PART II.
The snarls grew louder as the beasts thumped their way up the cage walls, eyes filled with hunger and drool running down their mouths. Karkat tried not to panic, but how the fuck could he not panic when there were four huge things coming after him and he was bound to a chair? Okay he was kind of panicking.
The leader reached him first, bounding from the edge of the wall in a powerful leap, flinging itself directly at his suspended chair. Its teeth grazed the edge of his shirt and he felt its hot breath as it fell past him. It caught onto the bottom (or top?) of his upside-down chair, flipping around to leap back up and attack his mid-section. This time it struck, and his raised claws were of no effect, barely able to latch onto any part of its flesh as its teeth grazed into his skin with a sear of pain.
"AGHHHHHH," Karkat yelled, since there was no point in being stoic about it.
The creature fell down again, clutching the head of his chair, as the second beast attacked. It lunged for his bound legs, teeth digging into one leg. The bite dug deep. Karkat sucked in a breath as the first one jumped up again, lunging for his mid-section. Its teeth still only grazed him, but they snagged onto the leather that ensnared his chest and right wrist, snapping them both as it clutched the rungs on the ceiling, regaining a grip. Karkat wiggled, yanking his right hand free and tried to undo the bonds holding his left one. It wouldn't budge. A third beast attacked his legs. He scratched it with his free claws and it bounced back as the fourth one leapt onto his chair from behind.
His fist hammered the left cuff, beating a tiny dent in it. He swiped as another lunge was taken at his head and felt hot breath and drool as the beast to the back of him tore at his hair. A beast came for his legs again and he caught it in a headlock, squeezing his thighs together. He punched it. The creature howled and leapt back to hang on the rungs above him. He yanked his left arm free, nearly dislocating his carpal joint, just in time to catch an attack from the side, grabbing the creature's head in his hands and twisting. He wasn't as strong as Equius or anything, but it must have done the trick, because the creature went falling. And Karkat caught a glimmer as the key snapped on its string, falling along with the body. Crap.
An echoed crash as the beast landed on the distant floor below.
A bite landed on his shoulder, eliciting another yowl of pain from him. He scratched and dug his claws into the beast, trying to kick another creature away from his legs. A toss of that beast's arm and his chair shook, but the lower ankle cuff holding his left ankle was loosened. He slipped his foot out, kicking off a bulky shoe in the process. It dropped past his head, clonking the beast behind him on the way down.
No time to mourn his sneaker though, since two beasts were now lunging at his legs and the other beast had decided to try his other shoulder as a treat. He kicked the two above him and tried to swipe the beast beside him with his sharp nails. He ended up stabbing the creature in the eye. Even better.
A HOWL and the beast retreated, crawling behind the chair again.
One of the other beasts came for his midriff. He kneed it mid-leap and kicked it away from him. It lost leverage, scrabbling on the surface of his chair, and slipped off, falling to join its dead companion at the bottom of the cage. Karkat growled at the one hanging on the ceiling before him.
The second beast recovered, swiping at him from behind. He had to get out of these bonds and gain some leverage. Even if two of them were down, he was still injured and half-bound. This didn't look too good of a situation.
He kicked his last ankle bond. It hurt like hell—this was the leg that had been bitten—but soon he had his leg freed, and just in time as the last beast on the ceiling lunged. He kicked it in a hard double kick, rebounding it against the metal. It came back again, growling and swiping at him, catching a hold of the skin on his calf. He swiped the nails on his feet against it, cutting its face. It dug its nails into his hip, hanging on to the ceiling as it pulled itself closer to his face. Its drool dripped down, running over his jaw, his nose, and over his forehead. Yuck.
Behind him the other beast was starting to move. He thought of the only thing he could think of. He waved his hand in front of the face of the beast behind him. It snapped and he yanked his hand out the way as its face crashed into his chair, bucking it forward. The other beast almost fell off. He tried it again, shoving his hand behind his neck like some sort of red flag and this creature was the poor starved terra bull that would be fixated on it. He yanked it away as the creature snapped again, missing his hand, but biting into some of the metal around the back of his neck brace-collar that held him still. He'd clutched the other beast around the waist with his knees, which helped him avoid having his head bitten off just yet, even if he still had to deal with the beast's putrid breath and the claws it'd satisfied itself with digging into his side, trying to rip his insides out. He shifted to avoid that possibility a little longer and waved his hand again.
The teeth almost clamped over his fingers this time, but they got hold of the metal, shredding more of it. He bucked his neck, trying to see if he could break free. Almost. He snapped back in place as the beast in front of him snapped its own neck in, trying to get a hold on him.
