MSPA Fanfiction VI: Trashy Rainbow Drinker Fanfiction

[lucidSeraph]

Oh yes Path yes

[Sporkaganza]

I will finish Strange Places one of these times. Until then, more Snowman.

Tools

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Doc Scratch has one of those faces you just can't hate.

Snowman has never seen him without a look of mild tolerance on his mug. That's it, she thinks. It's the look your father or older brother wears when they explain to you patiently how stupid you've been, but how they're about to give you a chance to correct yourself. It's not the sort of thing you can hate, even if it comes from a complete stranger.

And sadly, Scratch is nowhere near a complete stranger to Snowman.

As she leaves English's study, letting the door click shut behind her, he's waiting there, that same look on his face. She is extremely adept at hating. She practically taught it to Spades Slick, correctly hailed as the angriest man in Midnight City. He's incorrectly hailed as the most dangerous. Snowman fears only one person in the world, and so naturally, she spends her nights in his arms.

So she certainly doesn't fear Doc Scratch. She finds it curious, however, what a difficult time she has hating him. It's just not worth it. Her hate slides off him without impacting. She's long since adopted a similar tactic to his- smug superiority, a hint of pity at the other's youthful foolishness. She can only pretend it's changed anything. The only effects it's had are a few less wasted barbs.

Hating Doc Scratch feels simply... ineffective. One hates disaster, not the winds blowing before it. One hates a tornado, not the butterfly weeks ago, a million miles away, fluttering its wings. No, that holds too much blame. Doc Scratch is not a cause. He doesn't do anything. Snowman is infuriated by him for the simple reason that he wants nothing.

He just is, and serves, and announces. They are nominally on the same side, she knows, but he is so busy being nothing to everyone that there can never be a connection between them, although they are the only two in English's entire organization who could be said to be of similar rank. This is because they are not truly within the organization itself.

Snowman lights her cigarette. Anyone else would have done it for her, but Scratch views her not as a lady, she knows, not as something to want or dislike or anything. To him, she supposes, she is of similar importance to that lamp, a cat on the street, a doorknob.

But she knows one thing, and she clings to that in the face of Scratch's passive disinterest in her.

"He says he's not going to see you today," she tells him without emotion.

"Yes, he did say that," says Scratch. He's leaning on the wall opposite, hands casually in the pockets of his immaculate suit jacket.

She inhales, enjoys, exhales, and smoke drifts into the room. She cannot tell for sure, but she suspects he dislikes it, given his usual obsession with cleanliness.

"Well, if he's not going to see me, perhaps I should be going," he says, and turns to leave.

She cuts him off before he can, a careless barb tossed to him. "It's been awhile, hasn't it?"

"Yes," he answers. "Sixteen days."

"I don't suppose he could be tiring of you."

"No, I don't suppose that."

"It's just that he's never gone without giving you orders for so long, has he?"

"No," says Scratch, his back still turned.

"Hm," she says, and filters her derision, her scorn, her superiority into the syllable. Spades Slick would have tried to kill her four sentences ago. Scratch is simply unmoved. "Well. I suppose we aren't so similar after all."

"I don't believe we ever were," Scratch answers. Getting information from him is excruciating unless he's actively trying to give it to you. But Snowman has learned; she no longer searches. She plants ideas, and she waits.

"I'll let you know if he wants you back," she says.

"I'll already know."

He's not leaving, and Snowman takes a chance. "Do you know what the difference between us is, Scratch?" she asks.

"Yes," he answers.

"It's that you are used. And I am wanted."

"Is that what you think?"

"Yes. He courts me. And you, he just uses. One doesn't need to make sure a hammer enjoys itself, just that it hits nails. Isn't that right?"

Scratch turns around. Snowman is actually surprised. She's never gotten even that much of a reaction out of him before. He walks over to her, casually, comfortably; Doc Scratch only ever strolls. He takes off one of his white gloves.

"I don't think you know very much about him," he says to her. "You're quite new at this, after all, so that's understandable." He reaches up, still smiling his meaningless half-smile, and pinches out the tip of her cigarette with his bare fingers. His expression falters not at all; he shakes the ash off his hand with one economical motion. "I understand the difference between requiring and desiring, my dear. I suggest you take a closer look so as not to miss any pertinent information." He slips his glove back on and buttons it.

Snowman's lips part as her jaw hangs open for a brief second. She recovers almost immediately. "You think you can talk down to me, you arrogant little terrier, you mean nothing to-"

The study door opens.

The two of them freeze.

"Darling," comes his voice. Snowman is by his side in a second. His hand is on her cheek. He smiles at her. "Would you mind keeping it down, please? I've got some important business to attend to."

She can never speak under his full attention. Snowman nods mutely.

"Scratch," he continues. "Good. Just the man I wanted to see." His hand leaves Snowman's face.

Scratch brushes by her as he follows English into his study. She can make out no trace of superiority, no hint of his ego. He is unflappable and passive as ever, wearing his face that no-one can hate.

And yet, as the door closes her out, Snowman begins to feel that she might be able to hate him all the same.

I liked this quite a bit, but... Doc Scratch with a face? And expressions? That's always going to seem wrong to me.

[A Fan]

Nice stuff, Path. Snowman's mentality always fascinates. I can't help but wonder if she had a similar relationship with the Black King...

Tavros/Gamzee?
Hmmm......
Cirque De Geek?
because you know how dorky Tavros is and yeah...gonna shut up now

Well, I should have phrased that better. It is more of a serious, long term, multiple chapter fic. I'm thinking something that has to do with Pupa Pan, magic, or fairies.

Fae Miracles?
Magic Dust?
Neverland Carnival?
Third Star on the Right?

I could go on.

[ScientificFlorist]

Nice stuff, Path. Snowman's mentality always fascinates. I can't help but wonder if she had a similar relationship with the Black King...

Tavros/Gamzee?
Hmmm......
Cirque De Geek?
because you know how dorky Tavros is and yeah...gonna shut up now

Well, I should have phrased that better. It is more of a serious, long term, multiple chapter fic. I'm thinking something that has to do with Pupa Pan, magic, or fairies.

Fae Miracles?
Magic Dust?
Neverland Carnival?
Third Star on the Right?

I could go on.

Hmm...Magic Stardust. Probably something like that. Once I get my motifs on and make some progress, I'll probably pick one of those.

EDIT: Also, my other question. Should fan-lyrics be posted here?

[ceruleanTresses]

I'm pretty sure lyrics are fine to post here. I've posted a bunch here, and no one complained; and I've seen others do the same.
And "IF YOU COULD HATE" definitely needs to be read by everyone, so.

[Mirdan]

comment dump! also I almost have something I'm ok with posting. almost. I really need a better title for it though.

@ penguinbound: Witch of Silence reminded me of my ex, who has a speech impediment and behaves almost exactly as your character did. Doing anything 'normal' can be very difficult for those people. Good job evoking that.

@ draconicAlgorithm: Draco Eridan is quite an amusing idea. Rowling should have developed her minor characters more IMO.

@ A Fan: John would so go over the top like that for something so silly. I agree with Karkat.

@ Path: I was about to request some Scratch fic because Scratch in the updates is just adorable, and then you pre-empted that 0_0. He's quite the logical, calm bastard, and I love his dynamic with Sn8wman.

@ ScientificFlorist: Lyrics are a kind of poetry, but maybe you could cross post it in a music thread somewhere (and hope someone's inspired to create a song). Also cerulean says I should read that one thing so I will right away haha

e: amg "IF YOU COULD HATE" has all the funny.

[mutecebu]

Jim,
I just read some of your mini fics. PM delivering junk mail to slick - priceless.

Path, talking about Scratch's face is such an amazingly brilliant non-sequiter. I love it.

[Jim Groovester]

Oh, why thank you.

How about everybody put up twelve pages of fics in two days? I'm sure it'll be easy to keep up with that, no problem.

I'm reading everybody's stuff, but, uh, there's a lot of it. I eventually want to comment on all of it but I haven't had a decent chance yet. You're all doing fantastic work and yeah general group praise sucks but it's the best I can do right now.

Here's something I wrote a while ago for no particular reason, but it's become relevant now that Spades Slick and Doc Scratch are interacting in the comic.

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Slick looked at his hand. He had a Full House, Aces and Kings. Droog had folded without looking at his cards, Boxcars had been eliminated several hands ago, and Deuce had gone all in on the first hand on junk.

Doc Scratch and his giant cueball head sat across from him. Snowman, the bitch, sat at Scratch’s right, watched the hand with an amused expression as Slick squirmed and sweated through the hardest game of Poker he had ever played in his life.

Scratch had taken one... look? Slick guessed, at his cards, and kept raising the bet. “I see your fifty and raise you fifty.”

Slick’s hand was perfect. “yeah, well, you...” Slick struggled for an insult, but used up all his good ones at the start of the game. “shit.”

Snowman snickered.

“i see your fifty and raise you two hundred.”

“I see your two hundred and raise you five hundred.”

Scratch’s constant betting made Slick nervous. He stared into Scratch’s... surface, looking for any sign that he was bluffing. The only thing he saw was his own agonized face in the pale reflection.

What did he have? What did he have? He had to have four of a kind. It was the only explanation. Or maybe he was bluffing. Yeah, it would be easy for Scratch to bluff, because he was a faceless bastard with a stupid cueball head that projected a perfectly even and deadpan voice completely bereft of any emotion without a mouth somehow. Yeah, had to be bluffing. No wait, Slick was really down on chips, could he really risk losing the game if Scratch really did have four of a kind?

Slick looked at his cards, the surfaces getting sweaty from pained deliberation. He looked at his chips that had against all his character been perfectly stacked as a stopgap measure for his nervousness. He looked at Snowman whose delight at Slick’s predicament was barely being contained with a wry smile she only marginally stifled for a semblance of politeness.

He looked at Droog. Droog would know what to do. Droog silently glowered back at him. “What?” Droog asked after several moments of awkward staring.

He looked back at Scratch. Goddamn cue balls. Can’t trust ‘em. Slick let out the most pained sigh of his life. “fold.” He thrust his cards face down to the dealer. Scratch collected his chips.

The Crew groaned. “YER AN IDIOT SLICK”

“Scratch was bluffing.” Droog explained.

“how, goddammit? the goddamn whitewashed fishbowl is impossible to read.”

“His right shoulder was raised a millimeter above his average, obviously in tension for bluffing his ass off.” Droog said with folded arms. “I thought you knew.”

Slick simply stared slack-jawed at Droog as Scratch revealed his hand. Utter junk. “I have no idea why you insisted on playing this game with me. I know all your cards before you are dealt them and the result of every hand before it begins.”

Goddamned know-it-all cue balls.

