Feferi had been staring straight at the TV when she made her dramatic announcement, and so did not notice the immediate reaction. As a result, she had time to add: "I thought you were going to ask me a BIOLOGY QU-ESTION!" before all hell broke loose.

Karkat jumped to his feet and rounded on Jade and Feferi, pelting them with questions as Nepeta and Rose stared on in flabbergasted horror. Kanaya attempted to overpower Karkat's shouting to bring the discussion to a more reasonable volume, but no one heard her, as others in the lab joined in to tell Karkat to shut up. They finally left outright and did not return, leaving the six at the TV to their own private spat. The shouting only became more focused when Jade seemed to hear Kanaya and began angrily pelting Karkat with popcorn up until she landed one in his open mouth.

"WHAT THE HELL?"

"I said shut up, fuckass!"

"OH AND A SIMPLE FUCKING 'BE QUIET' WAS TOO HARD FOR YOU, THEN?"

"Looks it was too hard for you! Why don't you try listening to people once and a while, and maybe-" "MAYBE YOU SHOULD TRY SHUTTING YOUR DAMN MOUTH WHEN SOMEBODY'S TALKING, DIDN'T YOUR DOG TEACH YOU..." "...think you'd have realized by now that just maybe you're not the centre of..." "...WAITING FOR A PAT ON THE FUCKING HEAD FOR ENFORCING BASIC SOCIAL NORMS, I CAN'T IMAGINE-" "...so far up your waste chute that you don't even-"

But then: "Maybe you two should get a room!" Nepeta cut off her shout by tearing off her hat and spiking it in her lap. "Ugh!" She reached forward to snap up the remote and the room shook with noise as the others tried to shift out of her way. Karkat was so quick to avoid her that he knocked over a pile of Friedberg and Seltzer films. Nepeta, wilfully ignorant to the shocked silence about her, began to rewind the DVD to its position just before the interruptions. When she looked up after pausing it there, a blush began to creep onto her face. She smothered it with anger until finally passing off the conversation to "...Karkat?" with as much sarcasm as possible.

Karkat watched her out of the corner of his eye and did not speak until her hat was once again securely on her head. When he did, it was to Jade. "You know," he said, "you could have just said, 'Hey, there's an eldritch horror in this TV show. That's weird.'"

"I wasn't sure what it was, Karkat," Jade said, with a tip of her head to Feferi. "It might have just been a squid, or a kraken."

"A what?" Feferi asked.

"It's a... well..." Jade turned around to Rose for an explanation, only to see her friend staring off into space, tapping a finger on her lips. "Uh, Rose?"

But Rose gave no response: not even a blink from her enthused, focused eyes. "She's thinking," Kanaya said, not without concern. Jade had to defer to her when it came to Rose's physical expressions - though Jade had known Rose for years, Kanaya had spent more time with her in person by degrees.

"Great," Karkat said, "Grimdarky had gone bye-bye. Okay, honesty time:" Karkat said to Feferi. "Did you, or did you not, put your fucking lusus into the new universe against my goddammed orders?"

"No!" Feferi snipped.

Nepeta's did not take the renewed shouting well and stomped to her feet. "Karkat, this is a cartoon!"

Karkat spread his arms wide toward the TV. "Then why is she THERE?"

"I don't know!" Nepeta said, irritation still her byword. "Maybe she sent them a picture?"

"On Earth?"

"Oh my God, that's it." Rose whispered, unperturbed by the nearby argument. "...They're insane." In a bit of a daze, Rose stood up and began to pace, but on her second pass she stopped to reached out and rub Nepeta between the horns, eliciting the first cat sound from her since her outburst. "It explains everything. Assuming that this is unmistakably Feferi's lusus and not some other ambassador from the Horrorterrors..."

"Of course it's my lusus!" Feferi said with a bit of a huff. "And if there was an Ambassador on Earth, you'd have known! Think I don't know my own lusus..."

Rose nodded absently. "Well, Earth hasn't been short of eldrich rule ourselves," she said, earning a confused glance from Jade, "but we'll assume that isn't the case. Listen: the production staff had to have seen her to get such an accurate drawing. Spending that much time staring at a Horrorterror, trying to figure out how it relates to space and light to properly depict it..."

"Gl'bgolyb wasn't a real Horrorterror," Feferi said, arms crossed and glaring.

"I..." Rose looked back to Kanaya, who shook her head. "I'm sorry, you're right. That was rude of me to assume." But Rose's mind did not stop working. "...However, if your lusus had never been on Earth, the means of transmission..." she snapped her fingers. "The only way someone could have drawn your lusus is if they saw her, either because an image was put into their minds or because she talked to them directly via timeless space. Humans don't react well to that over time," she said, then stumbled. "Trust me."

Perhaps because she had Rose had already discussed Rose's history with the Horrorterrors to satisfaction, Kanaya was the one to break the awkward silence that followed. "But why a cartoon? If we're assuming that this was a sent message, it must have been deliberately sent to Human cartoonists."

"Not necessarily," Rose said. "Most evidence on Earth about eldritch interference was found second-hand via archaeological sites, et cetera."

Jade rolled her eyes. "Rose, those were short stories in science fiction magazines from the thirties!"

"Extremely accurate short stories, weren't they?" Rose tapped the side of her nose, and Jade hit her with a pillow.

Kanaya actually pondered Rose's point for a moment. "Then allow me to invoke a simple example. What seems less surreal: that an ancient Human artist contacted by Gl'bgolyb drew a piece on her that was rediscovered by a company producing a grub show about Human Friendship, or that she may have contacted the producers of a grub show about Human Friendship directly?"

