Paper John: Sticker Star
Chapter 1: Unstuck
Beginning AN:
Here's up to Installment 4 of Crossovers Nobody Asked for! (The name isn't really official or anything - in fact, these probably won't ever really have an official name.)
I have nothing really against either Sticker Star or Homestuck, this idea is just me goofing off. If anything this is really just kind of a parody of lazy crossover ideas more than anything, ones that mostly seem to just take the exact same plot of one series and slap in characters of another.
It was a calm night during the grand Sticker Festival of 2009. As various shooting stars loomed above and the Sticker Comet was gathered at the stage, the official speaker Rose Lalonde gathered in front to observe this-
Immediately, among the flood of consorts and the one John Egbert observing the ceremony, a certain green flash practically killed any enjoyment from this annual gathering.
Yep. A flying black sillouette. That was a good sign of something bad.
Within a flash, none other than Jack Noir warped right between Rose and the Sticker Comet. An imposing figure, with the dog-like head the signified omnipotence, massive crow-wings to aid in flight, the sword which sheathed itself in his mid-body that he could throw out and kill with at a moment's notice, and the lack of an arm and an eye that did not slow down any rampage he might have in mind.
Deciding that the best thing he needed was more power apparently he gunned down the Sticker Comet, gripped the handle of his blade, and all suddenly went black.
Get ready for the first of a number of paper-related jokes. When John came to after the massive hurricane of teleslices and a bit of capturing, he found his entire form crumpled up into a tiny ball. It took him a bit of annoyed adjustment to get out of this.
After several hops in place to repeatedly unfold his form, he was out, standing, and ready to investigate...
That yeah. Jack left the entire town a wreck from last night.
"OH, THANK GOD SOMEBODY ELSE IS HERE."
John had to spin around for a moment - not just to get his bearings, but to find the source of that voice. It did not appear to be any consort he was familiar with. Or Rose. Someone... new entirely? That would be a shocker.
He looked to see a fellow paper inhabitant, a troll to be specific, with short nubby horns and a gray cancer symbol for his shirt's sign. His paper form also... seemed to be stuck to a wall.
"HEY! YOU THERE! PEEL ME OFF!"
He did as the troll commanded - careful not to tear him or cause too much of a crease - but quickly got him off and stood back as he stretched his flat form out a little.
"Well, I guess this means hi." He told John. "I'm Karkat. Right now, I don't give a fuck about your name, because the comet I was supposed to be guarding has been destroyed."
John shrugged.
"Okay- destroyed is overstating it. More like... it's shattered. A lot. And we need to find as many pieces of it as we possibly can. One part about this that doesn't completely suck is that comet pieces lead to each-other. If we find one, we can be well on our way to gathering more and more of them together! Now, let's get moving!"
After finding nothing of note on the wrecked stage, the newly-formed duo continued onwards towards the rest of the town...
Which was in a similar state of wreck from Jack's prior assault. The textures of various houses were peeled back, revealing their distinctive cardboard makeup shape. Scratches were all over the sidewalks, purple Jack-labeled tape acted as the main decoration...
"Oh, human, one more thing." Karkat continued. "I can at least sense when comet pieces are near."
John nodded, continuing outward. The entrance was almost within sight...
"AND ANOTHER THING."
John let out a small sigh.
"There are these things called Royal Stickers. They will turn even the most spineless of whimps into fucking killing machines. Be afraid of them. We need to get those back more than anything."
He was just about to leave the boundries of this town and thus end the chapter...
When he noticed the massive tilted house blocking the exit trail.
Stuck in the town by a home... almost as if he were... housestuck. Yes, and this town were as though it were hit with a hurricane... so that would make this... Housestuck Hurricane Chronicles, a story that I am trying to make you forget even existed. Damn it.
Anyway, that meta joke aside, examining the crowded house was a top priority of John's. And the only real option he could think of at the time. He knocked it.
"GLUB!" A salamander yelled. "We're jammed in! Help us!"
Welp, there was puzzle #1. And resolving that appeared to be as easy as observing a small piece of purple tape on the door.
Peeling it was hardly much of a problem - especially compared to peeling off Karkat. However, when it came to the door absolutely flooding open to pour out several paper consorts, and... some other... objects. Mainly these strange squares with images of shoes, hammers, and a few... mushrooms on them?
Many cries of "FREEDOM!" were heard as the various four types of reptiles bolted towards home in all directions, one pink turtle in particular sticking behind to explain the situation to John:
"When that monster showed up, we all hid in this house together. But then he blew tape everywhere, and... we got trapped inside! As thanks kind fellow, I will explain how to use stickers!"
