From LOPAH, With Love
By the Idiosyncratic Wordsmith
"Gosh, walking around here is always so… surreal!" Jade exclaimed.
She and Karkat were walking together, arms intertwined, hands linked, with only a bit of space existing between the rest of their bodies as they moved side-by-side. They had just walked over the border delineating between an Alternian forest and a memory of the Land of Brain and Fire - Sollux's Land. The geography of it was absurd, but everything about the dream bubbles was absurd. While Jade's eyes sparkled with a bit of confusion and a lot of curiosity, Karkat's face spoke of mild emotions.
They had been walking together around the dream bubbles like this for some time, as they had decided to go out for a dream-stroll together to celebrate the night of their first month together. While initially they had come across memories neither of them recalled, they serendipitously came across what seemed like a collection of bubbles which hosted memories purely from Karkat's session. This gave them plenty to do for the night - not only did they have each other, but Karkat could regale Jade with stories surrounding the various Lands of the Sgrub session that culminated in the creation of Universe B. She loved listening to him tell his stories, but she could tell something was wrong internally. He wouldn't show it, but walking around and seeing all these familiar sights brought back painful memories for Karkat. His self-loathing and self-blame wriggled inside him like a worm, eating away, casting blame for the deaths of his friends and their precarious situation on himself. But he wouldn't allow his own previous mistakes, great and many as they were, ruin his night with his matesprit - girlfriend, he reminded himself. Jade liked it when he called her his girlfriend.
"Yeah… the fucked up geography and laughable excuses for borders the horrorterrors put up get me every time." He remarked. It was meant to be playful - it came out as irritated. Then again, everything he said had a tendency to come out as irritated. It wasn't the first such quip, either, though, and this time, it got Jade to shoot him a worried look.
"Are you OK, Kit-Kat?" She asked. One of her several pet names for him was, indeed, after her favorite earthern candy bar. She had always explained it was because he was sweet and she felt a hundred times happier when she saw him. He interpreted as her wanting to eat him. Which, in troll culture, is a euphemism for something, but that need not be brought up. Instead, he just focused on the human interpretation of it the best he could. And he hated being called by it in the human interpretation. But, as with many things, he made exceptions for his barkbeast grub.
"I'm fine." He replied, but he turned his head away, looking at the flaming brains surrounding them. It made him wonder about Sollux and Aradia. They had been left at the Green Sun and hadn't been seen since. Had they survived battling with Jack? Or were they somewhere around here, as well, numbering as just more ghosts among the dead?
"Karkat." Jade enunciated. He looked at her. She was looking impatient as they walked along on auto-pilot. "Are you even listening to me?" She demanded. The answer, of course, was a resounding "no".
"Of course I was fucking listening!" He lied.
"Uh-huh. Right. What was I just saying?" She responded.
"Something about me!" He shot back. Seemed like a pretty safe comeback. He hoped.
"Karkat, I was saying that I'm worried about you. Are you sure walking around all these memories is OK with you? I knew it might not be the best idea, but you said it was fine, but if it isn't, and you'd rather just stop and go to some other bubbles, I'm more than OK with that." She explained. At this point they stopped walking, and Jade put her free hand up to cup Karkat's face, preventing him from looking away again. "Please be honest with me, Kar." She pleaded. He merely sighed, putting his own hand to cover hers.
"I'm fine, Jade. I -" Suddenly, he realized something. They weren't standing on grey matter. They were on dark brown stone. It was cooler than before but still very warm. He looked around, holding the hand formerly on his cheek but removing it from his head, examining the bubble they had wandered into. A slight red-brown haze, a sea of red, and a castle-like structure suspended over the same sea. His face fell.
"Karkat? Karkat, what is it?" She, too, looked around. A world covered in blood? She noted how macabre it was, and then remembered that Karkat had red blood, which was a mutation in troll biology. Could this be some kind of traumatic scene for him? Was this like troll-hell or something? Whatever it was, Karkat seemed to be impacted hard by it. "Karkat?" She prodded.
"It's… my world… LOPAH… this is the Land of Pulse and Haze…" He explained. He never thought he'd see this place again. With it came a lot of memories. It was like being at his hive all over again, after everything. Even though this place wasn't Alternia, it felt like home to him. It made him feel uneasy at best, and crushed at worse. Jade, of course, could tell he was experiencing emotional turmoil. She whispered to him.
"We can leave, if you want, honey." She said softly. The word 'honey' made Karkat think of Sollux again. He looked around, and thought that, yes, it would be best to walk away from this. But at the same time, he felt as if though if they stayed a little bit longer… but then, Jade gasped. He turned, and saw a familiar sight he thought he'd never have to deal with ever again.
Forest green imps. And where there were imps, there was always much bigger stuff around. Much, much bigger stuff.
"Dream bubbles have these fuckers too?" He exclaimed. He pulled out his old Regisickle from his strife deck, ready to engage his old enemies all over again.
"Apparently so." Jade replied, taking out her Girl's Best Friend. "I count ten of them. Do you remember their prototyping and any good tactics for them?" She asked.