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I couldn't describe the thought process that brought this about. There was a piece of fan art where Doc Scratch was playing father to the troll girls. It occurred to me that Doc Scratch would have a very difficult time showing emotion. It then occurred to me that Doc Scratch would have an absolutely perfect pokerface.

Then I remembered after writing most of it that Doc Scratch was omniscient.

Whatever, I don't know.

[Mirdan]

@ Jim: I think you lampshade the things in your Author's note perfectly with the last line. Why, indeed, would you play games with someone who knows everything.

Now I'm curious what games Vriska played with Scratch, and if she and Doc went through similar dialogue before she found the cue ball.

[A Fan]

I've been rather nastily bashing a troll recently, and I think I should make it up to him. Sort of. Voice of the lusussprite provided (in my mind) by Samuel L. Jackson

A Life's Porpoise

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In theory, avoiding his lusus shouldn't have even been an issue. The dream bubble was an extension of his own memory and mind, and thus, bended to his will. At least, in theory. Apparently, manipulating his thoughts was trickier than expected, especially when avoiding something. For one, he'd never heard the thing about "Don't think about pink musclebeasts," and how thoughts of bulging rose flesh would inevitably follow. Thus, as he followed the charade of exiting his hive, he nearly walked face-first into the heliotrope-glowing seahorse.
"the fuck are you wwearin, boy?"
Eridan rolled his eyes. He knew he'd react this way. "its ironic dad you wwouldnt understand."
"youre damn right i dont understand," snorted the sprite. "i dont wwant to fuckin understand this"
"wwell good because im not changing" He summoned all the dignity due to a member of the aquatic aristocracy. "kan designed it and i havve independent confirmation from three sources that i look fabulous"
"oh hell no" Energy crackled across the flying fish. "no son of mine is gonna be a fuckin transvvestite"
"shut up dad im six swweeps old i can make my owwn decisions"
"wwhat youre wwearin is proof enough that you cant young man"
"i told you you wwouldnt understand" huffed the Prince of Hope. "this is wwhats called cool dad heard of it"
"oh you did not just go there" Pure purple hated radiated from the Skyfishsprite. "you did not just go there"
"oh i wwent there" Eridan wore a grin like a hipster pirahna. "i fuckin planted a flag there and claimed in the name of fashion and SCIENCE"
"one you are not draggin science into this twwo i wwas definin cool wwhen you wwere a drop of slurry in some mother grub's lunch"
The young troll grimaced. "dad please wwe are civilized aquatic beings theres no need to for that kind of vvulgarity" His expression passed into one of nonchalance. "also i dont believe you"
The sprite wasn't looking at him. After a moment, he turned back to his ward. "im sorry eri i wwas busy comparin our respective bitch tallies" He nodded to himself. "still twwenty three to zip"
"coolness isnt measured in meaninless liasions dad"
"damn good indicator"
The seatroll scoffed. "you know what fuck you" His expression soured to the point where it could etch metal. "its not like you ever actually cared for me—"
"wwhat"
"you heard me, you—"
"howw dare you" The sprite bore far more anger than any fish should be capable of expressing. "i am the only being in all of paradox space that nevver stopped lovving you" Skyhorsesprite brought himself eye-to-eye with his psuedochild. "do you actually believe this"
Eridan said nothing, finding himself unable to make eye contact with the being.
"Eridan Aloysius Ampora." The construct was pronouncing every word with perfect inflection and no character whatsoever. It was the speech synthesizer analogue of a killer robot peeling back the synthetic flesh behind its metallic skull. "Do. You. Believe this?"
"...you wwere a dumb animal and then you wwere just another piece of the game programmed to help me" He finally managed eye contact. "how could you lovve me?"
"i savved your life you ungrateful string of guppy shit" The skin was back on, but the anger was still there.
"you think i still believve that story" countered the troll, "its bigger bullshit than a thousand wwizards"
"im sorry howw did you kill the girl who rejected you and who also happened to be your one survvivvin hemospectral superior"
"that was—"
"if you say science i swwear i wwill beat your ass so hard you wwont be able to form a hypothesis wwithout wwincin for a month"
"...wwell it wwas" Eridan muttered.
"and my ass is made is made out of radioactivve grape-flavvored jigglin bonepowwder suspension" A flash of decidedly non-grape-flavored eyes later, and the would-be crossdresser was trapped in a glowing energy hive. "noww you listen and you listen good
"just one more interruption and i wwill find a personal paradise some land of wwhales and bitches and i wwill nevver see you think of you or if i havve my wway see you again" Skyhorsesprite took a long hard look at the troll. "do i make myself clear"
Once again, there was silence.
"answwer me boy"
"wwill it count as an interruption"
"one more smartass comment like that and you get to find out"
Eridan demurred. "yes sir"
"good noww open up that atmospherically adapted lateral line of yours because i havve a story to tell
"i first saww you wwhen you wwere only a swweep and a half old flounderin in the wwater like a wwounded aquaborean wwhiskerbeast" There was a hint of a smirk on his muzzloboscis. "noww i may havve been a dumb animal but i wwas still a lusus naturae born for the purpose of ensurin that a young troll survvivves
"As such i kneww you wwere drowwning so i swwam straight up from directly beneath you" The expression softened a bit further. "you clung to me wwith wwhat little strength you had left and then i swwam faster than id evver swwum before"
Eridan's vision was beginning to blur around the edges. He wasn't sure if it was the lilac energy-sopor or his drama queen of a father, who was continuing regardless. "at least three fine bitches looking to lay some eggs up in this" he asked rhetorically, "ignored them like they wwas the skankiest seanags since the glubber herself"
He narrowly avoided a tangent into his glory days and turned back to face his ward. "young man i evven passed by a whale bleedin out of at least fivve different oceanic fangbeast wwounds and i did not even sloww dowwn"
That knocked the blur right out of Eridan's sensorium. His jaw was firmly rested on the solid-light surface of the hive.
"it wwas just you me the closest piece of dry land i kneww and that stretch of ocean dumb enough to be in the wway" The sprite's gaze wandered wistfully. "and wwhen i got there for a moment i thought that you had stopped breathin and for that moment i thought i wwould due of pure sorroww" He took a deep breath. "then i saww your little chest risin and fallin and i kneww that i wwould not be able to livve another second wwithout knowwin that you wwere alivve and wwell"
For a time, both were silent. At some point therein, the energy hive dissipated. As Eridan worked the stiffness out of his joints, he quietly asked "wwhy wwasnt i breathin"
"lookin back im pretty sure your gills wwere plastered to the sides of your head wwith crusted pupammniotic fluid"
"could... could that be wwhy i wwas alwways so hesitant wwith swwimmin"
"thatd be my guess"
"swweet fiddlin troll nero" whispered the Prince.
His steed and caretaker closed his eyes. "so if you still think i nevver lovved you and couldnt evver havve lovved you then you go ahead and wwear that outfit because you are no son of mine"
After an even longer, more awkward silence, Eridan finally spoke up. "dad... im sorry"
"youre still wwearin that goddamn dress"
"damn it dad im trying to apologize here"
"then you can do it wwhile wwearin somethin made for somethin wwith a goddamn penis vvestigial though it may be"
The troll's sympathy- and awe-refilled patience was newly exhausted. "fuck you dad im goin to to see my friends they understand me"
Skyhorsesprite was unimpressed. "wwell im goin to find that land of wwhales and bitches gonna be the fuckin pimp of ambergris ovver here"
"you can go to hell"
"how could i do that if youre leavin"

Gamzee's dreamself was, mercifully, as spaced as he had been in most of his life. Most of the time, at least. In any case, he'd converted one corner of his dream bubble into a bar, a forum for the deceased made less readily alterable by random memory through its creator's applied empty-headedness. He looked up from the glass he was polishing when the doorhorn's soprano honk announced someone entering. It had been a quiet night so far, just him tending bar, him polishing tables, and him providing a pleasant background on the piano. (Multiple personalities, when combined with the mutability of dreams, made multitasking much easier.) The greasepainted troll smiled as he recognized the customer. "ErIdAn! WhAt It Is, My BrOtHeR?"
"can it makara im not in the mood" The seatroll slammed himself onto a barstool like it was a giant button labelled "Press with rear end to make everyone love you". Unsurprisingly, it did not work as simile-advertised.
A recent recollection oozed its way out of a memory currently spread amongst three bodies. "hOw WaS tHe OlD hOrSe?"
Eridan shrugged, accenting the way the tanktop flattered his shoulders. "same as alwways"
The bartender nodded knowingly as he mixed the Prince's usual. (Fermented whale's blood and the tears of orphaned trolls, mixed with an angel's feather and served in a coconut shell. Dream mutability also did wonders for bar stock.) "I hEaR yOu, MaN, i HeAr YoU. yOu AnD yOuRs StIlL oN fOr NeXt WeEk?" The three noblest trolls and their lusussprites had been invited to hunt a minor Horrorterror that had been slated for obliteration.
The other troll smiled in spite of himself. "yeah yeah i think wwe are"
"bItChIn'"
And pianist!Gamzee played on.

Author's Note:

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Oh dear Gog, you really don't appreciate punctuation until you're not allowing yourself to use it. Bluuuuuuh...

And yeah, this was in part a late hop onto a March-calendar-page inspired bandwagon. But then it started to metastasize.

[SeptimusMagistos]

More promptfic:

Jade Harley / Tavros Nitram
Spider

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GG: it wont hurt you tavros!
AT: aRE YOU SURE,
GG: completely sure
GG: so you can get off now
AT: oH,
AT: sORRY ABOUT THAT,

From looking at Tavros, you wouldn’t actually think he would have the agility necessary to suddenly leap into Jade’s arms.

And you would be wrong.

From looking at Jade, you would think that even if Tavros did leap into her arms, she wouldn’t actually be able to hold him for any great length of time.

And sadly you would be right this time.

Still, Tavros got off just as soon as he dared. And despite Jade’s reassurances, he still stared at the spider in the middle of the room with evident horror.

GG: cant you just talk to it?
GG: you talk to other insects
AT: yES, bUT THEY’RE JUST INSECTS,
AT: sPIDERS ARE SOMETHING DIFFERENT,
AT: aND THAT SOMETHING IS NOT A THING THAT I AM ENTIRELY COMFORTABLE WITH,
GG: just commune with it already you big baby!
AT: nO,
GG: do iiiiiit! :)
AT: jADE,
AT: i KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TRYING TO DO,
AT: aND I APPRECIATE IT,
AT: bUT YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE ME WHEN I SAY IT’S NOT GOING TO WORK,
AT: i WILL NEVER BE OKAY WITH SPIDERS,
AT: jUST,
AT: mAKE IT GO AWAY,
AT: pLEASE,
GG: okay fine!
GG: jeeeeeez!!!
GG: do you want me to kill it?
AT: nO,
AT: i DON’T THINK THAT SPIDER HAS DONE ANYTHING BAD,
AT: aND IT SHOULDN’T DIE JUST BECAUSE I’M SCARED OF IT,
GG: how about i just put it outside?
GG: would that be okay?
AT: yES,
AT: tHAT WAY IT COULD LIVE ITS OWN LIFE,
AT: bUT I WOULD NOT HAVE TO INTERACT WITH IT,
AT: wHICH I THINK WOULD BE FOR THE BEST,

Jade walked up to the little arachnid and picked it up, staring at the tiny thing. Honestly, it was smaller than a grain of rice! Tavros was definitely overreacting.

