I got a few interested reviews from a number of people (and a few who weren't as interested), so let me say it right here: this probably won't be turned into a full fic in the near future. Besides wanting to keep the fics more manageable, I am trying to fully read Homestuck to get a better bead on the Trolls' personalities.
KazuSakai made a good point in his review that a lot of what makes Homestuck what it is is its commentary on video games, internet culture, and the like, and I still intend to read Homestuck to get a better feel for the characters. But I think the Trolls (and indeed many of Homestuck's characters, human and Troll alike) can be transplanted away from the SBURB part of the story and, with a bit of hand-waving and exposition, can work equally well in another setting. It just needs to be done right, and I'm not so sure I can do it right yet. These two chapters are just a sampler, a sort of test story, and while I will keep the 'Dursley trial' of the first chapter if and when I do do a proper story, it may be that I take the story in a whole different direction. This is just me testing the waters a little.
Incidentally, when I do get back to writing fanfic in earnest, I am going to try and bring out sequels to Cycle of Sin and Is Your Great-Aunt an AI?! It'll be some time yet before I do that, though...
Oh, and I've started a new collection of sample chapters. Like sakurademonalchemist, I have decided to do one based on the Nasuverse. It's called Zelretch's Collection of Alternates, and contains the first few chapters of Repetita Iuvant, the pure Fate/Zero version of Res Nullius. Have a look here:
s/12327121/1/Zelretch-s-Collection-of-Alternates
Anyway, have fun with the second chapter of Ofiuco Amduat and the Goblet of Fire...
OFIUCO AMDUAT AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE
CHAPTER 2:
FIRST CONTACT
A year later…
"I still can't fucking believe you talked us into this," Karkat grumbled at Harry. Harry still thought of himself as Harry Potter, even now, and some of his friends sometimes called him Harry, despite what he told his aunt before having her killed. Of course, to Alternia at large, he was now Ofiuco Amduat, or, if he was on Trollian, crazedCoatlscience (or CC(1)).
Anyway, Karkat complained as a form of punctuation, like a petulant apostrophe, or a fractious full-stop, or a querulous quotation mark. Harry had gotten used to it. And he had to be. They were currently within a scouting ship, parked on the edge of a certain field in England, after having found distinctive exotic energy discharges consistent with magic, specifically those like Harry could use. So, here he was, with Karkat, Tavros, Kanaya, Terezi, Sollux, Aradia, Vriska, Nepeta and Feferi.
"Karkat, look at it this way. You get to have an extended holiday on a world where the sunlight won't blind you unless you look directly at it, fewer things are trying to kill you, and so on. Plus, messing with humans is pretty fun, right?" Harry asked.
"Yeah, I guess," Karkat said. "It's just so weird looking at them, especially knowing you used to be like these guys."
Harry nodded. What his father put him through was hellish, to say the least. But in its own way, it was worth it. While life on Alternia was as violent and painful as it was at the Dursleys, at least there he had acceptance, at least from some parts. And it was fun.
"Still getting over the fact that your dad managed to persuade the Condesce to allow us to head up a scouting expedition," Vriska mused. "She's probably hoping we fail, and fail spectacularly."
"Actually, it's either that, or we succeed in gathering enough intelligence about the humans to help if she ever does decide to invade," Terezi said. "Earth's pretty far outside her expansion zone, though."
"Well, with the rumours I heard lately," Feferi said, "there's an alliance of those who are being attacked by our people. Personally, I don't like what she is doing, but…the Condesce, I have learned from my Lusus, tends to kill off her heirs once they come of age."
"Which is partly why we're here," Harry said. "We're trying to find the magic users here, the ones my late and unlamented aunt spoke of. See if there's anything interesting we can use to take control of Alternia."
"A bunch of teenagers looking to overthrow a tyrant?" Karkat said with a roll of his eyes. "Yeah, that always works in the movies, why not in reality?"
