"C'MON EIGHT TO THE EIGHTH!" Vriska and I shouted simultaneously as we tossed the dice. It was like, our signature, we shout the thing and toss the dice and then badass things happen.

Apparently, the luck attribute lets you control to a certain extent things that otherwise would be randomly controlled by the AR, such as weather patterns and traps and suchlike. Nobody uses those, however. Of course, Vriska can also use it to control the outcome of one to all eight of her dice, although apparently there are some bad consequences if we keep using—

The walls of the arena displayed our outcome. Eight zeroes. "That's not even possib—" I was cut off by a massive wave of discomfort carried along our psychic bond as the AR rendered Vriska entirely immobile in a burst of Technicolor lightning to the sound of a sad trombone playing. The AR's kind of a dick.

"Booyeah!" shouted our opponent. A blind girl. We were about to lose to a blind girl. "Dave," she said, aiming her cane right at my heart, somehow knowing exactly where I was, "kick their collective ass!" The stoic troll nodded noncommittally, hefting his greatsword. You'd think such a huge weapon would be unwieldy, but Libras are basically superheroes. I didn't even see the blow that knocked Vriska out of the arena, rendering the fight over. As the AR faded away, I can swear his sunglasses flashed, like some douchebag anime character.

This would be an excellent time to play our show's theme song, if we were a show. How about the one to Baka and Test? That's pretty catchy. Yeah, that's our new theme song. Look up "Perfect-area Complete!" by Natsuko Aso, listen to it, and then come right back. It was pretty good wasn't it? The tune really matches the comedic nature of mine and Vriska's misadventures.

So anyway, a week after our amazing victory over Nepeta Leijon and her pet giant, we'd defeated three other teams and began to consider ourselves pretty badass. The goddamn dice were like fucking magic, and while we didn't get eight eights again, there is a plurality of different possibilities. We summoned a fucking T-Rex and ended the battle with a single throw once.

Which brings us to Terezi Pyrope. She challenged us as we were walking home from the park one day. Vriska was busily munching on a hotdog when Terezi appeared, standing against the sunset, creating a striking silhouette that also served to obscure her most obvious features. "Neville Chamberlain, we meet at last. I hear you like beating up little kids," she said, smirking, with a death grip on her dragon's head cane.

"Hell yeah," affirmed Vriska with a roguish grin, pointing at Terezi with her half-eaten snack.

"Nepeta Leijon is a week older than me," I shouted.

"So you admit it!" she shouted, pointing towards me. She was off by several yards.

I smirked. "What're you, blind?" I teased. Vriska snickered.

"How dare you laugh at a blind girl!" Terezi roared. "I'm gonna slit your throat so I can listen to you bleed while I smell you die!" Oh, shit I just made fun of a blind girl, I thought as a chill passed through my body. I'm going directly to Hell. Not even gonna die first, just gonna wake up in the morning one day getting buggered a swarthy devil with a tear drop tattoo.

And then her goddamn troll morphed in out of the shadows. An albino Libra, with white hair, white skin and black horns. He probably also had red eyes under his sunglasses. He was dressed all in red, and was holding a massive sword with a bunch of weird gizmos and gadgets built into the pommel. "Dave, kill!"

"Wait," I said, "you get this bomb-ass rare troll and you name him—"

Dave proceeded to slap me around with the flat of his blade. Or at least he would have, if the fedora-clad Angel that officiated my first battle hadn't swooped in like a badass and blocked Dave with his own sword. "Fuckin' sweet," I announced. Turning to Vriska, I said "And what, exactly, were you doing?"

She told me to shut up through a mouthful of food, having apparently tried to finish her hotdog before jumping into battle. The Admin that partnered with the angel was suddenly there, almost as mysteriously as Dave. "In the event of an argument that has degenerated into violence, the two parties must engage—"

"In a troll battle!" Terezi's voice rose with passion as she cut off the Admin's droning speech. She should do this professionally. "The loser will be deemed as having been in the wrong and must acquiesce to the demands of the winner, within reason, and in the presence of an Administrator." She adjusted her sunglasses, flashing a sinister smile. Red cat's-eye lenses. Not standard blind person wear. "I'm studying to be an Admin. I could officiate the battle myself, you know."

The Admin groaned. "It's not all fun and games kid. Now get into position, we're having a battle!"

The field went up and I synced up with Vriska. She bounced her dice playfully in her hand while Dave struck a fencing pose, blade held high with the end towards us, like a scorpion's stinger. His sword had been dulled of course, but here in the arena it acquired a shining teal edge. He pushed a button and the sword extended by half a foot. "Prepare to die!" Terezi shouted. Vriska just snorted in response. Dave stayed perfectly still.

