Hi Everyone. I Did Not Want To Take Over This Story Or Anything Rude, But I Just Loved It So Much I Can Not Stop Thinking About How I Would Have Had It Turn Out. So… I'm Sorry About This If It Is Not Very Good, Since The Original Is So Amazing. But I Hope You Enjoy My AU Of An AU or My Fanfiction Of A Fanfiction, As It Were.
For Those Who Do Not Know, The Original Is Called Birds Of A Feather And It Is ByUpsidedownShortcake, Who Is A Very Fantastic Writer And You Should Definitely Read All Of Her Work .
As A Side Note, This Fan Story Ignores The Epilogue Of The Original And The Second Half Of The Finale Chapter. You Will Need To Read It To Understand This Story (Most Likely).
After throwing John through the transportalizer, Karkat had closed his eyes, resolved for what he knew must happen next. Jack was coming through the door and he would murder him, plain and simple. Or maybe he would drag it out a little.
And then he would follow John right back to Earth and kill him there. Just because Karkat had sent him back to Earth, that didn't make the human any safer and the troll's thin hands shook at the control panel as he realized the very real truth that Jack could easily transportalize back to Earth, find the human, and take his life.
Pained black eyes shifted from where Sollux was just barely holding back the door and the carapaces to the control panel. It was the only transpotalizer that he knew of… maybe it was the only one that existed. Hands shook for a moment of uncertainty, but at the crashing sound of the carapaces breaking through Sollux' defense, he lunged for a chair, hefted it over his head, and brought it crashing down on the control panel, shattering the little knobs, dials, and screens… and his heart along with it. He may have closed the path for Jack, but he had also sealed it for himself…
Though if he didn't hurry and think of some way to escape, his fate was sealed just as surely as the pathway was. "Gog dammit," he cried as Sollux was shoved to the side and Jack stormed into the room amongst a wave of his minions. One look from the shattered control panel to Karkat had the carapacian glowering, and a darkness flowed from him that chilled Karkat to his very core.
"Maim him, but leave the killing blow for me," Jack ordered his carapacian army. The black hard-shelled creatures advanced on Karkat, who was thankful that he carried his sickles around for just such occasions. For being a scientific researcher, Karkat was still a troll, and he was skilled with his weapon of choice. Carapace after carapace fell to his blades, though Karkat could feel the room getting colder as Jack seethed, watching in fury as one carapace after the other fell dead at Karkat's feet, red blood painting Karkat and the walls magnificently.
In their distracted states, neither Karkat nor Jack noticed a certain juggalo – whose clothes were now decorated with red and indigo – sneaking into the room and kneeling at Sollux' side. He managed to revive the mustard blood just as the last carapace fell to Karkat's blades. With an outraged snarl, Jack finally leaped at the exhausted troll, who wouldn't have been able to put up much of a fight if it hadn't been for
Just as the last carapace fell, Karkat shuddered, exhausted, and slipped involuntarily to one knee. Jack, who was enraged beyond belief, flicked out his knife and stalked forward slowly. As the dangerous man – once his boss and self-proclaimed 'lusus' – approached, Karkat struggled back to his feet and glared at him with smoldering black eyes like a cornered animal. But his chest was heaving as he struggled to catch his breath and the candy red blood that slicked his skin was not all from the carapaces.
Chuckling vilely, Jack advanced on Karkat, and even though his knife was small, he easily batted away Karkat's pathetic attempt to strike at him. After his attack, Karkat sank to one knee involuntarily. "Fuck," he grimaced, but his body simply wasn't listening anymore.
"Any last words?" Jack smirked as he brought his knife up under Karkat's throat, the cool blade pressing against the soft flesh. A drop of crimson welled up beneath the silver edge before dropping down Karkat's throat and beneath the neckline of his black shirt.
Swallowing thickly, Karkat clenched his teeth, readying some comeback, but someone else beat him to it.
"I have some for you. Honk, honk, motherfucker," Gamzee said from Karkat's left. Both Karkat's and Jack's heads swiveled just as Gamzee barreled into the man, knocking him to the side. Karkat winced as Jack went down, expecting his throat to get sliced in the exchange, but he cracked one eye open when he felt nothing but the continuing, steady pressure of the blade and saw to his surprise that the knife was floating there on its own, encased in a glowing blue light.
Black eyes snapped up to see Sollux collapsed near the door, mustard blood dripping from between his lips even as his eyes glowed with his psionic power. "You… owe me, KK," he said, his voice a little strained, but Karkat couldn't help the momentary half smile before he spun back to see how his moirail was doing.