"Hey, we've got some of the best minds on Alternia here," Harry said. "And at least we're doing it sensibly by not plotting while on our own homeworld."
"Or talking about this in front of Eridan or Equius," Terezi said. "You know how they are about the haemospectrum and the status quo."
"And yet, Equius has a thing for Aradia," Harry said, indicating the bushy-haired Troll with the curling horns, like those of a ram. "Who, according to the haemospectrum, is the lowest of the low, unless you think of red as being below burgundy. Here, we don't care about the colour of your blood."
Aradia nodded. Given her diverse range of interests, it was hardly surprising that she was the de facto lead xenoanthropologist, and thus, the one who needed to read out exposition. She gestured at the viewscreens, showing a large number of people in eccentric dress milling around in a field, setting up tents, many of which seemed to have extras tents normally shouldn't have. "In any case, let's get down to business," Aradia said. "According to recon drones we sent out, this gathering is a supposedly covert operation in order to hold a magical sports event called the Quidditch World Cup. I say supposedly, but the magic users are doing an appalling job, and the non-magical owners of the area have been subjected to repeated exposures to a memory modification spell."
"So what the fuck is Quidditch?" Karkat demanded.
"There are a number of books on the subject that a few people are reading, and the memetic content analysers of the drones have compiled a list. Thanks, Sollux, for those analysers, by the way," Aradia said to Sollux Captor, a Troll with four horns and glasses with two differently coloured lenses, one red, the other blue.
"Nice to be appreciated, unlike some people," Sollux said. "Anyway, according to the analysis, Quidditch is similar to our Puntball, as well as to the human sport of soccer that Dr Amduat already observed. However, it is played in the air. It is also considerably more dangerous than soccer, as the magic users have enchanted metal balls to chase players. While scoring with one particular ball is important, the game is won when an elusive small ball called the Golden Snitch is caught."
Karkat, who was peering at the viewscreen showing the abridged rules of Quidditch, scoffed. "I dunno whether to congratulate these acephalic grubs for making it dangerous, or deride them for these banal bullshit rules. Who thought up that crap about the Snitch?!"
"Calm down, Nubby," Terezi said. "Though you are right…for a change." Over Karkat's spluttered indignation, she added, "Seriously, these rules are insane. At least with cricket, for all those rules, you've got one ball, two batsmen, and those wicket things. Does magic corrode their thinkpans or something?"
"Sadly, that is increasingly seeming to be the case," Aradia said. "The drones have observed multiple incidents of discrimination based on lineage. One person here seems to have brought a number of books on wizarding society for her own perusal, and one of them relates to how those born to non-magical parents are perceived to be inferior to those born to a more-established magical lineage. However, unlike the haemospectrum, which has some basis in our ability, this Blood Purity doctrine is possibly spurious. We'll have to do some investigation. Luckily, Dr Amduat developed our disguises. The main problem is concealing our horns, but the holographic disguises help."
"I still feel unsafe about wearing some gizmo Dr Amduat made," Karkat said, wrinkling his nose. "I mean, your dad's a great guy, Harry, but his thinkpan's very different to everyone else."
"Who else would think of turning Harry from a boring human into a Troll?" Vriska remarked with a shrug. "Anyway, I think I'd make a very sexy human."
"Sure, you'll be beating them off with a stick, Vriska," Terezi said, rolling her blind eyes behind her glasses. "You want mine?"
"Hey, I can use my dice to defend myself," Vriska snorted. "A cane's interesting, but dice are even more so."
"Try not to get into a strife situation in the first place," Aradia pointed out. "The human wizards may be backward, even by human standards, but their power is very real. Look at Harry. Ever since Dr Amduat removed those blocks on his magic and that soul fragment, he's ridiculously powerful."
Which was another reason Harry wanted to be offworld, and nowhere near the Condesce should she ever come calling. There were already rumours that Harry had more power than the Condesce, and if those rumours got too loud, the queen bitch of Alternia (as Harry and the others privately dubbed her) might pre-emptively kill him.
