I don't own Homestuck, Andrew Hussie does~!
[xXx]
I have to run faster, I thought to myself, my chest in pain from my ragged breathing and pounding heart. My legs were sore, aching from all of the running I had been doing. I needed a break, to calm down and relax, but that would be an impossible feat. Not while there were guns and other weapons aimed at me. For fuck's sake... I really fucking hope that nobody has been captured yet... That thought ended with a loud curse, a sharp pain shooting through my shoulder. My hand instantly launched up to cover the bullet wound, feeling the warm, stickiness of my mutant, candy red blood pool up under my gray palm. Trying to hide the color of my blood wouldn't matter, at least not right now. Right now, all that mattered was running and hiding. Fighting wasn't an option. I would know.
I couldn't make even the smallest scratch on those... those... things with my sharpest sickle.
Those things... They weren't Trolls, I'm telling you. They were large in stature, made and bred for battle. They weren't stupid, despite being brutes. They were fucking intelligent. I don't mean Troll Albert Einstein smart, I mean fucking smarter than him. They where large, their skin scaled like a lizard's, all of them varying in color. They were all pale colored, indicating that their blood color was a pale color as well. They all had a permanent sneer about them, baring their yellowed, jagged teeth. Carnivores, I thought grimly. Their teeth indicate that they are carnivores. To rip and tear flesh from bone...
"Iyn dlmh ayjy, wkddt afjwyx Njfqq (Come back here, nubby horned Troll)," sneered the brute that had put the bullet through my shoulder. His voice was rough like sandpaper, and the language he spoke was thick and throaty. If I had to guess, he had two tongues behind those teeth that pulled off the sounds needed for the language. "Tfk alsy mlwxt jyx dqffx. Ry wyyx tfk ofj tfkj mlwxt jyx dqffx, wkddt afjwyx Njfqq (You have candy red blood. We need you for your candy red blood, nubby horned Troll)."
If I had only known what he had said back then. "Fuck you!"
Before I could take the next step, I was suddenly on the ground, a heavy weight on top of my back, pinning me down. A clawed hand tangled its fingers into my messy, black hair, gripping the locks tightly and roughly. "Tfk rcqq qyljw tfkj uqlmy, jyx dqffxyx iluncsy. Pkgn lg tfkj oknkjy iynulwcyw (You will learn your place, red blooded captive. Just as your future companion did)," he sneered above me. I still had no idea what he said, struggling in his grasp.
"Let me go, you blubbering fuckass!" I growled.
He ignored me, lifting me up by my hair, which, trust me, fucking hurt. I screamed and barked orders at him to let me go, to put me down. He ignored me, however, so all of my screaming and barking was in vain. It wasn't until I began to feel ever so slightly light headed that I remembered the wound that the lizard-like bastard had given me. I glanced down, panting. I could see my candy red blood staining and soaking my black sweater, glazing over my gray caste symbol. I thought I had known why he had kept me alive and why he was carrying me around like a trophy. I thought that he was showing off my mutant blood to all Trolls who could see.
However, I soon learned how wrong I was.
He was only carrying me in a way that was fit of a soldier.
Well, one that was showing mercy to his prisoner, even if it really wasn't mercy in my eyes.
I still struggled, though. I didn't like being carried around like some ill behaved, four legged beast. Then, I heard a familiar voice off in the distance, followed by another.
"Karkitty!"
"Nepeta, you musn't leave my side!"
"H-hey! Let go of me!"
"How dare you lay a hand on Nepe-!" Crack!
"EQUIUS!"
I couldn't see what happened, let alone who it happened to, but I already knew. Nepeta had seen me and tried to come to my aid; Equius attempted to stop her; She was captured by one of the soldiers that was invading our world; Equius attempted to fight the soldier, but the soldier had used his free hand to do something to the blue blood's head. Please, let that asshole still be alive for Nepeta's sake... I thought to myself as I screamed and hissed and growled all the louder. I could hear more voices, closer now, but still far away.
"Stay behind me, Vriska!"
"And let yoooooooou have all of the fuuuuuuuun?"
"Shut up and fight- EEK!"
"Hey! Who gave you permission to take my friend?!"
"V-Vriska, run! NOW!"
"Not without you! Hey! Let go of me!"
This, I had seen. Vriska and Terezi had been wearing their Flarping attire, standing back to back with their weapons poised; Vriska with her Fluorite Octet clutched in her metal hand and Terezi with her cane in both of her gloved own. Terezi had been too distracted by telling off Vriska to smell the alien reaching out for her. The soldier had wrapped his large, meaty hand around her neck, lifting her up off of the ground. Vriska had attempted to save her friend, about to roll her die, but another meaty hand had caught her from behind, grabbing her hand and clutching it tightly, digging the Fluotire Octet into her metal palm. The soldier that had a hold of her shoved her down to the ground and pinned her metal fist to her back with his knee, his hand gripping her hair and making her eat the ash colored dirt.
As for the others, I didn't see them. Honestly, I hoped that they all would be alright, not captured like Equius (if he was even still alive), Nepeta, Vriska, Terezi, and myself. I hadn't seen anyone else. I could only hope for the best at this point. Even if the best was a thousand light years away, I had the right to hope.
