butchered S's, and she grins all the wider as she drags her tongue slowly across one smooth lens of his glasses.

"Holy thhit, what the fuck is wrong with you?!" he yells, flailing out of her grasp and scrabbling backward.

But Terezi doesn't care, too busy laughing to herself with the delicious taste of candy red apples exploding in her mouth.

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Is the colored text too much? Half the time I think it is, but I can never decide.

[Decker]

Fantastic. Having Sollux there instead of Karkat made for a refreshing twist, and you made it work very well.
In reply to your note, there seems to be no set standard for colored text or quirks in dialogue.
I don't use them personally, just in persterlogs. But I don't think it's "too much" in this case, like you said.

[PingZing]

PingZing that is adorably awesome and I am offering you one (1) unironic fistbunp.

Oh, I'm all over this.

*bunp*

@PingZing: Your dialogue is so snappy, man. They are all so in character, and I love how Dave and Rose don't even have to speak to argue with each other. John is the best bro.

Funny that you mention that, I was worried that my Dave voice was way off. Glad to see you think it wasn't!

Re: Mind Your Manners - Oh yes more Terezi is always good. She's the perfect mix of manic and terrified and enraged, and her interactions with Sollux are perfectly awkward and sort of bittersweet.
As to the colored text thing, it's never bothered me reading it, but I'm still not sure if I like using it in my writing...I sort of feel like it's a cheap shortcut for me to avoid making sure it's clear who's speaking. I don't feel that way when other people do it though, so take from that what you will.

[Wigmund]

Is the colored text too much? Half the time I think it is, but I can never decide.

No, I personally use it to avoid having to write XXX says/whispers/yells/whatever over and over when I write dialogue, I feel odd and overly repetitive otherwise.

But I like using the text colors and some of the typing quirks because I view that as part of the kids and trolls' voices.

[NotAPumpkin]

@PingZing- Holy mittens, never stop writing! So much cute!

@Sionnan- How is it even possible to be that good at writing ;_; (seriously you are amazing)

Oh my God I don't have time to read all these right now, but this stuff is just too good to ignore >.<

[KarneWarrior]

NOTE: Trial by Void is completed, but it's only the first book in a series.

I...

I don't as of yet havew a name for the series BUT I'M SURE IT WILL COME TO ME IN DUE TIME.

For now, let's begin book Two.

Homeworld
My Dear, Bloodstained Diary

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31st of twelfth perigree; 1930

Another year, another useless year. It's not as if I'm much rushed for time, of course. I have sweeps to do anything important. But it angers me that I've yet to do anything important. I have this feeling in my abdominal structure like I'm supposed to do something important, something critical.

At least me and Iksti can still meet up. I'm a bit ashamed that I haven't found a quirk I like yet, so we don't communicate by mail or chat client or anything. But we still see eachother often enough, particularly when we FLARP together.

There's also the issue of Hatred. She already found a kismesis, and I can hardly belive it. I mean, we only left the trials a sweep ago, we only made our hives a couple perigrees ago! Maybe it's one of the priviledges of living in a hivestem. Maybe she's unlucky, and she'll get killed.

Gog, I hope not.

I'm not even sure why I'm writing this. IT's not as if anyones going to study me, or follow my life in any way. I guess it just makes me feel better. I really don't have anyone to talk to, here, amongst the indigo population. I'm not even sure if I'd be accepted if I went outside.

Well, if someone is reading this, anyone, go ahead and have your fun at the expense of this stupid troll who doesn't even have a quirk. This silly mutant bastard who can actually feel compassion. Go ahead and laugh.

I'll tear your throat out when you're done.

__________________________________

ALTERNIAN WARFLEET MEDICAL RECORD 17; AUTHORED BY ALEZZ DEGIO WITHOUT QUIRK BY ORDER OF EMPRESS NEZZERATH THE TWENTY THIRD, MAY HER REIGN BE LONG AND BLOODY.

ON THE TWENTY-FIRST CYCLE OF ELEVENTH PERIGREE, 1929, MEDICAL RECORD RECORDED AN ANOMALY IN THE BLOOD OF SPECIMEN 6411231025, ONE IKSTI ORCA. LET IT BE KNOWN THAT GENERAL AZIPATH OF THE ALTERNIAN HOMEFLEET WAS NOTIFIED IMMEDIATELY OF THE ANOMALY. BY HIS PERMISSION, THE CHILD WAS ALLOWED TO LIVE. SHE HAS NO RECOLLECTION OF THE EVENTS. SUBJECT WAS ADMINISTERED WITH A TYPE 34 MEMORY SUPPRESSANT.

