Notes: Here's the boring bits... This is an AU where the characters from Homestuck (Andrew Hussie) are in place of the characters in Nier: Gestalt (Square Enix) with some tweaks to the story. Sometimes dialogue and sequences are taken straight from the game and sometimes they're from my own imagination. (You can read this without having played Nier, if you know the characters from Homestuck it helps, but still not entirely necessary) The Diary Excerpts are random and not in time with the rest of the story, they show up in the game, I included them because I think they're cute. And now back to the good stuff...
…
My Diary
December 22
The snow won't stop falling, so Dad said he'd stay here with me until it stops. He'll probably leave again when it does, so I kinda hope it snows forever.
…
Summer 2049
The air is thick with smog and the ground is covered by oil stained, slushy snow, patterned by pulsating swirls of pinks and greens and melting into disgusting brown puddles, it makes you feel sick. The buildings are rusted and some are leaning over, kinked and misshapen, support beams and seized up water pipes sticking out at awkward angles that don't look as if they set like that naturally, they're all mangled. Every window you can see through the thick waves of fog is smashed and the slight wind is blowing large snowflakes into the openings.
It hasn't always been like this, but it's been so long now you hardly remember a happier time.
Your name is Karkat Vantas. You're sat in a deserted building – nothing special about that, every building is deserted – it looks like it was some kind of store once, it's completely empty and unrecognisable now though, most of the shelving units toppled over and covered in dust. You managed to find a pretty sturdy pipe a few days ago and you've been using it as a means of protection, it's longer than you are tall so you get a pretty good reach on it. Your coat is starting to fray at the seams from all the physical excursion you're putting it through, and your hair is matted where you haven't washed it in days.
There is a whisper in the back of your mind, it itches your thinkpan and feels like cool fingers burrowing under your cranial case. "Take my power. Use it to save your daughter." The voice sounds soothing, and you let it lull you gently to awareness. "All I ask… Is your soul."
Your gaze is fluid as you look over, glaring daggers at that infernal, inanimate bane of your existence. "Goddam… Book." You kick it away so hard it slides under a shelf far off in front of you. Hopefully you'll never see one of these things again.
There's a sudden shuffling, then an inhuman gurgling noise, you recognise it immediately as more shades turning up, you're not sure how they know you're here, you're too tired to want to think about it; You haven't slept properly in weeks in fear of failing to hear them.
You get to your feet, the sudden altitude change hits you right between the horns and you stagger as you reach your full height. Catching yourself on your foot, you try to relax into a defensive stance, readying your pipe at your side, and once the shimmering white stars have cleared from your vision, you look up.
There are three big ones this time.
You surge at the one closest to you - no need to be sneaky, these things are stupid as shit - and it goes to lift it's club and bring it down onto your head. As you swing your makeshift weapon into it's stomach, you take a brief second to study it's form.
They're strange, ghost like creatures, their visual appearance flickering in and out of view, but you can always see them somehow, know where they are at all times. They're grey, almost like trolls, some even have horns, but most don't, like humans.
These bigger ones are slow, but powerful.
If you'd never had physical contact with them before you would probably think they're incorporeal with the way light seems to shift below the surface of their skin, like a flashlight through paper.
Some really do look like people, and you flinch when you swing your pipe, hit them with all of your strength and they scream when their limbs disconnect from their bodies in a flurry of smoke and dust.
Once you've taken out the three intruders you're so exhausted you could collapse, and you nearly do. You head back around the corner from where you were keeping guard.
"Dad?" her voice is small and frail, and she starts coughing, you wish you could do something. She notices the worry in your eyes as you crouch next to her to make sure her coat is definitely done up as best as it can be – humans aren't as hardy to the cold as trolls are, so you're not sure if she's warm enough – she reaches her mitten covered hand out to touch your face and smiles softly.