"Everyone is captured, Karkat," Aradia's voice whispered into my ear. Just the feeling of her cold breath on my ear without a body to go with it sent chills up and down my spine. My struggles were dying down, the loss of so much blood starting to get to me. "Everyone tried, Karkat. But nobody is dead. Nobody... is dead..." Why did her voice sound so small, so soft? "Everyone... alive..." What did she say...? "...alive..."
Everything turned black.
[xXx]
When I woke next, I wasn't sure where I was. It was dark, I was sleeping in slime, and there was somebody beside me, wide awake. He was watching me carefully, though he didn't move. I, however, panicked and attempted to get out of my Recuperacoon as fast as possible. His hand reached out and grabbed me, though his grip was weak.
"I must plead you to calm down," he told me, his voice droning and monotone. "I am a friend. Well, I suppose that I am in the broadest usage of the word." I didn't know what it was about his voice, but it was having a duel effect on me; one effect was that it was calming me down, the other was that it was royally pissing me off. "My name is Kankri. In the Kalciturion language, that translates into Hlwhjc. I apologize that my use of the language is rusty and not well spoken, but I lack the second tongue along with the constant supply of bile in the back of my throat to speak it fluently."
"What's your last name?" I found myself asking him, relaxing slightly.
"Last names have no value in this place, I'm afraid."
"I asked you for your fucking last name, fuckass."
The male sighed weakly. "It's Vantas. The same as you, actually. Our blood is the same color, along with our race, believe it or not. I come from Beforus whereas you come from, with due respect, Alternia. By all rights, the inhabitants of Beforus were forced to reproduce with one another, with those of the same blood caste. Granted, some of us do not have caste symbols, such as myself, until you came along."
"Woah, woah, woah. You're telling me that you could be my dad?"
"I have never reproduced with anyone, so it is not a possibility."
I contained a sigh of relief. "You didn't have a symbol before?"
Kankri shook his head. "Not at all. Then you came along and now we are no longer truly outcasts here."
"Outcasts?"
"Everyone but ourselves had a caste symbol. I was alone for sweeps until you were tossed in this cell with me."
"We're in a fucking cell?!"
"We are, indeed."
I began to panic all over again. I was stuck in a cell with someone I hardly even knew?! Not to mention that apparently we're sharing the same fucking Recuperacoon! I was not okay with this fucking arrangement! Whoever decided that it was okay to pair me up with a fucking stranger that I might be forced to pail with was a fucking shitsponge and I want to tear open their skull and look inside of their thinkpan to see where in the ever loving fuck they thought it okay to do this fucking shit!
I attempted to get out of the Recuperacoon, beginning to feel sufficated, only to find that the entrance was fucking covered. "Let me out!"
"Calm down!" Kankri cried out in alarm, grabbing me. I could tell he was using all of his strength to try and pull me back. "The entrance will be uncovered in a couple more hours!"
"Oh, no, fuck that shit!" I hissed, about to draw back my fist to punch open the cover. I stopped though when a searing pain shot through my shoulder and up my spine. Hissing in pain, I forced myself to relax. How could I have forgotten that the soldier had shot me before? Why the Hell did this all have to be so fucking fustrating?! I curled up slightly, hugging myself, my grub scars against the palms of my hands. "I can't stay in this slime that long... I have fucking problems sleeping..."
"As do I," Kankri told me, turning me so we would be face to face. "I mostly stay up every night and think to myself... Mostly of my life before I was captured and brought to this place."
I looked up at him briefly, my usual angry scowl softening up a little bit. "How long have you been here...?"
"Three sweeps."
Three sweeps... "How old are you...?"
"Nine sweeps. I was your age when I was captured from Beforus."
I swallowed the lump that was in my throat. Three sweeps, same age, same last name... Hell, he even looked kind of like me... His eye color was filled in, his hair was a mess like my own but more well kept, our horns were the same, nubby kind, our skin was the same shade of gray... The only real differences that I saw was that he didn't have the anger wrinkles that I already had around my mouth and eyes, and he was lanky, scrawny, really. He had next to no muscle on his bones. In fact... When I looked, I saw his ribs, ever so slightly jutting out of his flesh. "Kankri...?"
"Yes?"
"H-how did I look when they threw me in here...?"
"Not very well, I'm afraid to say. I actually feared that you might have died, what with how much blood that I saw on your sweater... I had to remove it and clean your wound before I could bandage you up. I also removed your pants to be washed." He gave a sad smile, though it was small. "It's sad really... In this place, the only article of clothing we are allowed to wear from our home worlds are our pants. Otherwise, we are provided with clothes... The rest of what we ever owned was discarded."
I frowned deeply. "Well, isn't that fan-fucking-tastic..." I sighed. I closed my eyes and moved away from Kankri. "Let's try to sleep... I don't feel like thinking anymore..."
"As you wish..."
Silence came down harder than I imagined that it would.
Of course, neither one of us got an sleep in the hours that ensued.