NOTE: 1E7 I7 BE KNOWN 7HA7 I 7OLD HIM I7 WAS A HORRIB1E IDEA

SUBJECT IS UNDER CLOSE, SECRET SUPERVISION. IF SUBJECT SHOULD EXHIBIT SIGNS OF HER POWER, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD SHE BE APPROACHED. SUBJECT IS FROM NOW ON UNDER CLASSIFICATION 143 ALPHA.

NOTE: YES ASSHO1ES 7HA7 MEANS SHE HAS C1EARANCE FOR 1EVE1 RED SECRE7S. IF YOU REALLY NEED 7O KNOW WHY CHECK HER PSYCH FI1E. IF YOU DON'7 IMMEDIATE1Y SHIT YOURSE1F YOU'RE A BE77ER 7RO11 7HAN ME.

SUBJECT IS AT NO POINT TO BE MADE AWARE OF HER SITUATION, OR HER CLEARANCE. ANYONE FOUND ALLOWING HER TO FIND SUCH INFORMATION BEFORE JOINING THE FLEET IS TO BE CULLED.

ATTENDUM: SUBJECT NOTICED TO BE VISITING A INDIGO-BLOOD JUST BARELY OFF THE BEACH. THEY HAD A PICNIC. IT WAS INCREDIBLY ROMANTIC. THEY AREN'T GOING OUT. SO WILL YOU IDIOTS STOP SHIPPING THIS TWO-SWEEP YEAR OLD AND GET BACK TO YOUR DUTIES?

ATTENDUM: GOG DAMNIT PEOPLE IF ONE MORE PERSON UPDATES THEIR SHIPPING WALL WHILE ON DUTY I SWEAR I'LL GAS YOU WHILE YOU SLEEP.

ATTENDUM: bullshit. Iksti totally s this kid.

ATTENDUM: DO YOU WANT TO TEST ME, VILKIX?

ATTENDUM: bring it On, cOmmander.

ATTENDUM: Will the ~both~ of you report to my office for a ~"commendation"~? I ~think~ I've seen enough of these ~antics~

[lucidSeraph]

TOO MUCH GOOD, NO TIME TO COMMENT AS I HAVE TOO MUCH SHIT TO DO TONIGHT. I LOVE YOU ALL YOU ALL ROCK. I will respond to one thing though:

Seraph - I adored this chapter. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed all the previous, but I wasn't really sold until this one. David's interactions with Yggdrasil were brilliant. I've never read House of Leaves, but now I'm pretty sure I'm going to. (My friends have been recommending it to me for a while anyway, but I keep being too lazy to go and actually buy it, and the eBook probably just isn't the same)

I'm glad you liked! Re: House of Leaves - I'm warning you RIGHT NOW, it is NOT to everyone's tastes, it is EXTREMELY pretentious and overwrought, and it IS very difficult to get through. That said, it's quite rewarding and I am somewhat of an expert on the text (I wrote fifty pages of literary criticism on it once, after four months of ripping it apart word by word) so if you start reading it and go AGH WTF!? I am more than willing to shed light on things.

[SkaianRedeemer]

KarneWarrior, it's time for me to prod you with this, uh... official Internet Writing Stick. That I have right here. It's about your backlinks. You don't have any. These threads move so fast that I'm not sure I'm even caught up with Trial by Void! I... think so? Was the last chapter the one with the construction bots?

[KarneWarrior]

Yeah, it was. I'm waiting for someone to put them in the archive so I can just tear the links all at once.

[slakensColin]

@Graven_Image:
I honestly love your Indystuck fic so far. Its amazing. I especially love Tim and Steve.

Just a question: will Steve ever mention Herobrine? ( or maybe you already have and i just missed it :/ )

[Graven_Image]

@Graven_Image:
I honestly love your Indystuck fic so far. Its amazing. I especially love Tim and Steve.

Just a question: will Steve ever mention Herobrine? ( or maybe you already have and i just missed it :/ )

Well.

