Your name is Equius Zahhak, and you are finally prepared to die. You've been living for far longer than you have any right to, and this is the night you set your affairs in order. You are currently standing at the hill overlooking Doctor Scratch's base; that same hill where Aradia's ghost first contacted you. This was where you strayed from the path intended for one of your standing.

This base signifies all of your failings as a troll. This is where you failed to protect Gamzee. This is where you abandoned Feferi in order to pursue your misguided affections for Aradia. This is where your doomed mission to bring a troll back to life began.

This is where you will give everything you have to set things right.

You have three roles to fulfill here: rescue your fellow trolls, obtain the genetic material needed to finally save Aradia, and prevent Scratch from endangering your kind any further by any means necessary. If that means your death you will not be particularly upset, it will mean another wrong righted that should have been dealt with long ago.

At your side is the human Dirk Strider, who seems to be impatient to get under way. You consider this understandable, as his close friend Roxy Lalonde is no doubt close behind you. The relationship between the two is as close to a moirallegiance as you've seen from humans.

"We need to make this fast." Dirk's saying, and you note the flash of red across his glasses, indication that his computer program is communicating with him. "Hal can't get anything on this damn place, so we'll just have to find the most important person we can and grill them for info. Let's move before she catches up."

You nod firmly, dropping to a crouch as Dirk flashsteps away. A quick glance tells you that he's moved to the base of the nearest guard tower. You wait another moment for him to deal with the guards, and strongjump into the base.

There's only one way for you and Dirk to succeed in your plan. You've discussed it at length as you travelled. The only way to stay ahead of the FELT is to allow Dirk space to move in silence, and the best way to do this is by making as much noise as possible. You glance around your space casually and see two soldiers on patrol by the nearest building. You're upon them before they realize it, and after dealing a backhand that obliterates the first human, you throw the other at a guard tower. Plenty of screaming from the second human assures that your presence will be known.

The entire base is lit up before long, and you note with some satisfaction that the searchlights are all focused on you. Dirk can avoid such lights easily, and with Roxy's powers of invisibility she should be safe as well. The only one in any danger this way is you.

There's a sudden blast of gunfire, and you feel the sharp sting of bullets grazing your body. One in particular rakes your leg and nearly causes you to stumble, forcing you to throw yourself into another leap to avoid being felled early. Your momentum carries you through the wall of the nearest bunker, and you realize it's a munitions depot similar to the one that held the weapons your group lost the first time you were here.

You hear the sound of voices growing louder as the soldiers begin to catch up to you, and pull yourself to your feet. A sharp stab of pain lances through your chest, and you have to prop yourself on a crate for stability until it passes. The damage from your fight with Mrs. Lalonde is still healing, despite your insistence otherwise. Running is not strenuous to you, but the strongjumps are taking their toll.

You look around the room you're in irritably, realizing that if you plan to stay ahead of the human weapons, you'll need more than your bare hands. It would be refreshing as a turn of events, if the situation weren't so crucial.

The answer comes swiftly though, in the form of a rattle from the crate you're propped on. As the humans burst through the main door and into the room, you hurl a tank shell at them. The explosion sends those not killed running in fear, leaving you with a clear chance to get away.

You punch your way through the wall behind you and escape while the humans prepare to enter the warehouse. You continue to ignore the pain that gnaws at your insides as you run. You can't afford to fall until your job here is complete.

When the highblood is safe, you'll be allowed to die.

Your name is Dirk Strider, and you are moving as fast as you can manage. Equius is taking a big risk by acting as decoy for you, and you know it's only a matter of time until Roxy catches up with you and does something irrational. You love the girl dearly, but you've always thought something was just wrong with her priorities sometimes. The world could be ending and she'd be too busy trying to save everyone to get to safety.

Besides, she's too nice of a person for the work you're doing here. You just decapitated a soldier who was trying to shoot you. She doesn't have it in her to kill, and you doubt she'd appreciate seeing you kill anyone either. You don't care for it much yourself, but when things come down to life or death, you're not one to dwell on the morality of a situation. Take unnecessary feeling, and bury it away where it can't hold you back. That's what Bro's always taught you.

You look around the complex from the guard tower you've claimed and see that the base is far larger than you thought it would be, especially given the relatively large amount of secrecy surrounding it. This is some high-level government intelligence shit right here, and you're about to infiltrate it singlehanded. Meanwhile Equius is going to take on the brunt of their firepower on his own as well, and he's not as good at hiding injury as he might hope.