Gamzee had pinned Jack down and bludgeoned him in the head with one of his clubs. Even without his knife, Jack was still scary, but it seemed Gamzee had actually succeeded in knocking him unconscious, or perhaps even killing him. Karkat could hardly believe it and, it seemed, neither could Gamzee, who kept bashing the carapace until red began to coat the club. Coming to his senses – and recognizing the imminent danger of a violent Gamzee – Karkat stepped forward, placing one hand on his moirail's shoulder.
"Fuck, Gamzee, enough," he said, grimacing at the carnage littered around the room and knowing the rest of the lab couldn't possibly be much better and was probably a thousand fucking times worse.
…But at least John had made it out, right?
The thought of his newly found matesprit made Karkat sigh with a heavy heart, but the fight still wasn't over and Sollux, ever the responsible one, told Gamzee to go find the others. "I don't fucking know why you aren't the leader, Sollux," Karkat muttered as he eyed Jack a moment more before looking out the door after Gamzee. It looked like a fucking rainbow of gore out there.
"Because I'm too lazy, now help me up, KK," Sollux said, raising his arms slightly. Karkat loosened his grip on his sickles before hesitantly returning them to their sheaths. Uneasily, he glanced at Jack's battered body one more time to calm his nerves a little, but he froze when the spot where Jack's body had been was empty. Frantically, Karkat's black eyes flicked over the mound of carapacian bodies scattered throughout the room but none of them resembled him even remotely... All that remained where Jack's body had lain was a few red smears of blood on the floor and then… nothing.
"Fuck," Karkat said, Sollux mirroring with a curse of his own.
After scouring the place for survivors – and Jack – Karkat and the others had found that they were alone. As terrifying as it was, Jack was still alive and on the loose. Karkat's first thoughts went yet again to John and the possibility of there being another transportalizer. But there was nothing he could do about it right now and he worked with a heavy heart as they gathered up their friends and began to revive them and heal them in one of the rarely used rooms in the lab. Thankfully, though the lab didn't have spare respiteblocks, it did have mock-recuperacoons which were crafted of glass that were used to study near-death specimens as well as the effects of sopor slime on other species – as Karkat had found with John, sopor slime could be incredibly toxic to other races.
Gamzee had gathered nearly everyone in this room and when Karkat and Sollux entered, he had his forehead pressed against the glass of a recuperacoon that held a Tavros who was in very poor shape, indeed. A hole had been stabbed clean through his chest. If he even still had a chest organ, Karkat would have been surprised.
If there had been room, Gamzee probably would have jumped right in the recuperacoon with Tavros, but he needed the sopor slime less than the others and Nepeta was taking up the rest of the room in the recuperacoon. Her body was in bad shape and olive blood was oozing from her into the slime, leaking from the many bruises she had. Her entire body had been pummeled, it seemed, and she looked awful, bruised, and malformed. Equius was hovering by her side of the recuperacoon, looking bad but none too worse for the wear – did he have a few more broken teeth? Karkat could hardly tell, considering how Equius normally looked.
Then his gaze strayed to Eridan and Feferi. They were in another recuperacoon together, both looking worse than the other, however that was fucking possible. Kanaya was the one sitting by them, though she was holding her stomach, which she had wrapped up, but jade was leaking through the cloth bandage. She looked upset – something that was rare for her normally serene self. Sollux had already bounded over to her and was staring through the glass at Feferi. "How are they?" he asked, a strained sound in his voice.
"Eridan… probably isn't going to make it. He was cut nearly in half," Kanaya responded with her usual careful speech, though she seemed distracted.
"And FF?" Sollux pressed, obviously caring more for what Karkat knew was his matesprit.
Kanaya gazed through the glass at the royal-blood for a time before responding. "She should survive. Shot through the chest, but it was a clean wound." Sollux visually relaxed before he finally slid into a sitting position at the base of the glass.
"Sollux?" Kanaya said, as though just actually noticing that he was there. She stood and looked at him a moment before speaking to him again, "You need the slime. There is still space over there…" There was one last glass recuperacoon, which Terezi and Aradia were standing around though there didn't seem to be anyone in it.
Curious, Karkat stepped forward, partially to help Sollux, partially to see how his once potential matesprit had fared. As he walked over with his friend, he soon became aware that there was a third person there, on the ground. A growl curled up his lips when he saw Vriska. All of this had been her fault. Terezi and Aradia seemed to be thinking the same thing. In fact, Terezi's cane, which she was currently leaning on like a walking stick, was covered with Vriska's teal blood. "Should we put her in the slime or not?" she was asking Aradia in her grating, high-pitched voice.
"Fuck no," Karkat interrupted as he dragged Sollux over and helped him into the vat. He remembered the anger and then helplessness he'd felt when she'd controlled his moirail and nearly made him murder his matesprit and then threatened to turn he and John in to Jack if he said anything. And she had been directly responsible for the carnage today. As far as Karkat was concerned, she deserved everything she got.