Steve hasn't spoken of him before, but now that you mention it, Herobrine might just have a place in the story. I wasn't thinking about it before now, but it's a piece that fits nicely into the puzzle. Thanks!

Indystuck

Chapter 25

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OPEN PESTERLOG

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videomaticPrecognitive began pestering viridianVoyager

VP: Viridian.
VP: I have made arrangements for both our entries.
VP: We will be sent into the game together.
VV: Wow!
VV: So, like, two players using one client?
VP: No.
VP: We will be completing two entirely seperate links in the chain.
VP: The timing of our entry is a necessary consequence of our impending collision.
VV: Oh.
VV: So, what do I do in the meantime?
VP: Just wait for for Benli to connect to you.
VP: Hopefully the limited area of your spacecraft will minimize his natural Dwarven tendency to screw up.
VV: Now hang on. That's not really fair to Benli!
VP: Perhaps, but it's certainly not untrue.
VV: ...
VV: Yeah...

OPEN PESTERLOG

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NG: ok see now these jokes are just starting to sound desperate
BC: Desperate like YOUR MOTHER-
NG: see theres your problem right there
NG: you dont know when to let a good thing go
BC: You know who else doesn't know when to let a good thing go-
NG: ugh
NG: who
BC: YOUR MOM-

OPEN PESTERLOG

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neckwearAficionado began pestering videomaticPrecognitive

NA: Alright. I've installed the server.
NA: I'm still waiting for your connection.
VP: One moment.
VP: There we go.
NA: Huh.
VP: What?
NA: You know, when you first told me you were on a meteor, I didn't believe you.
NA: Now I do, and it's still weird to see you actually on it.
VP: Some things never change.
VP: Shall we continue?
NA: By all means.
NA: We're doing it.
VP: We're making this TAKE PLACE.

OPEN PESTERLOG

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VV: Uhh, Benli?
DS: whaaaaat.
VV: Please don't put the Cruxtruder outside of the ship
DS: man why ya gotta be so hard to deal wif?
DS: ya got gravity powers out yer ears, why make me have to be so precise like dis?
VV: Just...
VV: A little down?
VV: Please
DS: ach fine
DS: the steam clingin on this screen is makin it a bugger to work with
VV: PERFECT! Drop it RIGHT THERE!
DS: yeah mkay

WHUMP

"...Fascinating."

Quoth Professor Vitellary, upon seeing Sburbian technology for the first time.

He, along with the other five members of the ship, were currently absorbed in the higly scientific and complex process of not dying at the hands of Dwarven stupidity.

Just plain not dying was simple. When you threw a Dwarf in, it suddenly became much, much more difficult.

The state of things, as it stood, was not pleasant.

The ship was dead in space, with a meteor headed for it at a few hundred miles per hour. On that meteor was Commander Video, also attempting to enter the game. One of them had to get in within the next five minutes, or they would crash and die.

Add one Benli McUrist to the mess, and you can see how the situation could be a little tense.

OPEN PESTERLOG

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NA: That's the last one.
NA: Will you need any further assistance?
VP: No.
VP: Thank you, Tim.
NA: My pleasure.
NA: Try not to die.

neckwearAficionado ceased pestering videomaticPrecognitive

The meteor was bare.

Boring.

Dreary.

It was almost enough to lull one to sleep-NO.

Must stay awake. Must complete the entry.

First the matter of the Sprite. It cycled rapidly between colors, luminescent, if you will.

Video produced a single pixel. It was generated from thought, and contained perhaps a single bit of data. It was harmless.

Into the sprite it went.

And once the sprite was prototyped, he reabsorbed it into his mind.

OPEN SPRITELOG:

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PIXELSPRITE: What is this?
PIXELSPRITE: What did you do?
COMMANDER VIDEO: I did what I knew was right.
COMMANDER VIDEO: You and I have a lot to talk about...

[SkaianRedeemer]

Yeah, it was. I'm waiting for someone to put them in the archive so I can just tear the links all at once.

Ah, okay, that makes sense then! Thanks. That was a great official notice, btw, especially "Authored [...] without quirk by order of [the] Empress".

@Graven: I feel like I'm missing this pixel thing without having played Bit.Trip... oh well. Nice to see him screwing up the SBaHJ line, of course.

