The Meteor – 3 months after departure from the Green Sun

Rose let out a sigh as she sat down at the table. Across from her sat Kanaya, who looked equally weary. Since the day meteor journey had begun the two of them had been engaged in research. Pouring over what they knew of their world's histories, reading any documents they had on hand, and comparing notes about what happened in their respective SBURB/SGRUB sessions. As things had dragged on the conclusion had become indisputable, someone had played them all for rubes; hard.

Of course this had been apparent ever since the Green Sun. The First Guardian of the Troll's universe, the enigmatic "Doctor Scratch", had pushed and prodded them in oblique chat messages. Guiding them towards their eventual plan to weaken the unstoppable Jack Noir by destroying the source of his and Scratch's power, the Green Sun itself. But that had all been a ruse. In a series of events Rose still didn't fully understand herself, the bomb she and Dave had taken from the Human session to destroy the Green Sun had ended up going back in time and becoming the Green Sun when it detonated.

While those events were disconcerting on their own, the influence was proving to stretch back further and further, to long before the Human session had started. Take the Trolls for instance. Entire aspects of their society seemed to be socially engineered to make them better SBURB players. The systemic violence of their caste structure, they were taught to construct their own shelters at a young age. It all pointed towards someone wanting the Trolls to succeed in winning their game and creating the Human Universe. Then when the time was right, having the Troll's own interpersonal problems and vices had come to a head; allowing them to cause Jack's ascension into an all-powerful monster. Leading right back to the mission to "destroy" the Green Sun.

This was big. Bigger than either of them had been prepared for. The big question was why? Doc Scratch needed the Green Sun and the power it gave him, OK. But so did all First Guardians. A single one of their number didn't have the power to cause the events that brough the Green Sun into being in the first place. Even with the First Guardian powers of long life and teleportation he couldn't have made all the necessary adjustments needed for such a plan to work, he'd need help that was in-the-know. There were just too many moving parts and variables. You'd need someone attuned with the aspect of Time like Dave or Aradia to make it all come together. It was becoming clear to Rose that while he had been pulling their strings, someone had also been pulling his.

The reset human session seemed to be the key. The Green Sun wasn't enough. Whoever or whatever was working behind the scenes had had a vested interest in the human session being "scratched" (how had they missed that reference before?). The answers had to be there. But they were still years away from their arrival.

The two of them sat in silence, digesting these recent discoveries. It was Kanaya who broke the silence. "Reservations and revelations aside, I see no other option for us other than to continue on. We've no direction to go but forwards."

Nodding in agreement, Rose brought up the immediate obstacle to that path. "If we can continue on that is. We don't know what's been destroying the dream bubbles. If that were to happen too close to us I don't think we would survive."

Kanaya placed her hand on Rose's. "True, but there's no sense in worrying about what we can't affect. The detonations have so far been occurring away from us in a linear pattern. We should be alright if that holds." Kanaya shifted her posture, withdrawing. "Do we tell the others about what we've discovered?"

Getting up and marching over to the drinks cabinet, Rose poured herself a glass of wine. "Tell them what? That we've been made fools of and we still don't know who, or how, or why? I think they've already figured that part out on their own."

Kanaya stood up, intent on justifying their efforts. "We have a name."

Rose closed her eyes and took a sip. " 'Lord English'? That's not much to go on. The name appears once, once in The Sufferer's volumes as 'the birther of our misery and our inevitable doom'. That doesn't tell us much; and with all the time-line shenanigans that have been going on I wouldn't be surprised it that was a prediction to Jack crossing over from our session dooming yours. English is the Human name for our shared tongue."

Kanaya sat back down. Saddened. Rose was becoming increasingly jaded at their efforts, and that wasn't all. While Human family structure was still foreign to her she could tell that Rose was starting to reel from the death of her mother in the Human Session. Rose had tried to talk to John about the loss of their respective parents; but the boy hadn't wanted to talk about or even acknowledged the events. Kanaya had tried to step in and fill the emotional void, providing a shoulder to lean on. But despite her best efforts the cultural gap was proving a difficult barrier.

Rose took another drink, numbing her worries with the fruity alcohol. It didn't take much to get her buzzed. She was an adolescent after all. Not that she cared, underage drinking was the least of the issues she'd been dealing with lately.

Rose turned her attention to an at-hand problem they could solve. "What do we do about Vriska?"

"Do?" Kanaya replied cautiously.

"Yes, do." Said Rose. "She's a liability, and I'm not talking about her inability to walk. She's done horrible things. I understand that Alternia was a harsh world, but that's no excuse for some of her actions. Especially her more recent ones. She went out of her way to help Jack ascend, just so she could be responsible for her own doom. That nearly killed all of us."