The mutant blood jumped when he heard a soft voice from behind him. "W-well, uh, no one died," Tavros said weakly from his spot.
"Tav?" Gamzee jumped to his feet and touched Tavros' face, which was sticking out of the top of the recuperacoon. "It's a motherfucking miracle," he said, in a pained voice as though he might break down again.
Karkat resisted the urge to go to his moirail's side and instead turned a fiery glare on the weakened troll. "Just because none of us trolls died – yet – doesn't mean no one died," he said, thinking of the carapaces, "And John…" he trailed off, hating to show emotion to these fuckasses but unable to restrain it. He turned his back on everyone, without realizing exactly the conclusion they would jump to.
"Motherfuck… I'm so sorry, bro," Gamzee said, his voice softer and closer than it had been. One arm wrapped around his shoulders as his moirail came to comfort him, assuming that John had been killed.
"Oh,, oh no," Tavros whimpered meekly from his place in the slime, muddy tears already leaking from his eyes for his lost moirail.
As he cried, Tavros tilted his head forward, accidentally hitting Nepeta in the face with his oversized horn. "MeOWW," she protested and Equius stood up, about to berate Tavros before Karkat pushed away from Gamzee, shouting.
"Look, you fucking wrigglers, this isn't the time for fucking crying and all that fuckassery. We have to get back out there and find Jack. John isn't dead yet, but he will be if Jack finds him. I sent him back to Earth and broke the transportalizer before Jack could follow, but if he finds another one before we stop him, John is a sitting fucking aquatic feather beast." He didn't tell the others just why Jack would go to the trouble of crossing time and space simply to kill a random human boy and he could tell everyone except for Gamzee and Tavros were questioning it, but he didn't feel the need to tell everyone and their fucking lusus about just how important John really was. That he was some kind of fucking hero handpicked by the white queen or some shit.
With the news that John wasn't actually dead, Tavros perked up a little bit, "Then, uh,,, Vriska might be able to help,,, or, uh, not, I guess," he mumbled, looking away from Karkat's glare and accidentally smacking Nepeta in the face again.
"Oww!" she squeaked as Equius jumped to his feet again and shot a glare at Tavros, only to falter and sit back down with a mumble of, "Excuse me, highblood," when Gamzee towered over him with a dark expression on his face.
Huffing, Karkat glanced at the teal blood, who looked in awful shape. Somewhere along the line one of her arms had been ripped off, plus the stab wound wasn't doing her any favors. "Why do you want to save her so fucking much anyway?"
"She's not really, uh, evil, I think, she just made some bad decisions but she's really, uh, good at finding stuff and,,, she could help," he said, seeming to struggle to find even a few reasons. Karkat wouldn't deny that having her on their side would be incredibly useful, but he couldn't forget all of the things she had done and he doubted she was really capable of turning over a new leaf.
"Whatever. Fuck. Ok, I guess we can take a vote on it or some shit," he finally muttered, glancing around the room at those who were still aware.
Sollux, from his recuperacoon, spoke up a little then in his strained voice, "First, I need to know, did she do that to FF?"
It was Kanaya who answered this time. "No. The only one Vriska hurt was Tavros," she responded.
Raising an eyebrow, Karkat shot Tavros a look. "Are you fucking serious, Tavros?"
Shifting uncomfortably under the scrutiny, Tavros faltered to reply, "I, uh,,,"
"Leave a motherfucking brother alone, man," Gamzee finally spoke up, addressing Karkat, though the sentiment applied to them all.
Well, at least Vriska hadn't single-handedly injured anyone there… other than Tavros. At least she had that much going for her. "All right, would all of the fucking nookstains who think we should revive Vriska raise their gog damn hands or some shit already?" he said, glancing around the room. Tavros couldn't really raise a hand, but he tilted his head to raise one of his horns – avoiding hitting Nepeta this time. Equius, Aradia, Terezi, and Sollux all joined him.
"And those against?" Karkat finished, counting as… absolutely fucking no one raised their hands. Kanaya was staring down into her lap as though she might vote if someone else did, but Nepeta, Eridan, and Feferi were out for the count and Gamzee seemed set on not voting.
"Fine, but you guys are fucking dealing with her when she betrays us again," Karkat grumbled as he went to sit heavily beside Kanaya, his wounds finally getting the better of him. Unable to hold back her motherly instincts, Kanaya started fussing over him immediately, tending to his wounds with a first aid kit she'd found in the room.
As she treated him, Karkat was silent, going over the horror of the day's events in his mind and hoping that maybe this was all just another one of his nightmares – that he was really just cuddled up in the darkness of John's pile back in his hive, having nightmares because he wasn't sleeping in the sopor slime, but dealing with them just to be close to his new found matesprit.
But even as he hoped for that to be the truth, he knew, staring down at his bloodied hands, that he was alone yet again.