The bunkers around the outside appear to be primarily for military use, and unless the base is secretly being run by Professor X, you think it's safe to say there aren't any secret doors under the training grounds. In other words, there are two buildings to choose from. One matches Equius' description of the area the trolls were held in before, but you doubt that area would be used as a prison after it already failed at that role so spectacularly. This leaves the larger main complex.

As expected, the facility is lax on security, likely due to Equius rampaging outside. You decide to be less cautious than normal on that note, as the amount of gunfire and explosions is pretty fucking unnerving, even to you. It's always been that way to you, really. You need to get fucked up for a plan to work? Fine. But when your friends are in danger, your mind goes to shit.

AR: Okay, so I'm running facial recognition on everybody I see here. If I can't find any info on somebody, they're probably top of the ladder.

TT: Sounds like a plan, I'll head for the upper levels and sweep this place for the labs.

AR: Just so you know, if you die here, I'm totally taking your place.

TT: You don't have a body.

AR: Bodies are useless anyways. My mind is the same as yours, so rest assured nobody will know the difference.

TT: Fuck you.

AR: That's the spirit!

You smirk in spite of yourself. If Hal's still being a smartass piece of shit then things can't be all that bad. Not yet anyways.

It takes far longer than you'd hoped to find the lab, but once you're there, you manage to round up the DNA samples by threatening to break everyone's arms. You stow them all safely in a case for holding lab samples that Mrs. Lalonde gave you. Mission one accomplished. Now all you have to do is find the trolls that are being boxed up here and make a break for it.

Hal hasn't messaged you since you last spoke to him, so you decide to find a bigwig on your own. In the end you decide to start from the top floor and work down. Your path takes you to the roof of the building. The whole complex is built like a labyrinth, and the hallways all seem to be open to the sky for some strange reason. It's considerably easier to navigate from above though, since you can just jump over the openings in the roof and see which doors look important.

A large explosion rings out to your right, and you see Equius throwing a tank across the courtyard. The machine hits the roof next to you and punches straight into the floor below. Clearly the guys who built this place were not prepared for falling tanks, which is pretty damn irresponsible of them in your opinion.

You glance down into the hole and see that it's not actually a room below your feet like you thought. It would seem that what you took to be a chain of office rooms was actually one long hallway, the only one you've seen around here that's actually covered up. This looks promising.

AR: This looks foreboding.

TT: Sounds right.

AR: Don't die here bro, I don't actually want to fill in for you while you're dead.

AR: I'm way more interesting than you, it would be a total downgrade.

TT: Can't deny that.

TT: We'll be fine though.

AR: We nothing. I don't live in your glasses anymore, I just talk through them, remember?

TT: I'll be fine.

AR: That's more like it.

You've reached the end of the hallway while talking with Hal, and now you find yourself standing at a pair of ornate wooden doors. You look up at the large knockers set in the middle of the door. Might as well.

"Come in, please." A voice calls through the door before you've so much as touched the knocker. A bit weird, but whatever, you clearly don't have the element of surprise, so you might as well acquiesce.

You walk into the ugliest room you've ever seen, like some little kid went a bit too crazy with the green crayons. The only thing in the room that isn't green or black is the man sitting at the desk in the middle of the room, who's paler than Rose (and lord knows that girl could use some sun), and completely bald.

He's reading over some files as you walk in. "You know, usually you wait for a guest to knock before you invite them in."

"Nonsense, I always know when guests are arriving. The knockers are for show. To scar the wood of those doors with brass would be unforgiveable."

The man looks up with a smile. "Now then, how may I help you, young mister Strider? Simply state your business and I shall help you the best that I can. That is the duty of a good host, after all. And feel free to clean the blood off of that sword while you're here, that can't be good for it." Well that's unexpected. If you weren't completely repressing your emotion right now you'd probably be feeling unnerved right now. Doctor Scratch is clearly as unflappably confident as you've heard, and what's more, he apparently knows who you are.

"How do you know the name Strider?" You draw your sword and polish the edge, keeping it casual. Doctor Scratch pushes forward a container of wet wipes, and you start cleaning the blood off with a nod.

"Well Dirk, as it happens I used to work with your caretaker, Brock Strider. His assistance was essential for my goals when I first established the FELT.

"Yeah, my bro isn't exactly the type to do the government any favors." You finish cleaning your sword and sheathe it, tossing the wipes into a garbage can helpfully placed next to you. "Honestly, I'd be surprised if he even paid most of his taxes."

"He doesn't, we'd have tracked him down years ago if he paid his bills properly." Scratch says unconcernedly. "He did work for us though. He was one of my head of security, as well as a blood donor."

"Blood donor?"