There was a genuine pause in the conversation as the six of them took a moment to consider the question. "Kanaya," Nepeta said. "That's just more confusing."

It was Karkat who pieced it all together at last. "Well," he said, his throat dry. "Kind of obvious, isn't it?"

"How lucky of you to think so," Kanaya said, her own head now lowered in thought.

"No, really," he said. "Either she sent it herself or someone else did it. Maybe a God we know. Maybe an old friend," he said, Rose not meeting his eyes despite his attempt. "What's the common element?"

"My lusus," Feferi said. "So?" But after a moment, she caught on as well, her face falling. Jade saw the change and looked to Karkat.

"She or they used Feferi's lusus," he repeated. "Why use her lusus when they could have sent any sort of vision?"

Nepeta suddenly squirmed up into her spot. "Fefurry," she whispered.

"Us," Kanaya clarified. "This... either the episode or the entire - as you've said, unusual season - is intended for the sixteen of us."

"Can we be that sure?" Rose asked. "I'd appreciate a bit more evidence before assuming that it's meant for us and not... uh..."

The others exchanged glances. They were sixteen survivors, all alive, all relatively safe in the lab. They had long known that it was all too lucky. Not one of them was going to jinx their lives by uttering the words "Doomed timeline."

"...Leijon," Karkat said. "Turn it back on. Lalonde, Peixes!" Karkat pointed straight back to the maw emerging from the sill, paused sea. "I want to any word she says."

When the camera returned from the Leviathan to the Squiddles, their reaction was one of pause and terror, like deer in the headlights. Berryboo reached toward Squiddette, both of them clinging her staff as if for reassurance that they were somewhat armed. Squiddler gaped at the whirlpool that had swallowed Squidradar whole; he was the one to speak first.

"I'm going after him," he said, mustering that impossible cartoon bravery that would be called foolhardy in any other place.

Squiddette floated forward to confront him. "No, we have to get the princess out of here! She's more important than all of us! "

Her words seemed to strike a devastating blow in Squiddler. "How can you say that about your friend?"

Squiddette clearly did not want to say anything of the sort about her friend, but she straightened up all the same, and was about to speak again when she was touched on the side by a small, purple tentacle. "...Go, " Berryboo said to Squiddler. "We'll be right behind you."

"Princess! " Squiddette said, turning to face her mistress. Squiddler slipped away at once, which only caused Squiddette to become more urgent. "We can't go down there! I thought you understood!"

"No, he's right!" Berryboo insisted. "You know it as much as me. We're Squiddles, we can't..."

Squiddette stood firm, the look of despair on her face cutting Berryboo all the deeper, until the princess' mind was made. In an instant, Berryboo demonstrated just how hard it was to keep someone constrained in mid-air by going into a dead-drop, down into the whirling waters.

An echoing call caught on the air as she plunged, and it hung there like a muffling blanket, warping the soundtrack to counter its vibrations and ripping through sound effects and art at random.

("She's talking." Feferi said. "It's like I'm hearing her against the current, though."

Rose agreed. "There's a voice there but it's not coming out right."

Some experimentation provided their answer, and Karkat conducted their viewing all-but-seamlessly from there. He replayed each line of the Leviathan's at half speed in reverse from there on out, demanding and receiving a translation for each with only a few quick orders. He was Leader and his battlefield was a televised program emphasizing the power of relationships: if never before, he was now in his perfect element.)

"a'crovis ntoyo, may caerwwych nechion ex br'ith merrarch, nre..."

(Rose closed her eyes to think. "She's noticed the whales are there for the Squiddles and wants to capture him so..."

Feferi giggled. "Eridan could tell you that one. She's hungry!"

"Well at least this confirms she's genuinely a Horrorterror," Rose said. "'The sleeper wakens... feast upon the souls of the...' et cetera, et cetera. This is all fairly boilerplate."

Jade rubbed out her ear. "Is it just me, or do the whale songs sound funny backwards?")

Berryboo fluttered for a moment, as though she had recognized the strange sounds about her as speech, but darted away, knowing Squiddette must have been in hot pursuit.

In the distance another boat approached, with its young passengers now leaning fore to see what all the commotion was about.

"Oh no!" Squibump squeaked to the others. "It looks like there's some kind of storm!"

"Iiiiiii dooon't knooow if we should go ooouut theeerrre!" said the Diver, still managing the controls.

"Are you kidding?" shouted the child behind him, Sebastian. "Our friends are out there!"

The other child, Amber, agreed whole-heartedly. "We have to go help them!"

Squibella flew up from wherever she had been hiding, never once raising the subconscious question of how she stayed floating above a fast-moving vehicle she was no longer physically touching. She pointed a tiny tentacle forward and shouted "Full speed ahead!"

They didn't see the whales moving about below them, those of the pod staying back to protect the young. They didn't see one of the adults move to block one of the older children when she made a dash toward the whirlpool.

Far ahead, Squidradar bounced back and forth through the waves. Every escape route seemed blocked, another tentacle rising to block in his path and the current swept him aside with doubled force every time he tried to pull aside. The water about him trembled, sound passing by warped and distorted. The whales kept their distance, but he pulled toward the nearest all the same.

("I can't make her out underwater," Rose said.

"I'm not really following it myself!" Feferi said. "'Space is' ...uh... 'no space...'" Feferi waved her hands. "She's taunting him about not being able to use his eyes when she's not entirely on Earth."

