Alright, another chapter up and running. Things will be going a little faster after this and we'll reach the canon events of Danny Phantom soon enough (tweaked to the insanity of Homestuck to keep the tone as well). I hope you enjoy this and I'll see you at the end of the chapter.
Holding it together was a lot more difficult of a task when you were almost slipping through the floor. Karkat had to figure it out the hard way as he attempted to make it through the rest of his classes.
Aradia and Sollux had to keep him focused on any tasks within their shared classes, along with avoiding everyone that was outside of the issue. Last thing they needed was for him to go viral after doing a vanishing act in the hallway. It hadn't been easy, but they pulled through well enough to at least get on the bus.
Other than Sollux making a brief stop at his house, making it back to Karkat's was fairly easy.
"You think your dad will be in the lab?" Aradia said as they marched up the steps, keeping an eye out for any nosy neighbors. Karkat simply shrugged, currently attempting to his focus on staying solid.
"If he is, you think maybe we should tell him about this? He might have an idea on what's going on." Sollux was planning to continue that line of thought, but Karkat turned around quickly to send him a glare. "What? I'm just saying, he probably knows more about this stuff then we think he does. He made the damn portal!"
Karkat shook his head vigorously. "Hell no! I can't tell him about this. I mean, I can't just go down there and say 'Hey Dad, you know that portal you created? Well, not only do you have proof of an alternate dimension, but I might be dead!'" Vantas groaned. "He worked on that stupid portal for years, going down there and telling him it killed me would drive him insane!"
"Hey, it was a suggestion." The other boy adjusted his glasses, sighing deeply. "We're just out of our depth here, so maybe having someone that knows about it would be a good idea. You agree with me on this, right Aradia?"
Aradia couldn't really look him in the eyes on that one. "Maybe."
"Maybe?!"
"Look," She stopped and looked her friend in the eye. "Karkat has a point. We don't know what's happening him or what the portal did, so maybe we should wait until we know a little bit better." She crossed her arms, giving out an authoritative presence. "Plus, if Karkat doesn't want to say anything, that's on him."
Sollux groaned in frustration, but slowly nodded. "Fine. But if something bad happens, we tell him."
"Agreed." Karkat moved up the steps of his house, reaching the door. Noticing a note on the outside, he ripped it off and looked it over. "It looks like he isn't even home, so we got the lab to ourselves."
"Guess he is putting posters up all-around town." Aradia said, following her friends inside after Karkat unlocked the door and they moved into the house.
The red-eyed boy couldn't help but shiver as they walked down the steps to the basement, feeling apprehensive about this. He didn't necessarily want to step into the lab if he could help it, but it was stocked with some medical equipment that they could use.
For what, he didn't necessarily know, but he felt better knowing it was there.
Thankfully, it didn't look like Spades was messing with anything volatile before he left to do his advertising, so they were free to do whatever it was they wanted. Aradia was already heading over the medical kit while Sollux moved to an unoccupied table and opened up whatever was in the box he picked up earlier.
Moving to a metal chair and plopping down, Karkat sighed. "So, we just run a medical checkup on me and see if I'm doing alright. Other than that, I don't know what the hell we should do."
"I think there might be a few ecto-detectors in here. Maybe you got some ectoplasm stuck in your system and we can flush it out." Sollux provided, still messing with the contents of his box. "Who knows, maybe this'll all get better before we know it."
"Doubtful." Aradia pulled out a thermometer and a stethoscope, along with anything else she believed would be useful. "If there was anything that would disappear, then it would be gone by now." She stopped to look at what he was doing in his own corner. "What did you even bring?"
"I picked up a drone from my house. Figured that we need to know something about the Ghost Zone while we try to figure out what's going on with KK, so maybe having a little look might clear some things up."
"You sure that thing won't fry as soon as it gets in the portal? We probably won't be getting it back if it falls into a ghostly abyss, dude." Karkat looked over the little device as his friend fiddled with it.
