-ectoBiologist [EB] opened memo board NERVOUS at 10:15AM-
-turntechGodhead [TG] joined memo-
-arachnidsGrip [AG] joined memo-
EB: hey guys!
TG: hey john
AG: Hey John ::::D
AG: W8 a minute
AG: Aren't you supposed to 8e on the plane by now?
EB: uhhh yeahhh...
EB: about that...
TG: john
TG: youre not chickening out on us are you
AG: Joooooooohn! ::::(
AG: Come oooooooon!
AG: It'll 8e fun, I promise!
TG: yeah
TG: i agree with spiderbitch for once
TG: cmon dude
TG: live a little
EB: are you sure it's safe?
EB: it looks kinda creepy...
TG: bro weve both done this
AG: It was 8rilliant
TG: agreed
TG: now its your turn
EB:...
AG: Aw, come on!
AG: We only have this weekend 8efore midterm finals start!
TG: being seventeen is suffering
AG: 8esides...
AG: Remem8er what Vantas said?
TG: haha
TG: that was hilarious
AG: Don't you wanna prove little Carcat wrong?
EB: okay!
EB: fine!
EB: i'll do it!
TG: thats my boy
AG: We'll 8e w8ting for you at the 8ottom!
TG: good luck dude
AG: May you have aaaaaaaall the luck!
-arachnidsGrip [AG] left memo-
-turntechGodhead [TG] left memo-
John sighed and logged out of Pesterchum before logging out of his laptop. He should've finished his will. Then, at least his father would be able to use his laptop when he died. He waved his index finger in the air and formed a tiny tornado on it. Hopefully his Heir of Breath powers extended to saving his life.
He'd never tried, but according to Kanaya, you couldn't die whilst in God Tier unless you died a heroic death.
Smashing yourself over the pavement from skydiving was definitely not a heroic death, so John should've been reassured. But he wasn't. What if the parachutes didn't work? What if he died?
He tried to imagine his funeral.
"Serves the asshole right," Karkat would grumble, trying to sound hateful and not cry.
"Oh, John..." Aradia would mumble, "you were too young...Oh John..."
"Uhhh...h-he was a great friend. Annoying... b-but great," Tavros would stammer, holding back tears.
"He wath too young...Too young to trutht Therket and Thtrider," Sollux would (try to) hiss.
"You were a great furriend, John! I'm so sorry I nefur let you know... I'm going to miss you a lot, John!" Nepeta would sob.
"I am incredibly sorry, John. It seems that my assumptions were incorrect...I'm so sorry," Kanaya would choke, wiping her tears on her sleeve. Rose would be patting her back and crying as well.
"Shit, man," Dave would say, "I'm so sorry...I didn't know it would all go wrong,"
"He was a brave man and he will be remembered," Terezi would announce formerly, resisting the urge to chew on the end of her sleeve.
Jade and Vriska would most likely be sobbing over his tombstone, Vriska sobbing out protests that she loved him too much for him to die. Equius would stand behind Nepeta, saying nothing but silently comforting his friend. Gamzee would probably stay silent as well, but cry.
"Wwell, John," Eridan would say, "I suppose this is it for us, huh, old buddy? I hawe to say...I wwill miss you," and then he would start crying. Feferi would probably be clinging to his arm, sobbing about how she could've saved him if only they had told her earlier.
Jake, Dirk, Jane, Roxy, Kankri, Meulin, Rufioh, and the others would probably be too busy to attend, but would find time later on to pay their respects to the Hero of Breath. Kankri would be the loudest, saying "trigger warning" before each sentence and complaining about how the depressing ambiance could trigger someone and then Meenah would punch him in the stomach and wind him.
John shuddered and blinked the image out of his head. Everything was going to be fine. It was just a jump, after all. Nothing much!
Half an hour later, John was on the plane, wearing a ridiculously garish suit made of bright pink material with a parachute satchel strapped to the back and a pair of goggles. The instructor opened the door of the plane and John gulped. They were so high up that he could barely see anything beyond the clouds.