"Ohhh..." chorused Jade and Kanaya. "Yes, definitely," said Kanaya. "In fact I can easily demonstrate the same. The tentacles in the top-left would have to be knotted to achieve that arrangement. Your lusus is strictly non-Euclidean, it's fascinating."

Jade pointed to another tentacle. "Heck, this one's a mbius strip. Look."

"DOES ANYONE WHO'S NOT IN THE SPACEY CLUB UNDERSTAND THIS?"

"i don't understand it karkitty, you can be confuzzed with me!"

"THE LAST THING IN THE WORLD I WANT TO BE IS CONFUSED WITH YOU.")

Suddenly, the world slammed shut in a spiral about the yellow Squiddle, the Leviathan claiming its prize between its tentacles. Squidradar threw himself against one tentacle wall, then another. Taking a deep breath, he began to send out his radar pulses and gave the wall one final ram. When he opened his eyes, he did so to discover himself free, if dramatically to the right of the arrangement (Jade nodded, sagely). He snapped his eyes back to the nearest whale and made his way toward it, eyes once again closed and relying entirely on his radar. The tentacles swirled behind him and everything came to a jarring halt, all at once.

Squidradar opened his eyes, first just a crack, and realized that he had somehow ended up upside-down. He opened them wider before throwing them open all at once.

"You're not a whale!" he squeaked.

"Is that so, lads?" Rat asked over his shoulder to the rest of the Catchyegrabber's skeleton crew. "We not a whale?"

"Well don't that just beat all," said Horse, who through thanks to rigid application of themed names was in actually a talking crane-man who had flown out to join the others. He held Squidradar hostage in what the animation team had accidentally drawn as a butterfly net. "Well, I'm just let down."

"Yer all be 'let down' if ye don't get back to yer posts!" snapped Ox, who grabbed the net by the strings just above Squidradar's tentacles. "Double-time, swabs!" The two made off as fast as they could, and Ox took the opportunity to raise the net and its passenger to eye-level. "Welcome aboard, " he hissed. "Now where be my dear brother?"

"Ox!" called a voice from the edge of the ship. "Let my friend go right now!" Squiddler hovered just onboard the ship, and Ox turned to face him, setting his hook against Squidradar's face.

"Now tha's not fair, Squiddly, " Ox said in a juvenile tone. "We was just having a little chat is all." He adjusted his grip with his many tentacles, and dropped the net soundly on the ground, only for one of his back tentacles to pass fore a single-shot flintlock pistol. He levelled it and fired in the blink of an eye, only for Berryboo to land aside his brother, grabbing him as she went. They both glowed purple for a moment, and the shot ricocheted into a nearby crate.

"What is wrong with you?" Berryboo shrieked as the power faded from around her. Ox just shrugged, a grin on his face and a gleam in his one good eye.

("That wasn't in the American release," Rose noted.)

Not far away, on the Isle of Dread and Hate, Plumbthroat's land-bound crew laughed uproariously at the display on their ship. Even Plumbthroat began to chuckle about his pipe, goaded on by his crew.

"Five dollars on the bosun taking 'em all on 'is own!" shouted Pig, after Tiger pointed out that their other allies on board were tied up bringing the ship out of the whirlpool.

"Five bucks on the bosun?" laughed Ram. "Ten on the giant squid!"

The others laughed even harder, and the thunder crashed as the Island as its guardian seemed to think so appropriate. They laughed so hard that only Plumbthroat, who was standing at Ram's side, noticed when his shipmate suddenly developed a lump on his head almost as tall as his attacker. Squiddette and Plumbthroat both watched him drop, he with a snarl on his face and she with a look of boredom as she tapped her staff in her other tentacles.

"...I've... eh... 'come to talk,'" she said, still admiring her work.

The rest of the crew had noticed her by then. Plumbthroat was saved the trouble of even having to take his hand off his pipe as a thicket of weapons rose past him to point at the Squiddle girl. "Aye?" Plumbthroat asked with a straight face.

Squiddette kept her eye on Ram for a moment longer. "Stop this..." she said, spinning her staff so that it pointed out to the storm. "Right now."

Plumbthroat waited, then leaned forward, cleaning out his pipe on top of Ram. "...and?" he asked at last.

Squiddette finally looked up, and when she saw the weapons, she cracked a smile. "Really, guys?" She pointed to Plumbthroat's head cook, the snail. She giggled the way Squiddles do. "Because... I fought a turtle, today. Your call!" She shrugged and let the results stand ambiguous. The snail slowly lowered his cutlass, and those around him could not help but retract theirs as well.

Plumbthroat glowered at his faltering left flank and crossed his arms behind his back. "Did you hear that, lads?" he said, as he walked toward the shore. "She wants me to call off the giant squid!" Squiddette, not quite sure what he was doing, followed him as he went. "She wants me... to call off... the giant, underwater Squid-Monster the size of the skyscaper!" A chuckle rolled through the crew. "Might as well move the moon!" he shouted, and the others laughed out loud. Plumbthroat turned back to his guest. "No, little one, your friends are on their own." And the thunder crashed.

Squiddette clenched her staff. "Not while I'm still here," she said, and made for the water. The sound of a half-dozen pistols cocking behind her cut off her escape. She turned to find the crew back at attention, and Plumbthroat with his pistol at the ready and cutlass at his side. Squiddette let go of her staff at once, first at one end and then the other, so that it fell standing up in the black sand. Lightning crisscrossed the skies, lighting up Plumbthroat's grin.

