Chapter 25

==Do a time skip.

What's the magic word?

==Seriously? Fine, please.

Who do you want to be?

==Nepeta

Nepeta woke to her alarm, and was suddenly confused. She felt all disoriented, like it was supposed to be Tuesday, but instead it was now Saturday. She knew it couldn't be though, because she could remember that a new girl came into school Tuesday. And then Jade finally entered the next day. The school seemed to be getting a lot of new kids recently. She yawned, stretching her arms above her head and glanced at the clock on her bedside table. She perked up, suddenly remembering what she was getting up so early for. She hopped out of bed with a small smile on her face that was threatening to widen. She was going on a date today!

She got a quick shower, dried her hair, and brushed her teeth to get ready. She yawned once more as pulled her hat on top of her slightly damp hair. She considered her reflection for a moment and then took it off, letting her hair out. She brushed the wavy black locks out and smiled at herself. That was better. She laid out an outfit, a loose, but flattering, plain black short sleeve shirt and her favorite pair of blue jeans. Karkat had said not to dress fancy. She slung her trenchcoat over her shoulder after dressing.

She glanced over herself one final time. She looked fine, but her head felt light and awkward without the weight of her hat. She almost went to get it again, but at the last moment she shook her head.

The doorbell rang and Nepeta leapt into the air, racing down the stairs. She passed Jade's room, and heard movement. She must've been woken up by the doorbell. Jade peeked out her bedroom door, opening it a crack. She watched Nepeta as she walked down the stairs. Nepeta gave her a little wave. Jade walked out of her room, closing the door quietly behind her. Bec was following her close behind, ever the faithful mutt. Nepeta eyed the dog warily, and it stared blankly back at her. She shivered, and looked away. There was something about that dog that was a tiny bit terrifying.

She shrugged it off and went to answer the door. Jade trailed after her, looking sleepy, as always. She was wearing oversized striped pajamas, and was without her glasses at the moment.

"Are you really going on your date this early?"

"Yeah. I'm not sure why. He won't tell me what he's got planned."

"Well, have fun." Jade yawned and hugged Nepeta.

"Thanks." She shrugged into her trench coat and opened the door. Karkat stood in the doorway, looking uncertain.

Jade smiled at Karkat, and walked back upstairs, rubbing her eyes.

"I'm ready!" Nepeta said, spinning so her coat swirled around her ankles.

"Was that the girl from the hospital?"

"Yeah, Jade. Meulin was ok with her living with us."

"Is Meulin here?"

"Yeah. C'mon, let's go!" Nepeta tugged on Karkat's arm.

"Alright, alright. Calm the flying f*** down. Here." He handed her a blindfold.

"What?"

"Take it, put around your g**d*** eyes. I want it to be a f***ing surprise, ok?"

"Whatever you say, Karkitty." She giggled and tugged on his hands to make him do it for her.

"Lazy cat," He muttered, not unkindly.

"Hey! I'm not lazy!" She said, mock annoyed.

"C'mon." He took her hand. She was carefully led out to his car, navigating around bushes. He jokingly led her straight into one of them, and she pushed him away, giggling. When they got to the car he opened the door for her and set her carefully in the seat. He set the seatbelt in her hand, guiding it to the buckle. Then he got into the driver's side and started up the car.

"Where are we going?" Nepeta asked excitedly. She was practically bouncing in her seat.

"I told you, it's a motherf***ing surprise!"

Nepeta pouted; a gesture that wasn't very effective with her eyes covered. A few seconds later she was bouncing in her seat again.

"Nepeta, will you calm the f*** down."

"Why?" She asked in a babyish tone.

"Because, we're here." He stood outside her door, having already opened it.

"Whoa, how'd you get there?" She must've been so excited that she missed him opening his own door.

Karkat held onto her hand and helped her out.

"Can I take it off now?"

"Not yet. Wait just another jolly s***ing minute." She heard some rustling behind her. "Alright, let's go in. Don't take it off!"

When they stepped into the building, she felt a blast of cool air. It smelled like cheap food and sweat. Maybe she shouldn't have trusted him to plan the date…

"Ok, you can take it off now." Nepeta took off the blindfold and gasped. There was a black wall blocking off most of the entrance, but there was a small hole in the middle and a large neon arrow pointing to the right that said enter in black letters. To one side of the hole it said Hole in the Wall Laser Tag. There were black lights everywhere, casting the entire place in an unearthly glow.

"Laser tag!" Nepeta grinned and hugged Karkat. "Thanks Karkitty!"

"C'mon, let's go get our f***ing gear."

"Please sir, if you would refrain from swearing while within the maze. There are children here." A guard around the corner spoke up.

Karkat turned to glare at the guard but Nepeta tugged on his sleeve, fixing him with a look. "Alright. But only for you." He growled. After a couple of seconds he turned pink as he realized what had just said. She smiled and kissed his cheek as they walked into the room with racks of vests and guns attached to them. The guns looked a bit like those police radar guns, but slightly larger and a small green LED screen on the side. It said 0 points on it, and had a letter and number combination in the upper right hand corner.

"Let's go!" She happily put on a small vest and grabbed a gun. She practiced then, shooting a couple of the other people there with it. She fired a few shots at Karkat and hit the target every time. "Yay!" She cheered as the tenth shot hit him.

"It'll be harder in the maze." A man to her right observed.

"Probably." Nepeta said. But she didn't seem to care.