"If your dad gets rich off the portal, then he'll get him a new one." Grabbing the various medical supplies, Aradia moved to Karkat and plopped them down on the nearest table. "Okay, while you do that surveillance thing, me and Karkat will go over his vitals. Maybe we'll figure something out from that."
"Cool." Sollux moved to the portal and pressed the button, opening it up for the three of them. He stopped to stare into the swirling, green mass, almost mesmerized by the opening between worlds. "I'm not going to get used to seeing this thing. This is all really messed up."
"Agreed." The two in the back replied with no hesitation. Aradia looked on in wonder a bit, before shaking her head and biting her lip. She shouldn't be amazed by what she's seeing. She had work to do, she thought solemnly.
Karkat, to his credit, didn't flinch as he watched the portal. A deep part of him couldn't help but sit there in with utter contempt. And why wouldn't he? The fucking thing killed him and practically taunted him with that fact by working perfectly. Like the only factor for its previous failures was because it didn't have an unsuspecting victim within its maw.
He couldn't help but feel like he was made an unwilling sacrifice in a ritual he didn't know he took part in.
Before his thoughts could get more morbid, Karkat received a light thonk on the head by Aradia. Looking over at her with annoyance, she just raised an eyebrow and waved a thermometer at him.
"Okay, before you two start roleplaying, let me start this shit up." Sollux took a chair and moved it next to Karkat, opening up a laptop. Pressing a few buttons, the drone near the portal lit up and the propellers moved experimentally.
"Still think it'll be useless." Karkat mumbled as the thermometer was almost shoved into his mouth.
"Hey, least its distracting. Plus, do you really want to think about Aradia carrying around medical equipment?"
"Hey!" Aradia laughed jovially as she moved through the kit, checking over what else she could find. "I've been to the doctors enough to know what to look for. Besides, I'm staying away from the knives this time."
"Thank Christ." Karkat found himself chuckling despite himself. The camera's booting up on the drone did distract him a bit. Sollux made sure it lifted off smoothly with the hours of practice he most likely put into it.
"Into the wild green yonder." The dual-colored boy unceremoniously moved the drone into the ether that was the Ghost Zone.
A collective sigh of relief came over them as it didn't immediately malfunction when it went inside, though they were left quiet as the expanse took on a 3D feel to it. No longer blurry, they could see actual pieces of matter in the distance, floating in an expanse that never seemed to truly end. There was no way to tell distance due to lack of scale, but it looked deep.
Like the ocean, Karkat thought to himself. Deep depths that no one has ever reached, under threat of death due to either the high pressures of creatures from down below.
He had to explore the ocean one day. It was always his dream to, and this ghost crap wasn't going to stop him.
Again, he was ripped out of his thoughts when Aradia took out the thermometer, giving a studious frown. "Okay, I'm pretty sure that isn't normal."
"What? Can't be that much higher than normal." Karkat raised an eyebrow, feeling some panic set in.
"That's because it isn't higher than normal, it's fucking lower. It's at 72.3!" She waved it around, causing the boy to lean back. "If you had a fever, that would be fine, but this sure isn't."
Sollux took a deep breath. "Okay, that's not good." He curled his fingers, tightening them into fists and letting them go after a few seconds. "I'm moving towards one of floating islands right now. Or it could be a tiny planet. You think it's orbiting anything?"
"Don't know." Karkat said, deciding to move things along. Hey, what do you know, this is a good distraction. Absolutely no anxiety about the thermometer and the wrong temperature you have now. Look at the pretty colors, Vantas, they're here to amuse you.
Aradia huffed. Picking up a stethoscope, she grabbed Karkat's shirt up roughly and put it up to where a lung was supposed to be. He immediately took a deep breath and almost pushed her away if it wasn't for how hard she moved it up. "Breath in and out. Slowly."
He complied as best he could, feeling the air enter his lungs and deliberately holding it in for a few seconds. It was let out shortly, slow and careful. Thankfully, Aradia didn't pull a face as he kept doing it and eventually pulled away.
