Coming Out Hard

Part 2

"…sup."

~)

"Okay, what the fuck! Are you seriously telling me everything just grew back!?"

"Yes damn it, I sat down by the flaming sword and it all grew back, skin, blood, dong, the works. Now cut this horseshit out and stop asking me that same question over and over again."

"Everything!? Really!?"

Seriously, this little dude needed to calm the hell down. When Dave approached the two naked hollows (why the fuck were they even naked, the other ones were at least wearing sacks) arguing with each other he was prepared for anything from a coordinated assault from two directions to them begging him to end their miserable lives. He was not expecting the short one to accost him over the miraculous regrowth of his nads and the tall one to stand by looking like he'd kill to get a word in edge wise. Or was it a she? He honestly couldn't tell.

"Please, pardon my companions ill manners, but did I hear you right, sir? Did this sword imbedded within a small fire somehow rid you of the curse?"

Dave turned away from the glaring midget to look over towards the other hollow, which judging by the voice was very likely female. "First of all don't call me sir, that's only sexy when you've got discernible sex organs. Second no it didn't remove the Darksign it just restored my body."

Oh, um, well I suppose that is disappointing but at the same time still quite exciting. I believe I will have to try out this magical fire myself. Will you join me Karkat?"

"Hell yes, just give me a second."

The tall one looked over towards the one named Karkat, who was rummaging around one of the mad hollows Dave recently killed. The ridiculous sounding six letter name told him he was either from Thorolund or Carim.

Karkat stood and kicked the body, his foot ringing out against metal loudly enough to make all the non-Striders present wince.

"Ow, gods damn this thing, just open already!"

Probably Thorolund; kid just didn't seem slick enough to be from Carim.

"Karkat what in the world are you even doing?"

"Well fucking excuse me for not wanting to walk around bare ass naked in the freezing cold with my newly restored body in front of a couple of strangers. The fuck do you think im doing woman, im getting us some clothes."

After a few mumbled curses Karkat managed to pull off the dead hollow something Dave assumed had at one point been a pair of greaves and a waistcloth, as well as several strips of cloth from the tattered remains of its shirt. He tied the strips of cloth together to make a loincloth for himself and tossed the waistcloth and a leftover strip of cloth to his friend. She held it up, looked at it for a second, and then let it fall to the ground.

"Hey, do you have any idea how hard it was to undo those things without breaking something?! The fuck are you just throwing it down for!?"

"Don't get me wrong Karkat I greatly appreciate the thought. But I can do better."

She then proceeded to scavenge essentially the exact same getup Karkat had in mind, only in color; faintly, and very faded, red for the waistcloth and what was probably green a hundred years ago for the makeshift bra.

The pair headed over to the fire and sat down, followed by Dave who was trying not to show how much he was looking forward to having some actual human interaction that didn't involve killing bandits.

"So, now that everyone's good ready to chill by the flaming sword that we're all apparently not going to question, dressed and modest as can be, how about introductions?"

"Ah, my apologies, my name is Kanaya Maryam, of Thorolund, and this is Karkat Vantas of Carim."

"Thats knight Vantas of Carim you flightly broad."

"Dave Strider, knight of ill jams and badassery and also Astora."

"Bullshit, I bet you just stole that armor from some dead asshole on the way here."

"Karkat while I admit that our friend does not exactly display the qualities one would expect to find in an Astoran knight I want to point out that not only do you exhibit none of the qualities oF a knight of carim you just said all of that without pausing or hacking up globs of disgusting black liquid."

"Hey girl, not cool. I am like the fucking poster boy of knighthood over here."

"Fuck you Maryam. And you have this knight act down perfectly Strider, right up until you open that gutter you call a mouth and spew out those shameful, rotting, festeringconglomerations of words you dare to call sentences. And shut the fuck up Kanaya I don't want to hear one word about how hypocritical that sounds coming from me I am fully fucking aware of that I saw your eyebrows raise in that snooty manner like you think that you about to correct my shit and holy fuck you have eyebrows now hell yes. I'm just so damned relieved to be able to speak like a normal fucking human being and I can not even fucking tell you how much I am looking forward to my first heartneat in what feels like years."

"…Holy shit you need to quiet the hell down."

"Indeed Karkat that may have been a bit too verbose even for you. I think perhaps you should practice breathing if you intend on speaking in that manner after your lungs have reformed."

"Fuck both of you, fuck you Kanaya for saying that out of genuine concern and fuck Strider on principle for being a knight impersonating little shit.."

"Motherfucker I am so a knight."

"So you didn't steal that armor?"

"…Okay, yeah, technically I did steal the armor but…"

"And that shield you painted to look like one of the blue shields?"

"Hey, this is the legit crest shield you asshole."

"And what the ever loving fuck is that thing on your waist?"

"Okay, see, it used to be a sword, but it broke on the way over here."

"Bullshit, bullshit, and more bullshit! You expect me to believe that a knight of fucking Astora ranked high enough to get his family crest on his surcoat is going to travel all the way here to the nothern mountains without bringing repair powder?"

Dave was prepared to launch into a retort about his knightly fist in Karkat's rotting face but Kanaya suddenly leaned in towards them and cut him off. "I'm sure we can find better things to discuss than the validity of your respective claims to knighthood. Like why the fire emanating from this sword continues to burn despite a notable lack of any flammable material. Or why our humanification, which I know is not a real word but what the hell else can we call it, seems to have ground to a halt. And finally, what exactly we intend to do. I assume you came here for a reason Dave Strider and Karkat and I would gladly assist you…"

"Like hell I would!"

