I don't touch the shades the next day. Instead I find John and hang out with him. He shows me some cool tricks he's working on with his windy powers. He's testing them out on Karkat which is amusing as fuck. I get some strifing in with some of the trolls and humans. I avoid Dirk though. Don't really want to talk to any Striders. Not even myself at this point. When the Seers call everyone together to strategize about the upcoming battle, I lean up against the wall and lose myself to the ticking in my head. I don't particularly have to listen because Time players work fairly instinctively and Rose will make sure I catch anything actually important.
I find John after the meeting and tell him about how the music helped me calm down and that maybe he should try it with his piano. He just laughs and tells me that he figured out that flying helps him. He even sleeps in the air now. The freak. But he's happy that I found something that worked for me.
No one brings up the pair of shades in my room.
I don't touch them when I finally stumble back to my room. I simply strip and head to the shower, almost falling asleep on my feet in there. I manage to get to the bed before passing the fuck out.
Morning.
"Hey."
How's the training going?
"Pretty good. Rose and Terezi have come up with some maneuvers that will apparently be effective against Betty's drones. We'll have to infiltrate her dreadnought and fight off an army and not die because respawns are limited to stupid deaths but at a point I'm pretty sure one last stupid death will become Just. The game will finally throw its hands up in the air and say fuck it, this one is too stupid to try again. Not even going to give it the usual ten death bonus power. Just gonna put it out of its misery. And actually that only applies to those with the fancy pajamas. The trolls are shit out of luck."
Storming the castle.
Doesn't sound like the best approach.
Especially for a bunch of kids.
"Yea. But it's the best we have. We got the best and brightest minds working on it."
I hope you aren't talking about your self.
I could help.
"Already got Dirk on it. And he's like a fucking genius. He got all of the Alpha's into the game using a fantastically complicated plan that went awry about halfway through and in order t fix it, he had to perform self decapitation with a sendificator."
Ballsy.
"He has ball of fucking diamond that hang down to his ankles."
So he is my clone.
"Yea. Not sure how much more help you would be."
Dirk is my clone.
We are both geniuses.
And we have different perspectives.
I have experience.
"You have experience invading alien dreadnaughts?"
Not exactly.
But it couldn't hurt.
"I'll ask them."
Thanks.
"Time for breakfast. Wanna come?" I ask, picking up my own shades off the desk.
Sure.
I'll be right here.
We'll talk later okay?
