KAKISTOCRACY

CHAPTER 2:

MEETING IRL

Harry had, rather understandably, been rather morose and shocked at that revelation. In some similar situations, Terezi might have laughed. But she had grown to like Harry during their time chatting over Trollian, and so, she decided to go to Trollian, or rather, their private, Apollo Amduat-related chatroom. She licked the screen, and nodded. Aradia and Sollux were on, along with Karkat and Nepeta.

gallowsCalibrator [GC] has started trolling apocalypseArisen [AA], twinArmageddons [TA], carcinoGeneticist [CG], and arsenicCatnip [AC].

GC: SORRY FOR B31NG 4FK, GUYS. BUT 1'VE GOT SOM3 1NT3R3ST1NG N3WS.

TA: iintere2tiing? iin what way?

AC: :33 Yes, tell us! Fur goodness' sake, don't leave us in suspense.

CG: PROBABLY HAD ONE OF THOSE STUFFED TOYS SHE LYNCHED COME BACK TO LIFE AND TRY TO EAT HER.

GC: …H3H3H3, TH4T W4S 4CTU4LLY PR3TTY FUNNY, NUBS.

GC: BUT NO, S3R1OUSLY, 1 GOT A V1S1TOR.

GC: B3L13V3 1T OR NOT, 1T'S H4RRY!

AA: …what?

TA: um, terezii, are you out of your 2ponge or 2omethiing?

CG: YEAH, I'VE GOT BULLSHIT ON SPEED-DIAL. I'M CALLING BULLSHIT NOW.

AC: :33 Terezi, do you have purroof? Can we use the video chat?

GC: 1F 1T'LL G3T YOU TO B3L13V3 M3, Y34H. JUST 4 W4RN1NG, THOUGH. H3'S JUST B33N THROUGH 4 LOT. SOLLUX, WOULD YOU OP3N UP TH3 V1D3O CH4T ON MY 3ND?

TA: yeah, yeah. jegu2, make me do the hoofbea2t work…

"Hey, Harry," Terezi called over from where she was seated at her computer screen. Harry, who had been trying to make sense of what had been going on, looked up. "Sollux is opening up the video chat. He wants to say hi, along with Karkat, Aradia, and Nepeta. Come over here a moment. Oh, wait." With her sleeve, she rubbed some of the saliva trails off the screen. "Better?"

"A bit." Suddenly, a quartet of windows popped up on the screen, each showing a different Troll. Two boys, two girls, about his age.

"Whoa!" one of them yelped, a boy with four horns and a pair of glasses with two different-coloured lenses: one red, the other blue. His shirt had the symbol for Gemini, something Harry only knew because of his aunt's obsession with horoscopes. And when he spoke, it was with something of a lisp. "Ith thith really Harry?"

"Bullshit!" snapped another one, who, judging by the belligerent tone, had to be Karkat. He had messy hair, short horns, and a scowl on his face. The symbol of his shirt was for Cancer. "Terezi just scrounged up some weirdo bum from somewhere. Or maybe this is one of Vriska's little jokes."

"Bite me, Karkat," Harry snarked. "Or should I call you Nubs?"

"Hey, you told us you didn't have horns!" Karkat retorted. "You can't be Harry!"

"He didn't have them when he first arrived, you idiot," Terezi snapped. "I was there when he arrived from…well, some planet called Earth. Somehow, they grew out after he arrived. Anyway, I couldn't smell any deceit from him. Hell, I could smell the surprise on him when he realised he was a Troll."

Another of the Trolls frowned. It was a girl with a large mane of curly, messy hair, her horns also curly, like a ram's. Her symbol was Ares. "So, you believe that's Harry?" she asked.

"I know it is, Aradia," Terezi said.

Harry waved, uneasily. "Hey. So, you're Aradia…and I know that has to be Karkat…so is that you, Sollux, with the 3D glasses?"

"Uh, I dunno what you mean by that, but yeth, I am Tholluxth."

"And I'm Nepeta!" chirped the last of the Trolls, a girl with unkempt black hair, mostly hidden by a cat-faced blue hood. Her horns were almost like cat ears, and her mouth bore a cat-like smile. Her symbol was for Leo.

Harry stared at the screen. "All this time, Hermione and I have been talking to aliens. Bloody aliens. I mean, we have trolls back home, but they're big, ugly, dumb things. You're basically, well, humans with horns and grey skin."

"Hey, Harry," Terezi said. "Do you happen to have a photo or anything of yourself as a human or whatever you call yourself?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah," Harry said. He kept a photo of himself, Hermione, and Ron, taken in the Hospital Wing at the end of the previous school year, taken by Colin Creevey. He fished it out of the Captchalogue, and showed it to the screen.

