A/N: Hi everyone! It's been a while since I've written but I've been roleplaying hardcore, so at least I've kept my at best decent skills of description in check. I'm updating The Exchange Student once again, and this time it's going to be a decently lengthed chapter because I'm getting really sick of only outputting approximately 1000 words a month for you readers. You deserve better than the effort that I've been giving, and I give you my dearest apologies for that. It's been a crazy few weeks on my end, 3 of them to be exact. First week of craziness was my trip to the sunny orange state of Florida, for a band trip that left me exhausted. TL/DR, did the whole Didney Worl circuit and Universal Orlando, with highlights being Space Mountain, Spaceship Earth, TestTrack, Tower of Terror, going to the AMC at Citywalk to see The Lego Movie with my bffsie, and NOT looking for the frozen head of Walt Disney in any of the parks. Although a few weeks before we went, I was seriously tempted to search for it. Second week, spring break here, I spent it relaxing because I was exhausted. I feel really sad that I didn't even attempt to write during that entire week. Getting back into school was the toughest part, since for two weeks I had been social anxiety free and happy for once. Just as expected, it came back with a tough and relentless vengeance akin to that of Jack Noir. Regardless, here's the tenth chapter of The Exchange Student. Enjoy!

Chapter 10

The next day was a Saturday in the Strider household, which meant that everyone within was technically expected to sleep in. As the sun blared at the forehead of John relentlessly for what seemed like ages, however, he couldn't take the irritation anymore and got up from the couch that he and Dave had fallen asleep upon the night previous. Moving Dave's warm, caressing arms as not to wake him was difficult, but John had managed, moving an unreasonably large ventriloquist dummy into the place where he once was. He simply did not know what it was about that creepy-looking puppet, but Dave immediately wrapped his arms around it and nuzzled it, making John blush at the adorableness unfolding before him.

Stretching, he went to the Strider's bathroom and brushed his hair, although it was rather difficult to do anything with it due to its overall thickness. Once he looked at least reasonably clean, he headed towards the kitchen, which was stocked with all forms of cooking utensils and paraphernalia. Reaching into the fridge, he pulled out a loaf of honey wheat bread and a dozen eggs. An old recipe came to his mind that his father had taught him how to make on a griddle, and he was certain that Dave, Dirk and Jake would enjoy. However, the nigh unignorable smells and sounds of delicious food were not what waked everyone in the house, rather, a bloodcurdlingly deep scream that emitted from the living room.

Within seconds, everyone was in the living room, John wielding a frying pan as to deter any attackers of his sweet, innocent little man, Jake and Dirk wielding their own forms of sword and gun weaponry. On the ground lay the puppet from earlier, which according to the writing on the front of the shirt was named "Lil Cal", and Dave, Dave was hyperventilating on the couch. "DIRK! I thought I had told you to get rid of that creepy thing!" Dave said, cringing at the sight of it. Dirk laughed slightly and explained, "There's no way I'm getting rid of Cal, little bro. And besides, I never moved him there."

John chuckled and apologized for not knowing how much the puppet scared Dave, which Dave accepted, punching John on the arm playfully as he did so. Since everyone had been awoken already, John had decided to finish cooking the dish from earlier, which in Britain was named "Eggy in a Basket". Essentially, one had to fry an egg inside of a slice of toast to do it successfully, and his inherited cooking prowess showed, judged by the sounds of enjoyment from the whole family. Jake and Dirk volunteered to clean up, so once they were ready for the day Dave and John headed out into the sprawling urban landscape of the city.

Upon the suggestion of Dave, the two lovers had decided to head to the mall located deep within the bowels of the city. It had the typical shops, crowds of people, all of the things that John had in Britain. Looking through the window inside Aeropostale, however, John could have sworn he saw a troll in a similar shirt that his previous boyfriend Sollux had worn, along with a pair of dichromatic glasses. Blinking at the resemblance, he quickly saw the troll disappear elsewhere, and like that John was on a train of thought, thinking Was that Sollux? No, it couldn't have been. Sollux is still in Britain, right? Unless…. No, he wouldn't go to that extreme to get back at me. Feeling Dave's arms wrap around him, however, he immediately discarded the thought that could have saved the two of them so much trouble. "Hi babe, did you see anything you liked here?" Dave said, giggling and messing with John's hair. "No, I honestly didn't Dave, but I did see something interesting… if you see a troll in a duality t-shirt and some form of 3-d glasses, please tell me, alright?" Questioning, Dave said, "Okayyyy… why?"

