The audience is none the wiser to the two gods and the adviser going back in time and snatching Dirk up before the blade could make too much damage. They, of course, failed the first time and Dirk had been decapitated right there in front of everybody. The blade passed so quickly and so smoothly through his neck that there was barely even a splatter of blood and the audience was at first confused as to whether it had happened. In other words, Dirk had momentarily died, but it didn't actually happen because the Prince, the crimson Knight, and the Prince's advisor went back in time to stop, the advisor being none the wiser to it as well. Before the Knight resumes the proper flow of time, the three take the Abandoned Prince to chez Bequerius for medical assistance. Once there, time resumes normally.
"So, you can't acknowledge the fact that John needs serious help, but you save yourself from a just death. How ironically un-ironic." The advisor nearly jumps out of his living flesh from the beast that is suddenly in the room with them. The two gods were already expecting it, and Dirk is just in too much pain to care.
"Just fix him up as painfully as possible so he'll learn his lesson," the Prince orders. "I don't want to have to keep taking precious time out of my days to play rescue squad."
"You know, you could have just threatened to rip everyone's souls out. I'm quite sure that would have worked."
"What do you mean by 'quite sure?' You don't know?"
"Due to recent happenings, I have been in doubt about my supposed omniscience. I'm actually not quite sure about anything at this point." Upon hearing this, the Prince pinches that little bridge between his eyes in frustration. "This is absurd," he bluntly states. "What use is a First Guardian that isn't sure about anything?"
Thus a series of rapidly occurring events happens that leads the Prince to being literally kicked off of Beq's property. The Knight and advisor were threatened and left as well, but they didn't have to be kicked. Dirk remains in the mansion for the unsure First Guardian to go do that voodoo that he do so well and heal him.
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Back at the stupid windproof mansion, the Heir decides that he's had enough of watching the press conference and decides to change the channel to something more interesting, say, the news.
Okay, perhaps the news is overrated, so he decides to change it to The Weather Channel instead. He might as well see what kind of winds he's expected to "allow" these storms to have, though he already knows. After a few minutes of this, he realizes that he enjoys watching The Weather Channel and wonders where the fudge it's been all his life. Seriously, he had no idea how much he cared about what the weather is going to be like in Topeka.
But what really catches his attention comes after they get back from commercials. The meteorologist woman or whatever starts talking about a certain lunar event. "Don't forget to watch the perigee tomorrow night," is all the Heir heard and all he really needs to hear. He remembers hearing something about a perigee and this whole "weretroll" deal, though he can't quite think of what it means.
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- godlyTrickster [GT] began pestering _ [ ] at 17:10 -
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GT: help. i need help.
: (Would this happen to be about you being trapped in your own mansion?)
GT: what? no. i can't remember, but i think that i heard something about a perigee when discussing this whole ordeal about me.
: (Yes, you did hear about a perigee. It is the bilunar perigee this week, and it's the deadline. If you are to stop the curse before your mortal self permanently becomes a troll then you must establish a cure before it happens.)
GT: well, what is the cure?
: (Read what I just typed and figure it out yourself. You gods have gotten on my last nerve and you are lucky I even helped this much.)
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- _ [ ] blocked the gods -
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GT: please don't do this.
On the television, the meteorologist woman thing concludes her little lecture about the upcoming perigee, stating that it will happen at 7:06 pm on Monday. There is only one problem, however. Tomorrow is Monday and Karkat is still unwilling to help. Selfish bastard. So the Heir decides to send Kankri a few messages. He noticeably gets them, as seen by everyone watching the press conference and the Heir himself when he flips the television back to that particular channel.
"Aren't you going to answer that thing?" The Knight sitting adjacent to Kankri sounds irritated.
"I see no reason to," Kankri replies. "We are in the middle of an important event and I do not wish to interrupt it by texting."
"The only reason you need to answer it is the fact that it's buzzing and it's incredibly annoying." No one can hear the two arguing due to their whispering. Everyone is just annoying the obvious sight of two god trolls silently arguing with each other. This, of course, annoys the Heir. Thus, he decides to do a live Froggercast explaining his predicament to the best of his knowledge and plead for help.