"So what do you intend for us to do? Put her down?" Said Kanaya

"No, nothing so extreme, yet. I was thinking we restrict her movements about the meteor, keep eyes on her at all time. She has to know that her stunts have consequences, for us and for her. If she continues her refusal to learn; we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

Kanaya leaned against the table. "Rose, I wholeheartedly agree that Vriska's past actions border on and in some cases cross over into pure evil. But she's suffered too you know. You're aware of her past as well as the rest of us. And as for learning about consequences, I think she gained that insight losing her legs. Have you talked to her? She's a shadow of her former self, broken by what Terezi told us she saw would have happened if she'd gone off."

"She's getting her strength back. That cock-sure attitude too. It's only a matter of time before she tries something."

"True. But as you said we'll just have to cross that bridge when we come to it. Though I'm not too sure that it will come to that. You saw the wound, there's no recovering from that. Not with the resources we have on hand."

Rose conceded that she had lost this discussion. "Ok, we'll leave Vriska alone. For now."

She changed the discussion quickly; eager to bound away from her faux pas. "What do you think they'll be like. The people in the new session?"

Kanaya shrugged at that. "Honestly, I have no idea, this is my first scratched session."

Rose laughed, realizing the absurdity of the question. It was outside both their bounds of knowledge.

Leaning back against the table, Rose stared at the ceiling. "Well I hope they trust us. I can only think back to what happened when we met you and the other Trolls."

Kanaya gave a mirthful smile. "Well I would hope we all can make a better first impression than that."

"Me too."

Earth – 1 minute prior to 1st Alpha session entry.

The teenage girl rushed madly through her house, from piece of equipment to piece of equipment. Going through steps relayed by a mechanical bunny. She wasn't sure what, but something was going to happen when the timer worked its way down to zero, and she didn't want to stick around to find out what. Luckily for her, her informant was using his seemingly omnipotent view of her house to keep her away from her father, who was no doubt confused as heck about the mysterious pieces of equipment that had appeared in his living room and surely had a lot of time-consuming questions to ask.

She slammed the crystalline dowel onto the appropriate platform and watched with apprehension as the machine scanned it.

The voice was pestering her, something about a Kernel Sprite, some step she'd missed. But she was no longer listening, she'd looked out the window for just a second and noticed the flaming meteor cutting its way across the sky on a collision course towards her house.

The machine finished its mysterious process and everything began to glow white. She continued looking out the window, certain that the meteor would be the last thing she'd ever see. All her anxiety, her horror at the situation, froze however. As in the corner of the sky she noticed the particular sight of a bright red spaceship parked above the neighborhood. A seemingly innocuous observer to the death of Jane Crocker by space rock.

Everything flashed brightly and the house and its inhabitants vanished, leaving an empty lot were the meteor to struck with the force of a bomb. Destroying the rest of the neighborhood.

The Meteor

Rose made her way topside. Needing to take a break from her work and relax. Cresting the top of the steps she was greeted by the sight of an odd pair. Vriska flying around on her wings, glitter sparkling in her wake; and Dave, who was shouting out directions.

"Do a loop!" He yelled, cupping his hands around his mouth to throw his voice farther.

It was bemusing. Of the God-Tiers in their group Vriska and Dave were the only ones still wearing their costumes in any capacity. Rose and John had eschewed the outfits after a few days, the novelty having worn off. But Vriska wore hers in its entirety while Dave was still wearing the cape from his over a normal T-shirt and jeans.

Rose made her way over to Dave. "Hi Dave. What's going on?"

Dave stopped calling out directions and turned to Rose. He put his hands on his hips and let his cape flutter as he turned. Trying to appear cool but looking instead like a massive dork. Rose suppressed a giggle.

He jerked his thumb towards Vriska. "Hey sis. Vriska said she was going to try flying again and I figured I had to see this. Figured I'd have some fun."

Rose looked up at the pattern Vriska was tracing in the sky, presumably as a result of Dave's directions. She was unsurprised to see what the image was.

"You mean you saw an opportunity to have a giant penis drawn in the sky by your own personal skywriter."

"Yes."

Vriska flew back towards the ground, landing awkwardly in her wheelchair. She looked up at the two of them while she got her legs placed correctly. "Hi Rose."

"Vriska."

The girl Troll looked at Dave with an inquisitive look on her face. Leaning forwards. "So Dave, what did you say this symbol meant again?

Dave responded as straight-faced as he could. "It's a sign of goodwill and friendship."

Rose decided to interject before THAT became a thing. "It's a crude rendition of a Human Male's reproductive organ."

Vriska let out a laugh. "Ha, man. You got me." Her and Dave high-fived.

