A Lullaby For Gods Chaper 147

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: DON’T YOU FEEL LIKE IT’S BEEN FOREVER

THE LAND OF SNOW AND STARS

Aradia’s ancestor was terrifying.

After Karkat had given up on arguing with Kankri for something as stupid as how shitty their blood was, he’d attempted to break away from the rest of the crowd and march out the door. The human-looking adult, Aethra or something, had tried to block his way, saying something about him needing rest and more food. Karkat had shoved him aside, but before he could step out into the snow, he suddenly found himself being telekinetically dragged back into the room.

Any subsequent attempts to escape out of the house were met with the same result. When he’d tried to shoot a spike of blood at the older Megido, he got pinned to the ceiling for his trouble.

Where he remained until now. It had been twenty minutes already. The rest of the house’s inhabitants were gathered below him in the living room, sitting comfortably on couches. The fuchsia blood that had been staring at him since he’d gotten here snickered at his predicament.

He snarled at her. He would have flipped her off if he could move his limbs, but he was stuck where he was, waiting for the others to catch the adults up on what Karkat had told them. They were a strange-looking bunch – a human-looking guy with dark hair and bright blue eyes that matched a strip of dye on his locks, Aradia’s legendary demoness ancestor, and…a ghostly pink woman who looked like an older, rougher Nepeta, only with longer hair and sharper teeth. To make things even more unusual, apparently, Eridan’s orphaner ancestor had been here and had just left to take care of some emergency. The fact that he still wasn’t back was causing some alarm amongst the house residents.

“Interesting,” Aethra murmured, just as Kankri finished relaying Karkat’s story to him. “So your mutation can resist even illusions in reality.”

“I think it has something to do with Karkat’s evolving capabilities.” Kankri looked up at him at that. “The Heir and the others did mention that his classpect allowed him to grow resistance to certain things.”

“That would mean this end of the world has enough magical presence driving it that he can adapt to it.” Aethra sank back in his seat, which was definitely was more hospitable than the cold, rickety ceiling. “Though, given with the Heir of Blood’s interference, I’m not surprised.”

“And his blood is reacting to that?” The Vriska-looking girl leaned forward in her seat, intrigued. It was so weird seeing someone who was very obviously a Serket but was…softer. A little more dorky-looking. Like someone had de-fanged Marquise Spinneret Mindfang.

“Hey,” Karkat called out below. “I’m right here, you know, don’t talk about me like I’m some sort of bug you’re studying.”

“We’ll let you down if you promise not to do anything reckless,” Serket-girl said.

“We. You’re not doing shit.” Karkat’s glare sidled over to the Handmaid, sitting on a lone loveseat with her arms crossed as she listened to the others. Feeling Karkat’s gaze at her, she looked up, meeting his candy-blood red irises with the deep burgundy of her own, unwilling to budge.

If only she wasn’t psychic. Karkat had learned a lot from his time in that hellworld he was stuck in, and one very helpful bit had been what Kankri was talking about earlier, and what he’d been told during their brief period of training on that island from so long ago. If it was magic and he had physical access to it, as long as he could keep tanking it without passing out or dying, he slowly built an immunity to it. Telekinesis was pure energy, governed by Mind and Heart but so stripped down and evolved it didn’t classify as magic at all.

There was nothing to phagocytize, nothing to build an immune response to. It sucked.

“It really would be best if you stayed here,” Aethra said. “We can wait the end of the world out, and once things have been set right, you can go looking for your friends, though by that time, I imagine they’ll have been freed from those pocket dimensions you mentioned.”

Karkat raised an eyebrow. “If the end of the world gets fixed, then everyone gets spat out of those things?”

“They should be. Those…I don’t know if they’re a proper term for them, but they only exist when the end is near,” Aethra said. “A world that isn’t dying has no use for them.”

Huh. Well, that made things easier. So, murk the Heir of Blood and everyone was good to go.

“Okay.” Karkat tried to strain against the telekinesis keeping him in place, to no avail. Psychic powers sucked. Boo. “Where’s the Heir of Blood so I can kick his head in?”

“The Heir and the others should be taking care of him,” Kankri said, and then muttered, suspiciously, “At least I hope so.”

Grist, this guy had no idea what was going on beyond this place, huh? Why the hell were they even here? Actually, that was a good question, so he cleared his throat and asked it.

“The Mage and the others told us to stay here,” the Kanaya-looking girl answered this time. Porrim, her name was. “I believe this place is meant to be a stronghold in the midst of the apocalypse.”

So they had no idea where the Mage and the others were, had been left behind, and were now sitting in a bunker waiting for shit to blow over. What a life. Good for them. Karkat had to spend upwards of a half-sweep butchering through things that wore his friends’ faces and a shitton of monsters.

“So why’d, uh, Orphaner Dualscar leave?” Karkat asked.

“…there was an emergency,” Aethra said, briefly sharing a look with Kankri.

Karkat strained his neck forward as far as it could go, which wasn’t very much. “What emergency?”

“Yeah, clam to think of it.” The fuchsiablood turned her attention to the man. “You never did tell us what Dualscar had to suddenly go do. What’d you two sea?”

Kankri’s jaw tensed. He looked over to Sabera, who clicked her tongue and put a hand on her chin in thought.

“Considering he hasn’t used Frati’s magic to contact us in any way when he could is alarming,” she said. “It might be best if we checked in, at least.”