Karat's eyes wandered to the screen again, watching the landmass get closer and closer. Little formations could be seen now, but it was still too far to see. Was the landmass small and far away, or was it large and the perspective made things wonky? He was so focused on it he didn't bother to resist feeling the cold stethoscope go over his heart.
Aradia mentally counted how many beats her friends' heart was putting out, the number being worryingly low. It kept going at its own pace, beating at a snail's pace. It wasn't struggling as far as she could tell, but it wasn't going as fast as it should.
"Your heart rate is nearly nonexistent." She was starting to be thankful for the brief period where she wanted to be a doctor and looked over medical books for fun. The gory stuff may have given Karkat and Sollux nightmares, but it was good summer reading in her opinion.
"Some athletes know how to lower their resting heart rate?" Karkat received a deadeye stare in response. He sighed deeply and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Okay, I know I'm being difficult. But this is hard, okay? I- I honestly don't know what's going on and I fucked up when I walked into that stupid fucking portal…" He trailed off and took a shaky breath.
Aradia sighed along with him. "It's hard for us too. I don't know what happened in there, but we need to move past this. I'm glad that you're at least trying, but some of us…" She trailed off and looked at Sollux, who didn't seem to be paying attention to them. Or, at least, he was pretending he wasn't.
"Yeah." The red-eyed boy gave her a shaky smile. "Thanks. You two have been a big help and I don't say it enough. So… thanks."
She smiled back and put a hand on his shoulder. "Anytime. We're here for you."
It was a wonderful silence, but it was shortly interrupted by Sollux letting out a small gasp and pushing the screen towards them. "Guys, shut up and take a look at this!"
They blinked and moved to watch the screen as their friend moved to sit beside them. Looking it over, the noticed that Sollux had moved close enough to the landmass to see something that looked a little like…
"Buildings?" Aradia moved closer, squinting, before starting to jump in place with an excited look on her face. "Holy crap, there's ruins in there?!"
Indeed, there were several ruins located on the little meteor, dotting the landscape in brief numbers. The remains of houses, temples, and maybe a few cultural sites looked long abandoned, crumbling to the elements (implicating that the Ghost Zone had weather that could erode buildings over time). They weren't close enough to get more details, but they could tell there was some carvings on the buildings themselves
"Holy shit." Karkat muttered. People fucking lived in there?! They must've, otherwise there wouldn't be ruins. Jesus, his dad really did make the scientific discovery of the century. He checked the battery life and reared back a little. "We might have to back off, we're down to 62% battery life."
"What? I modded this thing so it can stay on for days, how is already down to 60?" Sollux grabbed the laptop back and figured out Karkat wasn't remotely lying. "Shit. I'll get it back here."
"I guess electronics don't really fry, but the batteries sure do." Aradia said, though she still looked excited. "You think we'll be able to get in there at some point? I really want to see what's inside those ruins."
"Maybe." Karkat said noncommittally. Maybe the ectoplasm was draining the battery or something. Ghosts were known to do that pretty often, usually in relation to their ecto-signature having a latent effect on the surrounding environment. What the hell would it do to people though?
Did ghosts actually live there too?
As a response to the unaired question, something seemed to fly by one of the side cameras of the drone.
"The fuck?!" Karkat launched himself backward, blinking rapidly. The two looked him strangely before turning their attention back to the screen. "Please tell me I'm not the only one that saw that?!"
"Saw what?" The two asked, only to be answered by another blur on the screen, this time in the front camera.
Sollux paused, blinking at the screen with wide eyes. "…Somethings alive in there." He said quietly, still pushing at the buttons to make the drone move closer to the exit. "Something is alive in there."
"Did you see anything? What does it look like?" Aradia attempted to get a closer look but was shoved aside by an ever panicking Sollux. "Look, if somethings in there, we should try and get a look at it while we still can."
"We are not dragging some eldritch piece of shit out here just to satisfy your curiosity!" Karkat moved back to the seat he previously occupied, frantically grabbing onto Sollux's shoulders. "Dude, get that fucking thing out of there before it leads it outside of the portal!"