"Hi Jade." You think she might be okay this time, and you let your guard down enough to smile back slightly when she starts coughing again, it wracks her body and she's shaking all over. You wrap your arms around her out of protective reflex – people have shunned you for taking in a human child, humans take in troll wrigglers and infants all the time for whatever reason they seem to think satisfies, but trolls apparently aren't capable of parental affection and attachment, you think you're doing a pretty fine job compared to some of the embarrassments to the human race out there. lots of other people look up to you for taking her in when she had no one.
"Sorry dad, it'll stop in a minute. I promise." She manages to rasp out between her hacking, she sounds like she could quite easily bring up a lung. You stroke her back through her puffy coat, she's still coughing, but not as badly. "If the monsters hear me… Are they… Gonna come back for me?"
"Fuck, Jade, don't say that. I won't let them hurt you." You hold her close to you as her body eventually stops trying to tear itself to pieces from the inside and her breathing starts to even out. "You need to eat something. Stay here, I'll be right back." You pull away and when you catch sight of her face she looks fondly at you, and she seems so calm and relaxed despite everything. Damn her, she's always so level headed and doesn't worry about anything but you, and you didn't protect her, didn't stop this from happening. You glance to the floor by her side, and your lips pull back in a snarl as you point at the duplicate Grimoire. "Don't touch that book. Not ever. Do you hear me?"
"Yes dad."
…
As you leave the building you run into more shades, a lot this time, small ones, they only come up to about your knee height and they're hunched over and hopping around on all fours with clubs shorter than your forearm.
You swing your pipe a few times in their general direction, they usually seem to know where you're going to aim so you just wing it to confuse them, they're very fast but also very weak, one swift whack to the face or the back and they're out.
You didn't notice the bigger one phase in behind you until it smashes you in the back of the head, hard, and sends you flying back into your adopted shelter. You hit the top of a shelving unit and scrape up your side on the way down.
You end up sprawled out on the floor and then you realise, with hardly any concern, that you're bleeding, and it must be bad because you've only just landed and that is a big puddle. It makes you cringe, but mostly because when you were younger – when it still mattered – you spent so long hiding your blood colour from everyone. Worrying that they would run you out of your home and away from your friends just because you're a mutant, and now it's all out on show in a pool of your own misery and abject failure.
Idly, you wonder if your last thoughts are going to be how stupid past you was for worrying about something like the colour of your useless blood while slowly slipping out of consciousness on the floor with Jade not ten feet away, with shades still slowly advancing on you. Your first worry is that she can see you, and when you turn to figure out where you landed, to look for her, you spot that fucking book.
Tears sting at your eyes, your pan aches so badly that you feel it might just melt and drain out of the hole that monster must have made in the back of your skull, you wonder if it would feel better if it did - You don't even wonder how it got back to that spot - Your heart is beating so fast in your chest, because you have to get up, you need to-
Reach your arm forward, it hurts and your body protests but you manage to ignore it in favour of inching your hand towards the book. "Need…" There's a dry lump in your throat, it feels like you're trying to swallow a lump of chalk and you can hardly speak, you're not really sure why you're trying to. "More power…" Your fingertips are millimetres from the cover now and there's a burning in your chest that you're not sure is your heart giving out or just apprehension at what you're doing. "Need to protect, Jade…" As your fingers fall on the Grimoire, everything goes white and your entire body hurts.
…
Your mind is on autopilot and you are snapped back into it with a crash, you open your eyes and you're standing at the entrance of the building – you don't remember getting up – you feel heat and adrenaline surging through your veins. You feel stronger than you have ever felt before, and it's not like you've hardly slept in months at all. Everything is so bright and shiny you feel you might go blind, once your surroundings settle into a more manageable hue you look around, your vision is so clear, crisp, and you can see the shades leaving behind a wispy, glittery trail as they move - for once they actually look beautiful.