"Yeah. They're prototyped with a bunch of fucking monstrosities. And there's one really good approach we picked up to deal with them." He remarked, lowering into a threshecutioner battle stance. At least, if she asked, he'd say it was a theshecutioner battle stance.
"And what's that?" She asked, lowering her rifle's sights on the nearest imps to her. Karkat narrowed his eyes, picking out his target as the imps began approaching.
"Kill them fast."
With that, he launched himself at the enemies, bringing the Regisickle swiping across one imp and twirling to eviscerate another. Harley, on the other hand, stayed back and let loose a hot can of well-heated whoop-ass. Which, of course, means she fired hot lead at the imps. She kept her bursts short and controlled and careful, not wanting to hit Karkat. However, she paused after the third one eroded into nothingness and watched him fight. It was… entrancing. The way he twirled and swirled and cut through the imps was like watching a dancer. She never thought he could look so… elegant.
Once Karkat took out the last one, he looked back at her, crossing his arms. His face was one of disapproval.
"That's seven to three, Harley." He noted.
"Oh, are we keeping score?" She shot back, taking out one of her longer rifles, planting the butt of the stock on the ground, and leaning against it flirtatiously. He looked at her with a smirk, before she heard the sound of liquid sloshing and saw him look up past her. She turned around, and saw forest green ogres rising up out of the blood sea. She gaped as six of the monstrosities clamored their way to shore, causing her to instinctively back up a few feet before bumping into Karkat. He raised his sickle again and dropped down into that silly little crouch of his. She lowered her rifle's sights once more.
"How many do these count for?" She asked.
"Two." He replied, before dashing forward for the ogres. Six by two, twelve points possible this round. She was down four. If she killed four of them, and let him kill two, the score would be 11-11 and tied. That sounded like a good way to end the competition. Especially because she didn't want to hurt his feelings.
She aimed her sights, and let loose a mighty blast from her long rifle, planting it in an ogre's gut, taking down three quarters of its health vial. She fired off two more shots, killing the first ogre and wounding a second. At that point, Karkat had reached the nearest ogre, and slashed his sickle around one foot before weaving and twirling to the other, slashing the back of it. Both achilles tendons severed, the ogre fell to its knees, and Karkat leaped upwards as Jade finished off her second ogre. He planted his sickle in the ogre's chest before swinging himself and launching, catching himself on the ogre's arm with his sickle once more before hoisting himself gracefully onto its shoulder. At that point, he built up momentum with a double-twirl and planted his sickle firmly in the ogre's neck, killing it.
He looked, and saw a second ogre approaching him. Harley picked off a third and was surely preparing to deal with her fourth now. He had to catch up before she scored too high. With a grunt, he ran and leaped at the ogre, which swatted at him slowly. Too slowly, fortunately. He rolled midair to minimize his target size, narrowly avoiding being hit by the underling, before coming out of the roll to sink his sickle's pointy end into the ogre's upper stomach. From there, he yanked down, and slid towards the ground, opening a gaping slice in the green flesh. The ogre evaporated, dead, and Karkat looked over to see that Jade was being accosted up close and personal. He dashed over to help, but the ogre just got a round through the skull for getting so close and whisped away into dust. Harley blew the smoke off her barrel before repeating the same posture as before, once more leaning on her rifle with a twinkle in her eyes and a smirk on her face.
"Eleven eleven, Kit-Kat." She observed. He crossed his arms again, a grumpy expression of bittersweet white peace showing. He'd lean against something, too, but leaning against a one-hand sickle would look extremely silly. Stupid, even. "If you want to fight more things, though," She continued, "I like the way you dance when you fight." She remarked. It was sincere, albeit playful. She wondered what it would be like if they ever tried dancing together… a question for another day.
"Yeah, well, my fucking 'dancing' is a lot more effective than sitting back and spewing hot lead at shit." He retorted.
"Numbers don't lie, sweetie, and our number is 11." She responded.
Suddenly, though, the ground began shaking. Jade lost her balance, and fell over onto her rifle in a manner which was much less than graceful. Karkat went over to help her, but found his own footing being challenged by the quaking earth before falling down next to her. The ground a few feet away from them started cracking and fracturing, until finally, something started pushing up from under it, emerging from the dark brown rock. It was an especially black shade of green, and was instantly recognizable by the two of them as a lich - one of the highest powered enemies in the game. John had dealt with one when he was setting up the Scratch, Jade recalled. But the especially tricky part about dealing with liches was that they had powerful majyyks, especially when it came to summoning. Sure enough, a collection of giclopses and oblins were suddenly appearing all around them, until they were completely surrounded by extremely powerful foes. They stood back up, and back up to each other so that they were covering the other's rears.
"Can you do a spacey thing or some shit?" Karkat asked.
"Not very effectively. Not while I'm dreaming." She responded. It seemed like they'd have to handle this the hard way.
