"WHY ARE THERE SO MANY GOGDAMN CANOPY-PROVIDERS HERE? WHO EVEN NEEDS THIS MANY. THEY JUST MAKE THINGS HARDER TO SEE." Karkat muttered, just to fill the silence that lay around them. Even though he would never admit it to the others, he hated the quiet that comes with being alone. Sollux had been right about him, dammit, though he didn't want to give the electromancer the satisfaction of acknowledging it. "HOW MUCH FURTHER IS IT GOING TO BE TAVROS."
"nOT MUCH uMMM, fURTHER. tHEY SAY THAT THERE iS A hOUSE RIGHT UP aHEAD." The two informant squirrels ran back up the trunk of a nearby 'canopy-provider' and disappeared into a bundle of leaves far above. Karkat folded his arms and slouched forward slightly as he walked, a deep grimace still imprinted on his face while two eyes scanned back and forth along the tree line. Though Tavros had no potential as a combat operative, his abilities were perfect for a reconnaissance unit, and proved invaluable to Karkat to ensure communication with the other groups remained a strong constant.
Sure enough, the sounds of lapping waves against a dry, sandy beach drifted from ahead of them, followed by a squat cement building housed in a grassy clearing. The sun setting behind them covered the whole area in shadows from the trees, and started letting a chill set itself in the air. Sections of fiery orange-red light provided brief reprieve as the trio sprinted quickly to the rusted door and pounded against it, breathing hard.
"HOW THE GRUB-FUCKING WASTE-LOAD DID IT GET SO COLD THIS FAST? ITS FREEZING NOW AND I WAS JUST SECRETING ENOUGH LIQUID FROM MY FLESH CORRUGATIONS TO FILL A…..HEY. WHY AREN'T THEY ANSWERING THE DOOR. THEY SAID THEY WERE GOING TO BE HERE. DIDN'T THEY SAY THAT THEY WERE HERE?!" Karkat pounded his fist against the door harder, more urgently.
"KK, calm down. Maybe they ju2t went two meet u2 half-way." Sollux said, worry creeping under his tone. The statement was more a question than any real belief.
They waited a moment, listening for any noises from inside. Tavros paced anxiously, and Karkat's heartbeat began to quicken.
Nothing.
"…c'mon, let'2 look for another way iin2iide. iit'2 obviiou2 that nobody ii2 goiing to open the door for u2." Sollux suggested.
"TAVROS, CAN YOU DO ANYTHING ABOUT THE DOOR?" Karkat asked, turning to Tavros, who was frowning worriedly.
Tavros shook his head sadly, in apology. "i'M REALLY, uMMM, sORRY kARKAT. tHERE AREN'T ANY nIGHTBEASTS aWAKE YET, aND I ALREADY sENT tHE sCAMPER-bEASTS BACK TO tHEIR hIVES."
Karkats grimace deepened. He turned and started walking around the building to find a way in. He made it almost halfway around before spotting a window. It was broken, and jagged pieces stuck in at strange angles.
It had been shattered inwards.
Deep purple blood covered the tips of some of the shards of glass, dripping slowly down to the sill.
From inside, the recognizable stench of death and decay drifted out through the open space.
Karkat stood, stunned. "No…..No..No. NO. NO. NONONONONONO!AGHHHHHHHHH!" he screamed, falling to his knees.
"WHY DID THEY HAVE TO SEND THAT FREAK AFTER US?! WHY COULDN'T IT HAVE BEEN JUST REGULAR HIRED FLESH-SACKS!? AT LEAST THEN WE MIGHT HAVE HAD A FUCKING CHANCE AT ESCAPING!"
"KK, what are you talkiing about?! What'2 goiing on?!" Sollux asked, starting to get frightened.
"THERES ONLY ONE EXPERIMENT WITH THAT FUCKING ATROCIOUS BLOOD COLOR, AND THAT EXPERIMENT IS PROJECT BARD. HES ONE OF THE GOGDAMN HIGH COURT AND THERES NO WAY WE CAN FACE HIM ALONE. IF HE IS STILL AS RIDICULOUSLY STRONG AS WHEN I SAW HIM, WE NEED TO RUN FAR AWAY FROM HERE RIGHT NOW." Karkat said hurriedly, rushing to his feet and grabbing Sollux's wrist, tugging him away from the dark, gaping, bloody window. The yellow-blood stumbled at first before catching his balance and sprinting beside Karkat.
Tavros had already taken slow steps backwards away from the shack as Karkat spoke, eyes getting wider with fear, before turning around and running back into the trees when the others started moving.
The three experiments sped through the forest, dark trees now whipping by at their sides and unfamiliar sounds echoing against the wood. Far away, Karkat could swear he could hear the haunting 'honk' of a mirthful bike horn go off in the distance behind them, just once, softly, before fading away.