"Ah, dear..." he mumbled as a couple wearing matching red suits pushed past him and jumped out of the plane. John watched them until he saw two large blue and red parachutes balloon out from their backs.
Next was a girl that couldn't have been more than thirteen wearing a yellow suit. John was almost embarrassed when she began to laugh at his anxiety. She leaped out of the plane with a loud: "Cowabungaaaaaaa!"
Eventually, the plane was empty aside from John and the instructor. "Listen..." he began, but stopped when the instructor rolled her eyes.
"You listen to me!" she exclaimed, "I don't know what you're so scared about! It's just a jump, and you have a parachute and everything! The only thing that's even remotely scary is when the parachute comes out because it's a little jerky! You can do this! I've been doing it for years, so so can you!"
Before John could answer, she reached forward and pushed him, and he fell out with a loud high-pitched scream that was more girlish than he would've liked to admit.
Hey...this isn't so bad! he thought. It certainly was fun! He could see the ground now and suddenly remembered that this was where he was supposed to pull out the parachute. He pulled on the string with a strong tug, but nothing happened. Panicked, he tried again. Nothing.
"What's he doing? Shouldn't his parachute be out by now?" murmured the spectators. The onlookers began to panic. All but two. A blonde boy wearing a red and white shirt and black wraparound shades and a blonde girl wearing a shirt with a horrifically realistic 3D spider painted onto it.
Dave gave Vriska a thumbs up and Vriska grinned and pressed her index and middle fingers to her forehead, concentrating. "I have all the luck," she murmured to herself, over and over again until it became a mantra. "I have all the luck... I have all the luck..."
Meanwhile, John was in a full-blown panic. He was falling faster and faster with no knowledge of how to slow his fall, and no matter how hard he tugged, his parachute would not disperse. The ground was coming up to meet him and he shut his eyes and mumbled an apology to his father for being so reckless.
And then John Egbert smashed into the concrete with an impossibly loud crack.
All was silent. No one dared to move. Even the paramedics were thunderstruck. A little girl at the front of the crowd started sobbing. Chatter broke out among the crowd; loud, hysterical chatter which crescendo-ed into screaming and sobbing.
"Ughhhhh," they heard someone groan and the entire crowd fell silent.
John slowly managed to get onto his knees, grumbling. His glasses were cracked and every muscle in his body burned with pain.
But he was alive.
The pain faded away, and John got to his feet with a loud grunt. "Well that was painfu-" he stopped when he noticed more than a hundred pairs of shocked eyes watching him intently.
"Uhhh...hi?"
Afterwards, when he had managed to fight past the masses of reporters, newspeople, and tourists, John would walk up to Dave as quietly as possible and smack him as hard as he could on the back.
Dave choked and spun around, a grin breaking out across his face when he saw who it was.
"John!" yelled Vriska, instantly enveloping him in a suffocating bear hug. He pushed her away from him, but the expression on his face told his friends that he wasn't too angry.
"You assholes!" he yelled, "I could've died!"
"Dude, didn't we tell you you couldn't die like this?"
"We were right! Ha! Weeeeeeee. Were. Riiiiiiiight!"
"Still!"
They glared at each other before dissolving into fits of laughter. "High-five!" said Vriska, holding out her hand and John high-fived her, and then Dave.
Dave tapped away at his phone. "I can't wait until Pantskat sees this,"
"You filmed me?!"
"Both of us did. We want to preserve this day into our memories forever. The day we proved John wrong,"
John lightly punched his best friend on the arm and attempted to do the same to Vriska but she ducked.
"One thing I don't understand," said John when they were on the bus to Karkat's house, "is why my parachute didn't work. I mean, how was that a mistake? Those things were tested,"
Vriska smirked, and for a second, John could've swore that he saw the symbol of Light appear in her eyes.
Life was much more enjoyable when you knew that you couldn't die.
(Unless you died heroically, but he was seventeen and living a perfectly normal life aside from the ability to create tornadoes, so what were the chances of that happening?)