Aradia blinked as she looked at the photo. "Hmm…I see. Apart from the pink skin, variety of hair colour, and lack of horns, humans look very similar to us. But why is the picture moving?"

Oh shit, Harry cursed inwardly. He hadn't thought of that. "Long story. Anyway, that's me with the glasses, obviously. The girl is Hermione. And the redhead is Ron Weasley, a friend of ours from school."

"Jegus, you look like something the cat dragged in and pissed all over," Karkat muttered.

"I had just been in a fight for my life. Long story short, I am famous because a terrorist tried to kill me when I was young. He screwed up, even though he managed to kill my parents."

"Parents? Do you mean Lusii or something?" Aradia asked.

"Uhh, anyway, I became famous, but I was raised by some pretty nasty relatives. I didn't know I was famous until I was twelve."

"Wait, you're over twelve sweeps old?" Terezi asked incredulously.

"Umm, no, I'm sixteen years old. Oh, wait. A sweep might be different to a year back home. How long do Trolls live?"

"It varies between Trolls of differing blood colours," Aradia said. "You appear to be about the same age as us, and we are over seven sweeps old." She shook her head. "It has to be Harry. No Troll could possibly be this ignorant without being culled."

"…Well, there's Nubs," Terezi smirked.

"Screw you, Terezi!" Karkat snapped.

"Okay, I'm more than a little lost here," Harry said. "I mean, it's nice to meet you guys and all, but I'm at sea here."

After a moment, Aradia said, "Hey, Terezi, do you mind if Sollux and I come over? I want to see whatever Harry has in his Captchalogue up close."

"Sure! It's been a while since I've had a sleepover! What about you, Karkat?"

"Oh sure, I'll come over for a sleepover with an unknown Troll you claim to be Harry, I DON'T think!" Karkat snapped. "I'm going to feed my Lusus. Then, I'm going to sleep in my pod. Hopefully, this is just some stupid dream caused by the slime." With that petulant remark, he shut down the video chat window showing him.

"As lovely as it sounds, Terezi, I'm going to have to decline," Nepeta said. "I promised Equius I'd come visit soon. Sorry. Don't worry, I won't say anything about Harry. But it was purrfectly nice talking to you, Harry! See ya!"

The video chat windows closed up, and Terezi sighed. "Well, that went well. Well, as well as it could have been with Nubby being a little twerp."

"Is he ever in a good mood?" Harry asked.

"Not often." Terezi sighed. "We're probably gonna have to bring you up to speed. First things first, Harry. Your username, crazedCoatlscience, is actually the username of another Troll. We stumbled across a tract of his on the internet. His real name was Apollo Amduat. He is, well, was a scientist who was somewhat infamous here on Alternia. The status quo here isn't nice. If you really did grow up on another world, it's probably very different there. Anyway, Apollo disappeared on his way to a planet to investigate. Rumour had it that our ruler, Her Imperious Condescension, ordered him assassinated. Given what he wrote in his manifesto, it's hardly surprising. It wouldn't surprise me if either he ended up on Earth, or his Captchalogue did. His manifesto claimed that our method of reproducing was resulting in genetic stagnation, and wanted to try out methods of artificially incubating children."

"Umm…okay, so what's wrong with your method?"

Terezi shrugged. "Well, buckets are involved. And, as you like to say, long story."

Harry grimaced. Sex via buckets? Yeah, that sounded like a very long story. He (discreetly, he hoped) groped his groin to make sure everything was still there. Well, it felt normal. Though very little in this situation was.

And that's when it occurred to him. He was on another world. Light years, at least, from home. So how the hell was he going to get back to stop Voldemort? And, for that matter, how was he going to explain away this?

Suddenly, his glasses trilled. It was a signal from Hermione, or at least when someone wanted to chat via Trollian. He sighed, before opening up the chatroom.

crazedCoatlscience [CC] has started trolling giftedAthena [GA]

CC: ISSIAUTNG.

GA: Harry! Where are you?

GA: Dumbledore and the others, they're looking for you!

CC: Hermione, breathe. I'm okay.

GA: I don't need to breathe while typing. Well, I don't need to pause for breath.

GA: GAH! I was so worried about you! It took a while before I could get enough privacy to try and contact you. Well, aside from Sirius. He's sitting right next to me. He says 'hi', by the way.

CC: Hi, Padfoot.

CC: Anyway, what's the big deal about keeping me in the dark during the summer?

GA: Look, Dumbledore told us to not send you any letters. He was worried Voldemort might be able to trace where they've gone.

GA: That's why Hedwig didn't come back to you the last time you tried sending a letter to Sirius.

GA: I'm sorry.

CC: …Okay. I'll admit, I'm more than a little annoyed.