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Under a cluster of boulders that formed a natural cave, they finally stopped and decided to make camp. Quick improvisations were scavenged to conceal their presence, and a small fire was lit in the stone-walled chamber to keep the biting cold at bay from sweat-drenched bodies. Holes in the structure of the ceiling allowed for ventilation of the smoke, and shirts were hung over the fire by a pole to dry out. The kids sat next to each other, knees drawn in and backs pressed against the wall.
"KK, you have two tell u2 what we are dealing wiith here. ii need two know what we are fiightiing iif we are goiing two be able two protect the other2."
"DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND SOLLUX? HES HIGH COURT. WE CANT FIGHT HIM. HED CULL ALL THREE OF US IN ONE FUCKING GO IF WE DONT KEEP OUT OF HIS REACH. THE OTHERS HAD MORE COMBAT-CLASS OPERATIVES AND LOOK WHAT HE DID TO THEM. TAVROS IS A PASSIVE OPERATIVE, YOU WOULDN'T HAVE ENOUGH POWER TO LAST LONG ENOUGH TO TIRE HIM OUT, AND I DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW TO USE MY NOOK-FONDLING ASPECT YET. THE CHANCES OF US EVEN BOTHERING HIM WITH OUR ATTACKS ARE AS EXISTENT AS THE CHANCES OF US MAKING IT TO THE TWO OTHERS HIVE YOU WERE MENTIONING EARLIER. WHICH, JUST IN CASE YOUR THINK-PAN COULDNT WRAP AROUND THE BLATANT CONCEPT, IS: FUCKING NONE."
Karkat let his head sink to his knees and drew himself into a tighter ball. His voice muffled, he added, "WELL BE LUCKY IF ANY OF THE OTHERS WERE EVEN ABLE TO ESCAPE THAT PSYCHO."
Sollux just sat quietly in thought for a moment, staring with concern at the small form of their leader who right now seemed so fragile. Tavros followed suit with Karkat and hugged more tightly around his own shins, sadness and worry for the others invading his thoughts.
"Well we have two do 2omethiing…and we are goiing two need you two lead u2. We can't do thii2 by our2elve2, KK. You fuck up a lot of thiing2 mo2t of the tiime, but there ii2n't anybody el2e who can deal wiith u2 liike you do."
"WELL THANKS ASSHOLE. THAT HIT ME RIGHT IN MY SENSITIVE VASCULAR PUMP ORGAN. ILL BE SURE TO WRITE A MOTIVATIONAL FUCKING MEMO USING THOSE EXACT WORDS NEXT TIME I SEE A PORTABLE NETWORKING DEVICE" Karkat replied sarcastically, still stressed but noticeably less so than he had been moments before.
"Good. ii'll be 2ure to fiind you a 2erver two ho2t iit and let everyone wiitne22 the glory that ii2 Karkat'2 lack of iinner thought. Maybe you can even make a whole adventure out of iit and furnii2h iit wiith 2hiitty drawiing2 made iin a low-grade art program. You'll have endle22 mountaiin2 of bulge-wor2hiippiing fan2 that all dre22 up like you and get together iin 2ome biizarre human riitual of mediia 2upport."
Karkat stared blankly back at Sollux for a handful of seconds before replying slowly, "WHO THE JEGUS FUCK WOULD WASTE THEIR WHOLE DAY DRESSING AND ACTING LIKE SOMEBODY THEYIDOLIZE? EVEN THE THOUGHT OF SOMETHING THAT CREEPY BRINGS A DISGUSTING TASTE INTO MY FLAVOR ANALYZING CHAMBER."
Sollux smirked, having brought his friend out of the state of depression he had been in. "ii know. ii can barely 2tand one of you. ii doubt thii2 planet would be able two handle the 2heer iincompetence brought on by haviing a whole bunch of you2 all 2crewiing thiing2 up."
"i tHINK tHAT sOUNDS kIND oF fUN tHOUGH. sOMETIMES, wHEN lIFE iS rEALLY hARD oN yOU, iT fEELS gOOD tO bE sOMEBODY eLSE, eVEN iF iTS uHHHH, oNLY fOR a lITTLE wHILE …" Tavros added thoughtfully.
A reflective pause on what the young boy had said came over the three, pushing out the permeating feeling of fear to replace it with wishful thinking….
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The Bard crouched over to wipe deep red, coagulating blood off from one of his two clubs onto the bodies that lay in front of him in a pool of the same. The forms were beaten to an unidentifiable pulp and broken at odd angles to contort the bodies into something more resembling a pile of pummeled meat or a crushed cow than actual people. The top half of their skulls had both been cracked completely off after a few blows, sending chunks of brain matter scattering across the floor towards the door its owner had desperately been trying to reach.