One more wave of his hand and the neck brace totally snapped, tearing in half in the beast's jaws. His victory was cut short as he felt himself falling, sliding on the metal of the chair, with the first beast on top of him. He tried to grasp on to something, anything, bucking the trucklebeast off in the process, and gripped onto the head of the chair as his body flipped over on itself, now hanging right-side up over that 60 foot drop. A scrape and claw down his leg as the first trucklebeast slipped off and downward, failing to get a grip on him or anything else as it fell to the floor. Then snapping jaws were in his face and he dropped an arm to hang on to the other side, avoiding a swipe of huge claws.
He pulled himself up, climbing up the chair and onto the metal grid of the ceiling. The last beast came bounding after him, jumping onto the metal ceiling behind him. A creak as the floor/ceiling the chair had been situated on finally gave out, and it went crashing to the bottom of the cage with a loud thump. Karkat barely had time to notice, as he was already scrabbling along the top to get away from the beast clambering after him with the skills of the fucking hairy primate he'd just sworn he wasn't. Karkat wished he had those skills right about now.
He half-jumped, half-fell onto the side of the cage, barely catching the metal grid of the rungs, and scurried down, half-sliding, half-jumping and catching himself. The creature bounded after him. It caught up about half-way, slashing and growling and snapping. It whacked him against the metal with a bulky arm, tearing onto his shoulder again, biting deeper. He elbowed it off.
He scrabbled down further and clawed it when it came close again, then it grabbed his arm and yanked him towards it. He bit it right on its jaw. It howled, slamming him against the metal. He re-clutched a rung for grip and kneed the beast. OW HOLY FUCKING KRINGLES THAT WAS THE LEG THAT HAD GOTTEN MAULED WORSE THAN POUNCE-DE-LEON'S CHEW TOYS RED BLOODY PAIN. And then he kicked it with his good leg.
It fell back, losing its balance and reached for him. He dodged its grasp, giving it a final kick to the face. It flopped down to the ground, landing with a heavy oof that wasn't as conclusive as the other ones—he could still see it spasming so it wasn't totally dead—but it wasn't exactly conscious anymore either.
He climbed down at a slower pace the rest of the way, trying to keep weight off the leg that was now seriously killing him, and when he jumped down to the ground he put a hand on his open shoulder, wincing. His other wounds weren't that bad, or at least they weren't screaming in pain just yet. And he was bloody all over. Maybe he could clean up before he left. Somehow. But all the clothes he had on were covered in his candy-red blood too, and there's no guarantee that his captor hadn't been watching the entire thing. He had mentioned it was a "game" after all. Why wouldn't the fucker want to enjoy the activities? So his blood secret was already ruined. But whatever, if the guy wanted to cull him over it, he'd already tried. He couldn't do much worse than this.
Karkat limped his way over to the center of the room, carefully avoiding the spasming trucklebeast, just in case it decided to spontaneously recover and use him as its pain-relief. He searched on the ground. There, with the gold string. He bent down, picking up the key, then he examined it. It definitely looked too big to be a key for the locks he'd been cuffed into. Not that he'd gotten much of a chance to look at the locks. They'd been mauled by four beasts and the chair's carcass was on the other side of the room. But it was obviously a key to something else.
Karkat looked around, examining the cage. He saw it when he looked back up. The faintest outline of a trap door. Of course. He needed to climb the cage again to get to it. Of course, if the key hadn't dropped down to the ground in the first place he probably would have been in a good position to, assuming that he didn't fall on his head first.
Grunting from the complaint in his leg, he made his way back to the cage wall to climb back up. He eventually made it to the top again and unlocked the door with the key that did actually fit—if it'd been a fake or he'd needed another he probably would have strangled someone. Preferably that uu character. And if not then probably himself because this shit was absolutely crazy right on past the stuff that got you locked up in your hive all day and night and on to the sort that planned out total massacres of the Empress and great Gl'bgolyb that ended with your head on a fork and your body used as a vessel of consignment. He pulled himself up and out of the trap door, pretty much the last of his strength right now, and flopped down on the tile he emerged onto, panting and winded.
xXxXxXxXxXx
A soft shifting sound made him alert again, and he rose halfway before ropes were wrapped around his arms, tightening. He struggled for a few seconds, though he couldn't really do anything since half of his body had decided to give out on him, twitching in a way that suggested his muscles were used up, as he was yanked upright and pulled to a nearby table. He could see a pulley on the ceiling as he was dragged backwards, and the ropes lifted him up and on to the table, two more ropes coming up to bind his ankles.
Footsteps approached. Shortly he found himself once more looking on the form of his masked captor. This time the guy's mask had been flipped around to the other side. An angry, frightening looking face with a huge frown, but otherwise it was the same as the previous one. Karkat glared at it.
"You survived."
"What kind of dimwit psychotic game was that? Any other nooksniffer would probably have invited someone to a high stakes game of cards or some dangerous LARPing, but you decide to pull something like that? Why? Who are you? Why are you doing this? Why do you hate me so much?"