CC: But at least you tried to keep in touch via chat anyway, even if you still kept me in the dark.

CC: It's a moot point now.

CC: Anyway, what the hell happened? A bunch of Dementors swooped in out of the blue!

GA: it's sirius here, harry. look, your guess is as good as mine.

GA: the first we heard about it was when all sorts of alarms dumbledore was monitoring went off over at the dursleys.

GA: then, arthur heard about you getting a hearing at the ministry of magic for using magic in front of a muggle.

GA: Hermione here again, Harry. Listen, the Ministry has been badmouthing you and Dumbledore in the Daily Prophet.

GA: Fudge refuses to believe Voldemort is back, and so he's running a character assassination on you.

gallowsCalibrator [GC] has joined the chat.

GC: SO, 1S TH1S 4 PR1V4T3 CONV3RS4T1ON, OR C4N 4NYON3 JO1N?

GA: Terezi? Is that you?

GC: Y34H. H4RRY'S W1TH M3. LOOK, YOU'R3 GONN4 F1ND TH1S H4RD TO B3L13V3, SO, W3LL, DO YOU H4V3 V1D3O CH4T ON YOUR L4PTOP?

GA: …Yes. Why?

CC: Terezi, I don't want her to see me…

GC: DO YOU TRUST H3R, H4RRY?

CC: …I did before.

GA: …Please, Harry. I want to help. So does Sirius. I promise I won't say anything.

Harry didn't want Hermione or Sirius to see him like this. However, Terezi muttered, "Might as well get this over and done with." She fiddled around with the keys, on the computer, before she said, "There we go, don't need Sollux!"

Harry, who had disengaged Trollian on his glasses, still turned away from the screen. However, he heard Hermione gasp. "Oh my God. Is…is that really you, Terezi?"

"Yeah. Wow, your hair is even bushier than it was in that photo. And you must be Sirius, Harry's godfather."

"Of course. But who are you? What are you? I mean, Hermione said that this 'chatroom' thing is like a telephone call, but with computers. But you're not human."

"Of course I'm not, I'm a Troll!" Terezi snapped irritably.

A pause, before Sirius said, "Pull the other one. You're too cute and eloquent to be a troll."

Terezi sighed in irritation. "And you're a hairy idiot. Seriously, what's with all that hair on your face? You look like Gamzee after he's scrawled on his own face with marker pen." She sighed. "Anyway, whenever this hearing is, Harry's not going to make it. I don't know how he got here, but we're on another planet, called Alternia. And well…" Terezi turned to Harry. "Come on, Harry. Show them."

Harry reluctantly turned to face the screen, and saw Hermione gasp in horror. Sirius was just staring. "Harry…what happened to you?" Hermione asked.

"I don't know! I…just don't know, Hermione," Harry said.

Hermione ran a hand through her hair. "Well, this is NOT going to go down well even if you did make it to the Ministry."

Sirius narrowed his eyes. "When did we first meet?"

Harry blinked, before he said, "Well…it was near Privet Drive…though I thought you were a big dog. I raised my wand to try and scare you away, and the Knight Bus came along."

"Okay, it's him, I'm pretty sure. Though there's something about this…I don't know, it seems vaguely familiar. I just can't remember…" Sirius muttered.

"Wait, wand? What do you mean, wand?" Terezi asked.

There was a knock on the door to Terezi's house. "Terezi? We're here," came the voice of Aradia.

"Okay! Hey, Harry, go and let them in, right?"

Harry nodded, and wandered over to the door, opening it. He didn't realise where exactly the house was until he opened the door. But he soon learned that they were in a literal treehouse, a house high up in a tree, a tree that had, he noticed, a number of those dragon stuffed toys hanging from nooses.

There, waiting near a crude elevator, was Sollux and Aradia. Aradia, after looking him up and down, smiled. "Good to see you in person, Harry."

"Thanks, Aradia. How did you get here so fast, though?"

"Appearifyer," Sollux said. "Teleportathion of a thort. Jeguth, you know thod-all about our thothiety, don't you?"

"Gimme a break. Until a short while ago, I thought I was human. Anyway, Hermione's on video chat."

"You're coping very well with learning you're a Troll, Harry," Aradia said as they entered the house.

"Don't worry, once I get a handle on the moment, I'll start screaming," Harry said, utterly serious.

As Hermione saw them enter, she said, "And you two are?"

"It's me, Aradia," Aradia said with a smile. "And this is Sollux. Nice to see you, Hermione."

"Huh. Tho, that'th really Hermione?" Sollux asked. "Who'th the hairy one?"

"I'm Harry's dogfather, Sirius Black."

"Dogfather?" Aradia asked. "Is that some sort of Lusus?"

