My Homeboys Tried To Warn Me

Once the hollows on the balcony were dispatched Dave and Karkat immediately got themselves into another fight. As far as Kanaya could tell this time they were arguing about a shield Karkat pulled off one of the slain hollows; Dave was adamant that Karkat should take the shield while Karkat gave a very long, and loud, explanation as to exactly why Carim knights didn't use shields and where exactly Dave could shove his scavenged prize.

She knew that she ought to go and help them resolve their petty little dispute but at that moment she simply could not bring herself to care, instead focusing on beating back the wave of depression and resignation that fell over her with the realization of her imminent abandonment.

Looking to her left she saw another opening at the opposite end of the balcony, the hallway they could've accessed via the collapsed staircase back down below. She knew that there would be nothing in there but stones and dust and, if she was unlucky, a hollow who was too deaf to hear the sound of Dave and Karkat's argument. But still. It was the last room in her new home she had yet to explore. Would it bring her some sort of closure, or comfort? Probably not. But it was better than listening to Karkat's scratchy voice and staring at buried corpses.

She entered the room slowly and absent-mindedly, her thoughts miles away. She was considering maybe getting a few cuts or scrapes and heading back to one of the strange fires they'd found, remembering how good it felt when the magic had healed her injuries, how warm and content it made her feel, smudging out all her negative thoughts and feelings regarding her dismal situation. Her mind was forced back into the here-and-now however when her eyes fell upon something that was, well, not quite what she was expecting.

There, in the very back of the room, against the iron bars of the door leading to the collapsed staircase, was a dead hollow, heavily armored and lying face down with a huge, undulating blade shoved through its torso. Along the curves of the blade were beautiful flowing designs, many of which seemed to take on the shape of small flowers. The hilt of the blade was nearly level with Kanaya's neck, and she suddenly felt the strangest urge to grab the blade and pull it free despite knowing that there was no way she'd be able to lift the massive weapon. She moved towards it all the same however, and as she got closer she noticed the faint blue glow on the ground a few feet in front of the hollow.

Kneeling down, Kanaya was amazed to find the glow was from some sort of writing carved into the stone floor. The glow got brighter the closer she got, and she found that by putting her hand beneath The marks they got bright enough for her to make out what seemed to be a large, decorative signature done in the style of the ancient scholars. While her knowledge of that old script was limited to what she gleaned from a couple of books her mother insisted she read, she was fairly confident in her translation of the intricate script into two single letters; an R and an L.

Her thoughts on the presence of the strange blade and this clearly magical signature however were cut short by Karkat's terrified scream.

~)

"…IT'S CALLED DODGING, IT'S A VERY SIMPLE AND EASY TO LEARN CONCEPT THAT INVALIDATES THE USE OF A SHIELD. TRUST ME, IF I HAD MY FUCKING SHOTEL RIGHT NOW EVEN ONE OF THE REAL BLUE SHIELDS WOULDN'T BE WORTH SHIT. NOT ONLY THAT BUT…"

"But? You gonna continue with your shitty rant or not?"

"FUCK YOU, DO YOU NOT HEAR THAT BREATHING NOISE?"

"…no. What breathing noise?"

"UGH, IT'S PROBABLY BECAUSE OF THAT RIDICULOUS FUCKING HELMET YOU'RE WEARING. IT'S JUST LIKE YOUR STUPID FUCKING SHIELD. IF YOU WERE TOO SLOW OR TOO DUMB TO JUST GET OUT OF THE FUCKING WAY THEN YOU DESERVED TO GET YOUR ASS CUT UP. SHIT, THAT NOISE IS SO FAMILIAR FOR SOME REASON."

"You brain must be starting to rot cause I don't hear anything but the bitter sound of ungrateful bitching."

"IT SOUNDS LIKE ITS COMING FROM BACK HERE."

Dave watched Karkat pace around the balcony before eventually edging towards a small pedestal hanging out above the room the upper section of the asylum was hanging over. He was slowly tightening his grip over the hilt of what was left of his sword, wondering in the back of his mind whether or not the shouty little bastard was starting to crack when it suddenly occurred to his forgetful brain exactly which room this balcony had to overlook.

"Shit Karkat get away from there!"