"I'm trying, man, but pressing buttons harder doesn't exactly make it go faster." To his credit, the dual-colored boy was attempting to make small evasive maneuvers, but it was difficult to do that with something that flew with the grace of a baked potato.
The thing- ghost? -moved in front of it again, faster this time and starting to move about it in a pattern. Swirling and swirling around it, it started to become a green blur that became hard to track, moving too fast for their eyes to see. The blur almost became all encompassing, blocking the sights of the camera. The portal looked so close…
The three jumped in their seats as a loud popping noise as the drone slipped through, dying as the last of the battery made it go to a sudden descent onto the lab floor. Sollux was the first one to jump up and get to it, inspecting it carefully. Letting out a pained whine, he lifted it up in the air.
"It's freaking dead! Thank god it didn't break and all, but it should still have plenty of battery life left. Freaking ghost zone crap." He practically hugged and petted its propellers softly. "I promise I'll give you plenty of charging when I get home."
"It'll be okay." Aradia laughed softly, patting Sollux on the back with an amused grin. "You're little heli-baby will be fine."
Karkat, meanwhile, was making a beeline to the button to close the portal. "While you two play House, I'm going to make sure whatever the fuck doesn't get through the portal." He shook his head and kept his eye close on said portal. "Seriously, what the fuck-"
The next words to come out of his mouth were interrupted as he coughed suddenly, and painfully. Stopping him in his tracks, a few more coughs brought him to his knees, as he badly tried to suppress them. Breathing deeply between each one, red eyes closed tight as he punched his chest a couple of times.
He felt the familiar feeling of hands attempting to pull him upwards as Sollux and Aradia moved to his side.
"Dude, what the fuck's happening? Been a while since you swallowed your own spit while ranting." Sollux looked him over as the coughs kept wracking out of his body, a wheeze slipping past his friends' lips.
"This isn't normal. He was breathing just fine a few minutes ago, what the hell is making him…" Aradia trailed off as she saw something try to slip past the hands Karkat held to his face. She squinted, reaching a hand carefully up there and moved his hand away slowly.
As soon as that happened, a faint trail of smoke billowed past Karkat's lips, filling the room with the smell of a forest fire. Blacker than ash, it slowly moved out and above them, disappearing in the cold air of the lab as soon it appeared. It trailed out slowly as the coughs gave way to whimpers.
"…Jesus Christ, can I breathe fire?!"
Before the question be answered by a possibly sarcastic response, the silence was punctured by a soft, wet splat.
The portal, open in its glory and malic, had a tentacle poking out of it, radiating intent. Slithering out further into the lab, another tentacle joined it by getting into the open air, and then another. The number of tentacles drove up to eight, finally gaining purchase as it pulled a bulbous, green head out of the portal.
Red eyes moved all across the room, taking in every detail, before moving to other three beings in the room.
Karkat looked the thing right in the eyes and whispered to his friends. "Run."
The three instantly started sprinting towards the exit of the lab, the screech of that thing ringing through the air. Footsteps on the metal were drowned out as it started flying towards them, moving past them and reaching the doorway, blocking it with its tentacles.
"Shit." The teens stopped, skidding a little before slowly moving back, watching as it moved itself closer to them. If they hadn't known any better, they could have sworn that it had a toothy grin on it's as it slithered to them. The room felt colder and colder the farther they moved back, the imposing power of the ghost portal filling them with more dread.
Karkat looked around the room, panic slowly etching its way onto his face. "Of course, the only weapons in the room are far away from us." He said to himself. "The one time a fucking ghost shows up, and we can't get a fucking. Weapon."
The cold feeling of the portal was getting to him, along with the panicked whimpering of his friends behind him. They looked ready to fight, but eight arms against six wasn't exactly going to cut it. Probably didn't matter if they added their legs to the fight. Don't focus on the portal, Karkat, just get them out of here. Just get them out of here and get yourself out of there too.
Karkat couldn't help but let out a high-pitched laugh. Of course, the portal couldn't settle for him, could it? It had to drag them down with him. It was out for blood. And it sent this thing to kill them.