Still, when a girl makes friends with trolls, she has to get used to certain idiosyncrasies. So she opened a window and let the little thing go.

GG: there
GG: no more spiders for tavros!

It meant more than she knew.

[Path]

Oh yes Path yes

Oh, yay, Seraph, yay. Mind if I ask what you're cheering? I like getting an idea of what people are happy to see.

I liked this quite a bit, but... Doc Scratch with a face? And expressions? That's always going to seem wrong to me.

Everybody in the Midnight City stuff are just... vanilla human. That said, I came up with the first line right after I did this manip, so there was a kind of hefty irony in there.

Nice stuff, Path. Snowman's mentality always fascinates. I can't help but wonder if she had a similar relationship with the Black King...

I just explored a bit of their relationship in If You Love Somebody, so apparently the Black King won't be showing up in my fics because, silly, H-E'S D----EAD!!!

@ Path: I was about to request some Scratch fic because Scratch in the updates is just adorable, and then you pre-empted that 0_0. He's quite the logical, calm bastard, and I love his dynamic with Sn8wman.

Why is it I keep writing calm logical bastards? I guess all the best villains do it with a frighteningly serious reason and a beautiful smile.

Path, talking about Scratch's face is such an amazingly brilliant non-sequiter. I love it.

Ahahaha yeah, I figure I am probably the only person to do this.

Here's something I wrote a while ago for no particular reason, but it's become relevant now that Spades Slick and Doc Scratch are interacting in the comic.

Jim you are just SO GOOD with all this. God I wish I could write humour. You're just great.

[SkaianRedeemer]

@SeptimusMagistos: Aww, Tavros.

[JudgeDeadd]

Me neither. Sorry mutecabu, I'm apparently not familiar with whatever you're writing. :I

This, I suppose.

[battlerek]

Baccanostuck

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DefaultProtagonist [DP] opened memo on board Funky Jazz Train Ride

DP: Just wanted to check on everyone now that we're all in the game

TearfulSavior responded to memo

TS: oh god firo, why is this place so big and scary ;-;
TS: and i can't find nice anywhere ;-;

ExplosiveRogue [ER] responded to memo

ER: Im fine jacuzzi dont worry
TS: oh nice, i'm so glad you're safe ;-;
TS: if anything happened to you i wouldn't know what to do ;-;
ER: Are those
ER: Are those rocket launchers
ER: Aimed at giant bombs
ER: I have to try these babies out right now
TS: i don't think that's a good idea nice ;-;
ER: Oh god look at all these explosions
ER: Oh god oh god oh god oh yes
ER: I think i need a towel
TS: nice i did not need to know that ;-;
DP: Well at least you two got into your worlds safely
DP: Don't worry Jacuzzi, once you get farther into the game you'll be able to meet up with Nice
TS: really ;-;
DP: Yes

AdolescentSurvivalist [AS] responded to memo

AS: what Have you Gotten us Into this Time firo.
AS: i'm Trapped inside My room In the Middle of A pit Of caramel
DP: Hey, I thought we were just playing a harmless game too.
DP: I didn't expect it to have world-changing consequences.

Passionate Hydrangea [PH] responded to memo

PH: AND THAT'S THE FIRST MISTAKE YOU MADE WHEN PLAYING THIS GAME FIRO
PH: and that's the first mistake!
PH: YOU SHOULD'VE REALIZED THAT ALL GAMES EVER PLAYED IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND HAVE CAUSED IREVERSABLE EFFECTS TO OUR PLANET
PH: that's right!
PH: LIKE DURING THE LAST CAMPAIGN OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT WHEN HE WAS DEFEATED BY LIU BEI IN A GAME OF TENNIS
PH: but Isaac, tennis hasn't been invented yet in Alexander the great's time!
PH: AU CONTRAIRE MY DEAR MIRIA, THE CHINESE ARE AN ADVANCED CIVILIZATION WHO'VE INVENTED MANY THINGS WE WESTERNERS HAVE PICKED UP ONLY NOW, AND ONE OF THESE THINGS IS TENNIS
PH: incredible!
TS: at least you guys are together isaac miria ;-;
TS: i sure hope nice and i can reunite soon ;-;
AS: ugh I have Marzipan all Over my Feet
AS: why Is this World so Full of Candy
TS: its better than what this world has ;-;
TS: theres a lot of really pointy spikes and im afraid i might poke an eye out if i trip ;-;
AS: eh I'd rather Be in Your world
AS: felmet Used to Drive burning Hot pokers Through my Retinas
AS: painful But over A period Of 10 Years it Seems like A cakewalk Compared to The other shit He's put Me through
TS: ;-;
DP: Too much information Czes
PH: hey Isaac?
PH: YES MIRIA
PH: is Czeslaw a guru?
PH: WHY DO YOU ASK MIRIA
PH: well aren't gurus supposed to have magic powers that make them resistant to pain? maybe he has guru powers that he's never told us about!
PH: THAT IS A POSSIBILITY MIRIA BUT WE NEED TO SEE HIM LEVITATE FIRST. LEVITATION IS A SURE SIGN OF GURUDOM AND ONCE WE SEE CZESLAW LEVITATE WE CAN ASK HIM TO TEACH US HIS MYSTIC GURU SECRETS
PH: incredible!
AS: you Guys are Impossible

MurderMaster [MM] responded to memo

MM: God these imps are so fun to stab!
MM: Too bad they blow up instead of bleeding to death though!
ER: Oh they do do they
ER: Im going to need a lot more towels than i have right now
ER: Be right back Jacuzzi ill talk to you later

ExplosiveRogue [ER] ceased responding to memo

TS: uwah nice don't go ;-;
TS: why did you include this guy too ;-;
TS: he's a complete nutjob ;-;
MM: Says the guy screwing the chick with the bomb fetish!
MM: But I aint passing judgement, theres nothing wrong with that!
MM: POW! Right in the kisser! Hang on you bozos I'm gonna kill some more of these wimps!

Murder Master [MM] ceased responding to memo

DP: Well at least he won't be using his talents on us for now.
DP: And I already told you earlier Jacuzzi, Ronnie was the one who sent out copies of the game, I only found out he was joining when he told me was my server player by trying to stab me with every knife in the kitchen.
TS: i'm just thankful he's the only knife wielding nutjob in this game right now ;-;

Expert Disemboweler [ED] responded to memo

E >>p-shaw, this game's a little too easy if you ask me
AS: oh God
ED : >> oh hey there little guy, how's that arm of yours

AS: stay Away from Me

Adolescent Survivalist [AS] ceased responding to memo

ED : >> jeez I was just being nice to the guy
ED : >> it's not like I can kill him permanently anyway
DP: Vino what did I told you about threatening the other players?
ED : >> hey I was just making some small talk, nothing wrong with that
TS: well he was being nice Firo ;-;
TS: even if he's really really scary ;-;
ED : >> hey now that really hurts me emotionally, ya know
ED : >> maybe you should be more sensitive of other people's feelings
PH: HE'S RIGHT JACUZZI
PH: definitely right!
PH: JUST BECAUSE YOU GO ON KILLING SPREES DIRECTED AT EVIL DOERS MULTIPLE TIMES DOESN'T MEAN YOU DON'T HAVE FEELINGS
PH: assassins have feelings too!
TS: i gotta go everyone ;-;
TS: i think an imp's heading into my room ;-;
ED : >> you can take 'em
ED : >> I'm killing these things with one hand tied behind my back

Tearful Savior [TS] ceased responding to memo

ED : >> man this game is soooo easy
ED : >> I thought you were gonna give me a challenge man
DP: That's because we didn't prototype anything dangerous to our sprites.
DP: Apparently what we put into our sprites affects the creatures in game.
ED : >>man you shoulda told me earlier
ED : >> I'd have prototyped myself if I did
DP: I don't think you're supposed to do that Vino.
ED : >> whatever
ED : >> oh hey whats this
ED : >> looks like soomeone prototyped the flying pussyfoot
ED : >> some of the imps look like trains now
DP: What!? Who prototyped a train into their kernel sprite!?

IntrepidCourier [IC] responded to memo

IC: oopS
IC: sorrY abouT thaT everyonE
DP: Rachel what did you do!?
DP: What did you do!
IC: looK i waS abouT tO placE a deaD spideR i founD wheN thE kernelspritE jusT fleW towardS thE traiN
ED : >>now I'm feeling rather reluctant about killing these imps
ED : >> I met the most beautiful girl in the world on board the flying pussyfoot and that's where we all first met
ED : >> there's no way I'm going to kill anything that reminds me of my memories on board that train
PH: VINO IS RIGHT
PH: yes he is!
PH: WE CAN'T JUST MERCILESSLY SLAUGHTER OUR PRECIOUS MEMORIES
PH: they're very very important!
ED : >> and now I'm okay with it
ED : >> be right back everyone, gonna go kill some precious memories

Expert Disemboweler [ED] ceased responding to memo

PH: ISNT VINO SUCH A GREAT MAN MIRIA
PH: how come, Isaac!
PH: HE REALIZED THAT IN DIFFUCLT TIMES LIKE THESE WE HAVE TO MAKE SACRIFICES EVEN IF WE HAVE TO KILL OUR MEMORIES
PH: you're so right Isaac!
PH: LETS GO FOLLOW HIS EXAMPLE MIRIA AND KILL OUR MEMORIES
PH: let's go hang ourselves upside down until the rushing of blood into our heads gives us amnesia!
PH: THATS RIGHT

Passionate Hydrangea [PH] ceased responding to memo

DP: Well at least everyone's okay, right Rachel?
IC: iT coulD bE worsE FirO
IC: i guesS i'lL gO explorE thiS neW worlD noW
DP: Good luck. Might as well close this memo too.

Intrepid Courier [IC] ceased responding to memo
Default Protagonist[DP] closed memo

prototyping the train was not something that I expected them to do.Well, no matter.

A/N

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I checked the last thread and I saw that no one made a baccano! crossover yet, so I decided to do this rather than update my pokemon/homestuck crossover.

[ProspitDreamer]

There are some people who sleep at 4am, but I am not one of them. No, instead I write overly serious fanfiction.