John then explained that those were what his previous boyfriend always wore, and that he had seen someone that looked completely identical. Halfway through the explanation however, they had suddenly heard a ringing out of screams in the opposite end of the mall. Looking through the window, John gasped as he saw people being surrounded by red and blue energy and thrown in all directions.

"Sollux..." John mumbled, his mouth slightly agape at the spectace before them. Immediately, John had ran outside of the store and towards the end of the mall where the epicenter of this mass chaos was. "Wait!" Dave yelled, attempting to grab his arm to stop him. He didn't want John to get hurt, or worse, for him to go back to Sollux even though the troll had only been cruel and demeaning to him. John moved his arm away from Dave's hand, a pained look in his expression that said I need to do this Dave. Let me go.

Dave knew that this was the right thing to do, for John to go and stop Sollux from destroying everything, so he nodded and said, hugging him, "John honey, just please be careful. I don't know what I'd do if I lost you. Just please, stop this asshole before he hurts everyone else."

Looking back at Dave and leaving the tight embrace, John said, "Honey, I'm going to be ok. And I'll make sure to stop him, whether it be peacefully or no." He said, pulling out his captchadeck and grabbing the top card, a hammer his dad had helped him build. It was stainless steel, it most likely weighed at least 40 pounds, and on both ends of the hammer were strangely two clothing irons, steaming from the activation of the weapon.

Dave was definitely impressed at the weapon that John now brandished, and digging into his captchadeck, he pulled out the katana that he had showed to John many a time. He never really used it for anything save for scraps with his older brother on the rooftop of their apartment, but regardless, it would possibly come in handy now. Strapping the katana to his back, John and Dave ran out of Aeropostale and to where they believed Sollux was.

Along the way, they ensured that the more injured of the patrons weren't dying or dead, and sadly, one of said patrons was their friend Tavros. Tavros had been thrown into the fountain that acted as a centerpiece for the mall, his back recieveing the blunt of the damage. His eyes were filled with tears as he looked up at the two of them. He claimed that he couldn't feel his legs at all to their dismay, and that he believed that Gamzee didn't make it through the onslaught.

Suddenly, he heard a rustle of leaves and the voice of the clown up above, the slight rasp being a clear indicator of his identity. "Tavbro motherfucker... why're you crying?" he said. He was stuck at the top of one of the artificial trees placed throughout the mall, his limbs splayed out from the earlier impact. He jumped down quickly and held the smaller troll in his arms, Tavros being elated that he had survived.

"Honey!" he said in his awkward tone, wrapping his arms around Gamzee and kissing him on the cheek. "I... I thought you were dead..." Tavros said, tears returning to his eyes. Gamzee quickly planted a kiss on his lips, consoling him by saying, "Shoosh, motherfucker. It's going to be okay, alright?" John and Dave both smiled at the reunited couple, but knew there were bigger fish to fry. "Gamzee, if you'd like to help us fight Sollux, by all means, let's go!" Dave exclaimed, looking at him.

Gamzee looked at Tavros for consent and Tavros nodded, knowing his significant other could hold his own. "Hell yeah motherfuckers! :o)" Gamzee said, laying Tavros down in a nearby chair and pulling out of his captchadeck the most rediculous weapon they had ever seen.

It was a hammer unlike anything they had seen before. The entirety of it was multicolored, with a stylized "Z" at the center of it. The front was box-shaped, the back, a kind of tail similar to traditional work hammers, except topped with a sphere painted with a smiley face.

Shrugging and wanting no explanation as to why the hammer was like that, the three ran towards their final destination,

Inching closer and closer so as to not be detected by the boy still causing chaos and crackling with duochrome energy, they sent John out first to attempt to deal with the situation by using the power of democracy.