Vriska surged forward and I threw her jacket over Dave's sword hand, giving it a hard yank and flinging the thing over to the other end of the arena. Excellent—

Moving so fast I could barely see, he flanked us and gave Vriska a good solid kick to the midsection. "Hey, be a gentleman!" I shouted, as Vriska righted herself. Vriska, I said over our link, Libras have bastardly good speed and power, but a single good hit'll have him on the floor. She nodded. The two trolls exchanged punches for a few seconds, Vriska holding the dice between her knuckles for a little extra bite, and frankly I let Vriska handle all that herself. I'm much better at tactics than straight up fighting. Some people control their trolls almost completely, essentially using them as proxies, but I don't have the skill and Vriska definitely doesn't have the patience—

She managed to scratch Dave's face with her dice, but then Dave feinted left and smacked her in the underarm. Don't let anyone tell you that isn't a sensitive area! In pain, Vriska over-extended her next punch and he leaned back, grabbing her arm and giving her a nasty twist that actually hurt, not just standard AR discomfort. It was so severe I almost dropped the control panel; Vriska actually dropped her dice. Then he kicked her in the midsection and ran off after his sword, bringing us back to our disastrous defeat.

Terezi cackled evilly, even holding her arms out with her fingers curled upwards like claws, as if she were a cartoon character. The Admin spoke. "The winner is Terezi Pyrope. Neville Chamberlain will now submit to her requests."

Vriska growled. "That's not fair! She assaulted us!"

The Admin looked stern, somehow managing it through his mask. "This is the law kids. Miss Pyrope, state your request." Vriska made a rude gesture that involved moving her arms in a certain way.

She strode over to us looking smug with her evil grin. "Don't you see Chamberlains? Justice is blind!"

I rolled my eyes. "We didn't do anything wrong!" I said. Simultaneously Vriska said, "My arms are not big enough for the wank-off motion that is in my soul."

"Hey," said Terezi, poking me in the chest with her cane, "you tell your troll it's rude to talk to other trolls' humans. Now come with me—"

The admin cleared his throat. "You have yet to stipulate—"

Terezi clicked her tongue at him. "I stipulated he should come with me, obviously, pay attention."

"But where are you—"

"Where in the law does it say I have to be that specific?" she snapped. "Nowhere. 'Come with me' is a perfectly legal demand to make, and I can cite fifteen different precedents, but instead of boring you with that, I'm taking these two away. You should be grateful! Good day sir!" She grabbed my arm and yanked me away, running off before the Admin could interfere, though from the ennui dripping from his voice I doubt he would have. Dave and Vriska followed after, the one sulking and the other just striding along, hand in pocket, sword leaning on his shoulder, like he didn't have a care in the world.

"Hey, you're really good," she muttered, giving him a side-glance. "But you only won because of luck. If my dice hadn't decided to be assholes, I'd have totally owned you."

"First of all it's funny how you've decided I won because of luck even though your specialty is manipulating luck." He gazed at her over his glasses; his eyes were black on red. "Second of all I would still have beaten you because I'm stronger, faster, a better fighter, I have a better weapon and Terezi's a better tactician. Even if you'd gotten eight eights like in your first battle you'd still be outclassed in terms of skill because even then you just abused the raw power boost to win and that wouldn't have worked on us because we eat raw Sagittarius for breakfast and wash it down with some shiny cobalt Scorpio blood." There was no malice in his voice while he carefully explained all the reasons he thought Vriska was inferior to him, barely altering his tone at all as he spoke, which only served to enrage her.

"How do you even know about our first battle?" She growled. "You been stalking us?"

He almost smirked, but no quite. "You don't even pay attention at all do you? Clearly we heard about it from Leijon. Also Terezi researches her targets very closely before challenging them so yes we were absolutely stalking you."

"How does she even do research? She's blind!"

He actually looked surprised, almost. "She uses my eyes of course. Are you fucking serious? You don't sync up all your senses with your human?"

Vriska snorted. "Why the hell would I do that? Let that weirdo all up in my brain."

"You're absolutely right there is no possible advantage to having direct access to each other's sensory information whatsoever. Terezi and I are just terminally weird and should probably be cleansed for the good of all mankind. The best strategy is to just kinda sync up your thoughts and let him flail you around sometimes without warning—oh God even I can't keep this up much longer you two need fucking professional help." He straightened his sunglasses and shifted the sword over to his other shoulder.

Vriska grinned. "Sarcasm? Really? Well at least you have a personality. I was afraid your owner had set out to make you the most dull and uninteresting troll of aaaaaaaall tiiiiiiiime. Seriously, tones and inflections; look them up."

Dave clicked his tongue. "No my owner took the time to craft my personality into the baddest motherfucker this side of the Pacific while yours probably just put in a bunch of random-ass answers on the quiz with the help of some shit-head friend and all the conflicting data combined to make you into an immature sociopath."

Vriska flipped her hair. "No, Neville just realized that the best kind of troll would be a sassy, sexy comedic foil that would challenge him and force him to become adaptable. He could have made me be some silly subservient automaton like your owner apparently wanted, but he didn't." She raised her voice. Bear in mind that I learned about this conversation after the fact and therefore my actions, while not justified, are explainable. "Hey Neville, you took time to make sure I was the best troll ever when you made my personality, riiiiiiiight!?"