"MoThErFuCkErS DiDn'T eVeN tRy To PuT uP a FiGhT. ThAt'S sOmE kInD oF dISaPpOiNtInG, BrO. HoNk." The purple-blood smiled dreamily down at the corpses, licking a stream of blood from the other club just as a loud scream came from outside the window, causing him to stop and face the shattered glass.
He could hear two voices coming from directly outside, talking about….Well, talking about him.
The lazy smile grew wider, exposing sharp, pointed teeth, and his hazy eyes came back into relative focus.
This shit was gonna be too easy.
While the two voices rapidly retreated, their hasty footsteps beating the ground, Project Bard slowly stood up, unlocked the steel door and stepped out into the chill evening air. A cool breeze sent a refreshing shiver up his spine, letting his long, stringy legs and arms stretch out before turning to lope silently after the runners with a single, "HoNk."
It wasn't hard to find them, even though he was sidetracked several times by some motherfucking sweet miracles of the canopy-provider nation: Colorful as fuck flutterbeasts; liquid running down a hill in a path that never seemed to run out; orange, red, and brown canopy-provider material falling from their families in the sky…..
From a concealed branch in a tall tree, the purple-blood watched the three make their camp in a set of boulders and attempt to mask their presence from his keen senses. Every once in a while, he would let out a honk of amusement to watch the reaction of the short stubby one, who tensed up and quickly looked back and forth around him before shaking it off and finishing preparations.
When complete darkness fell and the three went into their makeshift shelter, the hazy boy climbed acrobatically down from the tree and jumped from a lower branch to the roof of their hive. Right next to him were ventilation holes, one of which was large enough to fit through and jump down into the room below.
The murderer tensed up his muscles for the leap, listening to their words carefully to determine their places in the chamber…..
He set his hands to grasp the handles of his brutal clubs as soon as he landed….
And then he-
"i tHINK tHAT sOUNDS kIND oF fUN tHOUGH. sOMETIMES, wHEN lIFE iS rEALLY hARD oN yOU, iT fEELS gOOD tO bE sOMEBODY eLSE, eVEN iF iTS uHHHH, oNLY fOR a lITTLE wHILE …"
The Bard relaxed his muscles, letting his hands fall away from the clubs, his dreamlike smile slowly furrowed into a frown of concentration. The statement brought on a feeling of sympathy…it hit something inside him that he didn't quite remember.
Fighting through the mangled, drug-injected mass of tissue that served as his brain, a memory resurfaced:
It was him, back when he was little. He was sitting on the couch waiting for his dad to come home from the place he worked. He had to wait a long time every day until his daddy would get back and open the door so that he could go and hug him around his big, tall knees. Whenever the purple-blood would ask where his daddy went all day, and why he couldn't come home sooner, his dad would reply, "I help people on the street to keep them safe, Gamzee. If I don't go to work every day, a whole bunch of bad people will fight in the street and they might hurt people like you and me."
Still, it was lonely a lot of the time. Sometimes daddy wouldn't even come home at night. He wouldn't be able to get the hugs that he….Gamzee….waited a really long time to give him….
He used to get really sad when daddy was gone and he was alone, so he tried to imagine what it would be like if he and his daddy went on all sorts of adventures together to the places he saw in his picture books.
There were really cool things in the far-away places, like giraffes and rainbows and pyramids, and he thought it would be fun to spend time with his daddy seeing those things together.
His daddy was always busy though…
One day, Gamzee asked where all the fun things came from in his books. His daddy lowered his head, and a big, happy smile spread across his face. He looked back into Gamzee's wide, innocent eyes and said:
"Miracles, Gamzee. Never forget that. Even if things seem hard, the world is full of miracles that were made to make us happy. A lot of big people forget about them. I'm lucky though, because I have you, my Little Miracle."
With that, his daddy wrapped soft arms around him in a big, warm hug…and…..and….
Suddenly, The Bard was thrown back out of the memory, a sudden pain searing his through his brain.
"Oh shit, Bro…." Gamzee said to the world quietly, overwhelmed by the power of sheer raw emotion. Tears were streaming down his face and the urge to cry was overpowering, twisting his face into the expression of someone who knew loneliness better than anything else. He stumbled a few steps, staring with wide, crying eyes out into nothing as if hoping the memory would replay itself on a screen in front of him.
"Please, Bro. Please show me it again…I-I don't wanna let him go yet….. )o;"
Of course though, the world didn't feel that merciful for any one person; the world felt no compassion for the sad or the lonely; and the world kept spinning, ignoring the weeping high-blood's only wish.
After realizing that the world wasn't listening, the purple-blood crumbled into a pile and sobbed quietly to himself. Deep inside, his heart throbbed painfully.
==Damn, that was depressing .-. Be the Other Group