"Funny thing about Squiddles," he called over the noise of the storm, now so prominent. "They don't do well on their own." He smiled, and again the air shook with thunder, and his face fell. "Yarr!" he growled up to the skies. "Curse it, would ye leave me to manage me own gravitas?" Plumbthroat roared. The storm quelled, just a touch, leaving Plumbthroat and his crew's focus entirely on their prisoner.

Aboard ship, Ox calmly swapped out his one-shot pistol for his cutlass. He hovered low, two of his heavy tentacles now holding Squidradar's net firm to the deck despite his fervent attempts to escape. Berryboo edged herself in front of Squiddler - being very careful not to let go of his tentacle.

"Why are you doing this, Mint?" she asked.

"Aye," Ox said, "the Skip said ye were having trouble callin' folks by their proper names, but ye seemed much more polite before so I can't say I believed him at the time."

"P-polite?" Berryboo glanced down at Squidradar, who was curled up inside the net, quivering. "I was scared of you, you bully!"

"Yes, yes," Ox said, "but if ye'd be so kind, my business is more with me kid brother, who at least knows to call a gent what he'd rather be called, than be called whatever he'd rather not."

Squiddler pulled himself to the front, adjusting his tentacles with Berryboo. "Gee, Ox," he said, more chipper than the scene really demanded, excusing a nervous taint lurking at the end of his greeting. "I just call you that 'cause it makes you happy! You're still my brother!"

Ox scowled. "I don't be needing your pity any more than you be wanting to fake it."

Squiddler's face fell. "I'm not faking it, Ox. I still like you!" He looked back at Berryboo. "It's what we do, isn't it? Squiddles love all their friends!" Back to Ox, he said: "Don't you remember?"

"I remember..." Ox said, with a telling sneer. He reached down and hefted up Squidradar to his side. "I remember enough. You!" he said, pointing to Berryboo. She looked hurt by his refusal to address her by name, but he just smiled. "...Leave," he ordered, and tossed Squidradar overboard, still tangled in the net.

Berryboo and Squiddler exchanged glances for only a moment before she leapt over the edge after her other friend, and Squiddler ducked to the side before Ox pulled his second pistol. The shot embedded itself in the rail beyond, and Squiddler slipped into hiding between crates.

"Sir!" Rat called from the helm. "We're about ta pull free of the whirlpool!"

"Then bring us ashore!" Ox shouted, eyes strafing the crates. "We'll drive out this Squiddle scum for sure when we've got all hands on deck!"

Berryboo went after Squidradar, who was sinking further and further as he struggled against the tangled mess that held him. He had managed to get his head free by the time she reached him, but it took their combined effort to free his tentacles. When she had, he immediately replaced the old tangles by tangling his friend in thanks. She laughed, and so neither was looking when a great shadow came out at them from the deep. Squidradar caught sight of the thing at the last moment, and shouted out loud. In their panic, the two shot off a beam of their friendship at the shadow, and the dusty murk of the sea flashed with dim cyan light. The Leviathan's tentacle reeled back, but only for a moment before charging back toward them, with reinforcements.

"We need the rest of our friends!" Berryboo shouted as they swam.

"Where'd Squiddette go?" Squidradar called back.

The camera jumped back, back to the beach where Squiddette hovered under the guns of a sore-looking Ram. The Grundy Catchyegrabber was pulling in by the shore, where the crew was for the rope ladder to drop so they could board. The camera offered a poor angle, but slowly began to focused on Squiddette's face. She looked first right, toward Ram, then fore to Plumbthroat, who was not minding her in his hurry to get the others onto the ship. There, in the middle of the sudden chaos, she was given her opportunity. The ocean itself pulsed cyan, the bright light drawing the eyes of everyone around, except for the Squiddle, who they had already forced to look the other way.

She dropped to the ground, snapped up her staff and struck out, once at Ram's ankles, then at Plumbthroat's. The Skipper proved more resilient, and he turned his attention and cutlass on her, if too late to stop another blow across his kneecaps. They fenced once, twice and Squiddette pulled back with each step. Then, once she was far enough away, she threw herself back into the water and disappeared.

"Forget her!" Plumbthroat called to the others. "Onto-" But Plumbthroat's command was cut off when a red Squiddle landed on his head.

"Oh, hi Skipper!" said Squiddler. "'Scuze me!"

He snapped up the Skipper's hat and tossed it away, so that it landed square in the middle of Bosun Ox's face the moment he cleared the ship's rail. Squiddler was off like a shot from there.

"After him, ye dogs!" Ox shouted. He tore off the hat and tossed it back to the Skipper before continuing pursuit, which was not made easy for him. Squiddler kept one step ahead of Ox and the rank-and-file crew members: he bounced off of heads and dropped down only to steal one of their bags of gunpowder and shot, which he hurled again at his brother. From there, he hit the beach like a pinwheel, kicking up sand and spraying in the faces of his would-be pursuers. Turning back to Ox, who had jumped into the water to clean himself, he blew a raspberry and made his way back up the Isle, the bosun hot on his heels.

"After them, men!" shouted Rat, safe on top of the boat.

"No!" Plumbthroat shouted, still trying to rub sand from his eyes. "Man the net cannons!"

Back from the ship and centrally situated on the tiny Isle of Dread and Hate was a ruin: a small ruined tower barely a storey tall. It was to that point that Squiddler tumbled, and Ox followed.

"Wow!" Squiddler chirped as they went. "You can barely even fly any more, can you?" He frowned and fluttered a little lower to the ground. "You really don't have any friends on that ship." Ox threw a rock, which kicked his brother back into motion. "Why're you so mad at Berryboo?" he asked instead. "She still wants to be your friend!"