"Oh my God, do you ever shut up?" I groaned. "Why can't you be nice and quiet like her troll?" Terezi giggled.

"Fuck you, Neville!" Vriska shouted, throwing one of her dice at me, hitting me hard in the ear. "Goddammit, why didn't I make you into a subservient automaton!?"

Vriska growled animalistically as her face became a much brighter shade of blue, and I swear to God that steam actually came out of her nose. "I'm going to kill you in your sleep!"

Dave snickered, an actual display of genuine emotion. "You sure showed me the depths of your bond. I'm sorry I was so out of line. Truly there will never be a partnership like yours and Neville's in all of history. There's Castor and Pollux, there's Roland and Oliver, and then there's you two."

Vriska slapped him in the face. "You want to go out sometime?" he said.

Vriska's slight flush from before turned into a bright neon blue, more from blind rage than from flattery, and she screamed. "NOOOOOOOO!"

Terezi cackled. "How does she stretch out her words like that?"

I blew a raspberry. "She just counts off the beats with her foot—"

"Don't tell people my secrets—"

"Did I not just buy you a hotdog?" I said. "One of my well earned boondollars used up on you, even though you don't even need to eat? I can tell people all your secrets. All of them."

"I hate you," she huffed.

"You too, doll."

"Wow," said Terezi, "You two fight like an old married couple."

"Piss off," I said. I looked around. We'd been walking downhill and the sound of the sea was growing louder even as the perfectly manicured parks and lawns grew more and more sparse. The houses had long since given way to apartment buildings and those were slowly being replaced by warehouses of older make, the old rotted concrete stained with rust. It was almost as old as anything gets in this city. Almost. The realoldest part of town isn't a residential area, but the place where they'd actually built all the machinery and material they'd used on the rest of the city. Past these warehouses it was all antique factories with huge metal chimneys like gothic spires rising up to stab the clouds, rust dripping from their windows like blood from a gouged eye. Us kids call the place the Land of Rust and Vertigo, and we dare each other to go climb around on the patently unsafe scaffolds and walkways of the derelict factories. "Where are you taking us? Why'd you assault me? Has Nepeta Leijon been spreading rumors about me?" I asked.

"I'll answer all those in reverse order if you don't mind," she said confidently, her cane click-clacking away on the pavement in front of us. She raised a finger. "No she isn't, but everyone else is. She looks so young that most people just assume she's little even though the youngest she could possibly be is thirteen, and beating her made you look like a bully." Damn, thought as much. She and her troll were too damn cute together. It turned everyone against us.

She raised another finger. "I attacked you to prove your integrity. You wouldn't have had any time to come up with a good lie, so your denial of any wrong doing on your part was sincere." She giggled. "Your troll however is probably a burgeoning sociopath." I guess that makes some sense, I thought as Vriska flashed gang-signs at Terezi, but she could have just asked me. Or better yet, Nepeta. Unless, of course, the real goal was to make me come with her. Why me specifically?

She raised a third finger. "And finally," she said, adjusting her sunglasses with a smirk. Both she and her Dave did it in just the right way to tick people off. Like troll like human I guess. "We're going to the warehouse on fourth and thirteenth."

I can swear I heard thunder crash just as she said that. That warehouse was allegedly one of the most haunted places on Earth and is colloquially known as the 413 Hellmouth. Fifteen different paranormal investigation shows from three different countries have come to Alternia to do a special on it, and all of them managed to get some really weird shit on camera. Quite an achievement for a settlement less than sixty years old. Anyway, nobody ever goes in there on a dare. And nobody has the guts to even dare someone else. "Um, why?" I asked. Of course, reading it you'll never get the exact way in which I choked on my own spit when I tried to say that. Let's just pretend that I made my query in a smooth and sophisticated fashion, with an elegantly raised eyebrow and a hand on the soon-to-emerge stubble on my chin.

"Uh, how about no, scaredy-cat?" Terezi laughed. She slapped my back in a companionable way that almost made me flip onto the ground. "I can't believe that your cowardly ass of all the possible cowardly asses in Alternia is the only one that I could reasonably exploit into coming with me." She shook her head in faux disappointment. I suppose I'm not surprised. "What we're going to do, Chamberlain," she continued, "is catch the ghost of 413!"

Author's Note: I've come to the conclusion that Neville and Vriska are going to sort of be the rival character to everyone else's story, the Gary to somebody's Ash if you will. It makes perfect sense after the Nepeta fiasco. That's just how everyone is going to see them now.

As to Vriska, I think my characterization of her so far is pretty good with a few variations. See, she is technically a newborn in this world, so I'm trying to make her a lot more naïve than in canon while still keeping her general personality.

Why is Dave a troll? *shrugs* I thought it would be fun.

Still taking suggestions, loves.