"For genetic testing." Scratch shrugs, and starts rifling through his desk. "We used his DNA to facilitate some of our more complex experiments. Orange soda?" He pulls a bottle from under his desk and sets it on the desk. "Normally I'd offer my guests a glass, but I feel that in your case a sealed bottle would make you more comfortable."

You shrug and take the bottle. Stay calm, show no signs that you're ready to cut this guy's head off at a moments notice, and remain emotionless. Scratch is clearly collected, but nobody beats your poker face. Plus, orange soda is the shit.

"Surprised a classy guy like you keeps orange soda in your fridge. You know I was coming? Or did you just run out of wine?"

"It is the duty of a good host to provide for any guests. I keep a myriad of refreshments for anybody who may visit. I do have wines as well, of course, but you're hardly old enough to partake. This is after all, America." He places a hand on his heart with a respectable level of irony.

"How do you know I'm not old enough to drink? I could be thirty-one for all you know. In fact, that's exactly how old I am." you throw a hand over your eyes in mock distress. "Now you've offended me! I am so very hurt and offended by your insinuation at my age! I think I'll go stand in front of the next tank my friend throws so that I can be put out of my misery."

"You are nineteen, the same age as your twin brother, naturally." Scratch smiles widely. "Two years below legal drinking age."

"What?"

"Ah yes, I did forget to mention that, didn't I?" Scratch stands and walks over to the fireplace (which you suddenly realize doesn't actually have a chimney, what the fuck?), pulls down a broom from a plaque above the mantle (again, what?), and starts sweeping in front of it. "You asked the wrong question before, you see. The important point was not 'How do you know the name Strider?' It was: 'how do you know I'm a Strider?" You are not liking the direction this is going.

"Your hair was the big tipoff, you see. You've had that ridiculous hair ever since you were a baby. Not to mention the shades, which reflect your brother's so well. Then there's your serious attitude, your build, your fighting skill… Honestly, you are like him in so many ways…"

Scratch turns to face you, a winning smile across his face. Not to say that he's winning you over with his grin, more like he can tell he's got you hooked, and is about to reel you in. "It's quite simple, really. You take to Brock's teaching much better than Dave does, because you are almost exactly like him. You are, save for some relatively minor adjustments we made along the way, his exact clone."

You suddenly understand nothing.

"There were eight of you in all, see. Eight children, all cloned from four guardians, four exact copies, four mixed between two parents, all with one purpose for their creation."

"Weapons." You spit out bitterly. You suddenly understand everything. The strange things your friends can do, from Roxy's invisibility, to the absurd things John and Jade can do, right down to your ability to shut down parts of your brain at will. Plus that other thing you don't like to think about.

"That's right, weapons. Government weapons to be used for whatever we deemed necessary. In the end, we planned to create an army of your kind, but were stopped when your guardians decided the moral implications were too great. They destroyed our data, took you all, and scattered across the country."

"And then we all adopted trolls, and decided to come to your home base."

"Very perceptive of you. Yes, we've tracked all of the trolls, and they are now all with you. Quite the small world we live in, isn't it?" Scratch smiles as he continues, pacing around his room at his leisure. "And once I've dealt with you all, it will be that much smaller."

You see him stop in front of the door, and draw your katana. "I will soon have the Egberts, the remaining Striders, and your trolls either dead or under my custody. All that remains is to tear the voided area under Rue Lalonde's veil apart and find where you've been hiding, and chase down the Harleys. Once I've taken care of you lot I'll have everything I need to pick up where I left off, and tie up any loose ends."

You whirl about and bring your blade on Scratch's head, but he effortlessly parries you with his broom handle. His grin at this point is looking positively wicked, and he throws a heavy punch at you that you barely manage to evade.

"You'll not find me so easy to kill, Dirk." Scratch says with a dark chuckle. "Though I'm glad you attacked me, honestly. Initiating an attack against a guest would be improper, but when a guest tries to kill me? I think I can strike you down guilt free at this point." His broom swings at you faster than you'd believe possible, but your training with bro and Dave allows you to keep up, if only barely.

You dart in to strike at his arms, but he spins the broom so fast it nearly disarms you. You dart back as he swings again, and the speed at which the broom grazes your face causes the bristles to gouge several small cuts across your cheek. What the fuck, you know for a fact that's a regular straw broom, and your katana may not be as good as Bro's, but it sure as shit isn't a piece of junk like Dave's.

"Yes, before we created you children, we also performed several other experiments." Scratch says with a shrug. "I have augmented myself a great deal through genetic tweaking, though as a grown adult, there was only so much we could do."

"So it's freak vs freak then." You say with a smirk. You're doing your best to come up with a plan, taking your panic and shoving it away where it can't affect you. His broom is still a piece of wood, no matter how well he wields it. All you need is one good hit to take the advantage here.

