"Well, fuck if that wasn't a waste of our precious time." The Condesce said, looking at the one of her two subjects.
"Why is everything so familiar?" The subject said, noticing the dynamics between himself, the Condesce and Feferi. In his mind, there was a computer screen, and in the screen, he selected some of the last words the Empress said, in particular "seeya later / i meen i hope i dont get 2 see u again because ull be dead".
Something else played in his head. It wasn't even remotely related to Homestuck, and therefore the Condesce didn't recognize the recorded voice faintly speaking: "Have a great weekend! I mean, I hope her weekend is not so great?" Feferi also had no clue what was going on; did their evil team acquire a fourth member (that isn't Becquerel)?
Therefore, the two only could guess what actually happened when the man completely disappeared. They could surmise that he tapped into Bec's powers to transport him... somewhere, but they couldn't guess his intention - if there was any.
"Alright, I should begin on tutoring you as an heiress." The Condesce declared, sighing.
Rose Lalonde decided to go out for a walk.
She knew that simply sitting by her laptop, blogging all day, won't do any good for her. Nor will the hanging out in a memo full of people from all around the world, if they didn't know about Homestuck. The only fountain of wisdom here was Andrew Hussie, and she could walk to his house and ask him all the relevant questions right now, if she wanted.
But she didn't want that. Instead, she just walked to her own accord, perhaps to better get acquainted with the structure of Easthampton. So far, as she had figured out, her and Dave's new houses were relatively close to each other, and John and Jade's were further down the road, as their own pair. Hussie and the cherubim actually lived opposite each other, but the windows on Calliope and Caliborn's house were placed in a certain way, so that neither ever got to see Hussie.
Unless they walked out, Rose thought as she recognized Calliope, walking along the street.
Now was not the time to engage in a conversation with her, though. Now was the time dedicated to herself and only herself.
And some creepy man in an entirely red suit, who reminded her of that other man in the chatroom who typed entirely in red.
"Surrender, Rose Quartz, for I-" The man began, pointing at her.
"Rose Lalonde." Why would anyone think she was a cartoon character? She was clearly a webcomic character. There was a definite difference.
The man only retracted his hand. "Oh."
As she tried to dismiss this as "yet another occurrence when her name was called wrong", she realized that there were a lot of those occasions. "So, so far I have been called Annoying Blabbermouth, Flighty Broad, Annoying Flightymouth, Rose Human and now Rose Quartz. Amazing how no one can ever get my name right."
The man seemed as if he was going in for a laugh, but that didn't happen. It was as if some external force was controlling him, and it seemed to be attached to the tiara that no sane man would wear, because that particular piece of attire was only ever meant for females.
Everything was strange about him, and the more she looked at him, the more she realized that this was, in fact, the same red-typing person from the memo.
And she was not ready to deal with him alone.
Calliope knew going out was risky, especially since her brother wasn't around, and would get mad searching for her. Yet, once she had learned about Homestuck, she couldn't resist to see what the world had actually become, once she was recognized as a fictional character... or, well, someone pretending to be a fictional character, by everyone except for the harbinger of mayhem, Andrew Hussie himself.
And as it seemed, the world had actually been quite happy to have a fictional tale for itself. Even if pretending to be someone was annoying from that someone's perspective, the one who was doing it was clearly respecting both the fictional work and its characters. And even though some fans might say that Homestuck sucks for whatever reason, in their heart, they still loved it.
When Calliope finished that thought, she looked up to see who was on the street. She recognized Rose; it seemed that she had gotten out of one of her moods and was ready to embrace the world herself, but by her side there was also someone dressed almost entirely in red whom she didn't recognize. Were there more people coming to live in the town?
No, it couldn't be. As far as she had checked the openings, there were definitely four houses for sale, and in the next newspaper issue, there were none of them. In the same way, Hussie was only expecting four kids, and someone fifth didn't even remotely fill in the role. That would have been ridiculous, just as the idea that she could ever make a friendship with a human being.
Or maybe it wasn't that ridiculous, and she just needed to make her own step forward - quite literally. She stepped over to where Rose and the man were, and saw that they weren't discussing anything - just being in the awkward silence.
The man, though, was the first to notice her. He began talking, as suddenly as the circuits in his head allowed it: "So, what exactly makes you so special that Rose would have named your blog after you?"
"That, someone who I never met before but who I suspect will become largely relevant even though you are not part of Homestuck, is a long story. Luckily, I found some newspapers covering the story, so even when I was months old, I know it as if I was there myself. It all started with a meteor falling onto this very town that we are standing in…"