He sets up the camera and sits in front of it. He waits for the recording signal and begins speaking when it comes on.
"Okay, uh … (I should've thought this over.) Uh, well … Hello, everyone. I am the Heir of Breath. (Wow, you're so stupid. Everyone already knows that.) Earlier today, if you were watching the press conference with the gods or whatever, you know that I am not there (Obviously, idiot). It was not my choice. I am actually stuck here, at home, unable to escape because the Knight of Blood decided to change the locks without my knowledge. Why we would need locks in the first place, I have no idea.
"It was also not my decision for my mortal incarnation to transform. Yes, I said my mortal incarnation. Not me-well, technically it is me, but another me. There are actually three of them in this universe: Me, the one speaking, a young mortal incarnation, which is the one that was exiled from my godhead, and an old mortal incarnation. I really have no idea how to explain that one. But the one that I want to focus on is the one that was exiled from my godhead. We'll call him John because, well, that's his name. That's my name. I know, it's strange-having a god with a normal-sounding name like all of yours. But in reality, all of us gods started off like you. Now, to the topic.
"Like myself and the Knight of Blood, we'll call him KOB [pronounced "cob"], John is in a relationship with a troll. This particular troll is KOB's mortal incarnation. His only mortal incarnation. We'll call KOB's mortal incarnation Karkat. I know it's an incredibly cute name. But to the point." It is at this point where someone in the Official Heir of Breath Fan Club (OHBFC pronounced "Obi fuck Kenobi" due to the Heir's not-so-secret fascination with Star Wars) lets out a fangirl-equivalent scream because his favorite god is doing a live broadcast. This catches the reporters' attention, and they ask to show it. In seconds the Heir's speech or whatever is on every television currently tuned in to the press conference.
"John has transformed already. In fact, it is complete now, and an estimation as to when it would become permanent was given by one of his friends, which is yet another mortal incarnation of another god, but all these names are probably hard to keep up with so we'll skip out on that. This estimation, as I understand, was given to be around Thursday on the bilunar perigee. Now this wouldn't be very significant if it weren't for a slight miscalculation: the bilunar perigee is tomorrow at 7:06 pm, which gives us," the Heir checks his watch, "about twenty-six hours-well, not even that, to find the cure and save my mortal incarnation from living the rest of his life as a troll. Don't get me wrong; I love trolls, but the thing is, I don't want to be a troll. I am perfectly happy as a human, and as a human I would love for all of my current incarnations to remain. So, I have, over the past week, attempted to get KOB to help with finding and distributing the cure to John. Unfortunately, due to his 'infinite hatred' toward John, KOB has been stubborn and unwilling to help in any way, shape, or form. Minutes ago, I texted KOB's dancestor, or whatever they're called, asking him to help. With him also being a player of Blood, I expect that he would also be able, and more willing, to help. Anyone and everyone who was watching the press conference would have seen this, as I do believe he has his phone on vibrate. Knowing KOB, I would have expected a far greater and more violent reaction toward Kankri for not answering the numerous texts. Buzzing really gets on his nerves, especially when nothing is done to prevent or stop it." At this point, the gods and everyone else look over to Kankri and KOB-Karkat. Yeah, those two. Karkat's godhead is given an accusing look while Kankri is just given that look that says, "With something like this, now you choose to be considerate?"
"So, any and all help will be greatly appreciated. You can find John and his friends at 61296 Lopah Street." Just like that, the live Froggercast is over. The camera shuts off and the Heir is once again shut out from the world by any means save the television. Right now, he can only hope that everything works out.
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"I certainly hope you learned your lesson, Dirk." The First Guardian couldn't be more pleased. "You shouldn't be accepting deals with devils. Look where you ended up." Dirk remains silenced by intense pain. He has no left ear, no nipples, and a long strip of skin peeled off his stomach. The large saw blade sliced barely a centimeter into his neck, which has slowed bleeding, but not stopped. Even with near omniscience, Beq knows that this is going to be a long visit and a long procedure. Yes, he can teleport anywhere instantly, but he can't just teleport Dirk's ear sewn back on his head. Can he … ?
Instructions unclear; ear stuck in right eye.
