Death's Fangirl, Chapter Two:
She screamed his name for a long time, darting back and forth as fast as her gossamer wings would carry her. But Sollux was gone. Lost among the bizarrities of space in the Furthest Ring. And for all Aradia knew, in the mish-mash that was time in this place, he could have been gone for years already. What had possessed her to let him out of her sight? How could she have been so stupid?
Finally, she calmed herself. One way or another, he was fine. There was nothing out here that could hurt him, half-ghost as he was. Besides, the guy had always had some sort of weird re-entry ticket to life. How many times had he died and popped right back to life? Two, three times if you counted the murder of his second dream-self at the hands of Jack Noir. And he was a survivor. Yeah. He'd be fine.
She fixed her sights on a bubble, off in the distance but closer than the others. This was what she was here for, to guide the deceased through their dreams. Besides, Sollux would have headed toward the nearest landmark as soon as he realized he was lost, right?
As she approached the bubble, details began to resolve themselves inside it. She could see a suggestion of pulsating green, and a faint trace of... pillars? Yes, pillars. It looked... like an ancient courthouse.
Aradia slipped effortlessly into the bubble, and found herself abruptly in another place. She floated before an ancient building, supported by an impressive array of baroque pillars. Behind it, a grandiose backdrop, was a sky filled with pulsing green swirls. Aradia knew this place well. This was the Land of Thought and Flow. Terezi's planet. Perhaps she'd see Terezi here? Aradia smiled faintly at the promise of seeing an old friend.
She opened the courthouse's door and went inside, walking now because there wasn't room in this hallway to flap her wings. Her footsteps echoed oddly in the silence, making her a little uncomfortable. Self-consciously she tried a flutter of her wings, lifting herself off the ground for a moment – but her right wing scraped the wall and she thought better of it.
"Hello?" she called. "Sollux? Terezi? Are you in here?"
From somewhere deep in the building, Aradia heard the faint reply. "So she's back, is she?" A girl's voice. Terezi!
"Hello?" Aradia called again. "Where are you?"
Now the voice was louder. "The Bitch of Time is back?"
"...what?" Aradia looked around, hurt. "Terezi?"
Suddenly, a figure leaped out of a room up ahead. Terezi. She was clad in the tattered rags of her Redglare outfit, her bright red glasses crooked on her face, hair wild. And in her hand she held her sword-cane, blade menacingly bared. She advanced on Aradia.
"Terezi, what's going on?" Aradia asked, a slight tremor weakening her voice. "What's the matter with you? H-have you seen Sollux?"
"What's the matter with me she asks," Terezi said, almost to herself. The girl grinned, and Aradia took a step back, shocked by the maniacal expression on her friend's face. "What's the matter with me is you!" The last word came out as a shriek.
"M-me?"
"You! You, you, you, you, you!" Terezi shook her head wildly, stamping her foot with each word. "You killed us, Aradia!"
"I... what?" She should have run. She knew she should have run. But Aradia was confused, hurt, and in sore need of a friend, so she stayed. "I didn't kill anyone, Terezi. Listen to me, Sollux is lost and I need to –"
The other girl took a deep sniff. "You're different, now. You smell different. Red. It's delicious... You were gray before. Gray and blue. Like the ocean, on a stormy day..."
Terezi seemed to have calmed down a little, so Aradia moved a little closer. "I was a robot for a while, if that's what you mean..."
Terezi nodded slowly, dreamily. She leaned forward, until she was almost nose-to-nose with Aradia. Softly, she said, "And then..." Her expression changed to one of intense anger and hatred. "You killed us!" Aradia stumbled backward, lost her balance, and fell to the ground, looking up at Terezi. "Traitor, traitor!" shrieked the blind girl. "You reek of murder!"
"What did I do?" Aradia shrieked back, almost in tears. "Tell me what I did!" she sobbed.
Terezi suddenly calmed again, and blinked blankly at Aradia. "You don't know?" she said, her tone full of childish wonder. "You don't remember?" She turned away, and spoke again, this time clearly to herself. "There's no justice if she doesn't remember. We'll just have to remind her."
The girl drew herself up, into the familiar legislacerator stance, finally looking like the girl Aradia had known. "I'll tell you what you did." She looked over her shoulder, locking eyes with Aradia – a motion Aradia knew was more for drama than anything else, since Terezi didn't use her eyes to see – and began.
"Something went wrong. Maybe it was a glitch in the robot body Equius made. Maybe something snapped deep inside you. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe..." Terezi's tone went dreamy, and she shook herself. Voice sharp again, she continued. "It began with Karkat. He made one of his usual idiotic 'shortcuts'. You said you'd have to go back and fix it. You were angry. You said, you said, you said, you said..." Her voice drifted again, and she slumped against a wall, continuing in a mutter. "You said he'd doomed you, that when you went back to fix it you'd be doomed to die. You said you had to show him what it was like." Terezi's voice died to a whisper. "So you killed him. Right then, right there. You pulled his heart out through his chest!" She screamed wordlessly. "We fought you. Tried to. But you were too strong. You killed us all, one by one by one by one by one..." She sat, leaned her head back against the wall, closed her eyes. "We died in pain and fear. And then I was here. And here I have been, stewing in my hate and rage and hate for so, so, so many years..."
Aradia was horrified. Could this be true? Had an alternate self of hers really snapped and murdered all of her friends in cold blood? She knew that, as a machine, she'd been cold and unyielding, yes. But a murderer? Slowly, Aradia reached out to comfort Terezi, reached out toward the girl's cheek...
Terezi's eyes snapped open, and with an animalistic snarl she bit down on Aradia's hand. Aradia screamed and pulled away – she felt flesh tear under Terezi's razor-sharp teeth – and she fled, pursued by Terezi's angry shrieks.
"You killed us all, Aradia! You killed us all, and now I have to make you pay!"
Aradia threw open the door and leapt into the air, flying toward the edge of the dream bubble as fast as her wings could carry her. Tears streamed down her face, her breath came out in ragged gasps. And behind her, she heard, faintly, Terezi's scream.
"You killed us!"