The Dream Bubbles

The troupe of 4 moved purposefully across the landscape, heading straight towards the next Dream Bubble. Sollux led the way, his sense of the dead leading him.

Walking up to the threshold, they braced themselves. Unsure of who or what situation they were about to walk into. With Equius things had been straight-forward, this time it might not be. There were many unpleasant memories when it came to their group of friends.

They all four crossed the threshold together, thinking they were prepared for anything.

Inside was a large dark chamber, metal and industrial. Looming in the center was a glass vat filled with thick liquid and a dormant, half-finished, monstrosity. This memory was of the meteor.

They spread out and looked around. Wondering who's memory this was and what this memory was exactly about when they heard the steady clop of a fifth pair of footsteps.

Despite their preparation, and a logical understanding of the situation, they were still dumbfounded by a second Equius walking into view. The newcomer didn't react to them but strode to the center of the chamber before looking up, something had caught his eye. "Pyrope?" Said the faux-Equius.

The real Trolls followed his sightline and could make out a red glint on top of the tank. Terezi's trademark red shades.

As voice called out from above. "Kneel." It spoke.

The real Equius at once recognized the scene; this was the scene of his own death. He tried to speak up, but was cut off by the quickly unfolding events.

The faux-Equius responded with a disapproving "What?". The voice retorting "I said. KNEEL. Motherfucker."

An arrow shot out from the darkness above, slicing across the faux-Equius's leg and severing his tendon; sending him tumbling to the floor.

Up above the red glare moved and dropped to the floor, resolving itself to be not Terezi, but Gamzee wearing her shades. He held a bow in his hands, the source of the arrow, which he broke it in two with casual ease.

Equius's mouth went dry, just as it had at the time. He had broken many bows himself in his attempts to be an archer, all by accident, he was a horrible judge of his own strength. The taunting display by Gamzee, doing on purpose what he'd done uncountable times on accident, had titillated him in the moment. Now he just felt cold. He knew what would happen next.

Gamzee took the broken weapon and looped its string around the faux-Equius's throat, pulling it taunt and strangling him. His victim taking it with no struggle, just a stupid aroused grin on his face. The other Trolls gasped and looked sickened. Equius just felt ambivalent. Seeing this from the outside made him feel more disconcerted than he would have thought.

Within a short time, the faux-Equius had asphyxiated, Gamzee standing triumphant as he released the bow and let the body hit the ground with a thud.

With Equius already with them, it seemed clear that this must somehow be Gamzee's Memory. Everyone had been under the impression he was alive, but that was clearly not the case. Tavros made to speak up, suggesting they leave; when the situation changed with sudden abruptness.

An anguished howl echoed forth from the walls; and from an elevated vent, Nepeta, tears in her eyes and fury on her face, descended towards Gamzee.

Everyone was shocked, but none more so than Equius. He felt his blood turn cold and his heart stop beating in his chest. He hadn't known she'd witnessed that. That she'd had to see that. He felt embarrassed and ashamed, and not in his usual self-indulgent way; this was different, he felt cold. Then at what happened next, he felt himself die inside.

As Nepeta rushed towards him, intent on vengeance, Gamzee turned around. Seemingly in slow-motion he turned to face her; his hand shooting up to catch her by the wrist just before she could rend and tear his face with her claws.

He twitched the caught hand suddenly, the snap of him breaking her wrist echoing throughout the chamber along with her cry of pain. He then drew her now-useless hand towards his face, dragging the extended claws across it and leaving bloody gashes across his own skin.

Nepeta began to scream in terror, but didn't get far before Gamzee butchered her. Tearing her apart with his bare hands.

Equius fell to his knees. Silent tears streaming down his face. He hadn't meant for this to happen; it should have only affected him. He'd chosen to die that way, but now she was dead because of him. Something deep inside him, long taunt, snapped; and he began sobbing, his face buried deep into his hands. This was his fault, all his fault.

He wept. Cursing himself, cursing his weakness. Ready to die all over again and to just stay stuffed into the void this time. When he heard a concerned voice call out his name. "Equius?"

He stopped mid-sob, his throat catching. He didn't dare to hope but he looked up anyways. Where her dead dream-body once lay, Nepeta now stood. Her blank ghost-eyes staring at him with warm worry.

Equius began speaking, trying to stammer out an apology, trying to let her know he was ashamed of what he'd let happen. "Nepeta I…" But he was interrupted by her charging into him; a tackle that turned into a hug as tears began rolling down her face as well. "You're ok." She exclaimed. "I was so worried."

Not knowing what else to do he returned her embrace, continuing. "Nepeta I'm sorry. I let myself get killed. I got you killed. I'm sorry."

"It's ok. It's ok. I forgive you" She whispered, patting him gently.

"I won't let it happen again. I promise." He pleaded, mostly to himself.

She repeated that it was ok and then disengaged from the embrace.

Both of them stood up.

She turned to look at the other Trolls, appraising the assembled group before speaking. "This is a lot of us dead. A third of our number."

Taros took a step forward. "More than that, half." He said. "Eridan and Feferi were killed as well. We… still haven't found them yet."

Nepeta let out a low sigh. Slipping into her familiar rote of cat-puns to numb the pain. "Well; I surpaws we can take solace that we've all found each other, and that at least some of the others are purrsently alive."

She looked around the chamber. Tension still drawn across her face. Being in the room where she and Equius had died in was sending tingles up her back, even though the room itself was just an illusion. "Can we leave, it's cold here?" She asked, fidgeting.

"Of course." said Tavros, and they all exited the Dream Bubble.

It didn't take long for Sollux to pick up the next ghost with his senses, so they headed off. As they went, Tavros did his best to catch Nepeta up on the current situation.