Ox grunted as he picked up the pace. They were ascending the tower, up a pile of rubble that might have once been stairs, but Squiddler was making sure to keep visible around the edge of the tower. "I'd tell you to ask her yerself, little brother, but once I catch ye, ye won't be doin' much askin' at all!"

"Aw, Ox, you're not gonna catch me!" Squiddler said. He paused for thought. "Sorry about that."

"Sorry? Yer sorry?" Ox swung his cutlass at the air. "There's no way off this island, Squiddler! The Skip'll see t' that!"

"Sure there's a way off!" Squiddler said. "I just have to trust in my friends!"

Something about that tweaked Ox. His eyes narrowed and he charged forward, catching up to his brother at once. He swung his cutlass wild, hitting the step there, the wall there, and Squiddler dodged each one with ease.

"That!" Ox shouted as he struck air. "Is not! A plan!"

Squiddler dodged the last swing and vaulted over the parapets at the top of the tower. Ox followed, but when he landed his battle rage slipped away at once.

"I don't know about that," Squidradar said when he saw Ox's frown.

Squiddette grinned at Ox, as maliciously as a Squiddle could, the animator clearly strained to match the voice actress' tone "It sounded like a pretty good plan to me!"

The camera cut a wide shot of the island, where the tower wall burst open and Ox, sent flying by a beam of muddied white light, landed in the water below. When the camera returned to the Squiddles, they were still glowing off-white and bouncing with elation and concentrated friendship.

"We should get out of here!" Squiddette said once the light and exuberance had faded, but it was a moment too late. A shriek cut through the scene, and all four Squiddles looked up to the hole they had made in the parapets.

("Squiddles can hear when people are upset over a mile away!" Jade said matter-of-factly. She was now deeply embedded in the couch, with Karkat's legs on her lap, the popcorn on top of that and Nepeta curled up around her arm and resting her head on Jade's shoulder.

"Really?" Karkat said. "How do they hear anything else over the sound of their audience, then?"

"Karkat, you don't have to insult everything."

"Try me.")

Then another cry, and then more. The Squiddles met one another's eyes.

"That was Squibella!" said Berryboo. "A-and that was Sebastian! And Amber and Squibump! Oh, guys, tell me the kids aren't here too! Tell me you didn't leave them with Squibump in charge!"

Squiddette made a face. "They're not supposed to be here-here," she said, and went to the hole to check, but fell down with a yelp. A net, propelled through the air, slammed over the opening. Squiddette popped up her head and looked out, but only until the net fell loose of whatever purchase it had found on impact. The old net tumbled to the sea - the next might thread the gap entirely.

"They're on Billy's diving boat!" she whispered to the others.

The other Squiddles exchanged glances for a moment, and Berryboo edged her way along the wall toward the hole. Once there, she called out: "Skipper?"

Through the magic of a writer's poor understanding of acoustics, Plumbthroat heard her clearly. His return cries sounded only slightly distant. "Princess! We've got you trapped in that tower. There's no way down and we'll net you if you come up. Now how about ye make this peaceable and come out quietly?"

"Skipper, there's another boat out there!" She gave him a moment to send someone to check and then continued. "Our friends are going to die if you don't do something!"

The pause clearly extended longer than she had expected. Berryboo's breathing began to shallow, knowing that every second Plumbthroat squandered was another second their friends had to spend at the mercy of the Leviathan.

"...Ye forget, princess!" Plumbthroat called. "The plan was t' let the Leviathan at yer friends! Seems to me there's no sense in stoppin' what's already the plan!" Berryboo simply closed her eyes when she heard Plumbthroat's complaint, but the others reacted with varying degrees of panic. From the distant sounds of things, the crew took the whole exchange as a joke.

"Skipper!" Berryboo called, eyes still shut. "Skip, don't do this! You don't want to hurt these people!"

The jeers from the crew answered her complaint before the Skipper even opened his mouth. "I think you'll find, princess, that the ends necessitate the means."

"Is there any way out?" Squiddler asked Squidradar. His friend shook his head.

"The whole building's collapsed under us!" he said. "It's just the roof here, on top of some really strong beams, we can't get out!"

"No, guys, " Berryboo said, her eyes sad. "I know how to get us out. Trust me. I know Plumbthroat." They watched her carefully, but all Berryboo did was to call out again. "Skipper." she said. "There are kids on that boat too. From the orphanage."

This time even the crew was silent. "...Children?" Plumbthroat said. There was a murmur of conversation from the ship.

"Doesn't care about us one bit, does he?" Squiddette said, her staff at the ready. The line was once again in the voice actress' under-her-breath tone, but the production team seemed to have decided to go with it.

Berryboo looked even more sullen and sad. "He... he should." Squiddler, who was nearest, fluttered over to hug her.

Plumbthroat called back a moment later. "There's nothing we can do about that monster," he repeated. "Jus' like I told yer friend."

Berryboo turned to her more tactically-minded friends. Squiddler spoke first, clearly improvising. "Well, all you need to do is get them out of the whirlpool. Get them onto your boat and get going."

Squiddette chimed in as soon as he was finished. "We'll distract the Leviathan!" When the others turned to her to ask how likely that was, she could only shrug.

Plumbthroat took another moment and then started shouting orders, loud orders, to move out and head toward the whirlpool. Squiddette peeked back out, this time between two of the parapets. When she signalled to the others that Plumbthroat was indeed fulfilling his end of the bargain, they followed after at doubled speed.