Suddenly, Harry had his glasses taken off by Sollux. "Hey, what gives?"

"Thorry, I jutht wanted to thee your glatheth," Sollux said, peering at them from behind his own glasses. "Thethe are definitely Alternian Data-Glatheth, and one of the few that doethn't exthplode in your fathe. That'th why I never got one. That, and my powerth would play merry havoc with them. Telepathic interfathe, too. I'm checking it now. Huh, that'th weird. There theemth to be an unknown program, but it'th being blocked by thomething thtrange. I'll remove it."

"Is that wise, Sollux?" Hermione asked.

Terezi shrugged. "What's the worst it could do?"

"Explode in his face," Harry said, deadpan.

"It won't exthplode. I'm a profethional," Sollux said, not arrogantly but certainly confidently as he concentrated on it. "Now, let'th thee…what the…?!"

That was all the warning they had before the glasses exploded. Or rather, they seemed to. There was certainly a sudden strobe of light and a surge of immense pain in their heads. But the Trolls (and even the humans on the other side of the chat link) felt knowledge being shoved into their head at an extraordinary rate. It could have driven them mad, but it didn't.

Then, as they shook their heads to rid themselves of the pain and disorientation, they heard a voice, an electronically-warped voice. "REBOOT COMPLETED. Oh, thank Jegus for that. Seriously, imagine spending fifteen years inside a crate wrapped in a straitjacket, and with a ball gag stuffed in your mouth. Not a pleasant image, is it?"

"Pleathe don't menthion any kinkth Equiuth would enjoy. I can't handle the weirdneth on top of it," Sollux groused, before he looked up, as did the others. The four gathered Trolls, and the humans on the video chat, stared in astonishment at the extraordinary figure in front of them.

He was definitely an adult Troll, tall, lanky, and with dark hair, from which poked a pair of lightning-shaped horns. His eyes were hidden beneath silvered glasses, and his smile was wide, and not quite sane, not helped by the needle-sharp teeth in it. His costume was even more bizarre. The coat he wore was a patchwork riot of colour that hurt the eyes, like a rainbow that had dysentery. Under the coat, he wore a dark shirt with a strange symbol, like a 'U' with a wavy line crossing it(1).

Harry only barely noticed Sirius muttering, "Him…but how can I have forgotten him?"

"Oh, don't blame yourself, Padfoot!" the apparition said with a grin. "Blame a certain old meddler! Anyway, allow me to introduce myself!" A fanfare blasted from nowhere, and the Troll said, "I am Doctor Apollo Amduat! Well, what's left of him, anyway, a digital ghost sealed in those glasses! And I have come back to help my son and heir! You may know him as Harry Potter, but his birth name is Ofiuco Amduat!" Apollo Amduat spread his arms. "Give Daddy a hug, Ofiuco!"

At which point Harry, his brain unable to take any more strain, fainted.

The digital ghost of Apollo Amduat frowned as his son fainted. "Was it something I said?"

CHAPTER 2 ANNOTATIONS:

So, we've had the introduction of Apollo, as well as some of the Trolls' reactions to Harry being one of them, and vice versa.

Firstly, some comment on the Trolls. Sollux, I gave a lisp, because he has one in a particularly good fandub of one of the chatlogs from the webcomic. I'm not mocking him, and the other Trolls won't, though it's hinted the lisp is canon, as during a chat, Terezi pronounces his name with a lisp.

Aradia seems rather subdued, but I'm yet to read up to the parts where she is revived, so while not as dour and fatalistic as she is when dead, she's still not as enthusiastic.

Apollo Amduat is an OC Troll character that I thought up for Ofiuco Amduat and the Goblet of Fire. As with all Troll names, his first name and surname are six letters each, and is related to his Zodiac sign, which is Ophiuchus (Ophiuchus is a snake being wrangled by someone, presumably Asclepius, Apollo is associated with snakes and Asclepius, who is his son, and Amduat is the serpentine symbol of the existence of creation before the gods arose in Egyptian mythology). While one of the Cherubs (Calliope, I think) has Ophiuchus in Homestuck canon, here, it is the Amduat family. He is basically a mad scientist, and I will discuss the inspirations for him in the annotation below.

1. I basically envisioned Apollo as looking somewhat like a Troll version of Hiroto Minaka from Sekirei, albeit wearing the Sixth Doctor's coat. In terms of personality, I looked for a blend of Yttral, the eccentric Dalek scientist from the webcomic Second Empire (which I fully recommend to any Whovians) and Autochthon, the Primordial from Exalted, specifically how he was portrayed in the hilarious Mass Effect crossover Glorious Shotgun Princess by Gregg Landsman. The 'U' with the wriggly line in it is the symbol of Ophiuchus.