Of course, having so much power made it harder to control his magic. It was why his Strife Specibus in his Sylladex only held the most sturdy (from a magic-channelling viewpoint) staves. Staves that Eridan, who used wands when he wasn't using crossbows, was jealous of. Of course, given how elitist Eridan was, Harry was glad he wasn't here on this expedition. Feferi was at least good natured for a high-ranking Troll, but Eridan and Equius were elitist morons, and Gamzee…well, while he was friends with Tavros and Karkat, Harry felt wary around Gamzee, as if he was a ticking time bomb waiting to go off.
That, and some of the stuff he said while high on Sopor Slime was majorly weird. He hoped he didn't meet anyone like that on Earth…
Elsewhere in the field, a girl with blonde hair and pale eyes sneezed. "Ah, the Blubbering Humdingers are talking about me behind my back. That, or the Alternian Trolls who are lurking nearby."
Hermione Granger looked at Luna Lovegood, fellow Ravenclaw and noted eccentric, and asked, perhaps unwisely, "Alternian Trolls?"
"Shit, we've been rumbled," Sollux muttered.
"What do you mean?" Kanaya asked.
"One of the probes we have monitoring the humans has found a human who knows we are here," Aradia said. "Appearifying her so that we can erase her memories in front of witnesses is ill-advised, of course. Though judging by the reaction of her companions, eccentric utterances are normal for her."
Tavros peered at the screen, before he said, "Uh, guys, is it me, or are those two girls coming this way?"
Karkat swore vehemently. Well, he frequently swore vehemently. Terezi swatted him on the head with her cane. "Calm down, Nubby! It's not a disaster. It'd be great to have some allies on the ground."
Aradia nodded. "Remember, recruiting other lifeforms as agents is allowed under scouting rules and regulations. We only wipe their memories if they look to be troublesome."
"There's one problem, though," Sollux said. "According to the memetic data gathered from the books, Harry's pretty famous in this community. They call him the Boy Who Lived thanks to surviving some instant death curse or other."
Vriska snorted. "Wow, we had a celebrity in our midst, and we didn't know it."
"Look, he's still got green irises and that scar. Okay, the scar's faded, but still…he might be recognisable," Sollux said.
"We'll burn that bridge when we come to it," Harry said, combing at his hair with his fingers until they covered his scar. "Until otherwise, you guys call me Ofiuco Amduat, got it?"
The other Trolls all nodded. "Okay, looks like they're nearly here," Nepeta said.
On the screen, the bushy-haired girl was saying to the rather dotty-looking blonde, "…That is probably one of the weirdest things you have said, Luna. And yet, I'd sooner believe in sentient alien Trolls than…well…half the stuff we've gotten caught up in." She looked around, and said, "I'm not surprised their spaceship's invisible too. They had it in a Doctor Who video I once watched, one they never finished(2)."
The blonde, Luna, took out a stick, no, a wand, and waved it at the general area of the entrance. "Alohamora." Then, the airlock opened, showing the entrance. "There, Hermione. Now, let's go meet our new friends."
"Luna, why would you want to annoy some aliens? They might be here to conquer us or something."
"We are if the fucking Queen Bitch of Alternia has anything to say about it," Karkat said with a roll of the eyes. "Anyway, it's us who're gonna do the fucking annoying."
"Well, let's give them a warm welcome then, eh?" Vriska said with a smirk.
Hermione Granger didn't know why she let Luna get her into these messes. Then again, she had a soft spot for the young Ravenclaw ever since she found her being bullied. Hermione had been Sorted into Ravenclaw in her first year, and she was grateful for it. But to see Luna bullied by Cho Chang and Marietta Edgecomb, just like Hermione had been back at primary school…well, the two bonded. Luna was a fantasist, and an annoying one, but she was also an excellent lateral thinker, and the two had bonded, far better than she had with either Ronald Weasley or Neville Longbottom, though at least she got along best with the latter.