Karkat, rather than heed Dave's advice merely whirled around and, from the look of his expression, prepared to yell at the armored knight some more. No words left his furious mouth, however, because right when he turned to fully face Dave he felt a rush of air at his back and, just for a moment, that breathing noise was a little higher up and a lot closer.

Dave watched, horrified, as the demon rose up from behind Karkat on its stunted wings, hammer raised above its head. Before his brain even processed what was happening Karkat instinctively .rolled forward, dodging the demons massive hammer as it fell back to the ground. He hadn't gotten far enough though, and screamed as the platform crumbled and he went tumbling down into the lower room with the demon.

Dave stood there, frozen, for half a second more before running forward and jumping off the newly formed ledge. He landed unsteadily on the back of the demons head, his legs landing on its shoulders, and narrowly avoiding impalement on the creature's thin, branch-like horns. Quickly the Astoran knight pushed forward with his legs forcing his upper body over the top of the demons head and catching the edge of his boot on one of its horns. Upside down, he pulled his shield with both hands and plunged it into the demons left eye. The monster howled in pain and shock as it thrashed his head forward, launching Dave halfway across the room.

Flying uncontrollably through the air, Dave discovers, is an incredibly disorienting and unpleasant experience. Almost as unpleasant as landing.

Dave lands on his right shoulder, hard and at an angle. He feels more than hears a loud pop as a sharp pain explodes out of his shoulder, nearly bringing tears to his eyes. His brother trained him well though, and in the space of a second he embraced the pain, letting it flow through his body and dissolve somewhere in his back of his head. Shakily he rose to his feet, one arm hanging limp by his side and the other tightly gripping his blood stained shield. He warily watched the demon as it flailed around ahead of him, patting at its eye in pain and confusion.

Backing away slowly he looked to his right to see Karkat struggling against the iron bars that now blocked the side passaged they'd originally used to get out. "Hey asshole, how's that door looking? Are we as fucked as I think we are?"

"YEAH, WE'RE PRETTY FUCKED. BUT IM NOT DYING WITHOUT ATLEAST MAKING THIS FUCKER BLEED PROFUSELY, SO WHEN HE RECOVES GET HIS ATTENTION AND KEEP YOUR DISTANCE. I'LL HANDLE THE REST."

"The hell, are you saying you wanna use me as bait?"

"ITS CALLED HAVING A FUCKING, OH SHIT MOVE!"

Dave noticed too late. The demon was not as dumb as they'd thought. As it thrashed about in pain it had also been slowly moving closer to Dave. He had been keeping an eye on it, prepared to make a mad dash away if it looked like it was going to recover or if it moved its flailing mass too close to him. However, he hadn't counted on it immediately snapping out of its fit as if the whole thing had been a ploy to get closer to the much faster knight, and he certainly hadn't counted on the fat bastard making up the distance by fucking jumping at least twenty feet towards him with its hammer poised to strike.

Had Dave not been rigorously trained for years by Dirk to react instinctively to threats, he would've been crushed to death before he even realized what had happened. As it was his arm brought itself up the moment he saw the demon move out of the corner of his eye, and Dave, Karkat and if was even capable of such things the demon as well, all stared in shocked amazement at the demon's hammer resting against Dave's shield. I had felt like his arm had been kicked by a horse, but he'd blocked it. He'd fucking blocked it.

~)~)

For an undead with no proper weapons or armor, and another undead with no proper weapon and what was likely a dislocated shoulder, Karkat thought they were doing pretty well. He wasn't sure exactly how the hell that asshole had stopped the demons hammer with his shield, but apparently it wasn't something he was willing to try again; Dave had spent the last five minutes just sprinting around the room, the considerably slower demon unable to land a blow. Karkat had to admit, the smug bastard had stamina.

For his part Karkat had used every opening he found to drive his blade into the demons gigantic butt cheeks. He was literally stabbing it in the ass, something he would have found funny were he not about to die.

He was kind of surprised at how well he was doing; he didn't remember being this fast even at his peak. But no matter how many times he drove his sword into the demons corpulent ass, his shitty excuse for a blade just wasn't go deep enough to get past the layers of fat and draw any significant amounts of blood. It was clear to the angry knight that they were fucked.