This idea is currently a mini-series in my head, but who knows what will happen to it. I'll only write more if anyone is interested. So I claim.

What it Takes

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hide spoiler

“How are you holding up, Jade?” John’s blue text inquired across Jade’s Spectagoggles and his voice carried to her ears through her Lunchmuffs as she narrowly dodged a swipe from an underling’s morphological claws.

“I gave you your own pair of Junior Compu-Sooth Spectagoggles, can’t you see for yourself!” she snapped.

“Uh…I’m sorry, Jade. I’m not really used to these things yet; following all the things I see is kinda hard.”

Jade could hear the hurt in his voice and she was immediately sorry for losing her temper.

“I’m sorry, John. I forget that not everyone is the Witch of Space.”

She rolled and came up behind the hideous space-bending creature and pulled the trigger on her with the muzzle of her rifle right up against it’s head. For once, she heard the satisfying crunch of carapace cracking before the thing dissolved into grist. She sighed and wiped the sweat from her forehead before turning around to face the next one. Of course, her first bullet went right through him, being transportalized to some unknown region of space, and she sighed.

Jade saw the shadow of something too close. She turned quickly and pulled the trigger, and then saw the bullet vanish harmlessly through the middle of the star-filled imp. She screamed in frustration, and then rolled behind a boulder, glad for the fact that the imps weren’t smart enough to follow her tracks in the snow to locate her.

“I’m holding up, but there are a lot of them.” she replied finally. “Why are there so many all of a sudden?”

“I don’t know.” John replied, from his similarly swamped position on the battlefield, where imps surrounded him on every side. He was able to easily keep them at bay by creating walls of wind, but that only pushed them back; his only means of actually destroying them were with his hammer. It worked beautifully enough; with his god strength he could kill them with one swing, but he could only kill one at a time, and they seemed to be coming faster than that, appearifying left and right around him.

“I wish I could just get to you; then we could fight them off together!” Jade shouted as she threw a snowball over the heads of several imps, distracting them as they turned to look where it landed, giving her a clean shot at three heads in a nice, neat line. Her bullet cracked satisfyingly through two of them before the third one realized what was up and vanished from her sight.

They might have had advantage in numbers, but at least they weren’t too bright.

Suddenly Jade felt a hard smack against the back of her head. Her ears rang as her body jerked forward, her goggles flying from her face and sinking into the snow.

“Ugh!”

She fell face-first into the freezing snow. She clasped her rifle in her hand, rolled onto her back, and shot up into the imp grinning manically over her. Her bullet vanished inside his stomach, but while it concentrated on that she kicked her feet out, sweeping his legs out from under him. She rose to her feet but was still dizzy from the blow to her head. She aimed to shoot, thankful that her regular, plain glasses were still on her face so she could see…

Another blow to her head caused her to stumble.

“J…de?” she heard John’s concerned voice crackling over her damaged Lunchmuffs. She was too busy trying to fight to reply; she was completely surrounded now with more than twenty imps closing in on her. She shot out into the crowd of them, but the first one re-directed the bullet and then it was gone, not affecting the rest.

They were too close now and so she started swinging her rifle instead, clocking one of them in the chest and knocking it down. She aimed and fired, grist exploding from him, but then claws gripped her hair, pulling her head back, as another fist came flying at her face. She couldn’t maneuver much but she was able to shift just a little, causing her Lunchmuffs to take the brunt of the damage. It sparked and crackled, as Jade brought the butt of her rifle up behind her, hitting the underling that held her hair square in the chest, freeing herself.

She tore the broken Lunchmuffs off and let them drop uselessly in the snow, as the wind picked up and blew her untied hair across her eyes. She didn’t look out at the numbers; she didn’t let the feeling of overwhelming discouragement get to her; she just focused on the nearest one and prepared to fight it. She aimed her trigger and then at the last second, switched targets, catching one off guard and successfully turning it into grist…

More claws sank into her dress, one of them scratching down her arm.

“Gha!” she shouted, turning, and then tears formed in her eyes as she realized there were too many. She was completely surrounded and there was no way she could stave them off. Another blow to her head and she sprawled into the snow, her trusty rifle flying from her hands. She managed to roll onto her back only to look up into a thousand cold, evil eyes, and she knew this was it.

A loud crackling boom tore out of the air just above her, along with a brilliant flash of white light. A creature dropped out of what looked to her like a crack in space, and at first she was sure it was just a bigger imp, sent to finish her off.

It didn’t look like any imp she’d ever seen before, though. There was no sign of a joker hat, or a princess dress, and its skin was grey, not black. And when it landed, it didn’t turn to attack her, but instead put its back to her in a position to defend her.

With a hideous snarl, the creature lunged at the mob of underlings, cutting across them with some kind of hook. Some of them managed to teleport away, but the creature was fast and caught many of them off guard. Grist exploded everywhere, and Jade would have been grateful to whatever-it-was except that just at that moment claws yanked at her hair and scraped at her face. She screamed.

The creature snarled and lunged at the underlings that attacked Jade. It caught some of them with its weapon and they vanished, and others escaped, but either way Jade was made free. The other underlings, now afraid, backed up a little as the creature snarled and snorted at them in a terrifying manner. Jade felt afraid of the thing for a little longer, until she saw the viciousness with which the creature protected her, keeping every one of the underlings away, killing even those that tried to teleport directly to her across the little circle of safety it had created.

In her temporary moment of relative safety, Jade was able to see and think. That was when she realized that the “creature” was wearing clothes; a long-sleeved black t-shirt, grey pants, and black shoes. She still couldn’t piece it together until the creature turned its head for a moment and looked directly at her, its yellow eyes piercing with purposeful intelligence. It snarled something at her, which she interpreted as it speaking, but in some language she couldn’t understand. But the moment its attention was away from the underlings they started to close in, and so he turned his head back to face the enemies, and Jade could not reply.

He had a tuft of black hair on top of his head from which two orange horns protruded, and Jade started to hope, though it made no logical sense, that this was somehow one of the trolls. In any event, whoever it was, it was clearly an intelligent creature that was, for the moment, her ally.

He had his back to her, all of his attention focused on the underlings as he paced with purposeful viciousness, keeping all of the underlings at a distance a few feet away from Jade. One of the underlings took a step forward, and her defender growled low in his throat, and the imp cowered back again.

Jade rose to her feet and then could see that there were ever more imps materializing into the crowd. She picked up her rifle with determination, aimed, and fired. The imps only transportalized her bullet away, as they all faced her with perfect attention. As more of them came, they started to close in, the troll slashing at them with his hook, killing some of them but the rest now didn’t seem to mind.

The troll turned to face her and stepped right up to her side, impossibly close. It snorted, or barked, something that sounded like a single word. Jade wasn’t sure who it was; if it was a troll, which one; and if she could trust him. But in her current situation, whatever fear she might have felt at the very pointy teeth inches from her face was erased from the enemy that closed in around them.

It snarled/barked the word again, and then a third time, before she finally realized that the word sort of sounded familiar. It sounded, actually, like her name.

“Jde.” it said again, asking whatever it was asking, and she only nodded. It was a troll. She knew it now.

“I trust you.” she said.

In a flash, he swept her into his arms and threw her over his shoulder. It was clear to her then how strong he was; lifting her didn’t seem to be effort for him at all. He then ran directly at the mob of underlings, and she couldn’t help it; she screamed, but he brandished his hook and sliced a path clear in front of them. Some of them weren’t quick enough and died in an explosion of grist as the troll fought his way through the army. Others did manage to teleport away, but either way a path was being made and the troll ran through it. Within seconds they were free of the mob. He captchaloged his weapon, confirming with certainty to Jade that he was indeed a Sburb player, and then grabbed her with two arms, hugged her body to his chest like she was a child, and ran.

He was fast. Jade clutched the front of his shirt with fear as the cold wind stung her face. He reached a large boulder and instead of going around it, jumped over it, and Jade cried out as they fell back down to the ground and her stomach dropped. But he landed effortlessly on his feet and kept running. Jade looked over his shoulder behind them and saw underlings, trying to catch them, appearifying but never quick enough, so that they were always behind.

Jade’s attention became focused on the troll’s steady, rhythmic breathing, and then she noticed his racing heartbeat as he clutched her to her chest. He held her with a desperate ferocity, and though Jade had never seen a troll before, she suspected from this body language that she meant more to him than just a friend.

Jade managed to unclasp her hands from his shirt just long enough to see the symbol of cancer printed on the front. Tears welled in her eyes, and she lifted her arms up to wrap them around his neck, instead.

“Karkat.” she said into his ear, and he grunted, and she realized that her language probably sounded as weird to him as his did to her. Still, her heart glowed with a very warm feeling, more than gratefulness at being rescued, more than relief caused by safety. She wrapped her arms tighter around his neck. She didn’t need language to tell him that she knew who he was. She leaned forward and planted a kiss on his cheek, and he gasped, and his cheeks flushed red. She giggled softly, her happiness at finally being near him only slightly dampened by the fact that they were in danger.

Or only sort of in danger, now. Jade looked behind them and saw, to her amazement, that Karkat was losing them. Even with their ability to materialize, their lack of intelligence allowed him to break away from them. Jade’s fear was fading with every step he took. She rested her head on his shoulder, and she thought she heard him sigh.

Eventually, though they were in the middle of a snowy-white nowhere, they were safe. No more underlings appeared to attack them, and Karkat stopped. He set Jade down softly on her feet and stood up- but she did not unwrap her arms from around his neck. Karkat stared down at her with an expression that she wished she could interpret on his strange, alien face.

His eyes were strange and yellow, but there was a bright fire in them as they were full of life and intelligence. His skin was smoother than a human’s, the color of grey stone, and his hair was a strange sort of fluffiness. He smelled rather strange; some kind of mix between mint and dust, which was the best she could describe it. The most jarring thing about him were his teeth; she knew the other trolls made fun of Karkat’s “dull teeth”, but they looked plenty deadly and pointy to her. Having her face so close to teeth like that should have made her afraid. Instead, as she studied his strange, very serious face, she felt impossibly safe.

She could see that his cheeks were rosy, and she wondered if it was from the cold, or if he was blushing. It suddenly became very frustrating to her that she could not talk to him.

“Hello!” she said, rolling her eyes at herself and pulling away, and he grunted in a manner that seemed to be disappointment to her. Jade didn’t care; she needed to talk to him. She opened her warm, fuzzy Squiddle jacket that was also a computer and reached into the inside pocket. She pulled out a set of headphones with an eye piece attached. It wasn’t as good as Lunchmuffs, and it had to stay connected to the jacket with a wire, but it was better than nothing.