Another guard came and listed off the rules, and then let them into the maze. He had said when the bell rang the game would start, and it would also ring when it was over. When the bell rang Nepeta split off from the group and hid behind some obstacles. As people passed her, she fired at them, in close succession. After the trickle slowed, she got up and moved to a better position. Shooting kids all the way, and avoiding getting shot herself. She did, however, get hit once in the back. She glanced at the LED screen after she got to a safe spot. Shot by B-10. She wondered who that was, and then glanced up at footsteps. She hurriedly fired after them, but missed. She muttered a curse under her breath, and then felt a slight tinge of guilt. Equius would not be happy with her for saying that.

She grinned after a particularly good shot; she was great at this game. The bell rang out again, signaling the end to the game. It had gone much quicker than she had expected. She frowned, glancing at her watch. It had only been about 20 minutes, but she headed back to the room anyway. "Winner, A-6." An announcement was made on some sort of intercom throughout the maze. "Please travel to the nearest exit. Follow the exit signs." Nepeta looked down at a screen on her gun. She grinned as she saw the identification number was A-6. Mini green fireworks flooded the screen and the word winner appeared.

They all headed back to the room. She spotted Karkat and nudged him, showing him her screen. He congratulated her, his mouth twitching up in an almost-smile.

He showed her his screen. She looked at how many people he had hit, and happened to see his identification number. It was B-10.

"You shot me!" She said indignantly.

"Hmm? Did I?" He looked over at her, a triumphant gleam in his eyes.

"I want a rematch!" Nepeta declared.

Karkat just nodded, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips.

"Who was A-6?" A guard said. Nepeta held up her gun. "You beat the high score for this laser tag course."

"Cool! Can we play again?"

"Yeah… it's the same price though." The man seemed startled that she didn't care about beating the high score.

Karkat got his wallet out without a word and handed him two twenties.

"I can pay for my own if you want." Nepeta looked at him worriedly.

"Don't worry about it, Nep. I'm fine."

"But..." She frowned.

He smiled at her, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"You can play as many times as you want. I'll be fine."

"Alright… But only one more time!"

Nepeta won again, but this time she concentrated more on getting Karkat. She hit other people too but she mostly just shot him whenever she saw him, which was often. She was good at stalking. She heard him chuckling, and he didn't get a single hit in this time. When it was over, she glanced at her screen and saw she had won again.

Nepeta laughed and set the gun back on the racks. She took off the vest and Karkat did the same.

"I won that time!" She said proudly, trying to draw herself up to look taller, and failing.

Karkat laughed. "Yeah."

A man walked up to them, with shiny glasses and a black jacket.

"I'm the manager here at Hole in the Wall. Would you like to sign the high score board?" The manager asked.

Nepeta looked up at Karkat and grinned. They followed him down a low lit hallway and he swept a bright red curtain to the side. The first high score was at the top, and the newer ones were added at the bottom. Her scores were already written at the bottom two spots. She scribbled her name in the boxes next to the number of hits she got. Another man stepped in from the sidelines, one she hadn't noticed.

"You want to give us your phone number so if a challenger comes you can take it up?"

"Sure!" Nepeta smiled, and held out her hand for a piece of paper.

"Nepeta… I don't think you should. We should leave." Karkat looked around at the dark hallway uneasily.

"But, these nice guys only want my phone number." Nepeta pouted at him.

"Nep. We need to go now. I have something else planned."

"It won't take that long!"

"Nepeta. Now." Karkat growled into her ear. The men glared at them dangerously, but Nepeta was still giggling.

"What's the matter, Kitty? Why can't I just have fun?" She laughed, and Karkat swept her up, bridal style. "Hey, what're you doing?" She nudged his arm. She turned serious as soon as she saw the fierce expression on his face. He was literally growling at the two men, his face split into a ferocious snarl. They both rolled up their sleeves, and she could see that they were extremely muscled. Their eyes narrowed, and hers widened in fear. What had she been thinking?

Karkat spat at them, and took off running. The men were close at their heels. "What the hell? Why are they f***ing chasing us?" He yelled.

Nepeta shivered and snuggled closer to Karkat's warmth. She knew he would protect her.

"S***, they have a f***ing gun!"

"What?!" Nepeta exclaimed. How were they worth killing? None of this made sense at all. She winced as she heard a shot ring out. Everything slowed until mere seconds seemed like hours. She peeked over Karkat's shoulders and saw a bullet speeding towards them. Without thinking, she leaned her weight forward in Karkat's grip, making him fall flat on his stomach. She wiggled out of his grip and held a hand down to him. He grabbed it and she helped him up into a sitting position.

Then she heard a muffled gunshot, seemingly from far away. A searing pain flashed through her chest. Disjointedly, she lowered her head to look at the place the pain was coming from. A small trickle of blood leaked out of her chest, quickly gaining speed. She looked back up at Karkat and coughed up more blood, not quite yet realizing what was going one. He was yelling something, but all she could hear was her heartbeat, loud in her ears. Then she felt her world spin sideways, and everything turned blacker than anything she'd ever seen. Was she dead?

After a while of floating in the nothingness, she felt something sucking at her entire being. She didn't notice it at first, but it felt like a vacuum cleaner was trying to clean up a mess. And she was the mess, of course. But it wasn't her body being pulled. It was something else; she wasn't sure what. She was confused, and finally opened her eyes. She was staring at her chest when she opened them, and to her relief she didn't see any blood. What she did see was her zodiac symbol from the game, Leo. She sat up, and looked around in confusion. She took in all the trolls, humans, and carapacians walking around.

She was in the game.

A/R: Muahahaha! I'm terrible, I know. It's so much fun killing off characters. Even if it was my favorite one... Edit2: Whoa we're halfway there…