Dave would get tired eventually and give out, the demon would crush his stoic ass, and then the already exhausted Karkat would be next in line.

Shame that retarded fuck was going to die with him. At least Kanaya was safe.

~)~)~)

Kanaya was terrified.

When she heard Karkat scream she immediately shot up and made to dash back to the balcony. However, as she rose from the ground she unknowingly brushed her hand over the signature engraved in the floor, activating the ancient spell. Immediately the room was filled with a blinding blue light. Kanaya gave a surprised shout and quickly shut her eyes, immediately going still. Even with her eyes shut the searing blue light made her head ache as she slowly walked forward, terrified and desperately wanting to get out of the room.

As her outstretched hands made contact with the opposite wall a high pitched ringing noise sounded out from somewhere in her skull. Feeling the wall, the turned and pressed her back up against it, pushing her hands to her ears in a futile attempt to block out that terrible noise. She knew that the exit was to her left, only a few feet, and if she could get to it maybe she could get away from… whatever the hell this was. She managed to sidle across the wall about two feet before the spell finally knocked her out.

When she blinked her eyes open a few seconds later, the light and noise thankfully gone, she saw a second message scrawled into the floor in front of her.

"Draw the blade, save your friends."

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Karkat was beginning to think the only source of entertainment the gods had left was to find new and creative ways of making his life worse. The demon decided that the bastard literally slicing up its ass was a higher priority than the bastard running around like a heavily armored, headless chicken. Karkat was thankfully nimble enough to roll out of the way of the demons hammer, though the force of the blows was jarring and every time he came back up a little slower and a little more unsteady. He didn't think he'd be able to keep it up much longer.

Dave meanwhile had taken the short respite to reset his aching shoulder, his scream drowned out by one of the demons thunderous blows, and to inhale the most massive quantity of oxygen his lungs would allow him to hold. He tried to take Karkat's place, attacking the demons backside while it was occupied by the other knight, but his sword was shorter than even Karkat's and most of the time didn't even draw blood. He came to the same conclusion as Karkat; they were completely fucked.

~)~)~)~)~)

As Kanaya drug the heavy sword out of the room and back onto the balcony she was once again blinded and stunned by the noise and light of another message appearing. After a few seconds her head cleared and she saw another message carved into the floor a few feet away. As she ran towards it however another tremor worked its way through the building and she tripped, again falling to the ground.

She grimaced as the pain in her back flared up again. Gritting her teeth, she used the sword to push herself up and made her way over towards the writing. As much as she'd like to just lay there for a while, it didn't take a genius to figure out what the loud crashing sound coming from the lower room was, and where Dave and Karkat were.

"Wait for the demon to be directly under you, then jump off and let gravity drive the sword into the demons skull. If the magic has held, after all these years, then this blade should rend both the demons flesh and bone with relative ease."

Kanaya read the message, thankfully written in a more modern script, with a great deal of trepidation. She was supposed to kill the demon? Her hesitation disappeared when she felt another tremor work its way through the balcony. She couldn't just let Karkat die down there.

Using the sword as a crutch, she made her way to the section where, previously, a small pedestal jutted out into the demons room. Now however it was simply a drop off straight into the room from where Kanaya observed Karkat expertly evading the demons massive hammer and an exhausted Dave struggling to deal some sort of wound to the monsters backside with his dagger.

She'd thought that since she was looking down on it from so high up, the demon would appear smaller. It did not.

She attempted to scream out to Karkat, either to let him know that he should lead the demon towards her or to catch the demons attention directly. When she tried to force air through her throat however she felt a horrible, wet, tearing sensation and immediately broke into a coughing fit, blood a few shades too dark leaking from the corner of her mouth.

As she doubled over the demons hammer once again struck the ground, shaking the entire section of the asylum. Kanaya fell to her hands and knees to avoid being knocked off her feet and winding up in the same position as the knights, the sword clattering to the ground beside her. She spat out the sour, dark blood that drained into her mouth from her torn throat and wondered exactly what the hell she was supposed to do now.