When she put the gizmo on, she saw messages that both John and Karkat were trying to pester her. She smiled and opened the pesterlog with Karkat.

“JADE DON’T BE AFRAID ITS ME.”

“JADE GET UP LAYING DOWN WILL GET YOU FUCKING DEAD.”

“JADE GET OUT OF THE FUCKING SNOW, HOW CAN I PROTECT YOU IF YOU’RE
LAYING ON THE GROUND OH GOD GET OFF OF HER YOU ASSHOLES!”

“I SAID STAY WHERE YOU ARE YOU DOUCHEBAGS, WHO WANTS TO DIE NEXT?”

“JADE WE HAVE TO GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE.”

“YOU’RE OBVIOUSLY NOT UNDERSTANING ME, ARE YOU?”

“DAMMIT WHY CAN’T YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”

“FUCK I’LL JUST CARRY YOU OUT OF HERE, COME ON.”

“JADE. JADE. JADE!”

“OKAY WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT SQUEAKY HUMMING NOISE, IS THAT YOU TALKING?”

“WELL IT WOULD APPEAR THAT THIS UNIVERSE HATES ME TOO. WELL SHIT IT FEELS JUST LIKE HOME.”

And then after that was just a list of profanities that he apparently had shouted at the imps as they’d fought their way through them. Jade couldn’t help but laugh, and Karkat snorted, then snarled something, and then it appeared as text on her eyepiece.

“WHY ARE YOU SINGING?”

Jade laughed some more.

“I’m not singing, silly! I’m laughing!”

Karkat stared at her, stunned. That was when she saw the earpiece he was wearing, which must have been connected to Trollian. Which, Jade realized, must have been translating between the trolls’ and humans’ languages, along with Pesterchum, this entire time.

“WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU LAUGHING?”

“Because you’re you! You’re really you, and you’re really here! I can’t believe how happy I feel!”

She watched as he stared at her, studying her face, as if trying to decide whether she was lying. Then she saw a gray tongue flick across his lips and he bit his lower one in a gesture of uncertainty. Jade found this incredibly cute, and she giggled, then blushed.

Karkat’s eyes then fell to her arm, which she now looked down at. Claw marks had torn clean through her warm, fuzzy sleeve and blood was now oozing through the cloth. Jade gasped; in the cold, she hadn’t felt it.

In one impossibly quick motion, Karkat had her arm firmly in his hands and pushed her sleeve up, exposing her wound. It didn’t look that bad to her, but then again, she couldn’t feel it because she was so cold.

“DAMMIT, IS THIS BLOOD?”

“Yes.” she said softly.

Karkat snorted, or grunted, or maybe the noise he made was the equivalent of a troll whimper; she had no idea.

“It’s not that bad…”

Instead of replying, he pulled out a captcha card, freeing a roll of bandages from it, and started immediately to wrap her wound. His hands were just as cold as her skin; she could barely feel him, and with her sleeve rolled up, she was freezing. She started to shiver.

“WHY ARE YOU SHAKING? IS THE PAIN THAT BAD? HOW SERIOUS OF AN INJURY IS THIS TO A HUMAN? YOU’RE MORE FRAGILE THAN A DAY-OLD WIGGLER, AREN’T YOU?”

She wasn’t sure; but she thought she heard concern in his voice. She could see worry on his face, though he also looked angry; and she wondered if that was what all trolls looked like, or just perpetually grumpy Karkat.

“It’s not that serious. I’m shaking because I’m really cold.”

“THIS WEATHER FEELS COLD TO YOU?”

Jade swallowed and nodded.

Karkat finished wrapping her arm and tied the bandage off. He shoved the rest of it back into his capthcalog, and then scooped her up in his arms without warning.

“Whoa!” Jade squeaked.

“WHICH WAY IS YOUR HIVE?” he asked.

“Back the way that we came from…”

“FUCK, OF COURSE.” he spat, and then he turned, and started following his own footprints back the way they had come.

[Mirdan]

There are some people who sleep at 4am, but I am not one of them. No, instead I write overly serious fanfiction.

This idea is currently a mini-series in my head, but who knows what will happen to it. I'll only write more if anyone is interested. So I claim.

What it Takes

show spoiler

hide spoiler

“How are you holding up, Jade?” John’s blue text inquired across Jade’s Spectagoggles and his voice carried to her ears through her Lunchmuffs as she narrowly dodged a swipe from an underling’s morphological claws.

“I gave you your own pair of Junior Compu-Sooth Spectagoggles, can’t you see for yourself!” she snapped.

“Uh…I’m sorry, Jade. I’m not really used to these things yet; following all the things I see is kinda hard.”

Jade could hear the hurt in his voice and she was immediately sorry for losing her temper.

“I’m sorry, John. I forget that not everyone is the Witch of Space.”

She rolled and came up behind the hideous space-bending creature and pulled the trigger on her with the muzzle of her rifle right up against it’s head. For once, she heard the satisfying crunch of carapace cracking before the thing dissolved into grist. She sighed and wiped the sweat from her forehead before turning around to face the next one. Of course, her first bullet went right through him, being transportalized to some unknown region of space, and she sighed.

Jade saw the shadow of something too close. She turned quickly and pulled the trigger, and then saw the bullet vanish harmlessly through the middle of the star-filled imp. She screamed in frustration, and then rolled behind a boulder, glad for the fact that the imps weren’t smart enough to follow her tracks in the snow to locate her.

“I’m holding up, but there are a lot of them.” she replied finally. “Why are there so many all of a sudden?”

“I don’t know.” John replied, from his similarly swamped position on the battlefield, where imps surrounded him on every side. He was able to easily keep them at bay by creating walls of wind, but that only pushed them back; his only means of actually destroying them were with his hammer. It worked beautifully enough; with his god strength he could kill them with one swing, but he could only kill one at a time, and they seemed to be coming faster than that, appearifying left and right around him.

“I wish I could just get to you; then we could fight them off together!” Jade shouted as she threw a snowball over the heads of several imps, distracting them as they turned to look where it landed, giving her a clean shot at three heads in a nice, neat line. Her bullet cracked satisfyingly through two of them before the third one realized what was up and vanished from her sight.

They might have had advantage in numbers, but at least they weren’t too bright.

Suddenly Jade felt a hard smack against the back of her head. Her ears rang as her body jerked forward, her goggles flying from her face and sinking into the snow.

“Ugh!”

She fell face-first into the freezing snow. She clasped her rifle in her hand, rolled onto her back, and shot up into the imp grinning manically over her. Her bullet vanished inside his stomach, but while it concentrated on that she kicked her feet out, sweeping his legs out from under him. She rose to her feet but was still dizzy from the blow to her head. She aimed to shoot, thankful that her regular, plain glasses were still on her face so she could see…

Another blow to her head caused her to stumble.

“J…de?” she heard John’s concerned voice crackling over her damaged Lunchmuffs. She was too busy trying to fight to reply; she was completely surrounded now with more than twenty imps closing in on her. She shot out into the crowd of them, but the first one re-directed the bullet and then it was gone, not affecting the rest.

They were too close now and so she started swinging her rifle instead, clocking one of them in the chest and knocking it down. She aimed and fired, grist exploding from him, but then claws gripped her hair, pulling her head back, as another fist came flying at her face. She couldn’t maneuver much but she was able to shift just a little, causing her Lunchmuffs to take the brunt of the damage. It sparked and crackled, as Jade brought the butt of her rifle up behind her, hitting the underling that held her hair square in the chest, freeing herself.

She tore the broken Lunchmuffs off and let them drop uselessly in the snow, as the wind picked up and blew her untied hair across her eyes. She didn’t look out at the numbers; she didn’t let the feeling of overwhelming discouragement get to her; she just focused on the nearest one and prepared to fight it. She aimed her trigger and then at the last second, switched targets, catching one off guard and successfully turning it into grist…

More claws sank into her dress, one of them scratching down her arm.

“Gha!” she shouted, turning, and then tears formed in her eyes as she realized there were too many. She was completely surrounded and there was no way she could stave them off. Another blow to her head and she sprawled into the snow, her trusty rifle flying from her hands. She managed to roll onto her back only to look up into a thousand cold, evil eyes, and she knew this was it.

A loud crackling boom tore out of the air just above her, along with a brilliant flash of white light. A creature dropped out of what looked to her like a crack in space, and at first she was sure it was just a bigger imp, sent to finish her off.

It didn’t look like any imp she’d ever seen before, though. There was no sign of a joker hat, or a princess dress, and its skin was grey, not black. And when it landed, it didn’t turn to attack her, but instead put its back to her in a position to defend her.

With a hideous snarl, the creature lunged at the mob of underlings, cutting across them with some kind of hook. Some of them managed to teleport away, but the creature was fast and caught many of them off guard. Grist exploded everywhere, and Jade would have been grateful to whatever-it-was except that just at that moment claws yanked at her hair and scraped at her face. She screamed.

The creature snarled and lunged at the underlings that attacked Jade. It caught some of them with its weapon and they vanished, and others escaped, but either way Jade was made free. The other underlings, now afraid, backed up a little as the creature snarled and snorted at them in a terrifying manner. Jade felt afraid of the thing for a little longer, until she saw the viciousness with which the creature protected her, keeping every one of the underlings away, killing even those that tried to teleport directly to her across the little circle of safety it had created.

In her temporary moment of relative safety, Jade was able to see and think. That was when she realized that the “creature” was wearing clothes; a long-sleeved black t-shirt, grey pants, and black shoes. She still couldn’t piece it together until the creature turned its head for a moment and looked directly at her, its yellow eyes piercing with purposeful intelligence. It snarled something at her, which she interpreted as it speaking, but in some language she couldn’t understand. But the moment its attention was away from the underlings they started to close in, and so he turned his head back to face the enemies, and Jade could not reply.

He had a tuft of black hair on top of his head from which two orange horns protruded, and Jade started to hope, though it made no logical sense, that this was somehow one of the trolls. In any event, whoever it was, it was clearly an intelligent creature that was, for the moment, her ally.

He had his back to her, all of his attention focused on the underlings as he paced with purposeful viciousness, keeping all of the underlings at a distance a few feet away from Jade. One of the underlings took a step forward, and her defender growled low in his throat, and the imp cowered back again.

Jade rose to her feet and then could see that there were ever more imps materializing into the crowd. She picked up her rifle with determination, aimed, and fired. The imps only transportalized her bullet away, as they all faced her with perfect attention. As more of them came, they started to close in, the troll slashing at them with his hook, killing some of them but the rest now didn’t seem to mind.

The troll turned to face her and stepped right up to her side, impossibly close. It snorted, or barked, something that sounded like a single word. Jade wasn’t sure who it was; if it was a troll, which one; and if she could trust him. But in her current situation, whatever fear she might have felt at the very pointy teeth inches from her face was erased from the enemy that closed in around them.