He won't go down though. Doctor scratch gives you no openings at all, taking your hits easily and striking back even easier. You thrust and he parries, you slash and he deflects, and his broom has yet to so much as splinter. This guy is ridiculous.

You glance back at the room, and see no windows to leave through. His fireplace seems to let smoke out without actually having a chimney, so you can't leave that way, and unlike Equius you can't break through reinforced walls. You have one choice left.

"Alright, it seems like I can't touch you with this sword." You jump back to the far wall and put your sword away. Scratch pauses, his stance immediately relaxing. The bastard hasn't even broken a sweat. You haven't either, mind you, but you can't say you appreciate him making beating you look so easy. "I guess I'll have to make this get ugly."

"Oh dear, try not to make a mess of the place." Scratch says calmly, "I go to great lengths to keep my office in order."

You glare at him through your shades, and raise your hands. This is not something you like doing, because it's probably the most painful thing you're capable of, and it lasts long enough that the whole process feels more like torture than anything. That's not cool with you. But it's also not something you think Scratch can block.

You use your powers. Not the lame emotion capping ones you've always used to keep yourself at the top of your game. You use the powers that let you rip souls out of people's bodies. You've used them once, before you mastered your emotions, and got particularly pissed off during a sparring session. Once Bro was done beating the crap out of you he explained them to you, and you decided to never use them again.

This is a desperate situation though.

Scratch takes the hit as poorly as you expected, collapsing to the ground the moment you send spirit lightning into his limbs. He thrashes on the ground, snarling and yelling, fighting against the urge to give in and scream. Then he raises an arm.

He's not supposed to be able to move at all, so that's not a good sign. He throws his arm in front of the lightning though, and it stops at his hand.

"Soul lightning is not like the real deal, apparently." Scratch pants as he pulls back his sleeve. "It doesn't travel through metal."

The son of a bitch has a bionic arm. Your soul works on flesh, but apparently metal doesn't conduct souls. Go figure. This means your lightning is useless, but perhaps now that he's hurt you'll be able to get him.

"I know what you're thinking, and no, you still stand no chance." Scratch snarls at you as he retrieves his broom. "All you've done is anger me." He proves his point by flying at you across the room and knocking you sideways with the broom. The bristles come away bloody, and your glasses are shattered. "I'm afraid my hospitality is far past its breaking point."

You start to scramble for the door on all fours as he strides towards you. This guy is ridiculously good, and has a trump card to match yours. You have one option left to you. As he gets close you get to your feet and start to run. Scratch grabs your shoulder before you can get anywhere, and you spin to face him. You bring your hand, clenched in a fist, up to eye level as he raises his fist.

And you throw a handful of broken sunglasses in his eyes. Pixie dusted, motherfucker.

Scratch screams in agony as he reels backwards, and you run for the door. Your face is dripping blood everywhere, and your shoulder feels fractured. He's just blind and mad, and you've been around Terezi enough to know that's still plenty dangerous.

Doctor Scratch hears you move, and just to prove your point, throws himself at you with a roar and grabs you by the ankle. You trip, haul yourself that last step as Scratch fumbles at you, and grab the door, hauling it open.

And you come face to face with Rue Lalonde.

What.

The.

Fuck.

"Dirk sweetie, I'd forgotten what a lovely color your eyes were." She states simply, as though a murderous maniac wasn't clawing at your leg right now. Though he seems as dumbfounded as you are.

"Mrs. Lalonde?"

"Rue?"

"Doctor scratch." Rue's smile fades to a look that blows the locks off of the mental safe you keep your emotions in. You. Are. Terrified. And she's not even angry with you. She steps into the office to stand behind you, and plants her heel firmly into Doctor Scratch's face. His grip on your leg relents, and you stumble forward in surprise. "Dirk, go to the hill, Equius and Roxy are waiting for you already."

"Wait, what the fuck, why are you even here? What happened to Equius? Who's distracting the guards?"

"The guards are no longer aware of our presence." Rue says coldly, standing in her fighting stance as Scratch gets to his feet. "Equius has been injured again, the silly boy, but Roxy was able to get him out. And I've been here since shortly after Roxy left to follow you. I have spent the past three days deleting all troll data from the computer archives, as well as cleaning up the lab after you left it. The only troll DNA in the building now is the samples in your bag. This does mean that the prisoners are gone, sadly."

You take a moment to process all of this, and then realize she hasn't answered the question that's confusing you the most. "But why are you here?"

"I helped make you." Rue says with a small smile, looking back at you fondly. "I didn't want to interfere with your mission, since I prefer to let children grow on their own, but I did want to be here in case something went wrong. Like you walking into this office. Out of all of us, I am the one most responsible for everything, so call it atonement."