Rose just rolled her eyes. Great; now there were two of them.

"Dave, we're the last remnants of humanity. The last vestiges of all our species' culture resides with us. Is this really the sort of thing you want to be spreading?"

"What?" Said Dave, defensively.

"Don't 'what' me. This is important. Thousands of years of societal development behind us and you're teaching an alien to draw a phallus in the sky! It's sad.

"Yea well this is a lot of flack to be getting from the girl who's giving wizard smut to aliens. I snuck a look at that book you gave Karkat to review."

Rose's face became flushed. "That is completely different!"

"Is it though?"

"Yes!"

Vriska just sat back and watched, intrigued. She wandered if all Human siblings bickered like this. She'd have to ask John later.

"Ok fine, let's just say we both messed up in our cultural exchanges." Rose said.

Dave crossed his arms. "I mean you can if you want to, but I'm going to stand by what I did. Hell I'm going to stand by what you did too, I was just making a comparison. It is technically part of our culture, and not even that messed up all things considered; for Earth and definitely for Alternia. Plus after having Karkat shove shipping charts into our faces I think it's well-deserved payback."

Conceding the point, Rose bowed out of the conversation. Heading over to sit on the edge of the roof, legs dangling off the edge. She looked up at the ever-distant fires of the destroyed Dream Bubbles. Whenever the topic had arisen, the others described the fires as wrong, or disturbing. But she disagreed; there was something, not beautiful, mesmerizing, about the strange dancing colors. She was unsure if her opinion was from her being a Seer of Light or from her upbringing, or even if those two factors could be separated from one another, but she decided to keep her opinion to herself anyways.

She heard someone approaching and turned left to see who it was. It was Vriska. "Room for one more?" asked the Troll.

Rose's face became quizzical. "What are you still doing up here, I'd have thought you'd run off to see John." She snarked, the alcohol from earlier still hanging with her mind in small amounts.

Vriska refrained from rolling her eyes at the antagonism. "Well, see it's hard for me to get off the roof by myself without my wings, and I'm a little winded after that test flight, so I need to take a breather. I figured I'd come over here and sit with you instead of the two of us sitting on opposite ends of the roof like territorial bark-beasts. So I'll ask again. Can I sit here?"

Rose motioned to the empty spot on her left.

Vriska parked the wheelchair and then proceeded to, quite literally, slide out of it. Pulling herself the last few feet to the edge of the roof.

She looked up at the burning Bubbles with Rose, mesmerized as well. "You know. I don't think I've ever seen anything quite that color of green."

Rose stifled a groan. Annoyed to have any commonality with the sociopath. "Yea it's really something."

Vriska paused for a minute, not saying anything. Then she spoke. "Ok. So why do you hate me? I get why the others would. But they don't for some reason? But why you?"

Rose turned to Vriska. At least someone was willing to have the difficult conversations. "You really want a list? Well here it is. This." Rose said, motioning to everything around them. "Is all your fault. Yea, sure, your strings were getting pulled like everyone else's. But in the end you did it all because you wanted to. You helped Jack ascend. You put John in a position to be killed. Your actions got his and mine parents killed. That's pretty much it."

Vriska nodded. Swallowing to push down a tickle in her throat. "Yea, those are, good reasons to hate me."

Rose continued. "I get it, you had a tough childhood. But didn't everyone on Alternia? They didn't all turn into murderers. Including you that was only 1-in-4 chance within your friend-group and I've heard enough about Eridan and Gamzee to know that those two were a shitshow waiting to happen. And yea, you had some extenuating circumstances. But were you really forced to kill Tavros? From what I heard that couldn't have been much of a fight."

"So yea. That's about it. End of story." She finished.

Vriska shifted to laying on her back, staring upwards, arms folded across her stomach. She let out a sigh. "You're right you know." She said, startling Rose with the admission. "I didn't have to kill Tavros. He came at me, and it was just so easy you know? Like plucking a flower from the ground. Or, or, I don't know; dropping a plate on purpose. Like… you let go and are like, 'oh wow this is really happening'. And then everything just shatters into a million pieces. And you gotta clean it up."

Vriska's voice began to catch. Rose turned to look at her, searching. "Are you? Trying not to cry?"

Vriska responded with a sardonic grin. "What me? No. I'm not weak, I'm strong." She sat up unfurled her wings and flew the quick hop back to the wheelchair. "Present circumstances excluded of course. I'm glad we had this talk. Really informative. We have to do this more often."

She wheeled off. Leaving Rose to contemplate what the hell had just happened.

Under the platform however, a different set of thoughts was brewing; as a certain murder-clown had heard the whole thing. And was getting ideas.