It snarled/barked the word again, and then a third time, before she finally realized that the word sort of sounded familiar. It sounded, actually, like her name.

“Jde.” it said again, asking whatever it was asking, and she only nodded. It was a troll. She knew it now.

“I trust you.” she said.

In a flash, he swept her into his arms and threw her over his shoulder. It was clear to her then how strong he was; lifting her didn’t seem to be effort for him at all. He then ran directly at the mob of underlings, and she couldn’t help it; she screamed, but he brandished his hook and sliced a path clear in front of them. Some of them weren’t quick enough and died in an explosion of grist as the troll fought his way through the army. Others did manage to teleport away, but either way a path was being made and the troll ran through it. Within seconds they were free of the mob. He captchaloged his weapon, confirming with certainty to Jade that he was indeed a Sburb player, and then grabbed her with two arms, hugged her body to his chest like she was a child, and ran.

He was fast. Jade clutched the front of his shirt with fear as the cold wind stung her face. He reached a large boulder and instead of going around it, jumped over it, and Jade cried out as they fell back down to the ground and her stomach dropped. But he landed effortlessly on his feet and kept running. Jade looked over his shoulder behind them and saw underlings, trying to catch them, appearifying but never quick enough, so that they were always behind.

Jade’s attention became focused on the troll’s steady, rhythmic breathing, and then she noticed his racing heartbeat as he clutched her to her chest. He held her with a desperate ferocity, and though Jade had never seen a troll before, she suspected from this body language that she meant more to him than just a friend.

Jade managed to unclasp her hands from his shirt just long enough to see the symbol of cancer printed on the front. Tears welled in her eyes, and she lifted her arms up to wrap them around his neck, instead.

“Karkat.” she said into his ear, and he grunted, and she realized that her language probably sounded as weird to him as his did to her. Still, her heart glowed with a very warm feeling, more than gratefulness at being rescued, more than relief caused by safety. She wrapped her arms tighter around his neck. She didn’t need language to tell him that she knew who he was. She leaned forward and planted a kiss on his cheek, and he gasped, and his cheeks flushed red. She giggled softly, her happiness at finally being near him only slightly dampened by the fact that they were in danger.

Or only sort of in danger, now. Jade looked behind them and saw, to her amazement, that Karkat was losing them. Even with their ability to materialize, their lack of intelligence allowed him to break away from them. Jade’s fear was fading with every step he took. She rested her head on his shoulder, and she thought she heard him sigh.

Eventually, though they were in the middle of a snowy-white nowhere, they were safe. No more underlings appeared to attack them, and Karkat stopped. He set Jade down softly on her feet and stood up- but she did not unwrap her arms from around his neck. Karkat stared down at her with an expression that she wished she could interpret on his strange, alien face.

His eyes were strange and yellow, but there was a bright fire in them as they were full of life and intelligence. His skin was smoother than a human’s, the color of grey stone, and his hair was a strange sort of fluffiness. He smelled rather strange; some kind of mix between mint and dust, which was the best she could describe it. The most jarring thing about him were his teeth; she knew the other trolls made fun of Karkat’s “dull teeth”, but they looked plenty deadly and pointy to her. Having her face so close to teeth like that should have made her afraid. Instead, as she studied his strange, very serious face, she felt impossibly safe.

She could see that his cheeks were rosy, and she wondered if it was from the cold, or if he was blushing. It suddenly became very frustrating to her that she could not talk to him.

“Hello!” she said, rolling her eyes at herself and pulling away, and he grunted in a manner that seemed to be disappointment to her. Jade didn’t care; she needed to talk to him. She opened her warm, fuzzy Squiddle jacket that was also a computer and reached into the inside pocket. She pulled out a set of headphones with an eye piece attached. It wasn’t as good as Lunchmuffs, and it had to stay connected to the jacket with a wire, but it was better than nothing.

When she put the gizmo on, she saw messages that both John and Karkat were trying to pester her. She smiled and opened the pesterlog with Karkat.

“JADE DON’T BE AFRAID ITS ME.”

“JADE GET UP LAYING DOWN WILL GET YOU FUCKING DEAD.”

“JADE GET OUT OF THE FUCKING SNOW, HOW CAN I PROTECT YOU IF YOU’RE
LAYING ON THE GROUND OH GOD GET OFF OF HER YOU ASSHOLES!”

“I SAID STAY WHERE YOU ARE YOU DOUCHEBAGS, WHO WANTS TO DIE NEXT?”

“JADE WE HAVE TO GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE.”

“YOU’RE OBVIOUSLY NOT UNDERSTANING ME, ARE YOU?”

“DAMMIT WHY CAN’T YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”

“FUCK I’LL JUST CARRY YOU OUT OF HERE, COME ON.”

“JADE. JADE. JADE!”

“OKAY WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT SQUEAKY HUMMING NOISE, IS THAT YOU TALKING?”

“WELL IT WOULD APPEAR THAT THIS UNIVERSE HATES ME TOO. WELL SHIT IT FEELS JUST LIKE HOME.”

And then after that was just a list of profanities that he apparently had shouted at the imps as they’d fought their way through them. Jade couldn’t help but laugh, and Karkat snorted, then snarled something, and then it appeared as text on her eyepiece.

“WHY ARE YOU SINGING?”

Jade laughed some more.

“I’m not singing, silly! I’m laughing!”

Karkat stared at her, stunned. That was when she saw the earpiece he was wearing, which must have been connected to Trollian. Which, Jade realized, must have been translating between the trolls’ and humans’ languages, along with Pesterchum, this entire time.

“WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU LAUGHING?”

“Because you’re you! You’re really you, and you’re really here! I can’t believe how happy I feel!”

She watched as he stared at her, studying her face, as if trying to decide whether she was lying. Then she saw a gray tongue flick across his lips and he bit his lower one in a gesture of uncertainty. Jade found this incredibly cute, and she giggled, then blushed.

Karkat’s eyes then fell to her arm, which she now looked down at. Claw marks had torn clean through her warm, fuzzy sleeve and blood was now oozing through the cloth. Jade gasped; in the cold, she hadn’t felt it.

In one impossibly quick motion, Karkat had her arm firmly in his hands and pushed her sleeve up, exposing her wound. It didn’t look that bad to her, but then again, she couldn’t feel it because she was so cold.

“DAMMIT, IS THIS BLOOD?”

“Yes.” she said softly.

Karkat snorted, or grunted, or maybe the noise he made was the equivalent of a troll whimper; she had no idea.

“It’s not that bad…”

Instead of replying, he pulled out a captcha card, freeing a roll of bandages from it, and started immediately to wrap her wound. His hands were just as cold as her skin; she could barely feel him, and with her sleeve rolled up, she was freezing. She started to shiver.

“WHY ARE YOU SHAKING? IS THE PAIN THAT BAD? HOW SERIOUS OF AN INJURY IS THIS TO A HUMAN? YOU’RE MORE FRAGILE THAN A DAY-OLD WIGGLER, AREN’T YOU?”

She wasn’t sure; but she thought she heard concern in his voice. She could see worry on his face, though he also looked angry; and she wondered if that was what all trolls looked like, or just perpetually grumpy Karkat.

“It’s not that serious. I’m shaking because I’m really cold.”

“THIS WEATHER FEELS COLD TO YOU?”

Jade swallowed and nodded.

Karkat finished wrapping her arm and tied the bandage off. He shoved the rest of it back into his capthcalog, and then scooped her up in his arms without warning.

“Whoa!” Jade squeaked.

“WHICH WAY IS YOUR HIVE?” he asked.

“Back the way that we came from…”

“FUCK, OF COURSE.” he spat, and then he turned, and started following his own footprints back the way they had come.

You would get along well with my friend who likes to stay up until 6 am and get no sleep. And me ('s 2:20 here right now).

Karkat's impatience seems to have rubbed off on Jade in the beginning, but I like how you bubbly you made her elsewhere.

I lol'd at "he was fast" and expected this to become more of a twilight parody but it was too good.

That Jade doesn't immediately tell John she's ok once Karkat has saved her is quite interesting to me, and even though AMG TROLL is obviously what she's thinking, John is probably freaking the fuck out right now (though that puts you in a good place to continue this!)

[anonymousComrade]

There are some people who sleep at 4am, but I am not one of them. No, instead I write overly serious fanfiction.

This idea is currently a mini-series in my head, but who knows what will happen to it. I'll only write more if anyone is interested. So I claim.

What it Takes

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“How are you holding up, Jade?” John’s blue text inquired across Jade’s Spectagoggles and his voice carried to her ears through her Lunchmuffs as she narrowly dodged a swipe from an underling’s morphological claws.

“I gave you your own pair of Junior Compu-Sooth Spectagoggles, can’t you see for yourself!” she snapped.

“Uh…I’m sorry, Jade. I’m not really used to these things yet; following all the things I see is kinda hard.”

Jade could hear the hurt in his voice and she was immediately sorry for losing her temper.

“I’m sorry, John. I forget that not everyone is the Witch of Space.”

She rolled and came up behind the hideous space-bending creature and pulled the trigger on her with the muzzle of her rifle right up against it’s head. For once, she heard the satisfying crunch of carapace cracking before the thing dissolved into grist. She sighed and wiped the sweat from her forehead before turning around to face the next one. Of course, her first bullet went right through him, being transportalized to some unknown region of space, and she sighed.

Jade saw the shadow of something too close. She turned quickly and pulled the trigger, and then saw the bullet vanish harmlessly through the middle of the star-filled imp. She screamed in frustration, and then rolled behind a boulder, glad for the fact that the imps weren’t smart enough to follow her tracks in the snow to locate her.

“I’m holding up, but there are a lot of them.” she replied finally. “Why are there so many all of a sudden?”

“I don’t know.” John replied, from his similarly swamped position on the battlefield, where imps surrounded him on every side. He was able to easily keep them at bay by creating walls of wind, but that only pushed them back; his only means of actually destroying them were with his hammer. It worked beautifully enough; with his god strength he could kill them with one swing, but he could only kill one at a time, and they seemed to be coming faster than that, appearifying left and right around him.

“I wish I could just get to you; then we could fight them off together!” Jade shouted as she threw a snowball over the heads of several imps, distracting them as they turned to look where it landed, giving her a clean shot at three heads in a nice, neat line. Her bullet cracked satisfyingly through two of them before the third one realized what was up and vanished from her sight.

They might have had advantage in numbers, but at least they weren’t too bright.

Suddenly Jade felt a hard smack against the back of her head. Her ears rang as her body jerked forward, her goggles flying from her face and sinking into the snow.

“Ugh!”