"So that's about the gist of it. From what I've heard, the others along with the humans are all on their way to some new game session. With any luck it'll go well, but I wouldn't hold my breath just yet."

"Hm. Ok." Said Nepeta, floating on her back as she went. Unlike the others she was taking full advantage of her ghost-hood, and hadn't touched the ground since she'd learned she could fly. "So where does that leave us? Aside from locating our fellow ghosts?"

"Well…" lead on Tavros, not sure how to bring up the next points. "There's this giant green muscular guy called Lord English roaming around here. I've only seen him once, but that was enough for me because that's when he started doing that." He pointed up to the fractured, multicolored portion of the sky.

If she'd had pupils Nepeta's eyes would have widened at that. "Oof. That sounds purrty serious." She said.

"Yea." Said Tavros, shuddering. "I saw him disintegrate another ghost with one of those blasts, no one I knew, but still. Scary to think that can happen to us."

Nepeta deflated at the revelation that, even dead, they were not truly free from harm. But then she perked up. An idea forming in her head.

Hey, maybe in that new session they'll have a Life player! Then maybe some of us can come back! Even if they don't, if the Kernel Spurrites have prototypings left in them we can use them. Though…" She looked at how large their current numbers were. "We'd have to pick and choose who came back with the Kernel option. I don't think I'd like to have to choose who got to come back and who didn't."

Tavros felt ice run up his spine. The Ring of Life suddenly feeling heavy in his pocket. He still didn't know what he was going to do with it. It could bring any one of them back to life, that's what the man had said. But how did you decide who? A vote? And he had his instructions to give it to Vriska, even if he had his doubts about that course of action and no idea how to find her in the first place.

Nepeta picked up that something was off and waved her hand in-front of Tavros's face. "Hey. Alternia to Tavros. You alright in there?"

Tavros righted himself and waved off her concerns. "No. Yea. It's just; you're right. Deciding who to bring back would be… challenging. I hope we never have to choose one person over someone else."

Sollux, walked by himself at the front of the procession, guiding the way and generally feeling pretty anxious. There were only two dead Trolls left and he was guiding everyone towards one of them now; he didn't know how to feel about that.

It was nice to be needed. But it didn't matter who they found next, Eridan, Feferi, either way he would encounter problems. Either he'd find the woman he'd loved and failed. Or they'd find his rival who'd killed her.

Despite Tavros's assurances, he still wasn't sure he could bear to face Feferi. She'd opened up to him, and he to her. Then he'd gotten himself knocked out and been unable to do anything as her scorned, would-be ex, killed her.

Making matters worse was that said ex- was almost guaranteed to escape the justice he had coming for him. After Equius's miraculous "turnaround" and all the other sappy bullshit going around, the others were likely to let bygones be bygones. Especially with this Lord English character roaming about. "Like ok dude, you tried to turn traitor and kill everyone before, but you got cut in-half with a chainsaw so we guess it's all good now. Try you best not to turn on us all again the second things go wrong."

He didn't know if he'd be able to control himself if they found Eridan before Feferi. On the off chance they were lucky enough to find Feferi first, he'd try to convince them give up and leave fish-boy in his stupid self-aggrandized dream world. That was for sure.

Equius strode along in a funk. Nepeta was still chatting with the lowblood-, Tavros, he corrected himself in his head, so he was left alone with his thoughts. That was until Aradia unexpectedly pulled up from behind and started talking to him.

"Hi, how you doing? You ok?" She asked chipperly.

He paused for a second, then responded with a question that had been on his chest for some time.

"Am, I, a freak?" He said, bringing up his palms to study them.

"Hm?" Said Aradia, curious where this was coming from.

"I've held you, Tavros, Nepeta… all the others, by the standards of the Hemospectrum for so long. But I can't even pass muster myself, can I? My physical strength; is abnormal. I'd have been a threat to Alternian society. I would've been culled when I came to age wouldn't I? I'm a mutant-blood by any other name. And that's not even considering whatever being an "Heir of Void" means for my genetics. I'm an aberration to the Hemospectrum.

He let his hands fall to his side and stared ahead before continuing.

"Aside from that. I know my personality is sickening. It's a small miracle that you all didn't shut me out before. My damn fetishes. And I haven't exactly let my attitude do me any favors either." He sighed and hung his head.

"I want to, need to, apologize for how I behaved during our game session. When I made that robot body for you to inhabit, what I tried to do to you with it, I was out of line. I'd objectified you, turned you into an object to be obtained, to be controlled. That was wrong. I'm sorry."

He turned his head to look at her; finding on her face not a look of annoyance or hatred as he'd so feared, but a look of contentment.

She smiled plainly. "Thank you Equius. That apology means a lot coming from you. I appreciate it."

"and besides..." She said, flaring her butterfly wings for emphasis. "If you being an Heir of Void makes you a mutant-blood, then me being a Maid of Time makes me one as well. And we mutant-bloods have to stick together you know?" She ended the thought with a friendly slap to his back. Then went flying off to the front of the line determined to talk to the sad-boy there as well.

Watching her leave, Equius felt something stir within himself. A warm feeling he was sure he'd never felt before. He was pretty sure he was in love with her. And not in the self-absorbed and controlling way he'd felt once before.

It was only a few short beats of his fluttering heart, but he was dead-sure that he preferred this feeling much better than the other.

Author's Note: Expect the next two chapters to come out quicker than this one took, then a hiatus as I prepare chapter summaries for the next nine or so. I'm hoping to reduce the lead time between chapters. As of now now, I know what the major plot beats are going to be through to the end of the story, but the details are still sketchy.