"Whoa now. Hate is a rather strong word. I prefer the term… 'vehemently detest'."
"That still answered jack shit of my other questions."
"There are different types of games for each different type of person, you halfwit. And each particular situation. This game in particular is suited towards you. Thus every instance and every little rule and diversion will be entirely catered to you and your own… personal deficiencies."
"I've done absolutely nothing wrong. Not anything despicable. Like this."
"You exist. That's despicable enough. With your abominable blood color and your big, angry words, and your incessant failing ability to lead. You can't even command your team properly; they all disobey you and fall apart anyway. And then you pretend to have some modicum of confidence at all. You're the despicable, pathetic one here, Karkat."
Karkat fell silent. He couldn't really deny it. uu had practically pinpointed to everything he both tried not to acknowledge about himself and that he hated to his deepest core. Everything he was proud in about himself was absolutely shitty to the utmost degree. And he knew about his blood color already? Fuck. So maybe that was why he was here.
"Heh. You know. I did actually used to have very strong feelings of black distaste for one person in my company. A long time ago."
Karkat glanced back at him, wholly uninterested and irritated and embarrassed all at once.
"Her name was… I can say it now, since before, we were forbidden to speak one another's names, but now that she's dead I'm free to all I wish. Her name was Calliope. My sister. My sweet, loveable, people-intrigued sister. And I hated her."
uu described how Calliope would rile him and how he'd come to find evidence of her presence everywhere, even when he took pains not to. Karkat found himself imagining some dainty troll girl, maybe a flower in her hair or something, totally oblivious to the smoldering dark emotions of the brother in the next room or hive or wherever for her. Their physical location wasn't so clear. It didn't seem like either of them had a Lusus; maybe it died long ago or had taken off like Gamzee's? And their relation to one another wasn't exactly clear either. uu described himself as her brother, which Karkat gathered meant something like they'd grown up together like Equius and Nepeta, but not as moirails, more as trolls who existed wholly to annoy each other? He wasn't sure.
"And then, when I'd finally gotten the point across to her. When I could almost feel the fear in her tiny body. Smell it in the air. Evidence the failures she came to have more and more as our personal game of survival endured… I ensnared her in a small trap and cornered her. And then I exacted judgment, destroying her body, wringing free her cling to life, of sorts."
Karkat imagined a quivering little troll in the corner of some respite block, a tall shadowing advancing, wearing this creepy mask. As she clawed and bit and struggled, growling and nipping, trying to escape, she was still no match. He felt the life go out of her eyes, bright lime green from what uu described (maybe she was the last of the lime bloods or something? Karkat didn't even think there were any still left), as she stared up at her brother in betrayal and disbelief. And maybe a bit of relief too. Karkat could imagine she'd be sort of glad to get out of this guy's presence. But how it happened… He mentally shuddered.
A finger pressed against his jaw, sliding upwards to stroke his lip. Its thumb pressed against it, pushing inside to run against his teeth. He bared them.
"Would you like to die like her? Your blood spilling over my hands, abominable and bright-red, flowing from a thousand wounds along your disgusting body?"
The thumb slipped between his teeth, sliding along his cheek. He bit down.
uu yanked his hand back and punched him. Karkat's head cracked against the table. Before he could do more than let out a slight groan, the ropes tightened around his neck, strangling him until he was gasping for air, bound hands grasping for the slick surface of the table, staring straight up at the ceiling as if it could help. Sometime between when his speech on his sister started and now uu's mask had flipped around from its frown. The grinning side stared at him, wide, eaten-out eyes boring into him.
uu slipped his thumb into Karkat's mouth again, and since Karkat was still struggling to breathe, there wasn't much he could do about it. It grazed the inside of his cheek, slitting it with a twist of a nail. It ran along the length of his tongue, curling around it, pinching it between his fingers. The thumb ran over Karkat's gumline, scraping his teeth, and then went further back into his throat. Karkat gagged as his fingers thrust over and over again until he was choking on his own saliva. When uu pulled out, his fingers were wet and bright red with Karkat's blood. Karkat stared at him, the hand, the blood, everything, everything in hatred. When the ropes were released to a point where he could breathe more easily again he hated it all.
uu punched him. Again. And again. Until Karkat felt like his face was one of Nepeta's bits of raw meat and he was ripe for the pulverizing. His chest, stomach, legs all got beatings too, bruises forming over the wounds he'd already taken and he almost blacked-out as his bitten leg was hit, pain flaring through all his senses. uu's laughter, his taunts, his comments on how beautiful and hideous Karkat was right now. The claws he dug into him, the hot breath of the whispers on his neck that spoke of how revolting he was and exactly how uu was going to rip him to shreds… those were the only things in Karkat's current perception. The hatred flooded his mind. He hated him. He hated him. He hated him.
He was going to kill him.
That was the last thought in his mind before he blacked out.