She fell face-first into the freezing snow. She clasped her rifle in her hand, rolled onto her back, and shot up into the imp grinning manically over her. Her bullet vanished inside his stomach, but while it concentrated on that she kicked her feet out, sweeping his legs out from under him. She rose to her feet but was still dizzy from the blow to her head. She aimed to shoot, thankful that her regular, plain glasses were still on her face so she could see…

Another blow to her head caused her to stumble.

“J…de?” she heard John’s concerned voice crackling over her damaged Lunchmuffs. She was too busy trying to fight to reply; she was completely surrounded now with more than twenty imps closing in on her. She shot out into the crowd of them, but the first one re-directed the bullet and then it was gone, not affecting the rest.

They were too close now and so she started swinging her rifle instead, clocking one of them in the chest and knocking it down. She aimed and fired, grist exploding from him, but then claws gripped her hair, pulling her head back, as another fist came flying at her face. She couldn’t maneuver much but she was able to shift just a little, causing her Lunchmuffs to take the brunt of the damage. It sparked and crackled, as Jade brought the butt of her rifle up behind her, hitting the underling that held her hair square in the chest, freeing herself.

She tore the broken Lunchmuffs off and let them drop uselessly in the snow, as the wind picked up and blew her untied hair across her eyes. She didn’t look out at the numbers; she didn’t let the feeling of overwhelming discouragement get to her; she just focused on the nearest one and prepared to fight it. She aimed her trigger and then at the last second, switched targets, catching one off guard and successfully turning it into grist…

More claws sank into her dress, one of them scratching down her arm.

“Gha!” she shouted, turning, and then tears formed in her eyes as she realized there were too many. She was completely surrounded and there was no way she could stave them off. Another blow to her head and she sprawled into the snow, her trusty rifle flying from her hands. She managed to roll onto her back only to look up into a thousand cold, evil eyes, and she knew this was it.

A loud crackling boom tore out of the air just above her, along with a brilliant flash of white light. A creature dropped out of what looked to her like a crack in space, and at first she was sure it was just a bigger imp, sent to finish her off.

It didn’t look like any imp she’d ever seen before, though. There was no sign of a joker hat, or a princess dress, and its skin was grey, not black. And when it landed, it didn’t turn to attack her, but instead put its back to her in a position to defend her.

With a hideous snarl, the creature lunged at the mob of underlings, cutting across them with some kind of hook. Some of them managed to teleport away, but the creature was fast and caught many of them off guard. Grist exploded everywhere, and Jade would have been grateful to whatever-it-was except that just at that moment claws yanked at her hair and scraped at her face. She screamed.

The creature snarled and lunged at the underlings that attacked Jade. It caught some of them with its weapon and they vanished, and others escaped, but either way Jade was made free. The other underlings, now afraid, backed up a little as the creature snarled and snorted at them in a terrifying manner. Jade felt afraid of the thing for a little longer, until she saw the viciousness with which the creature protected her, keeping every one of the underlings away, killing even those that tried to teleport directly to her across the little circle of safety it had created.

In her temporary moment of relative safety, Jade was able to see and think. That was when she realized that the “creature” was wearing clothes; a long-sleeved black t-shirt, grey pants, and black shoes. She still couldn’t piece it together until the creature turned its head for a moment and looked directly at her, its yellow eyes piercing with purposeful intelligence. It snarled something at her, which she interpreted as it speaking, but in some language she couldn’t understand. But the moment its attention was away from the underlings they started to close in, and so he turned his head back to face the enemies, and Jade could not reply.

He had a tuft of black hair on top of his head from which two orange horns protruded, and Jade started to hope, though it made no logical sense, that this was somehow one of the trolls. In any event, whoever it was, it was clearly an intelligent creature that was, for the moment, her ally.

He had his back to her, all of his attention focused on the underlings as he paced with purposeful viciousness, keeping all of the underlings at a distance a few feet away from Jade. One of the underlings took a step forward, and her defender growled low in his throat, and the imp cowered back again.

Jade rose to her feet and then could see that there were ever more imps materializing into the crowd. She picked up her rifle with determination, aimed, and fired. The imps only transportalized her bullet away, as they all faced her with perfect attention. As more of them came, they started to close in, the troll slashing at them with his hook, killing some of them but the rest now didn’t seem to mind.

The troll turned to face her and stepped right up to her side, impossibly close. It snorted, or barked, something that sounded like a single word. Jade wasn’t sure who it was; if it was a troll, which one; and if she could trust him. But in her current situation, whatever fear she might have felt at the very pointy teeth inches from her face was erased from the enemy that closed in around them.

It snarled/barked the word again, and then a third time, before she finally realized that the word sort of sounded familiar. It sounded, actually, like her name.

“Jde.” it said again, asking whatever it was asking, and she only nodded. It was a troll. She knew it now.

“I trust you.” she said.

In a flash, he swept her into his arms and threw her over his shoulder. It was clear to her then how strong he was; lifting her didn’t seem to be effort for him at all. He then ran directly at the mob of underlings, and she couldn’t help it; she screamed, but he brandished his hook and sliced a path clear in front of them. Some of them weren’t quick enough and died in an explosion of grist as the troll fought his way through the army. Others did manage to teleport away, but either way a path was being made and the troll ran through it. Within seconds they were free of the mob. He captchaloged his weapon, confirming with certainty to Jade that he was indeed a Sburb player, and then grabbed her with two arms, hugged her body to his chest like she was a child, and ran.

He was fast. Jade clutched the front of his shirt with fear as the cold wind stung her face. He reached a large boulder and instead of going around it, jumped over it, and Jade cried out as they fell back down to the ground and her stomach dropped. But he landed effortlessly on his feet and kept running. Jade looked over his shoulder behind them and saw underlings, trying to catch them, appearifying but never quick enough, so that they were always behind.

Jade’s attention became focused on the troll’s steady, rhythmic breathing, and then she noticed his racing heartbeat as he clutched her to her chest. He held her with a desperate ferocity, and though Jade had never seen a troll before, she suspected from this body language that she meant more to him than just a friend.

Jade managed to unclasp her hands from his shirt just long enough to see the symbol of cancer printed on the front. Tears welled in her eyes, and she lifted her arms up to wrap them around his neck, instead.

“Karkat.” she said into his ear, and he grunted, and she realized that her language probably sounded as weird to him as his did to her. Still, her heart glowed with a very warm feeling, more than gratefulness at being rescued, more than relief caused by safety. She wrapped her arms tighter around his neck. She didn’t need language to tell him that she knew who he was. She leaned forward and planted a kiss on his cheek, and he gasped, and his cheeks flushed red. She giggled softly, her happiness at finally being near him only slightly dampened by the fact that they were in danger.

Or only sort of in danger, now. Jade looked behind them and saw, to her amazement, that Karkat was losing them. Even with their ability to materialize, their lack of intelligence allowed him to break away from them. Jade’s fear was fading with every step he took. She rested her head on his shoulder, and she thought she heard him sigh.

Eventually, though they were in the middle of a snowy-white nowhere, they were safe. No more underlings appeared to attack them, and Karkat stopped. He set Jade down softly on her feet and stood up- but she did not unwrap her arms from around his neck. Karkat stared down at her with an expression that she wished she could interpret on his strange, alien face.

His eyes were strange and yellow, but there was a bright fire in them as they were full of life and intelligence. His skin was smoother than a human’s, the color of grey stone, and his hair was a strange sort of fluffiness. He smelled rather strange; some kind of mix between mint and dust, which was the best she could describe it. The most jarring thing about him were his teeth; she knew the other trolls made fun of Karkat’s “dull teeth”, but they looked plenty deadly and pointy to her. Having her face so close to teeth like that should have made her afraid. Instead, as she studied his strange, very serious face, she felt impossibly safe.

She could see that his cheeks were rosy, and she wondered if it was from the cold, or if he was blushing. It suddenly became very frustrating to her that she could not talk to him.

“Hello!” she said, rolling her eyes at herself and pulling away, and he grunted in a manner that seemed to be disappointment to her. Jade didn’t care; she needed to talk to him. She opened her warm, fuzzy Squiddle jacket that was also a computer and reached into the inside pocket. She pulled out a set of headphones with an eye piece attached. It wasn’t as good as Lunchmuffs, and it had to stay connected to the jacket with a wire, but it was better than nothing.

When she put the gizmo on, she saw messages that both John and Karkat were trying to pester her. She smiled and opened the pesterlog with Karkat.

“JADE DON’T BE AFRAID ITS ME.”

“JADE GET UP LAYING DOWN WILL GET YOU FUCKING DEAD.”

“JADE GET OUT OF THE FUCKING SNOW, HOW CAN I PROTECT YOU IF YOU’RE
LAYING ON THE GROUND OH GOD GET OFF OF HER YOU ASSHOLES!”

“I SAID STAY WHERE YOU ARE YOU DOUCHEBAGS, WHO WANTS TO DIE NEXT?”

“JADE WE HAVE TO GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE.”

“YOU’RE OBVIOUSLY NOT UNDERSTANING ME, ARE YOU?”

“DAMMIT WHY CAN’T YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”

“FUCK I’LL JUST CARRY YOU OUT OF HERE, COME ON.”

“JADE. JADE. JADE!”

“OKAY WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT SQUEAKY HUMMING NOISE, IS THAT YOU TALKING?”

“WELL IT WOULD APPEAR THAT THIS UNIVERSE HATES ME TOO. WELL SHIT IT FEELS JUST LIKE HOME.”

And then after that was just a list of profanities that he apparently had shouted at the imps as they’d fought their way through them. Jade couldn’t help but laugh, and Karkat snorted, then snarled something, and then it appeared as text on her eyepiece.

“WHY ARE YOU SINGING?”

Jade laughed some more.

“I’m not singing, silly! I’m laughing!”

Karkat stared at her, stunned. That was when she saw the earpiece he was wearing, which must have been connected to Trollian. Which, Jade realized, must have been translating between the trolls’ and humans’ languages, along with Pesterchum, this entire time.

“WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU LAUGHING?”

“Because you’re you! You’re really you, and you’re really here! I can’t believe how happy I feel!”

She watched as he stared at her, studying her face, as if trying to decide whether she was lying. Then she saw a gray tongue flick across his lips and he bit his lower one in a gesture of uncertainty. Jade found this incredibly cute, and she giggled, then blushed.

Karkat’s eyes then fell to her arm, which she now looked down at. Claw marks had torn clean through her warm, fuzzy sleeve and blood was now oozing through the cloth. Jade gasped; in the cold, she hadn’t felt it.

In one impossibly quick motion, Karkat had her arm firmly in his hands and pushed her sleeve up, exposing her wound. It didn’t look that bad to her, but then again, she couldn’t feel it because she was so cold.

“DAMMIT, IS THIS BLOOD?”

“Yes.” she said softly.