"…Especially considering it's pretty much that or sit here staring at walls."

"I'm looking for an undead thief, goes by the name Dirk."

"Well good luck identifying him among the bodies you've strewn all over the place."

"He's not a hollow, or at least not a mad one. He's an undead knight who stole a blessed sword from the royal vaults and ran off, so I'd know if I fought him here."

"Well if he isn't hollow, and he isn't adhering to some suicidal cocksuckers esoteric death quest, then why the fuck would he have come here of all places? "

"Hell if I know. Found one of his weird ass swords embedded in the mountain when I was climbing up here though, so he's definitely here somewhere."

"Well, Karkat and I explored the lower cells extensively so I can assure you he isn't there."

" Fuck, that's about the only place I haven't looked. I guess maybe he already left? Shit man, I am not looking forward to going back down this mountain at all."

" What about the door over there?"

"What…oh, you mean those big fucking doors not ten feet away, yeah in case you didn't notice their kinda fucking big. Why would I even attempt to open that bastard its atleast five times my height and made of metal."

"Well, prehaps…"

"Motherfucker!"

Dave and Kanaya both turned around in time to catch Karkat shoot up off the ground and direct a furious kick towards the fire.

"She's right gods damn it, we stopped healing! All this piece of shit did was make us into a pair of slightly better preserved corpses!"

"Karkat, while it is disappointing that we aren't fully restored we can at the very least speak normally again. And i'd also like to point out that you seem to have regained your muscles. I was about to suggest that prehaps the three of us, though mostly you and Dave, could force open this door."

Dave took a second look and the slightly revitalized Karkat and saw that the shouty little bastard did indeed have muscles. Actually, now that Dave looked, he saw that the guy was almost all muscle, lean and sharp, the telltale sign of someone who fights regularly and eats rarely.

"Huh, Maryam you might be onto something here."

~)~)

"Alright, on three we push."

"On three, or right after three?"

"Gods damn it Strider."

"Hey that's a legitimate question. You're not being very specific here."

"Oh fuck you, just push the damn door!"

Despite having to stop and bicker every two seconds the pair easily wedged one of the doors open wide enough for them to slip through one at a time. Kanaya watched as Karkat childishly dashed through so he could get in before Dave, the stoic maybe-knight seeming to give exactly zero fucks.

Kanaya secretly hoped he was indeed not a knight, it would be very disappointing to learn that the Knights of Astora were so…crude. Still, she thought, perhaps it's a bit silly to be basing her perceptions about the knights on what she's read in her not at all trashy books. Really, she's just setting herself up for disappointment isn't she? Hm.

Kanaya's preoccupation with these thoughts as she walked through the door is her excuse for why she didn't look up.

~)~)

Karkat was so, so fucking happy to have his muscles back. He wasn't certain, but he believed that he would be just strong enough to make the climb down the mountain. He was keeping that information to himself though, who knows how Strider would react to a hollow escaping the asylum, especially if he really was a knight of Astora, and Kanaya, well he wasn't really sure what he should do about that. There's no way she'd make the climb.

Karkat knew exactly of what Jack would want him to do, leave this broad and get his ass off the mountain. But fuck Jack. Karkat was sick and fucking tired of basing his decisions on what that asshole said, on his bullshit 'lessons'. That asshole left, so as far as Karkat was concerned he was no longer Jack's page, meaning he was free to make his own gods damned decisions, and no way in fuck was he just leaving this perfectly nice girl to rot in the asylum. He'd give her a fucking fitness class had to. It's not like they don't have the time. Or the space.

Clearly Karkat's attention was best served contemplating these facts, and not on some completely un-related, irrelevant diversion, like looking up.

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Dave made certain he was the last through the door; no telling when one of these guys would snap. Or when he himself would snap for that matter.

He didn't stray on that thought for too long though, years of being ambushed by Bro having trained him to immediately search for threats whenever he enters a room. Dave noted it was a large, evenly square room with numerous cracked urns and several cracked pillars that at one point held up a ceiling. Dave looked up, saw there was indeed no more ceiling, and was about to go and check out some of those urns when his eyes fell on a large statue above a huge set of double doors on the other side of the room. A statue that was breathing, and looking back at him, and holy shit that's not a statue is it?

"Fuck, run!"

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Kanaya did not run. Instead she instinctively whirled around to look at Dave, her eyes widening when she hears, and feels, the demon crash down to the floor on the other side of the room. She stares, frozen with fear, at the single most terrifying thing she's ever seen. The demon is identical to the one she and Karkat glimpsed in the courtyard of the lower cells, massively corpulent, with small, stunted wings, and a long, lip-less face that seems to be stuck in a permanent sneer. She also notices that it's well over five times her height, and holding what looks to be an uprooted tree not much smaller than itself.

At the same time the demon tightens its grip around its weapon Kanaya sees Karkat out of the corner of her eye making a beeline straight for a small opening to their left, Dave not far behind him. She shakes herself out of her stupor and runs after them, pushing off the ground as hard and as fast as her legs are capable. The demon brings its club above its head.

Dave and Karkat made it into the opening and immediately turned to face Kanaya, yelling for her to hurry. She was not ten feet away, certain she would make it, when the blast of air hit her. Had her heart been beating it would have stopped as the demon narrowly misses crushing her, though the deafening blow was swung with enough force that it knocked Kanaya forward, straight into the opening. She collides into Karkat, who attempted to catch her but is instead knocked to the ground with her. The last thing she sees before being knocked unconscious is the stone floor rising up towards her head over Karkat's shoulder.