"What say we count all of these as one and have a good tie breaker round?" He posited. He couldn't see her, but he could tell she was smiling.
"Sounds good to me, kk." A voice called out.
Suddenly, the horde of enemies seemed to be frozen or paralyzed, captured in some kind of red aura. The next thing they knew, their visions were overwhelmed by a blast of black and white exploding through the crowd. It swerved through one side, then the other, turning the enemies into dust, before focusing itself onto the time-stopped lich and obliterating it in seconds. Once the epileptic display of raw psiioniic power died down, Karkat and Jade looked back to the source of the attack.
And there, floating above them, was Aradia Megido, Maid of Time, and the Mage of Doom himself: Sollux Captor. Karkat couldn't believe his eyes. His face was wide open in shock and surprise. Jade, however, was more confused than anything else.
"Sollux? Aradia? What the flaming fuck are you doing here, of all fucking places!" Karkat exclaimed excitedly. He was happy to see them, but also confused as to why they had happened to be at this particular dream bubble. What were they even doing any more? Just wandering the bubbles for fun?
"We were in the area and saw you two, so we decided to swing by and say hello!" Aradia answered.
"I guess for once, you really were just dumbly lucky." Sollux noted. "Even though you weren't really in any actual danger, since, you know, you're just dreaming." He added.
"Well, yeah, but I mean, we're kind of, you know…" Karkat tried explaining, but felt that it was a bit awkward explaining to his best friend and his matesprit that he and Jade were dating. Even though Rose and Kanaya were a well-known thing, he just felt like he'd be made fun of for dating a human, after the whole trolling thing on the meteor. Jade, however, helped him out.
"We were on a date, and we didn't want them to spoil it by waking us up." Jade finished. Karkat glanced at her, but Sollux and Aradia were unphased.
"Oh, we knew you were on a date. Sollux was just being a little sardonic. Like I said, we just wanted to stop by and see you while you were around!" Aradia said. Karkat blushed a tiny bit. He was a bit embarrassed despite their obvious acceptance. They floated down to the ground, and walked up to them.
"Well, kk? Aren't you going to introduce us to your matesprit?" Sollux asked, a coy smile on his face. It seemed like he was giving Karkat a hard time about finally having a new matesprit - but what are best friends for?
"Uh… right. Sollux, Aradia, this is my… girlfriend, the Jade human. Jade, this is Sollux and Aradia, my best friend and his matesprit." He introduced. Jade stepped forward a bit.
"It's very nice to meet you two! Are you dreaming, too?" She inquired. She realized it was obvious they were dreaming, but the half-blind nature of Sollux's eyes confused her.
"No, we're both quite alive, just wandering around the bubbles a bit. We got separated from the others when they began their journey, and mostly keep to tidying the bubbles up for the Gods of the Furthest Ring." She explained.
"Oh! So you're not just living, you're… here? As in, physically here?" She inquired. Aradia smiled, and Sollux would've rolled his eyes, if he still had eyes.
"Yes, these are our actual physical bodies. It's quite surreal whenever we go to sleep, though…" She went on, before Jade began asking her more questions and the two of them chatted nonstop. Karkat furrowed his brows in minor frustration before walking off a bit. Sollux followed him, and nudged him with his elbow.
"Human, eh, kk?" He said teasingly.
"Shut the fuck up." Karkat shot back.
"Hey, come on, you don't even know what I was gonna say about it, and besides, it's not like our girls are gonna be available for any kind of interaction any time soon. Plus we haven't talked in fucking forever." Sollux argued. He had good points. Jade seemed to be in desperate need of "girl time", as humans called it, and he and Sollux could use some "bro time", as humans called it.
"Fine. What were you gonna say about my girlfriend?" He allowed. Sollux smiled, and if he had glasses, Karkat sensed that they would be flashing proudly.
"I was gonna say, fuckin' score, kk."
Karkat smiled back, and the two of them joked and talked and caught back up while their girls got to know each other. By the time they were through, it was time for Karkat and Jade to wake back up. They made arrangements, however, to meet back here whenever they so chose to in their dreams. For Karkat, it was mostly for Jade - though he was happy to see his friends, he knew Jade needed company far more than he did. And, for some reason, it felt like Karkat's initial reaction of unease towards his old world had been replaced with one of familiarity and, in a way, nostalgia. It seemed like having his friends around made it easier for him to deal with all the failures he associated with the place... and maybe, to an extent, the failures he associated with himself. It was with that thought in his mind that he kissed her goodbye and waved farewell to Sollux and Aradia, before he and Jade gradually faded away back to awakeness. Sollux and Aradia looked at each other, smiling.
"They seem like a good match, don't you think?" Aradia inquired of Sollux.
"You kidding me, aa? That's the fuckin happiest I've ever seen kk, him talking about her. And did you hear what he called her? 'Girlfriend' - that's the human word, aa. If they're not fuckin perfect for each other, I'll crush my horns and fuckin snort them." He replied. Aradia giggle in agreement, took his hand, and together, they resumed their wandering of the land of the dreaming dead.