… Yeah, no. Apparently he can't. Ugh, this is going to be a long procedure.
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Time until deadline: 22 hours 10 minutes
"You know, I never noticed how large the moons look when they're getting close to perigee," Rose says. "How long do we have to find the cure?"
"According to Kanaya, about five days," Terezi responds. "You think we should have been doing that rather than whatever we've been doing?"
"Like what, rescuing John?" Rose acts almost offended.
"No, I mean goofing off. Look what we did last night-we had a fairy princess tea party. I mean, finding a cure hasn't been on our minds at all since we finally brought John back. It's disgraceful and kind of makes us look like bad friends."
"Well, I think John is just happy to be back with Karkat. Can you believe that Kanaya was suspecting Karkat of wanting to propose? He never confirmed it, but she did warn him against doing it." Rose gives a small smile.
"Why would she warn against it? I thought they loved each other." Terezi is genuinely confused. From everything she's seen, John and Karkat seemed to both be overdosing on oxytocin, dopamine, and norepinephrine whenever they were anywhere near each other. It just doesn't make sense that Kanaya, being the type of troll she is, wouldn't see that and warn against a marriage proposal.
"Well, she says that it wouldn't fall so much in the love category so much as age. Which, you know, seems logical. But given their absolute obsession with each other, I highly doubted her thoughts into that." Rose chuckles a little as she and Terezi walk underneath the silver moonlight of Earth's two satellites. "You know, back in our original universe we thought that having two moons would make the earth incredibly unstable and unsuitable for life. Well, human life, anyway."
"Humans are weird."
"Yeah, we love you too." The two girls break out in laughter. They are interrupted when Rose's phone rings. It's John. Or Dad. Or whoever is calling from the Crocker/Egbert/Vantas/Makara/Yougettheidea residence. "Hello," she answers.
"Rose, why are there people just randomly showing up at the door? Last time I checked it is still a few months from your human 'Halloween.'" It is Kanaya. In the background, Dad can be heard shouting for people to leave.
"What are you talking about? Why would anybody be over there?"
"I don't know, but it has forced us to all join forces to keep them out. It is horrible." Kanaya says it rather jokingly, but she means every word. She doesn't want to join forces with the Axis Powers. She wants to fight, dammit. And doing what they're doing now isn't fighting. Well, it is, but it is the opposite of the fighting that she wants to do.
"Have you even asked them what they wanted?"
"Yes. They said that they wanted to see the Abandoned Heir, whatever that means." Rose has a very good feeling she knows what that means. She had heard on the radio about a half an hour ago that the Heir has called upon his followers to help find a cure for the mysterious curse or whatever that has been bestowed upon John. "Just hang on. I guess I'll have to come over and settle things over there."
"Who was that," Terezi asks.
"Kanaya. There's some trouble over at John's place. I told her I'd be right over to settle it."
"I heard that part. I just asked who it was."
"It was Kanaya." Terezi gives Rose that sarcastic "Really?" face, to which Rose replies with a nod.
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Time until deadline: 21 hours 20 minutes
Okay, now that the crowd is all settled, time for some explanation on the author's part as to why it took Rose fifty minutes to get to the house. The short answer is it didn't. It only took her about ten, considering that she was only around a mile away or so and the crowd was kind of thick. Once she got close enough to the house to where it could be considered there, the crowd was so thick that it took her another twenty-five to get to the door, and she'll be damned if they let her in. I mean, it isn't like there were twelve thousand people right outside that were trying to get in.
Okay, there were twelve thousand one people. But the difference that makes is next to negligible. It was at this particular time when Dad decided to not allow any guests inside the house. Of course, the fact that there are twelve thousand one people outside could be considered entirely irrelevant, had it not been for them trying to get in, which Rose is attempting to stop. Unfortunately, stopping a crowd invasion is rather difficult to do, and with the media sure to be on their way, who's to say that they aren't going to be the pushy assholes that they are and force their way through the crowd, through the door, and straight to John.
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Author: Thus the tension rises. Will the cure be found or will John be forced to live out the rest of his miserable life as a troll? Well, referring back to a different chapter, you already know the answer.