Still, to suddenly declare the existence of an invisible alien spaceship, populated by Trolls from the planet Alternia, was one of Luna's weirder moments. Few wizards would even talk about ideas that were science fiction rather than fantasy.
Perhaps it was curiosity, the thought of making first contact with aliens, that had her allowing Luna to drag her into this. That, and the fact that when Luna dragged one into a mess, it was at least more entertaining and escapable than anything Ron had dragged her into.
After making their way through an airlock, Luna led Hermione down a corridor, and to a door, which she rapped on. Hermione then heard a raspy voice, like a teenaged boy, mutter, "Did she actually fucking knock?!"
"It's polite to," Luna called out. "May we come in?"
"Of course you can," purred a girl's voice. "Join the party."
The door slid open, and Luna skipped merrily in, Hermione following with a sigh.
The room beyond looked like a control centre of some kind, with a bank of screens on one wall. However, it had a very lived-in look, more Red Dwarf than Star Trek. What had to be discarded food containers littered the desks, and there was even a games console of some sort hooked up to a television. It seemed one part CCTV control room and two parts living area.
And inhabiting the room were ten…creatures. Or aliens.
They looked human, for the most part. Hell, they looked like boys and girls her own age. But they had grey skin, twilight-coloured sclera, sharp teeth, and horns of varying sizes and shapes. They all wore t-shirts with astrological symbols on them. Hermione was surprised to see one of them wearing a t-shirt with the sign for Ophiuchus on it, as it wasn't really thought of as part of the Zodiac.
In fact, it was this one who drew the most attention from her. Like the other creatures, he had a messy mop of black hair on his forehead. His horns were jagged, like lightning bolts. His eyes had green irises, peering out from behind glasses.
"Take a fucking picture," one of the other male Trolls, with short horns and a belligerent attitude muttered. His shirt had the astrological sign for Cancer on it. "It'd last longer."
He was promptly whacked over the head by a female Troll wearing red-tinted glasses, and wielding a cane. "Don't be rude, Nubby."
"DON'T FUCKING CALL ME THAT, TEREZI!" snapped the male Troll.
"Calm down, Karkat, you're making a bad impression in front of the aliens," the green-eyed Troll said. He then waved at them. "Hi. Like Vriska here said, join the party." He indicated one of the female Trolls, who wore glasses, had strangely-shaped horns, and what seemed to be seven pupils in her left eye.
Hermione sighed. What the hell had Luna gotten her into now?
CHAPTER 2 ANNOTATIONS:
So, Hermione and Luna have met the Trolls, who are on Earth for a mission of their own. Methinks a touch of chaos is going to hit the Quidditch World Cup, and woe betide any Death Eaters who interfere.
I didn't actually intend for Hermione and Luna to meet the Trolls, but after the sneeze cut, it just seemed to go naturally from there. Hermione doesn't recognise Harry partly because there're no photos of him as a child, and partly because he has concealed his scar.
Incidentally, I just learned that Calliope the Cherub actually does use the Ophiuchus symbol in Homestuck. For the sake of this story, assume that Calliope does not exist here.
1. I used the same ATGC (like the base codons of DNA) nomenclature for the initials of the usernames of the Trolls (and of the humans from Homestuck, but that's another matter). A coatl is a type of winged serpent from Aztec mythology, with the most famous being the god Quetzlcoatl.
2. Hermione is referring to Skagra's ship in Doctor Who: Shada, a story by Douglas Adams that was never finished due to strikes at the BBC. Footage from the story is seen in The Five Doctors, and it was recently novelised by Gareth Roberts. Parts of it was also used for the first Dirk Gently novel, particularly the character of Chronotis. This story is set in 1994 (yes, I know, Homestuck is set mostly in 2009, it's a fanfic, deal with it), and Shada was released on VHS two years previously.