Karkat snorted, or grunted, or maybe the noise he made was the equivalent of a troll whimper; she had no idea.

“It’s not that bad…”

Instead of replying, he pulled out a captcha card, freeing a roll of bandages from it, and started immediately to wrap her wound. His hands were just as cold as her skin; she could barely feel him, and with her sleeve rolled up, she was freezing. She started to shiver.

“WHY ARE YOU SHAKING? IS THE PAIN THAT BAD? HOW SERIOUS OF AN INJURY IS THIS TO A HUMAN? YOU’RE MORE FRAGILE THAN A DAY-OLD WIGGLER, AREN’T YOU?”

She wasn’t sure; but she thought she heard concern in his voice. She could see worry on his face, though he also looked angry; and she wondered if that was what all trolls looked like, or just perpetually grumpy Karkat.

“It’s not that serious. I’m shaking because I’m really cold.”

“THIS WEATHER FEELS COLD TO YOU?”

Jade swallowed and nodded.

Karkat finished wrapping her arm and tied the bandage off. He shoved the rest of it back into his capthcalog, and then scooped her up in his arms without warning.

“Whoa!” Jade squeaked.

“WHICH WAY IS YOUR HIVE?” he asked.

“Back the way that we came from…”

“FUCK, OF COURSE.” he spat, and then he turned, and started following his own footprints back the way they had come.

I totally imagined playing this out like an action RPG as I read through it, just so you know

Also I got the idea that the reason Karkat is pretty much Superman here is because he's still on the top level of the echeladder while Jade's still on like, the third rung

Anyway I'm rambling now, but the point is, I liked this a lot

[C20710]

Okayyyyyyyy, so four days ago somebody rolled "Vriska/Becquerel - Sexy Tea Making" on the story generator and I said I'd write it.

SO I DID.

Vriska/Becquerel - Sexy Tea Making

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“27 degrees 1 minute north, 88 degrees 28 minutes east”. Vriska worked the dials on the appearifier, zeroing in on the precious cargo.

Whoosh! The machine grabbed a plant, dumping it unceremoniously on the appearifier platform. Dirt crumbled off the roots, leaving a dirty mess all over the intricately carved surface. She snapped it up and started pulling off the buds. Nothing was going to stop this exquisitely sexy tea party from going off without a hitch.

The first guardian of earth sat motionless and expressionless nearby, watching patiently. Or at least that’s how you might describe it if you weren’t aware that “sitting”, “watching”, and “patience” were all concepts completely irrelevant to omnipoterriers (and we both fucking know that). But whatever.

Vriska stuffed a handful of slightly manhandled, lightly irradiated tea leaves into a pot. She felt pretty lucky to have found the ONE teapot with a spider-web motif out of the whole pile. If Nepeta missed it, she hadn’t let on.

She filled a kettle with a pint of heavy water drained from the coolant tank of a disused reactor in the lab, and hung it over a bunsen burner. In retrospect, this was a pretty convenient location to serve irradiated beverages to a stoic, canine demigod. The water came to a rolling boil and she topped off the webbed teapot, allowing the leaves to float around. In just a couple minutes the infusion was ready.

Vriska turned down the laboratory lights. Placing the teapot, a small cup, and a dog dish on an appearified serving tray, she knelt down next to a table, the legs cut off to make it a more dog-friendly height. She wasn’t really sure what it was about Beq that attracted her. Oh wait, yes she was – the fact that she basically created him, coupled with a pathological addiction to power. How could she forget? Tangibility and species are as overrated as power is sexy.

She poured the tea, filling his doggie dish first before pouring herself a cup. The soft green glow of the radioactive drink complimented Beq’s healthy coat. He lapped it once before warping it out of the room. Years prior and in another universe a small teapot appeared in orbit around a star between two planets named Earth and Mars. Nobody would ever see it again.

Vriska tried again. Perhaps the half-life was too short and it got cold? Is that a thing that even matters to beings simultaneously experiencing nearly limitless sensory input? Or maybe he was just playing hard to get. A game perhaps? He knew her so well. She smiled slyly and brewed another pot, this time with an adorable blue purrsian motif.

She set out a new bowl and filled it with a new infusion. Within seconds the new bowl and pot materialized in some poor jerk’s load gaper, 40 years prior. So frustrating! Five more pots and bowls teleported through space and time, gone forever as far as she knew. Nepeta’s gonna be so pissed off.

Vriska slumped down next to the last teapot and the remains of a tea plant, nearly plucked clean. What was wrong? Who on earth could salvage this sexy tea party? And then it hit her…something John had said. Oh yes, who on earth indeed.

She approached the appearifier one last time, purposefully adjusting the dials to target the last ingredient. The machine zapped it up, dropping the goods onto the platform. She dusted them off, and dropped them into the final pot. “Eighth time’s the charm”, she chuckled coyly.

Bringing another pint of water to boil, she added in the last of the tea leaves and filled the pot one last time. She marched to the table and kneeled down, pouring a fresh bowl triumphantly before him.

Beq slurped it once. Twice. Three times. He nodded, just the slightest acknowledgement. She might have imagined it, but the tea stayed put until he lapped the bowl clean. At last, the perfect brew. Though it tasted a little odd, she finished off her cup and set it down gingerly.

And then a moment later, they were gone, leaving behind the telltale signs of a splendid tea party, the agony of defeat at last giving way to the agony of the leaves, as they completed the dance of their exquisite game.

On the table, next to her glasses, three crumpled foil wrappers still contained dusty traces of their contents: steak bouillon. In the end, all that was ever needed was a handful of little cubes. Betty Crocker, you magnificent lass!

I included several tea related easter eggs in here (three in total). Can you spot them?

[Kawa]

I saw Russel's teapot.

[C20710]

I saw Russel's teapot.

Yes, yes you did. That's one.

[draconicAlgorithm]

@ A Fan: That was adorable and hilarious all at once.

@ C20710: I didn't catch any of the Easter eggs, but that was great as well. xD

@ ProspitDreamer: Urgh, quit feeding my love of Jade/Karkat! I'm a Karkat/Terezi shipper, dammit! -in denial-

@ Septimus: I understand Tavros's pain. That's pretty much my reaction to spiders, even though I can honestly say I've never been paralyzed from the waist down or tormented or killed by a spider-themed troll girl. :[

This is why I don't comment dump often. My comments are pointless and not very helpful. xD

[mutecebu]

What It Takes - now you're making me ship this how could you

Sexy Tea - now you're making me ship this how could you

[MizukoMidori]

So I meant to write something about humans meeting trolls in person and it turned into srs business. Idk how that even happened, but it will eventually turn into what it started out as. My first reeeaaal attempt at Homestuck fiction.

I present to you: Under Different Circumstances

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John wasn’t entirely sure how he ended up here... wherever here was. He just woke up after a particularly non favorable run in with Jack Noir. Remembering that, he sat up suddenly looking around for... Well for anything. Where he was, where his friends were, where Jack was. This was no longer the Land of Wind and Shade. Actually, it looked a lot like the lab where created the four of them, but without that specific bit of machinery. It looked pretty trashed too; broken glass everywhere, and mostly empty.

With a groan he stood up. His head...hurt? It did, but not as bad as he thought it should have. He didn’t feel dead either, and he was pretty sure he should be dead. That confrontation had not been going well. Rose had been running out of steam, and Dave, at that point he didn’t even have a clue what Dave was doing. He was busy trying to keep Jade alive.

They didn’t seem to be in this abandoned lab room though. Did they fail? Maybe this was some weird Sburb purgatory. That would make sense. John made a face at one of the desks. This was just perfect. He hadn’t even gotten the chance to fall in love with Rose and marry her like he was supposed to. Bluh.

Heaving a huge sigh he picked his way over the broken remains of beakers and whatever else, to the door on the opposite wall. He tried it carefully and it opened easily enough; it didn’t even dump a bucket of water on his head, which was admittedly a relief at the moment. He sort of felt like maybe he might just, kind of, cry, a little, if that happened. A little bit. Karkat had told him time and time again that he was the leader and leaders were absolutely the fuck not supposed to fucking cry. So John really did not want to cry.

As he stepped into the next room something whizzed passed his head and stuck in the wall behind him. He yelled and ducking throwing his hands up to cover his face. Holy cow! Who was throwing things at him, at a time like this?

“Oh. John. It is you. My apologies.”

“Rose!” Oh thank god!

Hurrying over to her he put a gentle hand on her shoulder, looking her over quickly. She seemed to be uninjured. Immediately he felt himself relax. At least one of his friends was still alive, and that was something. Maybe he and Rose were the only ones left and they would have to repopulate the whole human race? That’s a dumb thought, John, not the time. Maybe later. Especially since, getting a closer look at her he noticed her eyes were sort of red and puffy. She’d been... crying? (Honestly John didn’t think she was capable of crying.)

“Hey, hey. Rose, what’s wrong? Do you know where we are?”

She sniffed and without looking at him. “No. I have no clue where it is we are. All I know is Dave brought us here.”

“Dave? Aww yeah! I knew he was awesome, with all his cool time powers. Is he here?”

It took her a moment to answer and he could have sworn he heard a choked sound before she spoke. “He’s.... John, Dave sacrificed himself to bring us here.”

Oh.... Well....

Damn....

His hand dropped from her shoulder and once again he was holding back tears. Dave was his best best buddy. Sure, he could be mean, a little harsh sometimes, but he always came through. Apparently ‘till the end. Crap. He sat suddenly on the floor next to her feeling that his legs weren’t really supportive anymore.

“What about...” He couldn’t bring himself to ask.

Thankfully he didn’t have to. Rose shook her head, “I have not seen Jade. I don’t know if she is here or not.” She wiped idly at her face and took a deep breath.

John just nodded, unable to say anything else, and just focused on not crying. More so now that Rose was crying, or had been crying. But man, Dave sacrificing himself was almost too much to handle, and he thought he’d handled this whole session pretty well so far. If there was one thing he was sure of through all of this though, was that Jack Noir was going to pay. Big time.

Authors Notes:

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Like I said, it was supposed to be about the trolls meeting the kids in person. Specifically Vriska and John, because I was in a super Vriska/John mood earlier. I started writing and srs business popped out. o.o There will be eventual Vriska/John, and possibly others. I'm open to suggestions, but no guarantees I'll follow them. But I pretty much ship everyone/everyone so...

Please let me know what you guys think? I thrive on feedback and it encourages me to write more! : D

[A Fan]

@ProspitDreamer:
a) Consider me very, very interested.
b) I unconsciously skipped a few paragraphs after the "he was fast" line. I only understood why when I read Mirdan's reaction.

@MizukoMidori
Most intriguing. I'm hoping human/troll direct interaction will still be taking place at some point in the srs bsns.