"Two of us weren't enough to stop one of its tentacles before," Squidradar said. His eyes were stuck on the water, which was rendered fast beyond what one would have assumed of the studio's budget. The Emissary of the Horrorterrors writhed below past silt and shadow, her tentacles tearing toward the boat but intercepted time and again by the whales, which were falling back bit by bit.

"Then we're going to have to get the others from the boat," Squiddette decided. "C'mon!" She veered off from the others, Squiddler fast behind her.

"I'm going to go talk to the whales!" Squidradar said. Below the two Squiddles, the whales' battle agains the Leviathan was still clearly visible. "We don't want them to get hurt!"

"Okay!" Berryboo had to shout to be heard over the storm as they got closer to the centre. She looked straight down, toward the white beak of the creature and the torrents of water the swept up into it with every passing moment.

"Are you going to wait here?" Squidradar asked.

Berryboo sighed. "No," she said. "...I..." she added, almost a laugh, "I'm... I'm gonna talk to it," she explained, with a half-hearted shrug and a forced smile. "It deserves as much a chance as anyone else, right?"

Squidradar looked astonished. "That's a great plan! I can't believe no one else thought of it! I can't believe anyone thought of it" he babbled. "We'd be a lot better off if we just talked about our differences instead of fighting over them!"

("All right, time to stab me. You all promised!"

"Karcrab, shush!")

"Heh heh... yeah." Berryboo turned away and started her slow descent toward the maw, but was stopped abruptly when Squidradar hugged her from behind. When he left a few moments later, Berryboo was left alone with her plan. She looked down, took a deep breath, and plunged.

The Leviathan did not take her intrusion without notice. Though the whales continued to strike at it from below, new tentacles appeared from the shadowy mass and rose up, high into the air until they and Berryboo nearly touched. She flew back, but froze when she remembered why she had come.

"Hello," she shouted. "My name is Berryboo. ...We live near here, and I want to talk!"

For a moment, with the camera caught over the princess' shoulder, the whirlpool stopped in mid-motion. Just for a split second it froze, and when it returned the sound in the air changed, worse than ever. Distortion reigned and the calls of the coordinating whales were once again replaced with a strange, jarring soundalike.

"gwoshna brestos mi senarii"

("'Your pleas fall on the deaf ears of mountains.'"

"'Sunken mountains,' I think.")

Berryboo shook her head intermittently, violently. "Please!" she called. "Just talk to me. Ugh, gotta get closer..." She reached down toward the creature, and as she spoke and fell, the reverberations around her continued.

"Meazathoth kav brestin"

("'The Noble Circle isn't here to listen.'")

"brestiu gah feferi iar"

("You'll be the one to listen, sea-princess."

"WAIT, WAIT, WAIT, WAIT. I HEARD THAT."

"W)(AT IS IT?"

"It said 'Feferi!' What, you were named by your five-hundred storey space-lusus?"

"OF COURS-E! Didn't your lusus name you?"

"...Is my name 'Grarrrggghgllgl'?")

Berryboo reached out further; the thunder crashed above her and the power of her hope for friendship glowed about her in a purple haze. She was so focused on the horror below her that she did not see the tentacle sweep out of the dark to her left. For a moment, the camera jumped to her point of view, staring straight down at the beast below, and then, impact! The camera jarred violently to the right, and twisted her view left before it suddenly went red. When it returned it stared straight into the dead eyes of a rotted skeleton, and then jumped: a man wrapped tight in shadows, then a relic lost deep on the seabed, then red again, which held.

"Stop, stop!" Karkat shouted. "What were those?" He had the others strafe back and forth over the brief montage until he had his answers.

"They're from later in the arc," Rose said. "Except they're in reverse order. Not unlike her speech."

"Yeah," Jade said. "You remember the relic from the sea floor," she said, pointing to the third image paused on screen. "Look at the top of the screen. There's the winch: this is from a few episodes from now when Plumbthroat brings up the relic."

"The second shot..."

"That's Prince Dargon," Jade said. "Or Plumbthroat possessed by Dargon, however you want to put it."

Karkat began to curse. "...so yeah," he said. "You both realize by now that your evil prince that wants to open a hole in reality is-"

"A Horrorterror, yes," Rose said. "Fairly obvious in hindsight, but it's all coming back now."

Jade picked up the last. "The third shot... well, the first shot, is one of Cap'n Flint's pirates from Treasure Island!" No response. "It's a children's novel from a hundred years ago?"

Rose explained without the trouble of going into the actual plot. "When Dargon's plans go south, he gathers all the major villains at Treasure Island and the Squiddles go to find him there. Common assumption is that the producers conned the investors into thinking they were funding a literature plot instead of the terrifying episode that actually resulted for the series finale."

When Jaded realized, to her relief, that no one was actually listening to Rose's fannish speculation, she picked up the story. "Dargon turns out to be a pretty bad boss and pretty much everyone is bloodied and half dead. Plumbthroat's crew tattles to the Squiddles that Dargon is just possessing Plumbthroat. In the end, all the bad guys have turned on Dargon and the Squiddles are going to blast him with friendship from everybody, but Berryboo tries to talk Plumbthroat out because she doesn't want him to be hurt. Long story short, it works and they blow the real Dargon into paradox space before he can really attack."

Karkat grunted. "So where does that leave us?"

Nepeta raised a hand, and when no one noticed, propped it up with another hand. "Question," she said, until Karkat acknowledged her with a glare. "Am I the only one that actually wants to watch the episode instead of talking about it?"

"I kind of do," Feferi said. "I don't want the princess to be hurt!"