You can see something out of the corner of your eye and you look up. The book is hovering ominously about a foot away from your head, it's open, and from it's pages juts a giant arm-like apparition, held in a fist – you aren't sure if it's coincidence that through the shadowy, shifting wrappings of the surreal appendage is some kind of substance that is the same colour as your mutant blood, or if it's there to mock you, you try and ignore it – there's a breathy whisper in your mind again, creeping and scraping around in your pan like a small rodent making a nest in your head like it has every right to be there. You're not sure what it's saying, but your brain automatically translates it into a gesture, you go to flex the fingers of the phantom limb, it works, and you can move it like you've grown an extra arm from your back.
"Stay away from my daughter!" You clench the giant fist, and pound everything you see into glittering dust.
…
As everything is unnaturally decomposing at your feet, your breathing settles and everything starts to feel safer, you turn to the building.
You can't hear anything.
You panic slightly, in your state of supernatural power you hadn't been keeping an eye on the building at all, you are the worst custodian. You rush back to the doorway, slipping on some oily snow as you do, but catching yourself on your hands so you don't smash all your teeth out or something embarrassing.
As you look up you are met with the shadowy, distorted face of the biggest shade you've ever seen.
It's about three times your height when it straightens up, and your entire body seizes as it raises an arm and you're sure its going to drop a club or a sword on your head, you roll out of the way and there's a slashing noise, but you don't feel the ground shake with the impact of your near miss. You look up, and it doesn't have a weapon, it's raised it's arm again and you scramble to your feet and try and find the piece of pipe you dropped earlier. You leap into a tumble as you grab for it, bringing it up to guard your face just in time to catch some kind of flash of energy that it sent your way.
As you slink away from it, gauging it's speed and vulnerable spots, you feel the scratching at the base of your skull, even before you hear the voice. This time it's like sharp fingernails up the back of your neck, over your scalp and around to your forehead, your subconscious moulds the giant arm into something else, it looks like a giant dart, maybe a spear.
You pull it back, aim, and hurl it straight into the monstrosity's chest. It doesn't collapse, the spear shoots straight out through it's back, but you know it did some damage, you throw a couple more bloody javelins while dodging whatever tactic it's using, throwing weird crescents of pure light at you, you don't miss once.
Something in your mind tells you that you can channel the power from the Grimoire and throw more than one. You glance to the book, and consider the consequences this is all going to have while throwing 3 spears at once, piercing the creatures form and tearing a hole through it, distorting it, before it pulls itself together, literally. It finally sees you as a threat and gets angry, throwing more shit at you, which you dodge easily enough.
When you get the beast on one knee, you can hear it rasping for breath, making awful screeching, scratchy noises like it's throat is made of razorblades and it's trying to breathe sand.
You charge at it, aiming your pipe right at it's mangled face, but it lifts an arm to bat you away like a bug, you manage to catch your feet on it's semblance of a hand and push off and land back in the snow with a light slosh. The creature is back up, and looks like it may have regenerated some strength. You start charging your attack, you think five darts should do it, and your eyes drift over to the half-collapsed building, you hope Jade's okay.
It turns out, getting distracted was a mistake.
You turn back to the beast in time to see it lift an arm – channelling these spells makes everything move in slow motion, even you – and you see it's arm sweeping down, you try and release the bolts and dodge before you get hit. The huge grey arm swings in an arc and a cloud of neon pink smoke forms in front of the shade, it slashes through it, and the trail the smoke leaves behind glows white hot and surges toward you.
You don't dodge in time.
But it doesn't kill you.
Blood is seeping through a slash in the front of your coat and you clutch at it, pain shooting through every inch of your body. You stumble around and manage to get your footing back in time for it to lift it's arm again, as it brings it down you leap up and to the side to dodge, but it guesses that's what you're doing and catches you in mid-air.
After you fly backwards, you land flat on your back, your crimson - almost human colour - blood is seeping into the snow at a steady pace, you wonder if you're still bleeding from before too. You can't move, all your muscles screaming at you for being such a moron and getting beaten by this thing. There's probably much stronger shades out there that you'll have to face, and you're going to get killed by this one.
It stomps over to you, peers down at your prone figure and lifts it's foot to finish you off and stamp you out of existence. You flinch, turning your head to the side and spot the book laying there right by your head – like it wasn't just floating by your side, summoning supernatural spells and helping you kill monsters – and you think one last time, that you can do this.