[Rimbaum]

Karne: I'm so sorry I haven't mentioned this earlier, but EEEE new Trial by Void! I have been hanging on to this series right from the start! So happy each time I see an update.


Lastly: "GOG DAMNIT PEOPLE IF ONE MORE PERSON UPDATES THEIR SHIPPING WALL WHILE ON DUTY I SWEAR I'LL GAS YOU WHILE YOU SLEEP."

BEST LINE EVER

[Graven_Image]

@Graven: I feel like I'm missing this pixel thing without having played Bit.Trip... oh well.

It's not much. Bit.Trip is full of pixels, and brainy symbolism. Pixel + Brain = Video can make a Pixel from his brain.

It's just something I made up.

[Kassiopeia]

@PingZing - oh Daaaaave. oh John. You have a really nice handle on the way the kids relate to each other. It's really adorable.

@Lantadyme - that was fantastic as ever. I look forward to going back and mulling it over properly. Lovely to see some Terezi-fic, she doesn't seem to make much of an appearance around these parts!

Oh and I finished this thing. Be aware, there is a little violence. I think it's still forum-appropriate, but I'm going to get the whole story up on AO3 soonish, so if this bothers anyone I can replace with a link pretty easily.

Vindicatrix

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

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Eridan has no time to formulate a witty response or even force his aching muscles into action before Rose raises her wands. A cloud of darkness masses around her like a raincloud and he can barely dive out of the way as a bolt of dark energy streams past him, hitting the surface of the sea with an angry crackle-hiss.

He struggles to muster a counterattack but his palms are sweating, he can barely keep a grip on his wand and he's so fucking tired, he just wants to go home-

There is another deafening concussion as the twofold stream of black light coursing from Rose's needles hits the ground beside him, grazing his hip and sending a cloud of white sand into the air to choke him and sting his eyes. He yells back at her, an incoherent cry of protest, and struggles to his feet, raising his wand as he does so. He should be winning this stupid fight easily. He's at the highest level, he defeated the Black King, for god's sake - but there's nobody backing him up here.

He finally manages to fire off a defensive shot, a loop of white light that deflects one or two attacks before dissolving, but Rose is implacable. Her face, visible through the cloud of steam and sparks and flying sand, is set in an expression of quiet fury.

"Rose, please-" he calls, raising his hands in a gesture of submission, but she merely takes the opportunity to send another volley of black flame sizzling towards him. One clips his shoulder and he falls back into the shallows, screaming. Blood flows from the wound, a stain of deep purple on the waters, spreading around him like a dark halo. Some part of him wants to lie there, letting the cold water numb him, and wait for her to finish him off, but whatever desperate howling survival instinct still lurks at the base of his brain sends him scrabbling for leverage on the sand and he hauls himself onto all fours. His glasses are shattered and there's sand and saltwater in his eyes. He can't focus. The blue-grey blur of the water fades into the grey-white blur of the sand, and the dark silhouette of his death bearing down on him from above. The only certainty is the slender white wand in his hand, the cause of all this, gripped so tightly in his fist that its edges have cut deeply into his palm -

- something strikes him, hard, sending shudders of pain down his arm, and the wand is gone, shattered into a thousand small splinters of bone. The wand and his fucking hand, his right hand, nothing remaining but a jagged flap of sleeve, flapping helplessly in the wind. He screams hoarsely and the sound doesn't seem to stop as his knees give out and he collapses onto the sand, blood pouring from his ruined wrist and turning the sand to royal purple.

Rose lands lightly beside him.

"N-no," he gasps, shaking, "Please don't, I'm sorry-"

"I know what you did," she says, "Eridan."

She manages to spit out his name like it's a curse word. He realises with a sort of sick amusement that in another life he might have been delighted by the hatred blossoming in her eyes, but he was so wrong, so stupid-

"Please understand something," she says, "In the last few days my friends and I have had to witness the destruction of all we know and hold dear. Endearingly optimistic as John and Jade may remain, we are not unaware of the scale of devastation that has been visited upon us."

She kneels on the sand beside him, the tip of one needlewand to his throat, drawing a bead of blue-black blood. Maybe I'll pass out soon, he thinks, and she can kill me in my sleep. That would be nice.

"I suppose what I am trying to convey to you is that given the situation into which we find ourselves bodily hurled, it is in each other that we can see our only possible hope for survival."