Karkat's protests about all them being hurt by "fucking eldritch magic" if they were insufficiently prepared were quickly overturned.

Far below Berryboo, Billy the Bellsuit Diver's little boat rocked back and forth as a whale, just below, lashed out at an approaching tentacle. The whale's tail caught the boat on the follow-through, and its passengers hung on for dear life.

"Whoooooooa! Iiiiiii dont like this any more!" Squibella clung to a bundle of rope on the wall of the ship's cabin.

"Just hang on, Squibella!" called the little girl, Amber.

"Nowwww," said Billy, who was still outfitted in his diving suit and did not truly seem perturbed by the situation. "You children are wearing your life jackets, riiiiight?"

"Wow," said Squibump, who seemed to be the only one brave enough to look over the edge, if only barely. "I'm sure glad Squibella and I can breathe underwater, or we'd need life jackets too!"

"You should alwayyys wear your life jaaaackets," said Billy. "Even when there's not a stoooorm because you neeeverrr knooooow juuu-"

"Guys!"

"Squiddler!" Everyone on the boat walked carefully to the side of the ship where their friend had appeared. Billy continued his lecture to an audience of none.

"Oh, I'm so glad you're okay!" Squibella shouted, and then herself at Squiddler. When Squiddette appeared to his side, whatever she was about to say was interrupted as she, too, was struck back by a tiny green bullet.

Sebastian looked up sheepishly toward Squiddler. "We... we came to help," he said.

"Now you kids know better than that!" Squiddler said. "I know we've had lots of adventures together but this is too much! Billy!" The bellsuit diver lurched, as though shaken from sleep.

Squiddette floated forward after prying Squibella from her skin. "We've talked to Plumbthroat, he's coming to get you all. You're going to have to abandon ship!"

"No!" protested the children, which in this case included Squibella.

"Nowww kiiiids," Billy said. "You come over heeeere, and I'll tell you the story about why it's impooortant to trust people, and to never look a gift hoooorse iiin the mooooooouuuth."

"Not you two!" Squiddette said as the other Squiddles started off to join the kids. "We need as many Squiddles as we can get!"

"But..." Squibump looked back at the kids. "Gee, Squiddette, we can't just leave them! They need us!"

"We need you too!" Squiddette admitted. "And they need you to be with us! We need every Squiddle we can get!"

Squibump turned toward his tangle buddy, who put on her toughest face and headed up to him. Together, they took to the air after their friends.

The Squiddles had not gone far from the boat, however, when Squiddler stopped. "Every Squiddle we can get, huh?"

Squiddette turned back to him. "Oh, no, Squiddler, don't."

But he turned all the same, and swept through the air just outside the perimeter of tentacles. He flew until he came up to the still-distant hull of the Grundy Catchyegrabber, only now out to sea and en route to the children.

"I don't see yer distraction, Squiddle," Plumbthroat accused in lieu of greeting.

"Almost on it," Squiddler said, determination in his eyes. He passed by the sea captain and several of his anthropomorphic crew before finding the one he looked for.

"Ox..." he called, and held a tentacle outstretched. Ox, his tentacles still gripping a rope, looked to his brother, but his look tightened and he turned away.

"...Okay," Squiddler said. Without another word, he turned back to the sea, and flew up to join his friends.

"There he is!" Squibella called when she saw a spot of red on the horizon.

Squibump reached out to take her tentacle. "That's great, Squibella, let's go!"

Squibella was a jostling bundle in his hands from there on out. With her friends, she was no longer afraid, and she was already bubbling with both her and his power. "This is going to be great! We're going to show that big monster what it means to face friends that look out fo-" She stopped with a gasp as Squibump and the others came to a sudden, aerial halt.

Berryboo hung in the air, slumped forward, her breathing carefully rendered: shallow and slow. Her eyes were closed and her cartoon skin had changed: where she had once been purple, her skin now sucked in the light with a deep black; where she had been highlighted yellow or teal, her markings now shone with gleaming light that cast a white aura about her body. An eyelid cracked open, revealing a pupil like a pit, surrounded by white that glowed stronger than any other part of her body. She saw them.

"...a'vrr?"

("...Oh! That was: 'Guys?'" Feferi translated, but only when she realized Karkat alone had kept his focus on the show, as opposed to their company.)

Berryboo, seeing the others stare, looked down at her own tentacles. Squiddette floated forward and reached out toward her princess, but Berryboo shirked back, and shook her head violently.

A whale's coo cut through the air as the Squiddles tried to sort with one another, but the call changed as a wave of air seemed to pass up by them from below. The reverberation returned and the whale song changed, this time clear and without distortion: like all the others, it had been replaced with a human shriek.

"r's nrakk mlcorian trok br'th nyrania"

("'The plans of children will fall like blocks...'" Rose said, unperturbed by the developments or the stares. "That's odd."

"No fucking commentary!"

"Well it's just very human-centric, considering... Never mind. ...She's just talking about food again, now.")

"...mr'sis nechion, nret merrarch q'dwow" The thing repeated itself many times, the whirlpool speeding up below it as the whales pulled away. It became impossible to tell from the distance whether or not the ships were safe.

Squibump, his eyes darting between the princess and the sea, caught sight of the tentacles first. They were still low below them, but rising. He grabbed hold of Squibella and Squiddler by the tentacles and Squibella, in turn, reached out to Squiddette. Squiddette barely noticed long enough to grip her back. Her staff held tight in other tentacles, she focused instead on her mistress and friend, tentacle outstretched.

Berryboo stared at the others as they began to glow. Slowly, she began to float back and away.