A loud explosion rings out, and you look back to see fire down the hallway, and a cloud of smoke through the hole left by the tank. Rue's smile becomes wicked as she elaborates. "Also, I wanted to make sure that when things were cleared up here it was done thoroughly this time. You really should go meet with the others, this facility will not last much longer I'm afraid!"

"You conniving witch!" Scratch hisses as he pulls glass from his face. "I should have killed you years ago when I had the chance!"

"Indeed." Rue pushes you out the door with a light touch, and you turn around in alarm. "Now it seems both of us are going to die here."

"What the fuck Lalonde, there's no way I'm leaving my best friend's mother to die fighting a maniac!"

"Dirk sweetie, tell my girls how sorry I am. And look after Roxy, I know how much she relies on you." Another explosion rings out from directly above you, and you throw yourself away from the doorway as the ceiling collapses, trapping Rue inside with Doctor Scratch.

Your name is Roxy Lalonde, and you have been very busy. You've killed a person with your rifle, spent a good half hour sobbing over it, and had to help carry a troll twice your size out of a government facility while he bled all over you and muttered about suicide. Then your mom showed up, used some weird voidy thing to blind everyone in the complex, and went to find your best friend in the world, who neither you nor Equius have heard anything from all night.

But your mom is here now, so you finally feel like things are going to be all right. She saved you from Equius, she locked all her alcohol away when she found out you had a problem (not that that stopped you), she always has a way to help you in dangerous times.

The explosions are a bit unnerving though, you'll admit. Plus Equius is still bleeding everywhere despite your best attempts to patch him up. He seems convinced that he's disgracing himself by laying here not dying, which is a bunch of bullshit, but he made sure to get you both out of the facility so you think he's probably just being hard on himself for some weird troll thing. You make a mental note to ask Nepeta about that later. Whenever you meet her again.

"Strider, you are damaged." Equius' voice gets your attention, and you realize he's flashstepped behind you while you were busy watching the base. "It would seem this mission was a failure."

"Not completely." Dirk holds up his bag, determinedly keeping his back facing you, as you move to look at him. "I've got Aradia's DNA here. Hopefully it will be enough to clone her a new body."

"That is excellent news!" Equius seems thrilled in spite of himself, as you reach Dirk's side. His head's turned.

"Dirk, stop being an ass and let me see you," you snap as Dirk flinches and shows you his face and the mess of parallel cuts across the left side of his face. "Ohmygosh. Dirk, what happened to you?" You grab some bandages and start wrapping his face messily.

"Got hit by a broom." Dirk mutters as you try to bandage his face without covering his mouth and nose. "Other guy looks worse though. Think I blinded him."

"Well as long as you fucked him up." You finish the impromptu medical treatment and start looking around. "Anyways, where's mom? She should have caught up to us by now, right?"

Dirk flinches. You feel your stomach drop as he looks up to you, his eyes boring into you. He's not crying, but he looks… empty. "Roxy, your mom's not coming back."

You stare at him blankly. Then you slap him across the face. "That's not funny Dirk, what the fuck happened!" You stop and look at your hand, at the blood there. He should have dodged that; he would never let you hit him unless…

Unless he felt like he really deserved it.

"I failed, Roxy." Dirk's voice wavers as he says it, though his face remains blank. "That's what happened. Your mom just gave her life to save me. And I am so… so… fucking… sorry." Dirk's stoic face cracks as he cries, blood leaking from his bandages, tears dripping from his face, his whole body held stiff as he shakes in a silent sob.

You black out.

Notes:

I had to cut content out of this. A whole two povs had to get taken off of the end of this chapter, because the Dirk and Scratch confrontation just got out of hand. And I regret nothing. The ending to this one hit me hard as I was finishing it as well, so it's probably for the best. Particularly Dirk crying, because that was something I debated the whole time I was writing this, and the fact that it's Dirk crying makes it all the more effective in my eyes.

I know some people will be disappointed that Dirk got his ass handed to him here, but as much as I wanted him to be the ultimate badass he is in Homestuck, things had to happen this way for the story to get anywhere. He tries to play it all cool, but this is the sort of thing that hurts no matter how stoic you try to be.

Rue Lalonde is the sort of character in Homestuck that has a great deal of significance that you don't find out until later. She knows what's going on better than most, and like the other guardians in Homestuck, the full extent of their knowledge is a complete mystery to us fans. Some have gone so far as to theorize that Mom Lalonde is in part behind the creation of the game itself. I can't say I am a supporter of that theory, but she's certainly behind things in this one.