Her hands, he notices, are shaking.

"From a purely strategic point of view, you don't kill your allies, Eridan Ampora," she says, "And if you value whatever miserable state of being you currently inhabit, you do not kill my friends."

"I'm sorry," he manages to say, "I'm so- I loved her."

"You - what?" she says, genuinely taken aback. "As though that gives you any right to - how dare you even talk about Kanaya."

"Not Kan," he says, "F-Feferi. I loved Feferi."

"I see," she says. Her face is impassive as a statue once again, but Eridan gets the impression that she has not prepared a speech for this eventuality.

"Just kill me," he says, clutching at his wounded arm as fresh tears pour down his cheeks. "Please. I'm too much of a coward to do it myself."

"No." She sits back, digging her heels into the sand and withdrawing the wand from his throat.

"No?" he says. There is a moment in which the only sound is the lap of waves. Whether Rose is gathering her thoughts or relishing the look of agony on his face, he can't tell.

"Kanaya - my friend, my friend who I loved, though I don't know why I'd tell a worthless nonentity like you when I could never tell her - worried about what I might become," she says, "And now it seems I have become the kind of person who leaves you with the choice to bleed to death alone in the sea or to get to your feet and perhaps continue to live with your guilt. I have become, in short, the kind of person to leave you with hope."

Rose stands and turns to go.

"I wonder whether she would approve."

A/N

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Got pretty dark there! Sorry about that.

(for what it's worth I think Kanaya would be pretty 0kay with Rose's actions. It's not like she doesn't have a ruthless side herself.)

e: also I would recommend this as listening material.

[slakensColin]

Well.

Steve hasn't spoken of him before, but now that you mention it, Herobrine might just have a place in the story. I wasn't thinking about it before now, but it's a piece that fits nicely into the puzzle. Thanks!

Hurrah! Im glad i could help

Also; Oh Tim and your arbitrary skepticism.

Edit//
@Kassiopeia
I dont know if i should feel bad for Eridan or hate him.
Wonderful story though!

[Wigmund]

Kass...that was amazing!

[Layra]

Screw: LPOS

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"This?" He glares at the gun in his hands. "This is the legendary best weapon my specibus has?" He turned to Doug, who shrugged.
"I think it looks cool. It looks like a harpoon."
"I know it looks like a harpoon. I don't want it to look like a harpoon. I want it to look like a gun." That wasn't even the problem, he mused. The piece of shit was blue. Bright blue. Even his terrible green Heir of Space outfit didn't look so gaudy.
He looked down at Doug again, who was still wearing his God-Tier getup. Of course he couldn't ask him about how it looked; the guy had no sense of fashion. Everything he wore was some technicolor monstrosity.
Alex was no stranger to alchemizing clothing, but he had a rule. Everything he made was black, and everything he made was a suit. Suits made of cotton, of leather, of dragon scale, of primordial fear. Black. Suits. The only color he allowed was red, because sometimes a little red on your suit was unavoidable.
Every weapon he made also followed a rule. Not as simple a rule as the one for his clothing, but one nonetheless. He made and he used practical weapons that looked good with his suits.
Not bright blue toys.
"Are you going to keep it, Alex?" Doug asked. "I really like my Duttonators. Maybe you should try it out once? Maybe?"
Alex turned and took aim at one of the gyclopses that had been stalking up behind them. His finger twitched against the trigger.
Later on, he would tell himself that Doug had let out the soft "ooooh" at the lightning bolt that burst from the rifle's tip and completely incinerated the gyclops.
He examined Ahab's Crosshairs once more. If only it weren't so blue. If only.
"Nope. Trash it."

On the subject of text colors: I agree that you generally shouldn't need it. I've used it when I wanted to do specific 4th-wall painting, like in Born From Madness, and during some times when I wanted rapid dialog without any tags. But keep in mind that some of the colors are actually kind of hard to read (coughDocScratchcough); same with typing quirks.

[ToreaderTornado]

More collaborative shenanigans!

Thanks to Katrika (Sollux, Equius and Nepeta), WhichDoctor (Kanaya), and MayorSillyBiscuits (Karkat and Vriska). I was Eridan.

