"WAKE UP FUCKASS."
Karkat was surprised to hear the voice, seeing as it was his own. When he opened his eyes, he found himself lying on the floor in what appeared to be his old respitblock. He sat up and faced himself, who was sitting at his computer terminal. It was then he noticed that both he and his double were smaller. Younger. "THIS WAS OUR FIFTH WRIGGLING DAY." The other Karkat told him. "NO POINT IN WAITING FOR YOU TO REALIZE THIS IS A MEMORY."
"YOU'RE A DOOMED ME... AND THIS IS A DREAM BUBBLE OF A MUTUAL MEMORY." Karkat verbally pieced together. The other Karkat responded with a slow clap.
"OK, SO MAYBE YOU'VE GOT IT TOGETHER MORE THAN I GAVE YOU CREDIT." Karkat stood up and so did his double. "WE'RE THE ONLY ONES POSESSING THESE MEMORIES. WE WON'T BE DISTURBED. SO WE CAN BOTH DROP THE ACT." Karkat instinctively readied a retort, prepared for yet another lively verbal combat with one of his past selves. However, he managed to restrain himself.
"WHERE'S NEPETA?" Karkat inquired.
"ANOTHER BUBBLE WITH GOD KNOWS WHO." The other answered. "BETTER SHE NOT BE HERE FOR THIS. IT'S GONNA HURT." The other Karkat turned away from Karkat and stared out the window of the hive. "SO, WHAT'S SO SPECIAL ABOUT THIS DAY?"
"WE BOTH KNOW DAMN WELL WHY WE'RE HERE." Karkat became annoyed. He had no desire to relive or recall the events of this particular wriggling day. It was his lowest point. And only one other person knew about it.
"FINE. WE'LL PASS ON A DETAILED RECREATION." The other Karkat shrugged. "JUST REMINDING YOU OF THE STAKES HERE. ABOUT HOW YOU OWE HIM YOUR LIFE. AND WHY THE NEXT THING I SHOW YOU IS GONNA HURT EVEN MORE. SORRY, BUT IT NEEDS TO BE DONE."
The memory changed around them. Both assumed their proper ages. The room was mostly the same, but the landscape beyond the window shifted from Alternia to the Land of Pulse and Haze. The two Karkat's stood off to the side, invisible observers as the memory beloning exclusively to the other Karkat was projected before them.
"THIS IS HOW IT WENT DOWN FOR ME. YOU'LL FORGIVE ME FOR NOT ACTING IT OUT FOR YOU." The other Karkat told him, with a dead serious tone. As the memory began, three trolls stood in the room. Two close together, immersed in fear, and one in full on murder mode.
"GAMZEE, I'M FUCKING WARNING YOU..."
"ABOUT WHAT MUTHAFUCKA?" Gamzee advanced towards them, twirling the juggling club.
"DON'T MAKE ME DO THIS!" Karkat pleaded, as he held his small sickle in one hand and held the other between them and Gamzee. "WE'RE FRIENDS RIGHT?" Behind him, Nepeta took up a defensive stance and threw her olive coat off to the side to become more agile.
"you're not a friend brother... YOU'RE NOT FUCKING ANYTHING AT ALL!" He swung at tehm with the club, but Karkat dodged to the right while Nepeta rolled to the left. As he leaped away, Karkat flinched as he ran his sickle blade across the palm of his hand. As Gamzee controted his body to the left to focus on Nepeta, he was taken by surprise as a razor thin strand of red materialized inches from his face.
"NO." Karkat said quietly, as he twisted his wrist and grabbed the red strand that was extending from his palm. The strand wrapped around Gamzee's neck, and pulled Gamzee away from her like a vaudeville stage hook. He turned to face his attack. "NO... I AM KARKAT VANTAS... THE KNIGHT OF BLOOD..." Karkat's face tensed as red irises appeared in his ordinarily pitch eyes. "AND YOU'LL NOT LAY A FINGER ON MY MATESPRIT!" In the flash of red light that followed, a startling transformation occured. The black and grey sweats were replaced with a dark brown outfit with red ornamentations. A billowing cape with a hood. Black and crimson insectorid wings.
God Tier Karkat Vantas.