Squiddette shook her head. "No time!" she called. Berryboo raised her tentacles in protest.

("'I can't, it's not safe.'")

More strange syllables spilled from Berryboo's mouth. "Nykava, x'p dtree!"

(Feferi did not so much confirm Rose's translation as turn back to her in confusion. Rose knew the others were looking at her, but she only looked to Karkat. "This..." she said, with a tap at the back of the couch, "...is meant for our timeline." She said no more. Instead, she took off to pace the room, clutching her head as though it hurt. Kanaya went after her before she finished a single lap.)

A powerful glow, growing brighter and closer to white with every new Squiddle, had come across the linked tentacles of the other Squiddles and had almost blended across Squiddette's dark green. She extended her tentacle as far as it would go. "Please!"

"mr'sis nechion! mr'sis nechion!"

Berryboo faltered for a moment, but took the step forward. Her tentacle took Squiddettes', and at once things began to change. The soundtrack dropped, and the combined white light of the other Squiddles ceased to spread. Instead, the black ran from Berryboo into Squiddette's tentacle, spreading like a burn that darkened her skin before consuming it entirely. Both Squiddles gasped, and met one another's eyes in panic, and Berryboo pulled away at once.

But her bodyguard was too fast. Squiddette's tentacle shot out and caught the princess', pulling it back and wrapping around it all the tighter. The camera changed to Berryboo's eyes as Squiddette spoke, but neither the princess nor the viewer could hear. Whatever she said, her lips moved and settled on a nervous smile. Then Squiddler appeared, taking one of Berryboo's other tentacles and closing their circle. Though the black power soon spread down his body as well, he also spoke, and then Squibump, apparently in agreement. Squibella was in agreement too, for all she smiled and swung about, using the tentacles of the two Squiddles that held her like swings. And as the camera took away, Berryboo herself smiled, and the light swept over her from both sides.

Far below, Skipper Plumbthroat watched as the ring of Squiddles above exploded with light, stronger than the veiled moon beyond the clouds. A low whine cut through the air, building until a lance of bright, white light shot down and struck the beast in the whirlpool. And the Leviathan screamed, a deep, rumbling shout that shook the air until it cracked, snapping the lines above the Skipper's head. It shook the ship with waves and the soundtrack with a constant bass that brought the force of the scream into every home that watched the show around the world...

Nepeta shrieked and Kanaya as well, into Rose's ear as she collapsed in her arms. Feferi's breathing simply quickened, but Karkat screamed until he was out of breath, his hands in his face as he began to bleed. Jade panicked. She had the remote, but she searched for Mute instead of Pause and by the time she had found either, the scene had passed and the damage had been done. Kanaya shuddered for breath, unable to stand, and Rose helped her to the ground. Nepeta clutched her stomach as though she were about to vomit, and Karkat did not respond until Feferi broke the silence.

"Sollux!" she said, after taking in the room, and her shell laptop was out at once.

Nepeta, still queasy, turned toward her leader, who had his legs yanked up close to his chest. She pulled up over the leg, as though it were a tree she had to climb, and then shouted "Karkitty!"

Karkat lowered his hands, revealing the full mess of blood from every orifice, and he froze for a moment before he remembered there was no one present that did not know about his blood and did not care. Before he could prevent it, Nepeta leaned forward and began to rub at the blood on his face with her sleeve.

"Ge-Get off!" he shouted, keeping her at bay. By then, Kanaya had recovered, if only somewhat, and stopped trading silent words with Rose to hand Karkat a monogrammed handkerchief. He cleaned himself furiously, face and hand, before anyone else could walk in.

"He's okay," Feferi said with a sigh. "Sollux. He didn't hear any-" Her laptop chimed, and she checked another window. "I don't think anyone heard anything who wasn't here."

"Well it's a good thing the Jellyfucks scared everyone else off!" Karkat shouted. He pointed straight to Feferi. "That was her. That hit all of us. Do I have to spell it out? How? How did they get that sound clip? Is there a Not-So-Vast Glub she might have used at some point in the past? In all Troll history?"

"Well... no!" Feferi looked to Kanaya and Nepeta, who did not appear to know any different.

To Rose, who still clung tight to Kanaya's arm, Karkat asked: "Well, could she have sent it as she was dying?" Rose shrugged and Karkat swore. He swore under and over his breath for nearly a minute until he looked at the screen and saw the shot of empty sea that served as their pause point. "Is that it?" he asked Jade.

"Well, there are a few scenes left," Jade said, "but yeah, she doesn't show up again."

"FUCK!" Karkat threw up his arms. "I don't get it! Why go to all the trouble of sending us this message if all you're going to say is 'The Noble Circle's here to speak, now excuse me while I help myself to the seafood buffet?' What, was she just trying to kill us? Because if it didn't kill me, it wasn't gonna work!"

The others looked at one another in dismay. Jade alone tried to look bright. "Maybe it's not just about her?" she said, but Karkat swatted a hand toward her.

Nepeta, who still remained clinging to Karkat's leg, slumped down against it: less cat-like and more teenager. After a long moment of thought, she spoke up. "...Fefurry's lusus isn't the only demon in the story."

Karkat raised his head slowly, and did not even detach her from his leg. "...Harley," he said. "How many episodes is this Dargon punk in?"

Jade waffled on the point for only a few moments. Math was a strong suit. "Thirty-one, if you count three cameos as 'one.' It's a little kid's TV show. 'Season' is a pretty broad term."

Karkat cursed again. "Okay then." He pondered for a moment. "...spill. Just the gist. How does the Dargon arc end?"