He mostly just appeared to be gathering said scraps that fell out around, handing them to John.
"Now... where's an enemy we can test these out on?" He asked, while John tried actually straightening his new sticker collection out.
The tilted house blocking his path was soon dealt with by a large, black fist punching through it. There, standing in front of the path, was an ogre. With three imps becides it.
"Sorry I can't stick around," said the ogre, "but you'll see me again and more of me soon! I'm just clearing out the town so that my little friends can make their way inside!"
The imps began running in foreward, scaring the turtle away.
"HEY!" Karkat beamed. "We're not going to let you ruin this town anymore than you already did! And it was pretty awful to begin with, so that's saying something!"
The orge lept away, causing the three imps to look at one-another in confusion.
"So uh... Boss just left." One of them told the others.
"Should we smash that kid?" Asked a second one.
"Yeah, sure." Replied the first. "Let's smash him!"
"That turtle never lived up to his promise... nothing about stickers was explained from him, so I guess I'll have to do the honors." Karkat drew in a deep breath. "Okay, this is where those sticker things come in. To absolutely nobody's surprise, they are called stickers. You use them to fight. Just stick that... hammer one to you, and see what it does."
He peeled it off, stuck it on himself, felt the power being drawn to him, and...
He walked over, unable to actually deal the blow as he had no hammer of sorts. The sticker itself peeled off right after, and disappeared.
"Oh." Karkat replied. "You'll need a hammer first."
One by one, the imps ran over to him to deal a hit. Again, one at a time, rather weak individually.
"Okay, try the damn jump sticker!" Karkat said, looking over at John's deck. "You can at least jump, right? Those lower limbs are good enough at defying gravity for just those moments to meet what that stingy sticker expects from what jumping is?"
He set his sights towards the imp in the back in particular, because of the mean look he was giving him. So, walking his way towards the enemy line with his comsumable equipped, he...
Found himself being guided to the front-most one instead, and he pulled off a jump combo there.
Well, at least that one exploded into a puddle of black shale.
"Another thing." Karkat explained. "Picking out enemies is... tricky. You absolutely cannot without something called the Battle Spinner. Your stickers will guide you to the first enemy in line."
John clenched his fists.
"Oh, and... these Jack minions... yeah, you can't beat them anymore without consumables like stickers. They are immune to absolutely everything else. If you hate this battle system, tough shit, you're stuck with it for the time being."
And he had to get hit two more times.
John repeated the process, playing it safe by only selecting the jump cards and going with them one at a time, until all three of the imps were wiped out.
Welp, he got coins as a reward!
"So, about those stickers..." Karkat informed, "many of those are hammer stickers. And, we we've seen, you do not have a hammer. Let's get one before you leave this place."
He nodded, searching the town for a moment and- oh look there was one sitting right on the roof of a house. Well, that was handy.
Handier still was how this was used to trigger a 'cutscene' so to speak, elaborating on a side character. But it was one the reoccured so often, he might as well not be a consort.
Thus, Dave stepped out.
"Oh, hey." He said. "I'm going out adventuring. Setting sights. Desert, forest, tundra, jungle. You know the works. Hope I don't get caught with all the baddies out there."
"You should be fine, whoever you are." Karkat re-assured. "As long as you have stickers with you, none of those oil-monsters will-"
"I'll find stickers on the way, they're everywhere now." Dave said with a shrug before running off to the exit.
Karkat sighed. "Shit. You're gonna have to come save him every world, aren't you?"
John shrugged.
"Well, that hammer's within reach." This was what Karkat said. Don't think that John's talking now. That ain't happening for a while. "Time to grab it."
To spare the details, he did, and John and Karkat ventured off and out of the great town of Decalburg.
Closing AN:
So... I kind of rushed this a little just to make sure I could do the third SBIGlet before the end of the year, and in fact I might want to mostly start said SBIGlet from the ground up as I am not too proud with how it is as it stands.
Anyway, if this comes off as boring, it's partly supposed to. But at the same time, there may be a few surprises for those that keep reading.
And don't worry if you do decide to keep reading out of curiosity. This story is planned to go by fast. Like, roughly one-chapter-per-world fast.
...In terms of chapter number, not update rate. As I implied in the first paragraph, this is going on hold while I work on the third SBIGlet. I only really brushed off this chapter because this is also part of a yearly quota I've been trying to set up - the "one crack crossover per year" quota. I mean... by itself, this wouldn't be a proud thing to fit it for the whole year, but... this year I also published the last two chapters of The Simpsons Meet Brandy and Mr. Whiskers, so it's all good.