Eridan's Diary: Entry 3541

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TA: okay guy2, ii'm makiing thii2 old diiary entry of eriidan2 avaiilable two viiew
TA: not that he ever wriite2 anything iintere2tiing

dear diary,

today wwas yet another glorious vvictory ovver that bitch mindfang. she nevver saww it comin.

AG: Oh my gooooooood, I totally had to fish you out of the water. Who ever heard of an aquatic troll that can't swim? Looooooooser!

it just goes to showw that you simply cant hope to beat me in flarp . im just the best there fuckin is. it also servves to showw the obvvious skills that come wwith my kickass royal blood

in other newws, that death machine is comin along pretty good.

CG: WHY DO YOU INSIST ON PLAYING GAMES FOR GIRLS ERIDAN? YOU ALREADY SUCK ENOUGH WITHOUT BEING SUCH A FUCKING PILLWEEF.

i came up wwith this genius idea of using the sun against them. course, that wwouldn't stop any jade bloods, but eh. they can be taken care of later. 'sides, kan's one of the feww trolls i can stand, so hey, she doesn't die immediately.

GA: And How Praytell Are You Going To Go About Harnessing The Sun
GA: I Am Seeing Flaws In This Plan
GA: Also Thanks I Guess

AC: :CC < *ac hopes that eridan doesn't hate her!*

CG: HE HATES EVERYONE NEPETA. SO SUCKS TO BE YOU.

AC: :33 < no, he makes kissyfaces at a picture of feferi all the time

but yeah back to the machine. im havvin equius make this huge ass lense thing. i can get it to focus the sun, and bam, no more landwwellers. only problem is howw i go about gettin it close enough to the sun in the first place.

GA: And There Would Be That Flaw I Mentioned

oh man, i almost forgot. i think im makin good progress wwith fef. maybe i can get her flowwers or somethin.

fuck, can flowwers even survvivve underwwater?

CG: GOOD PROGRESS?
CG: I HAD NO IDEA A RESTRAINING ORDER WAS GOOD PROGRESS.
CG: FUCKASS.

GA: Clearly She Is In The Scarlet Throes For Him Karkat
GA: Just Look At How She Cringes When She Glances At His Noble Face

AG: She put you in the friend zone Eridan.
AG: Put her in the kill zone.
AG: >::::D

TC: hOnK

i could probably ask kar wwhat to do. me and him are really the only guys wwho get this sort of thing. maybe wwhen ivve finally wwon fefs heart i can see if he wwants to fit in the pale quadrant, since thered be room.

CG: WHAT THE FUCK?
CG: NO LEAVE ME OUT OF THIS FUCKASS.

CC: W)(at?
CC: O)( w)(at t)(e glub -Eridan?
CC: I am not interested in you.

TA: thii2 ii2 an old entry, ff
TA: liike, a few month2
TA: let2 just keep talkiing fiin the hornpiile

CC: Was t)(at a fish pun?
CC: 38)

TA: gah
TA: maybe

so yeah, id say things are goin pretty good for me quadrant wwise. i dont evven havve to mention vvris and my blackrom status, cause of course things there are alwways goin my wway.

AG: 8lack romance?
AG: Say wh88888888t.

so all in all, things are pretty damn good.

lovve,
eridan

edit: fuck

equius broke the lense.

why the fuck did i let him wwork wwith glass. fuck. this is wwhat i get wwhen i don't think my genius plans all the wway through; some little detail comes back to bite me in the ass.

CT: D--> I am e%tremely sorry. Feel free to punish me.
CT: D--> I need a towel...

CG: OH MY FUCKING GOD EQUIUS GET THE HELL OUT RIGHT THE FUCK NOW.
CG: YOU SICK FUCKASS.

CT: D--> Was that an order?
CT: D--> How 100wd.
CT: D--> I am beginning to perspire.

-- TA has banned CT from responding to memo --

-- caligulasAquarium [CA] began responding to the memo--

CA: wwhat the fuck
CA: fuck
CA: FUCK
CA: you just wwait mustard blood,
CA: wwhen i get my hands on you
CA: i'll
CA: i'll

-- TA has banned CA from responding to memo --
-- TA has closed memo --

[Xaeraz]

I just don't understand how you people are so good when it comes to writing dialogue for all these trolls. I'm currently working on my own homestuck fic but can't write dialogue at all. Do any of you have any tips for writing for a semi-new fic writer?