"Just couldn't have one of us, could you?" The red-eyed teen giggled, taking another step back while staring at the monster in front of him. The portal was only a few steps away now. "Decided that you had to send a lackey and get us all. Complete the collection, right?" Another laugh slipped past his lips.
He was brought back to reality when he felt a hand land on his shoulder and Sollux shout in his ear. "Dude, stop acting crazy, we go to-"
And suddenly, his voice was cut off as a tentacle had sneakily grabbed at his leg, pulling it out from under him. Dangling in the air, the other teens watched helplessly as he kicked at the offending tentacle, cursing. "Put me down you motherfucker!"
Then it laughed.
It fucking laughed.
Karkat didn't necessarily feel fear anymore, mostly because anger quickly took it over. He felt his heart stop and his body go cold, fists tightening as a scowl fit onto his face. Not thinking, he took a step forward and started to yell.
"Put him down," He said, a ring of light flitting over his stomach. "You goddamn ectopus!" He took another step, the rings going over his body slowly enveloping him. Taking another step, he launched himself at it, fist raised.
The ectopus, finally turning to the voice in surprise, was met with a black and white, hazmat covered fist to its face.
The ghost, knocked back a bit from the sudden blow, dropped Sollux on the floor. It screeched, not fond of the perceived new arrival. Flinging several tentacles at him, Karkat slipped dodged by flying to the side and continuing the assault, launching another fist to its face and landing on one red, bulbous eye.
The knockback pushed it against the wall, causing the creature to panic and screech louder. Flailing blindly, it grabbed Karkat and pulled him towards its mouth. Before the jaws could snap shut, the ghost kid's hands moved to its teeth, pushing them apart to prevent the maw from devouring him. Growling, he sent a kick upward, clumsily flying backwards as the jaws shut with whine.
A sick part of Karkat grinned as the creature looked at him fearfully. "Not so tough now, are you?" His echoey voice reverberated off the walls, making the echo more noticeable and intimidating. "Should have stayed in the fucking portal."
Aradia, meanwhile, had moved to Sollux and pulled up the groaning boy. She shivered as her friend taunted it with a tone, she hadn't heard from him before.
Sollux could only stare at the hazmat suit as the person wearing it floated in mid-air.
"Now." Karkat tilted his head, his neck making a loud crick, still smiling at the quivering mass of ectoplasm before him. It turned into a deep frown, his glare causing it to shiver even more as his taunting voice turned into a low growl. "I'm going to have to ask you leave my fucking house!"
Taking advantage of its fear, it grabbed several of its tentacles, flipping it over onto the floor of the lab with painful sounding squish. Before the ectopus could think about getting up, Karkat flew at it with a kick, sending it screeching past his friends as it tumbled into the portal, tentacles and all. The red-eyed boy moved to the portal's button and slammed it, closing it for good.
For a small stretch of silence, the room was filled with the sound of heavy breathing as Aradia and Sollux stared at the hazmat wearing teen in front of them. Karkat was attempting to slow down his breathing. It was a calm moment before the boy let out a triumphant cry and turned to them.
"Did you see that shit?!" He said, floating upwards and punching the air. "I kicked that fucking octopus' ghost's incorporeal ass! Jesus Christ, is this why Dad does this shit? It's freaking amazing!"
The two watched in stunned confusion as their friend floated around in an adrenaline-fueled happiness, flitting around and going higher as he celebrated. It took a few seconds for Aradia to raise a hand and wave a little. "Karkat?"
"Yeah?" Currently upside down and looking downward, red eyes blinked in response.
"You're floating again." She said calmly. Seeing him do a double take would've been funny, but she was busy latching on to Sollux, who had still remained silent.
"Huh." Slowly floating downward until his feet met the floor, he looked at his hands and gave them an experimental squeeze. "I'm in the suit again? That's weird, that things still in the closet." He blinked, a concerned look appearing on his face. "Is this because the portal blasted me while wearing it? I mean, it's not that bad, but still."
"You're taking this surprisingly well." Aradia would've thought so too if it wasn't for the fact that the adrenaline in her system was going down as her heartbeat calmed. The fight was over and holy shit, she could've died back there.
"Trust me, I'll freak out later." He waved off the concern. "At least this answered one question. I can switch to being… whatever this is, but I don't know how. I mean, I can imagine having a heartbeat again like las time or- dude, are you crying?"
Sollux had remained silent, moving slowly out of the grasp of Aradia to move towards his glowing friend. He was, in fact, crying but he didn't seem to be consciously doing so. He reached out a hand to Karkat's face, tilting it slightly to look into the red eyes.
Silent for a couple of seconds, his words came out warbled as he stared into them. "We killed you."
Karkat flinched at that, unsure what to say at this change.
"We fucking killed you." Sollux moved his hand to Karkat's neck, feeling for a pulse. "You aren't breathing, you don't have a pulse, and you can fly. You died in that portal because we asked you to go in it. Why did we ask you to go in?"
The red-eyed boys shoulders slouched, a small frown moving onto his lips. "I could've said no. This isn't your fault."
"Bullshit." The calm look on Sollux's face crumbled as he moved forward, holding onto him as little sobs escaped him. "We fucking killed you."
Karkat didn't do anything at first. Clenching his fists, he closed his eyes and attempted to think about his heart beating again. Feeling blood go through his veins and air in his lungs.
It was weird thinking about it like that, but it was surprisingly easy to know the difference when he couldn't feel it all.
The light appeared at his stomach and moved over him once more, making him look human again. And just like that, his heart had seemingly started up again and he felt himself take a deep breath.
"Hey," Karkat said softly, moving Sollux away from him. He did his best to ignore the pitiful look on his friend's face. "We figured out some stuff today and I can easily say I'm not dead. We just need some more time to get a handle on things. This is all our faults and we'll do our best to fix it ourselves." He leaned in close. "Got it?"
To his credit, the dual colored boy wiped at his eyes and gave a simple nod. A look to Aradia confirmed that she had been crying too, or at least was on the verge. If they wanted to get past this, they all needed to put an effort to making the best of it.
Karkat sighed. They did a lot of the work till now. It was his turn now.
"Okay," He clapped his hands together, looking at them both. "I now know how to get into that 'other' form now. I'm thinking that since we have the weekend to ourselves, that means we have several tests to run." He moved his hands out in front of them. "You guys want to keep moving forward for today, or do you want to go home?"
The other two teens looked at each other cautiously before giving Karkat a solemn nod. With a smile that was only partially convincing, he attempted to make a joke.
"Let's see if I can get into that other form without being in a fucked-up situation."
It was hours later, Karkat sitting at his desk, when he pored over the notes they were able to take after his friends decided to help him with the 'research.'
Comparisons on his human form and his 'other' form. The change in heartbeat (from slow to none), his body temperature (from 72 to 36), and other observations dealing with his appearance (photo negative coloring, except for his eyes). It was all very interesting and written out very carefully, especially for three teenagers.
Written proof that something had changed.
Karkat took a shaky breath, putting his head in his hands. Taking a few seconds to collect himself, he closed the notebook and moved to hide it under his mattress. He'd have to find a better place for it so his dad wouldn't find it, but it was good enough for the time being.
Moving onto the bed, he stared up at the ceiling, attempting to void the thoughts running through his mind. Something had changed now, and he was finally beginning to accept it.
He took another deep breath, closing his eyes and willing them to do something. He wasn't exactly sure what, but this was the last chance he'd have to be able to deny everything. To ignore what happened and move on with the weirdness that was his life.
You're not dead.
Opening his eyes and seeing the ceiling glow red above him, he realized he had no idea what the fuck he was going to do next.
Somehow, he knew that feeling wasn't going to go away anytime soon.
And that was my first ever time writing a fight scene! Probably could've done better, but I guess I couldn't give Karkat too complicated of a fight. Besides, the ectopus are cannon fodder until he starts getting up to bigger prey.
Again, we'll be reaching canon events next chapter and I hope you're all ready for it. See you in the next chapter!