She really didn't think she was cut out for this; jumping from on high, blade in hand, and rescuing hapless knights was something that the characters in her books, and strong, capable warriors like Dave and Karkat did. Clearly, these messages were left for someone like them, not her. She was just some merchant's daughter for fucks sake. How could she be expected to do this?

Both her doubts and her dilemma as to how to draw in the demon were answered by the light, much brighter this time, and without the unsettling noise. When the light faded she saw it, another message, right there on the floor between her hands.

"I have faith in you, Kanaya."

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Karkat rolled away from yet another hammer blow, quickly righting himself and putting distance between him and the demon as it raised its hammer back up off the ground. He opted for walking backwards as quickly as he could and then simply standing still, conserving his energy for when he would need to dodge again.

He'd been banished from the closest thing he'd ever had to a home, cursed with un-death, betrayed his mentor, strapped to a wagon with some flighty broad for several months as his body decomposed. He'd been stabbed, beaten and tortured. He'd fought, bled, and sometimes killed for scraps of food or flasks of clean water. But through all that he'd never doubted that he wouldn't come out alive. He'd suffer, that'd been made very clear early on, by the gods he would suffer, but he would always live to suffer tomorrow. He'd never despaired.

As he looked up at the demon, muscles sore and gasping for air, he felt despair. Each time he pushed himself up it felt harder and harder, and soon his eyes were able to confirm his fears. His muscles weren't just tiring out, they were shrinking, atrophying. What was worse, his head was getting…fuzzy. He was having a lot more trouble focusing on the five hundred pounds of hammer swinging death after his ass than he should. He was too scared to even broach the thought that he might really be going hollow.

He narrowly dodged the demons next attack, the force from the blow causing him to roll much farther than he'd intended. Disoriented, sluggishly got to his feet and turned his head upwards toward the demon who thankfully had turned its attention back to the armored knight.

Karkat watched as Dave who, frustrated with his inability to inflict any real wound on the monster, had actually begun kicking it in the ass, rolled repeatedly between the demons legs, forcing it to constantly turn around in order to line up a its hammer.

Karkat's relief over the tireless Astoran taking over demon dodging duty was short lived however as a bright light flashed in his eyes and a terrible, unrecognizable noise tore through his skull. Falling to his knees, his hands pressed against his ears, he was terrified that this was it, he was finally going fully hollow. He'd lose his mind and either be killed by the demon, killed by Dave, or kill Dave and then be killed by the demon. Before he could let loose the first of what was to be his last long string of curses however, both the light and the noise leaving as quickly as it came.

Looking back up, he saw both Dave and the demon looking around groggily, Dave rising up from having fallen to the ground that the demon furiously shaking its head back and forth. Apparently whatever the fuck that light was, it hit them too. Oh thank you sweet merciful fuck he thought, maybe I'm not going hollow yet after all.

Once again his relief was short lived. The demon, instead of going for the still disoriented Dave, instead turned its gaze back towards what was left of the ledge leading to the balcony. Karkat followed the its gaze and went cold when he saw Kanaya, on her hands and knees with her face turned downward on what remained of the ledge leading to the balcony.

He shouted to her, "KANAYA YOU FUCKHEAD, GET THE FUCK AWAY!", but neither she nor the demon seemed to notice him.

He rose unsteadily and tried to run towards the demon, desperate to get its attention away from Kanaya. Still dizzy he ran ten feet at most, in a zigzag, before falling flat on his face.

Pushing himself back up on his hands he watched, helplessly as the demon squatted down right below Kanaya, its stunted, tattered wings flexing back. He could see it now; the demon would bound upwards, hammer raised, and crush Kanaya just like it tried to crush him.

The demon barely rose half a foot before Kanaya walked off the ledge, a monstrous blade pulled out of nowhere and pointed downward. Kanaya lost her grip as soon as the blade hit the demon. She rolled off the demons shoulder and fell to the ground. The blade embedded itself into the top of the demons head, three quarters of its length going straight through its skull and into its brain.

ST: FYI, in this particular rendition of the Dark Souls world strange, outlandish names with six letters is a custom practiced commonly in Thorolund and Carim, so much so that it's almost always a safe assumption that someone with such a name is from one of those two cities. That's why characters in this story will immediately assume certain other characters are from those cities. That assumption will not always be correct.