"Sollux, you need to stop this!" John yelled, looking into the eyes of the psychic boy. Looking back down, Sollux yelled, "There you are John! Do you liike what II've done wiith the place?" There was a slight twinge of pure evil in his tone, revealing to John that Sollux had most likely planned something, a trap of sorts, and he was right. Looking up, he saw several pieces of concrete from the parking lot hanging above him, still laden with rebar and very, very deadly-looking. With a downward motion of his hand, Sollux sent them all down towards John, who barely missed them as he motioned for Gamzee and Dave to come along. Obviously, talking to the bipolar ex wouldn't work.

However, as the three steeled themselves and attempted to attack, they saw Sollux's eyes begin to glow brighter and brighter. Suddenly, a great blast of energy was released, scorching a gigantic hole into a nearby wall. Dave exclaimed, "Shit! John, why did you ever date this guy? All he's trying to do is kill us!"

John explained, dodging a second blast directed at him, "I guess he seemed like a guy I could get along with, okay? I didn't realize that he was so homicidal!" John moved closer to Dave during his dive, and with a third blast nearby Gamzee, the clown was with them as well. They were trapped. Sitting ducks waiting to be evaporated by the more powerful fighter. It was worth a try at least stop the object of their destruction before then, no other alternatives in play. John threw his hammer towards Sollux as his unbelievably evil ex began charging for one last blast of psiionic energy. It caught Sollux offguard and broke his concentration, but it became a pain for him when the steaming end of the hammer struck him in the chest.

Sollux wailed in pain from the burn the iron was delivering onto him. Fighting through the pain, Sollux was able to lift the hammer off of him. His shirt had begun to combust, the fabric burning around where the scorching hot iron had struck him. His developed chest was visible, this time with a waffle-like pattern of burnt skin. "You'll pay for that, you worthle22 2tupiid mutant-blooded iidiiot!" Sollux said, lifting the hammer physically and attempting to hit John with it. John cringed, waiting for the pain that would follow, but instead hears the sound of hammer upon hammer.

Looking up, John is elated to see that Gamzee had blocked the attack with his "Z" hammer. "2tay out of thii2 clownfa2e. Thii2 ii2 between me and John!" Gamzee smiled at Sollux with a grin of sharp teeth and said with a dark tone in his voice "Wrong answer, motherfucker". Suddenly the hammer was swung upwards, the front of it hitting Sollux square in the bottom of his chin. As Sollux fell unconcious, he dropped John's hammer, which the original owner grabbed from the ground.

As sudden as the battle had started, the battle was over, and as Sollux woke from his temporary bout of unconciousness, he was met by the end of a sterling silver katana inches from his nose. "Now Sollux, you almost hurt my boytoy there." Dave said with disdain in his voice, using the hand not holding the sword to point his thumb back to John, who blushed profusely at the name "boytoy".

"You also broke the spine of one of my good friends, who's also the boyfriend of Mr. Killer Klown there. You realize that means he'll probably never be able to walk again, yes? Yes? Good, you're not completely incompetent after all" Dave spat out, additional anger in his voice. Gamzee then ran off at the thought of Tavros being worried about him.

"NOT TO MENTION all of the other people that you've hurt in your rampage, damage to prope- you know what, just get out. Don't come back. If you do, I will personally hunt you down and cut your bulge off." Dave said, dark and brooding, his katana moving down Sollux's form on the floor and hovering inches from his torso. Sollux quickly got up and ran off, grumbling at his defeat. Of course, he only reached the front door of the mall before police rushed in and aprehended him. Luckily they had brought paramedics as well, and soon they saw Tavros being carted off, Gamzee by his side.

...

Back at the apartment, John and Dave both relaxed. They had had a rough fight at the mall, which had tired them out and almost killed them, but they were alive and that's all that mattered. Gamzee had called earlier with profuse sadness in his tone. Tavros's spine was permanently damaged by the twenty-plus meter throw towards the fountain, and he'd never really be able to walk again.

As for Sollux's girlfriend at the time, Sollux had apparently called and asked for her to bail him out, which she refused, and after knowledge of what he did (it was on national news after all, as he had ended up killing at least ten and injuring at least 50 people, many of them critically), she had broke it off with Sollux. Yet again, it seemed as though everything had turned out well, despite the bleak circumstances. Where things were going next were unclear, but Dave knew they could outlast it together.

A/N: I'm so sorry this took so long! :_: