Another chapter sent in, though I'm not entirely sure how well I did this one. There's plenty of action in it, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the actions good. Either way, I hope it's good enough for everybody and that you all enjoy the chapter ahead!

The meat on the stove was beginning to burn, Karkat dully noted to himself. He wasn't sure why he was thinking about this now, but the ghost in front of him seemed to agree with him and immediately went to flip it over. He could see one side was slightly blackened from where he stood.

That solved one problem at least.

The other was the fact that fucking ghost was standing right in front of him.

"Dearies?" The woman tilted her head to the side curiously, confused. "Is everything alright? If you're feeling lightheaded, you might want to have something sweet. Can't have your blood sugar getting low." She tutted as she moved toward the oven, taking a look inside. "The cookies aren't finished yet, so you might have to wait a few minutes."

"That's fine." Karkat said, voice higher than he'd like it to be. He sent a look behind himself to his friends, noting Aradia's rigid frame ready for a fight. Sollux was clicking furiously on his phone, repeatedly looking up to keep an eye on the ghost as well. "Doris was just acting a little weird and we wanted to see what was wrong."

"Aw, the poor thing. I think she's been working herself to death! I think I took too many sick days and it left her ragged." The dead lunch lady cooed, dicing up some vegetables. "Figured that she should take a sick day herself. She needs the rest."

"Right. Makes sense." That wasn't ominous in the slightest. A laugh riot, this one.

The red-eyed boy watched her carefully. He was starting to wish she was an ectopus rather than a person at this point, because he could explain away those things. They were some native animal of an alternate dimension or something, practically aliens in a way. Things that didn't have to be explained too in depth unless you want to.

This was a different though. This was a real ghost. An actual dead person that probably had family and friends that missed them, who knew them.

This was absolutely fucked.

"KK." Sollux whispered to him, pushing his phone into Karkat's hand. He pointed at the screen, never taking his eyes of the ghost. "I found her. I don't think she's bullshitting."

Karkat looked down at the phone screen, scanning the information below. He gulped as he read the headline.

Casper High Lunch Lady Found Dead due to Work Related Stress

A Casper High cafeteria worker was discovered dead in the kitchen area Friday morning due to a heart attack.

52-year-old Lisa Littlemeyer's body was found on the kitchen floor of Casper High by a fellow employee after they came into work that morning. It is believed that Littlemeyer was working late that night to receive overtime when the heart attack occurred. No one else was reported to be in the building at the time of her death.

The employee that called it in was said to be a Doris Grail, who claimed that…

…Karkat promised to send Doris some flowers or some comfort food to her later. It sounded like she was going to need it after the day she's had.

"Okay, Mrs. Littlemeyer?" He said experimentally, hoping that she at least knew her own name. At the nod from her, he felt a small amount of relief and continued. She's willing to talk, so maybe this'll be easier than dealing with the ectopi "Are you sure you should be here right now? You might still be sick."

"Yeah," Aradia moved beside him. "I'm not a doctor or anything, but you still look pretty green."

"You did not just say that." Sollux groaned, moving to stand beside his friend too, grabbing his phone. He seemed to relax a little since, for the time being, no one was trying to kill them just yet.

"Nonsense!" Littlemeyer kept moving about the kitchen, literally waving off their concerns. "I've had more than enough time to recover. It's a shame that I even had to take one day off. That'll never happen again." She moved some stuff around in the cupboards, muttering to herself. "Somebody messed with the inventory, I can't find anything in here."

Karkat winced and looked at his friends faces to see if they were as uncomfortable as he was. He noticed their looks as well and surprisingly wasn't comforted by it at all.

She didn't know she was dead.

"They probably cleaned up the place. You know, so more people don't get sick." Sollux lied, attempting to keep a straight face. "Having students get sick would look pretty bad for the school."

"Definitely!" Aradia jumped on it and smiled as sweetly as she could. "My dad usually cleans the house after the flu season ends so we don't catch anything. He's a major hypochondriac."

It looked like Lisa believed them if the nod was any indicator, but she still looked miffed. "I would've liked it if someone told me about it before that." She closed the cabinets with a huff, a tiny web of cracks appearing on them when she did. The ghost didn't seem to notice, though the other occupants of the room did.

"Got any idea how to get her out of here?" Sollux waved his phone at his friends, looking at Karkat. "I could call your dad or something. He'll know what to do, right?"

"He's only seen a ghost once, dude." Karkat hissed. "I don't even know if he can get her out of here without causing a scene."

"There's an entire cafeteria full of people outside too." Aradia kept an eye on any exits around them. "If she gets violent, there's not telling what'll happen. Ectopi are one thing, but a ghost that can actually think is a lot more dangerous."

"No shit." The red-eyed teen kept his eye on the lunch lady as she moved kept opening up cupboards, her frustration becoming more apparent. He was hoping that she didn't have a temper. "Let's just try and talk to her. She's been pretty nice to us so far, so she isn't a bad person. We can probably talk her down."

Sollux frowned at that but let his arm fall. "I'm keeping your dad's contact open just in case." He said tensely, receiving only a nod in response.

Karkat, although hesitantly, moved forward and attempted to talk to the woman in front of him calmly. "Look, maybe having another day off would help. Dedication is nice and all, but maybe-"

"No." She said it simply and with authority, rubbing her forehead as she closed another cupboard. "I'll reorganize all of this later. I'll have to check in the freezer box to make sure they didn't mess that up." She was already floating away to the back before they could say anything more.

"Maybe we should just tell her." Aradia whispered, looking at the ghosts back with a worried expression. "As cliché as it sounds, ripping it off like a Band-Aid would probably be the best idea."

"Having seen that tactic in movies, that's probably not a good idea." Sollux shook his head and lifted up his phone again. "Like I said, it would take on phone call."

"I said no, dude." Karkat turned to him and gave him a glare. "He's got weapons that specialize in hurting ghosts. We just need to make sure she doesn't do anything rash and-"

"The hell!?"

The three jumped at the sound as the Mrs. Littlemeyer apparently found something she didn't like in the freezer. They were already moving towards the sound from the freezer, moving closer just to see what exactly was wrong and-

…Everything looked normal.

Well, normal enough when there's a dead lunch lady flying around. The freezer was predictably cold with boxes full of food stacked in several places. A disturbing amount of it consisted of meat, making up most of the boxes within the place.

Probably wasn't all that nutritious if you thought about it.

"This is all wrong!" The lunch lady kept warbling in her speech, switching between a Scary Voice of her own and her normal speech. "Why is the meat packaged like this?! The butcher delivers meat to us every week so its fresh!"

Disturbingly, the teens couldn't help but note that she looked a little less human than before as she spoke. Her hair was rising slightly, eyes flashing toxic green every few moments. If they looked closely, they could see her skin getting a deeper shade of green, her teeth somehow sharper. She was floating higher at, jerking upwards every time.

It abruptly changed to her sweeter façade for a second after she turned to look at them. "Dearies," Her voice singsong and pleasant in a way that creeped them out. "Has there been a change since I was gone? Usually the butcher makes his delivery by now."

Karkat is pretty sure Amity Park hasn't had a butcher for five years ago, so he's terrified to answer the question.

"Probably sick." He said quickly. "Stuff's been going around lately and stalling a lot of things."

She let out a dissatisfied hum, looking at the prepackaged meat. "We'd at least have something on standby rather than resorting to…" Lisa grabbed a thin piece of meat that looks like it was never fresh. "…Thistrash. It's cheap! It may be a school cafeteria, but we have standards here."

"They could've done this to make things more affordable to students." Aradia started. She motioned madly to the others to continue it.

"Yeah!" Karkat attempted to smile unconvincingly. "Everyone needs to eat. It's not great, but we can't let people starve."

It had a much more calming effect than they thought as she floated a little closer to the floor. "Everyone deserves a chance to eat. Especially those poor children." Littlemeyer looked over the inventory, a confused expression on her face. "It's just a far cry to what it was a couple of days ago. I was only sick since Thursday."

Sollux frowned, looking up from his phone, the article still on his screen. "How sick were you exactly? Any weird symptoms?"

The ghost shrugged, putting a hand over where her heart would've been. "I was a feeling a bit weak. Heart was doing some jumping jacks and it became a little hard to work." She had a small smile for a brief second. "Momma always said that was a heart attack. Died from one of those. Though I ate a lot better and worked out a lot, so it couldn't have been that."

Captor's face moved from caution to pity. He looked at the other two and mouthed out two words.

Genetic predisposition.

Well, this was becoming the saddest thing they've ever heard.

They had to get her out of here.

"Hey, maybe it isn't a good idea to stay here." Karkat moved closer to the woman, attempting to act as non-threatening as possible. "It's probably stress that's getting you down. The changes aren't helping, so going home and having some tea would do you some good."

"Hm." She nodded, staring off into space for a few moments. She suddenly moved towards the exit of the freezer. "I'll head to the break room and leave a note. They'll probably have a replacement for me sent up."

The group collectively sighed, making sure to follow close behind. At least they got her out of the kitchen. Getting her out of the school would be even more difficult.

"Alright," Karkat muttered to the others, slowing down to talk to them. "As long as we get her out the back door, we can get her far away from the school and see if we can get her to the Ghost Zone."

"What if she starts asking questions? I don't exactly want to break the news to her. She's been nice so far." Aradia kept her eyes on the woman's back. "It's dangerous to have her here, but I'd rather not have to fight her alone."

"We'll call my dad. At least if we get her far away enough, she won't hurt anybody." This seemed to assuage her for now, but Sollux looked unconvinced. "If anything, he'll at least know how to get her to back off. He even made a ghost capturing device, so he at least has that."

"Didn't you just say that he's only seen a ghost once?" Sollux shook his head. "He might be able to scare her off, but she could just come back, even if we shove her into the portal."

"We'll adapt with whatever the fuck happens, alright?" Karkat rubbed his hands down his face, exhausted with the conversation. "One step at a time, otherwise we're fucked. No pressure."

Hearing a loud thump from a room nearby and looked ahead of themselves to find the hallway empty, but a door opened wide enough for light to come out of it, flickering. They moved ahead suddenly, moving to the doorway.

It looked like a simple breakroom, really. Tables, chairs, coffee makers, and whatever bells and whistles any breakroom would have. The fact that there were barely any decorations in the room showed that it wasn't used often, if at all, but they could see a calendar with today's date in the back.

Which the Mrs. Littlemeyer was looking at. Directly.

"…Shit." Karkat tried to move forward to the woman with little hesitation. "Hey, we should probably head out soon. I'm glad that you let us hang out here for so long, which I can't thank you enough for, but I'm pretty sure the principal wouldn't like it if-"

"Excuse me."

The interruption stopped him. A thrum of power escaped her, causing him to take a step back. "Y-yeah?"

"Where exactly are we?" The ghost wasn't turning around to face him, though the tone in her voice suggested that she was calm. The only reason to believe otherwise the amount of emotion that emanated from her.

"…Casper High." He said simply. He glanced back at his friends, motioning them to move away from her. Sollux was already dialing on the phone while Aradia began to lead him away. She sent a questioning look to him, only causing him to motion for her to move faster. There's a small thud on the wall to his left, causing anxiety within him.

"Good." The lunch lady says finally. Another, louder thump could be heard from the wall again, causing the calendar to shake at the force. She asks another question. "What year is it though?"

Karkat clenches his hands into fists, a part of him already accepting that this was probably going to get ugly. He could see his friends had already left. "2020."

There was a pause for a second, accompanied by louder, wet thump coming from the wall. Cracks actually began to form from the impact.

"Ah." She said finally. It was almost a formality to make the sound itself.

Rings formed around Karkat and went around his body as the wall finally gave way with a wet crunch.

The old car wasn't exactly built to go over 40 miles per hour, so it was a little concerning to hear the whine of the engine as he went up to 60, but Spades didn't really care. The other occupants in his car begged to differ.

"I understand your concern and all, but could you slow down." Heido said in the back seat. She was relatively calm about the insane driving, but she figured one of them had to since Xander was gripping onto the cushions for dear life. "Even if there were ghosts at the school, as unlikely as it is, it's not like they're going to disappear if we're a few minutes late."

"The only ghosts will be us if he doesn't slow the fuck down." Xander hissed, eyes closed tightly. "Slick, maybe that scanner thing is busted. I could take a look at it if you could stop the car."

"Can't do that." Slick swerved past a slower car, eyes flitting between the road and the scanner. "I've been upgrading this thing for years and it's never wrong. There's either a ghost at the school or a natural portal, and neither of those are good."

"Are you sure your son didn't take anything laced with the stuff to school today?" Heido took a drag from her cigarette. "It wouldn't be the first time that's happened."

"It only detects large amounts of ecto-radiation. If he brought some to school, then it wouldn't be enough to cause something like this." Spades gripped the steering wheel harder, thinking it over. "If anything, he would've called to complain about it already."

The rant would've gone on longer if a sudden ring from the cars Bluetooth didn't make everyone jump. Spades attempted to ignore the smug look from Megido in the back and answered. "Talk to me."

"Mr. Slick?" Sollux's voice came out nervously from the other side, causing everyone to feel anxious all of a sudden.

"Son?" Xander seemed to have all fear seep out of him after hearing his sons voice, leaning forward.

"Dad?" Sollux asked, before deciding to change subjects. "You know what, never mind. Slick, do you know how to get rid of a ghost?"

And didn't that send a chill down everyone's spine. "The hell are you talking about kid?" Spades definitely felt his heart begin to race at the kids' question, especially since it was from the one kid who didn't ask anything about ghosts.

"Look, we saw a lunch lady get out of the kitchen and she started acting weird. We went inside and, uh," He trailed off, as if attempting to find the right words. "There was someone glowing and she's not exactly doing all that hot right now. Mind helping us out here?"

"Is Aradia with you?" Heido asked, cigarette forgotten. She honestly did not like his tone right now, especially since he seemed way to nervous.

"Is everyone we know listening in to our call?" Sollux asked in annoyance. An audible sigh could be heard as he mumbled something to someone else. "Yes, so can you please just come here with something to get her before something-"

A loud crash could be heard in the background as two voice cursed. "Shit! Aradia, find Karkat, I think he too close to that! Just get over here!"

"What's happening over there?!" Spades questioned went unanswered as the call suddenly disconnected. This led to him cursing and hitting the steering wheel in a rage. He sped up the car even more, the engine be damned.

"Captor, grab the thermos from my bag! Megido, I left some ecto-guns in some of the seats! Get ready!" He pushed down the gas pedal even harder. "We're going ghost hunting."

Karkat was appreciating the dull feeling coming from his ghost form as he figured the wall collapsing on top of him would've been painful. He let the rubble phase through him, standing up on shaking legs as the ectoplasmic power hit him full force. Red eyes moved to around the room. Noticing the ceiling was broken open to show the clear skies, he jumped and flew out to see it.

He was greeted by the sight of two loops of red swirling around the form of a demonic looking lunch lady, who didn't seem to notice him as she stared off into the sky. In the middle of a field behind the school, she stood stock still as her eyes burned. Karkat determined that the swirls were made out of meat from the freezer, though surrounded by a green aura.

He growled as he attempted to float closer the mass, trying to think through his plan of attack. "Mrs. Littlemeyer?!" He shouted, attempting to get her attention. He felt a small amount of anger as the woman failed to respond to him.

"Hey," Karkat didn't exactly feel as calm as he sounded but attempted to be as comforting as possible about this. "I know it feels, okay? You don't want to accept this and all, but whatever happened back then happened. You can be angry about it, you can be sad about it, but you can't let it take over."

She still wasn't responding, but the loops of meat surrounding her only swirled faster. This caused him to tense up, but he still kept talking.

"I became like this only a few days ago, so I get it! But I'm at least trying to find the bright side to this." He said, floating closer to the woman. The energy surrounding her was still rising, something he sensed in his current form. "It'll be hard right now, but if you give yourself time, you'll get past it. You just have to accept it."

The meat loops stopped suddenly, stopping him saying more. The ghost of Lisa Littlemeyer didn't turn to look at him, but he could hear her speak only a few words.

"I don't have to accept anything."

Before he could think to move, a stream of meat him, knocking him out of the sky. The force of it threw him across the field with a thump, the ground under him scraping against his back. When he eventually slid to a stop, he pushed off the foul-smelling meat, gagging as he could feel some of it within his mouth.

Getting up and feeling the ache in his back and the scrapes on his back, he looked up at the lunch lady with one final pitying look before floating upwards.

"Fine." Karkat muttered, putting up his fists. His face twisted into one of determination. "I'm sorry."

He charged.

Karkat flew forward, fists in front of him as he stared down the ghost. Locking eyes, the lunch lady sent several streams of meat at him, two coming at him from the sides, one from above. He moved to the left to avoid the one coming overhead, the one at his left grazing him as he moved under the one on the right.

Cursing, he attempted to stay low to the ground to avoid the onslaught. A few more meat stalks flew downwards, piercing the ground every time he moved from one side to the other. A growl of frustration could be heard from the lunch lady, her hands outstretching to throw out another attack.

Shooting out faster than bullets, bones from the meat began to shoot out towards the ground, causing Karkat to yelp. Before he could fly to the left, he could feel a few slices through his suit and leave cuts in his skin. Redoubling his efforts, he flew faster, reaching his top speed as he neared her.

Taking a sudden turn upward, he threw a fist up to her jaw, feeling it connect. Disorienting her, he flew downwards, kicking in a downward arc. She plummeted to the ground, hitting the ground back first as the meat fell down with her.

Karkat flew down to the ground in front of her, looking at her with narrowed eyes. "Last chance, Mrs. Littlemeyer. I don't want to hurt you more than I have already."

"You'll have to try harder than that to hurt me!"She flew up above the ground, clapping her hands together with a feral snarl. The meat surrounding them started to form up into five anthropomorphic globs, with teeth and claws made of bones and eyes glowing red with malice.

Karkat mentally groaned at this, already beginning to feel the amount of pain coming towards him. "I didn't want you to hurt me even more either."

The glob behind him attempted to jump on his back, grabbing onto is shoulders with a tight grip. Before the nails could get a good grip in, Karkat grabbed it and threw it off at the other approaching meat imp, causing both to lose their form instantly.

A third imp at his right slashed at him, causing him to float backwards. The one at his left grabbed at his arm, but was punched in the face for his trouble, the bones in its face cracking under the pressure.

He was tackled in the front by the last one, swiftly biting into his shoulder. Its teeth sunk into the suit and partly into the flesh. Screaming out, Karkat kicked the thing off before throwing into the other remaining imp, causing them to both explode.

Karkat flew up to give himself time to breath, looking over the field. It looked like the meat imps were already reforming, with the ones he defeated earlier already halfway back to reaching their forms.

"Well, this is fucking useless." He said under his breath before looking at the ghost. He was going to have to focus on her if he wanted to get out of this even half alive. Even if she wasn't herself right now.

Karkat flew straight at her, a feral yell following him as he slammed into her. Grunting in surprise, she threw a fist at him clumsily, missing him by a country mile. He flew out of her grasp, turning quickly to kick her in the head. It connected, sending her body careening forward.

Surrounding her arm with meat, the lunch lady her fist outwards, but it was swiftly dodged by the ghost boy. Moving downwards, he moved up to give her another uppercut, sending her backward.

Stopping in the air, she let out a growl. "Boy, you better stop now, before I really get angry!"

Karkat rolled his eyes. "Lady, I get that you're upset over your death, but acting like this doesn't solve shit." He relaxed his body, putting his hand out to her. "Just come with me and I can take you somewhere where you won't hurt anybody."

"I'm. Not. Dead." The meat began to swirl back into a mass around her once again, her features not even human anymore. "And I'm not going anywhere with you!"

Before Karkat could react, he was swatted away by a hand formed by the mass, his body careening over the school.

"Goddamit, just let me through!" Spades yelled at the school security guard, waving the thermos in his hands. He could see the group of students filing outside the building and couldn't find the kids among them. Karkat sour mug would've been obvious to him, especially flanked by his friends. "My fucking kid's in there and I really need to make sure he's alright."

The man, to his credit, was doing a great job in keeping him back, though he looked nervously at the raving man. "Sir, we're keeping track of any students within the school and we're still looking within the classrooms. Most likely your son is in them. We can't let you inside until a clean sweep is made and there's no ongoing threat."

Spades would've loved to fight with the man further, but he felt a hand pull him backward before he could argue. He was turned to meet the cold look from Heido and the worried look from Xander, causing him to quiet down.

"Slick." Heido said calmly, with flicker of fury slipping into her expression. "I get that your angry right now- I certainly am- but you're going to disturb the students and the teachers will assume that you did something."

"I'd really hate to end another day with a trip to the police station." Xander contributed. He was doing a headcount of the students too and noted his son hadn't made an appearance just yet. "Besides, maybe we shouldn't mention the phone call too. The kids maybe a little rowdy at times, but they never did something at this type of scale before."

"And yelling about finding them might make them targets of investigation." Heido finished. She was, to her shame, on her third cigarette in a row and was beginning to lament on the fact she hadn't quit yet. "If they hear they were there, they won't think a 'ghost' did it."

"But you heard them!" Spades gripped the metal of the thermos tightly. "You're kids never willingly talk about ghosts, and Karkat wouldn't let them call me unless he actually thought there was one. They might've actually saw something in there."

"And we'll talk to them when they get out here. They're chaotic, not dumb." Xander sighed deeply. "Look, maybe we should drop the ghost thing for now. It's not like you can actually prove it right now and it'll just get the kids in trouble."

Spades sputtered, looking between the two with exasperation. "But I have the portal! It's in my fucking basement, I showed you that today. Don't you believe me?"

The two adults refused to look at him in the eyes, with even Heido averting her gaze when he looked at her. Xander, to his credit, did his best to remain stern but wasn't exactly looking at him face to face either.

Spades felt himself die a little inside at their lack of faith, arms going limp at his sides. He felt his mouth open and close before finally saying something.

"You don't. Great." He didn't sound upset, but his body language did that for him as he took off his hat and ruffled his thinning hair. "I actually open the portal to the Ghost Zone and nobody bothers to take me seriously. Even after their own kids report seeing a ghost in their school, they don't believe me."

The two still didn't look at him but slouched under the pressure of the breakdown that seemed ready to commence. They didn't want this to happen here, but at least he wouldn't be harassing anyone.

"I just," Spades shook his head, roughly putting his hat back on with a huff. "I just wanted one person to finally say that I'm right, to even thank me for my work. I finally get it right and still nobody is getting it? That I was right all along? Typical."

He laughed sharply, hauling the thermos up into his hand. "Who knows? Maybe people will still keep calling this thing a soup can."

Spades sighed deeply, but as he did, the weight of the thermos seemed to disappear. Startled, he looked at his hand to find it missing, hands holding empty air. Looking at the stunned looks of the other adults, he found that they saw it go missing too and that he hadn't simply dropped it.

Before he could think further on the matter, he could've sworn that an echoey voice from above them had shouted something.

"Thanks!"

Karkat was flying through the air, but it wasn't under his volition. The wind was whipping around him as his body refused to move, the shock of the hit still going through him. The cuts on his body weren't deep, but they were being aggravated by this, pain still reaching him despite the dulled nerves.

I have to move, he thought to himself. He wasn't winning the fight, even if he figured he got a few good hits in. He had to find a way to stop her before she decided to move on to the whole school.

Another part of him was already planning to give up the situation, to just move on with his life and hope he doesn't die from the fall. Of course, Karkat attempted to silence it, but he could already feel his muscles giving up. He couldn't fight her into the Ghost Zone, even if he could knock her out. If ghosts could be knocked out.

He blinked, his mind in a haze, noticing he'd cleared the school. He was flying above the entrance of the school. Looks like people were being brought outside. They probably heard the crash in the kitchen and assumed something exploded.

Doris. She was going to be blamed for this somehow. He couldn't help but feel sad about that. He failed her.

He failed Lisa too.

Karkat felt his arc had reached its peak, making him suddenly dive downward into the front of the school. Looks like this was how he would die. Again. For the second time. At least people would notice it. He'd probably get an entire page in the yearbook for it.

His dad was down there too, waving the thermos.

…The thermos!

A surge of adrenaline moved through Karkat's veins, an idea forming in his head at breakneck speed. Twisting his body, he moved himself so he would 'land' behind his father, hand outstretched to meet the thermos. In a what felt like minutes, but were actually seconds, he felt the touch of the metal thermos in his hands as his invisibility and intangibility caused him to sink into the ground unnoticed.

The cold of the metal felt good on his aching palms, he figured.

He launched himself out of the ground with a smile on his face. He laughed noiselessly to himself, but before he started to fly back towards the back of the school, he turned his head.

"Thanks!"

Karkat knew he would hear about it when he got home (among other things), but he had other shit to worry about. He had to make it back to the lunch lady before she exposed them both.

Flying back in about under a minute, he noted the amount of destruction Littlemeyer was causing, her giant form encasing her ghost form entirely. The being thrashed about, destroying some gym equipment nearby with surprising force, smashing anything that got in its way. He vaguely thought that she was starting to head back to the school.

"I'm fucking done this shit." Karkat scanned the monster over, frowning at seeing nothing he could actually hit. "Fuck it," He said, flying directly for its head. Don't fix what isn't broken, as his dad always said. "Punch it until it does something new."

Flying at top speed, he turned his body around so that it became a flying kick and hit the meat monster in the back of the head. It caused it to lean forward suddenly but failed to topple over. He flew back as the creature turned unnaturally to him, its glowing red glare on him now.

It swiped at him with its left claw, growling in a low rumble as he dodged it. Sending out another claw to him, Karkat swerved to the side before swerving to hit the right side of its face. He avoided its snapping jaws, taking a look inside.

Karkat felt a twinge where his heart was as he saw the lunch lady was inside the mouth, moving the creature with her entire body. Maybe if he knocked her out of there…

He moved to the side as a fist attempted to squash him, causing the ground below them to crack under the pressure. The meat monster repeated the action, causing him to move again, with Karkat correcting himself as he flew above and sent both of his fists down upon it.

He started to slow down, the plan formulating and already being enacted in his mind. He backed up slowly, staying at arm's reach, attempting to fly around it like a buzzing fly. He even made a quick dive downward, grabbing a stray soccer ball, and threw it into the monsters' eyes, causing it to wince in pain.

It gave him the opening he was looking for when it opened its arms and attempted to squash him flat between them, the monster roaring. Karkat narrowly avoided the hands and flew right into the mouth, tackling Mrs. Littlemeyer.

The two flew out of the back of the monster's throat, its structural integrity already beginning to fall as they passed through. He stopped flying suddenly, her momentum failing to stop as she slammed into the ground.

He pulled out the thermos, untwisting the cap as the power came on within it. Karkat pointed the open end towards Lisa, hands trembling as he pressed the button his dad showed him earlier.

The ghost's face turning from angry to fearful as she was sucked inside was something he'd dream about tonight.

The ghost boy floated slowly to the floor, hands shaking as he screwed the cap to the thermos on tight. He could feel the wounds on his body burn and ache, exhaustion as adrenaline left him to fall to his knees.

"Jesus fucking Christ." He said, feeling winded. "That was worse than fucking dying."

He let out a sharp laugh as he suddenly collapsed to the floor, rolling over onto his back. He could feel ectoplasm on his skin, but the cuts weren't bleeding anymore. Probably a healing factor, which was just another weird thing to think about.

On top of the dead woman he just fought.

The ghost he just fought.

The fight he just fucking won.

Giggles traveled through his body again, making him curl up on the floor with heaving breaths.

What the fuck was he going to do now?

Again, a lot of action, but I don't have a lot of experience dealing with it. Or I don't have experience with it in superhero fight perspective. However, I did send this out, even it is kind of on a cliff hanger. I felt like it would difficult to go back to normal conversation organically and figured saving it for the next chapter would be a better idea for now.

Either way, I hope to see you next chapter and that you have a nice day!