"WHAT." The present-timeline Karkat viewing as a sideline specter stated with befudlement.
"THAT DAY ON LOPAH." The other said, referring to when Nepeta had been following them up the slope. "WE WE'RE ON OUR WAY TO OUR QUEST COCOON. THOUGH ASCENDING WOULD BE A PIECE OF CAKE, BUT THEN WE WERE BOTH TOO SCARED TO GO THROUGH WITH IT." The other Karkat looked grim. "WHEN I REALIZED GAMZEE WAS KILLING EVERYONE, I WENT BACK AND DID IT." A vision flashed in Karkat's head of his colorful sickle to his own throat. He nearly threw up. In the memory projection, the fight had escalated. Gamzee had discarded his clubs and produced a colorful hammer with which to fight. The other Karkat was now wielding a full-sized scythe, which like the strand, had seemingly been materialized from his red blood.
"WE'RE SKIPPING AHEAD SOME." The other Karkat told him. "THIS IS PAINFUL ENOUGH ALREADY." Karkat didn't argue. The scene changed again.
The aftermath. The block was painted red, green and purple. Karkat did throw up this time. He sincerely hoped his real world body hadn't thrown up simultaneously. At this feet, Karkat saw Gamzee, apparently dead. This shirt full of holes and tears, with red and purple intermingling in his wounds. One eye was gouged out. He wasn't breathing. Also heavily wounded was the memory version of Karkat. But of greater concern was Nepeta, who lay, fading fast, in a slowly growing pool of green blood. The other Karkat winced and turned away as his memory projection tried feverishly to close her wounds to no avail.
"NO... NO GOD NO... PLEASE DON'T... DON'T LEAVE ME... PLEASE..." The frantic troll cried. Her eyes flickered one last time. Her heart stopped. Karkat let out a guttural cry of anguish. That cry mased the sound of sudden movement behind him. He felt an intense pain in his back. A long dagger all the way through his chest. And probably his heard.
"hey kk, ya wanna hear a joke?" Karkat couldn't respond to the voice that whispered in his ear.
"DON'T TURN YOUR BACK ON THE MUTHAFUCKING BODY." Karkat fell forward onto her. With his last concious though, in the final moment of his life; Karkat gave one final breath. So that on a dark planet beyond the veil, she would breathe again.
"THE WHOLE FIGHT WITH GAMZEE... I WAS PROTECTING HER." The other Karkat told him. His appearance had changed again, now displaying himself in his god tier outfit with dead white eyes. "THAT COUNTS AS HEORIC." He threw back his head and stared at the ceiling, as the room and the figures in it began to dissolve, leaving them drifting in a void. "I WAS IMMORTAL FOR ALL OF SIX HOURS AND FUCKED IT RIGHT UP. SOME LEADER."
"WHY ARE YOU SHOWING ME ALL THIS?"
"NOW YOU SEE WHAT SHE'S BEEN THROUGH FIRST HAND. YOU'VE SEEN EXACTLY WHAT HE'S CAPABLE OF. EXACTLY WHAT YOU'RE CAPABLE OF."
"SO THAT'S IT? YOU'RE TRYING TO GET ME ON BOARD FOR KILLING GAMZEE? AFTER HE SAVED US FROM..." Karkat was interrupted as he felt the now non-existent room shake.
"YOU'RE ABOUT TO WAKE UP SO I'LL CUT TO THE CHASE." The other Karkat gripped his shoulders and made intense eye contact, even if he didn't have the pupils for it. "DON'T MAKER HER WAIT FOR ANOTHER TRAGEDY, TO LET HER KNOW HOW YOU FEEL." The other Karkat faded also, and then everything went black.
His eyes opened, on the meteor, with Nepeta sleeping peacefully beside him. He lay there for a moment and took it all in. In another life... he had faced his fears. He fought and died for her. She had told him, but it was a whole other thing to see it for himself. We're it not for his pathological hatred of his past and future selves he might... no... enough of that. This one hadn't been a bad guy. No, he was a hero. He was a tall order to live up to. And he admitted he was right. Karkat craned his neck forward slightly and kissed her on the forehead, before wrapping his arms around her. "OK PAST ME." He whispered. "YOU WIN."