You need to do this.
For Jade.
You form a spear right in front of your face – and this close you can see the texture of it, it looks like someone made jelly out of your blood, mushed it up and moulded it into the form of a surreal, giant bar game, then wrapped it up in bandages of black smoke – and you shove it straight through the thing's face. It brings it's hands up to the hole it left, and falls backwards.
It slowly disintegrates in the breeze, wisps of smoke slowly curling off it's slowly receding figure.
You just lay there for the longest time, listening to yourself panting and the whistling of the frigid breeze through the eerie silence, until a spark of unease runs through you and you surge up, ignoring your body's reluctance and the lightheadedness from your blood loss, to go and find Jade.
…
When you reach her she's doubled over and actually choking because she can't get enough air, you pat her back to try and help, even though you know it won't. "Talk to me." You urge.
She looks up at you, her eyelashes glistening with tears from behind her round, too big glasses. "Are you alright?" She manages to rasp out.
"I'm fine, don't worry about me." You wipe away the tears that escaped and ran down her cheek.
"Oh! Look." She pulls her hands out from her coat sleeves, "I found a cookie. We can split it."
You rest your hand on hers. "No, you can have it Jade."
She shoves your hand off hers. "No! You need to eat too!" she shakes and starts coughing again, covering her mouth with the back of a hand. When her spluttering subsides, she snaps the cookie down the middle, crumbs falling into her coat sleeves.
"Okay, I'll have the smaller half."
She doesn't look up at you. "No, you're bigger, you need the bigger half." She starts coughing again, and this fit is so bad that her small body shakes and rattles so violently it must be painful. "Oh no! I dropped it!" She falls forward lamely, her forehead smacking into your chest. She starts sobbing silently and her breath comes short and gasping. "You've always helped me…" She starts to go limp in your arms, so you pull her back to look at her face, she's glowing slightly, grey creeping up her neck. "I wanted to…"
And then she stops breathing.
"Jade?" you shake her, tears running down your face freely. As your eyes sweep over her slumped figure, you spot the other book, there's a pain in your chest again, completely different than before. "Jade?! What did you do?" You stand, pulling her up with you, she just flops in your arms. "Oh god, we need help!" your voice cracks and you don't even care because you can't get her to respond and you need someone to come and help. "Please, fuck, anyone…" You croak. "Help us!"
As you peer out of the entrance to your shelter, your voice ringing through the metal struts sticking out of the dilapidated skyscrapers and echoing through the chasm below, you are so much more aware of how Jade has been the only other person you've seen for months, or was it years?
In the distance, the clock tower chimes. "Jade…"
…
…
…
1,312 Years later.
…
…
…
"Alright, I'm off." You make to leave, only to turn back in concern when Jade coughs slightly a few times.
"Hey dad, want to hear about my dream I had last night?" Her voice is a little croaky still, but if she drinks any more water she'll probably be sick.
"Hmm?"
"I was in it, and so were you! And we were riding on this cloud-"
"Jade, I'm sorry, I have to go. Tell me when I get back." You don't want to cut her off, you love hearing about her dreams, but you already stayed here longer than you should have to make sure she ate breakfast.
"Oh wait! Can you get me a book while you're out?"
"Sure. Now stay here and rest. We don't want your cough coming back."
As you leave, just before you shut her bedroom door, you see Jade smile at you, and whisper just loud enough for you to hear, "I love you dad…"
…
My Diary
February 4
I'm gonna learn to make awesome food for Dad.
I better start working on a new secret recipe.
…
Notes: *I do not take credit for Homestuck or Nier.* I only take credit for the writing style, the changes in dialogue and the sways in storyline this AU will have, which... You won't notice if you haven't played the game. *The Diary excerpts are taken from Yonah's Diary in Nier.* … I'm not sure how long I'll drag this out for, I regret to admit that it's possible this will never be finished, but I shall try. This is a fun universe to play in.