Kankri nodded and turned back to the others. “It was…Cronus.”

“No way,” the fuchsiablood said. “No way. Our Cronus? Dualscar’s name is Cronus too – was it reel-y our Cronus?”

“He’s alive,” Porrim muttered.

The Serket girl made a face, uncomfortably leaning away from the conversation now.

“On the other end of that blood connection, it was our Cronus, yes,” Kankri said. “t was Dualscar’s original iteration calling for him, essentially.”

“Don’t ever say that,” Serket said. “They’re so…wildly different. Mr. Ampora might be a little gruff, but at least he’s not wholly unpleasant to deal with every time you talk to him.”

“What was up with him?” Meenah asked.

“I’m not sure, most of what I could see was just this incredibly bright light.” Kankri pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes. “I could see this glowing woman, and he was there, but she took up most of the connection. I think he was in trouble, though.”

“That was the Full Moon,” Sabera said.

There was a chorus of ‘ohhh’s amongst the crowd. Karkat wrinkled his nose. What the fuck were they talking about?

“And that thing doesn’t protect him, right?” the fuchsiablood asked. “Cause we got the protection one.”

“Yes,” Aethra said. “He might unfortunately be deceased.”

“Rest in piss,” the Handmaid muttered, to Karkat’s surprise. Aradia and Sollux similarly looked taken aback. Aethra, meanwhile, only shot her a chiding look and shook his head.

“Should we look for him?” Aradia asked.

“I’ll look for him.” Aethra rose from his seat. “The rest of you stay here, watch the land…at the rate the end of the world is spreading, we might start to see monsters around here. Megido-san, if you please.” He motioned to Karkat at the last part.

Automatically, without even having to lift a finger, the Handmaid yanked Karkat off the ceiling and onto one of the empty seats, folding his limbs properly so he was sitting down with his hands in his lap. Karkat’s vision spun with the vertigo, lasting for a few seconds, before he had enough clarity to glare at the Handmaid.

Oh, his head turned. He could move again. Great.

“Will you need assistance?” the Handmaid asked Aethra.

“I’ll teleport back if I do,” he said.

The fuchsiablood began to rise. “I could come with you – ”

“No.”

“Aww, boo,” she sneered. “Come on, I can kelp! And…” Her eyes widened, suddenly. “A-and that’s my friend in danger. Yeah! That’s our Cronus in danger!”

She rushed towards Aethra, grabbing onto his sleeve and shaking his arm around.

“If Dualscar’s not back yet, they’re both probably in trouble, aren’t they?” she asked. “I can kelp!”

“You’re just bored, Meenah.”

Meenah narrowed her eyes at him, baring her teeth in irritation.

“I’m going with you,” Karkat said, rolling his shoulders as he stood. His joints clicked as he moved, being held in one place for too long making them stiff.

Aethra turned to him, frowning. “No.”

Karkat crossed his arms. “Yeah, I am,” he said. “You said if we kill the Heir of Blood, I can get my friends back, right? Something attacked Eridan’s dancestor and it was strong enough that he had to call for back-up. There’s a chance that worm-infesting bastard’s involved.”

“He brings up a point, Aethra,” Sabera said. “If Dualscar’s having trouble when he has access to Frati’s magic…”

Karkat lifted his chin, silently challenging Aethra to question his logic. “I can put up a good fight,” he said. “If anything, we’re a good match, aren’t we? A Knight and an Heir of Blood, who do you think would win?”

“The Heir would solo you,” Meenah said.

“Shut up, shithead!” Karkat snarled. “I’ve literally got blood that eats magic and makes it a dud! Fuck you!”

“You don’t need to fight the Heir of Blood, you know,” Sollux chimed in from where he was, boredly leaning an elbow on the arm rest beside him, his jaw in one hand. “You can just go find Dualscar and teleport back. Why the fuck would you assholes make life harder for yourselves?”

The room quieted.

Meenah broke it first, immediately turning to Aethra and grabbing his arm. Her nails sunk into his skin. “There’s two of them. You have to get Cronus and Dualscar out. What’re you going to do when you need to de-pond two people in two different places?”

“I’m far more capable than you take me to be, Meenah,” the man said.

“Tough shit, then, I’m going,” Karkat said, similarly stepping forward. He reached for the arm Meenah had snagged. “If you don’t take me, I’ll find a way to follow anyway.”

He curled his fingers on Aethra’s forearm, fingers pushing Meenah’s nails away so he could touch the points of blood seeping through the sleeve, slightly on the deeper fuchsia-red side than a normal human’s candy red.

Aethra tried to yank his arm back. The pads of Karkat’s fingers made contact with the blood, staining.

Bingo.

The atmosphere in the room shifted, magic warping the air electric, the pressure suddenly mutating.

“…what did you just do?” Aethra asked, frowning at Karkat. Meenah had stilled, looking between them in interest.

“I don’t know, let me test it first,” Karkat said, cheeky. The red of his nails suddenly warped silver, his irises bleeding into blue.

In a flash of green and silver sparks, he teleported into the corner of the room.

He staggered, slightly, disoriented from the sensation of the ground disappearing and reappearing beneath him. Amidst the shocked gasps in the room, he looked down at his hand, the one with blood on the fingertips. He could already feel the magic mutating within his body, the information slotting neatly in his biology, as if he’d been using it for as long as Aethra had.

He licked the rest of the blood off his fingers, then made a face. Space magic tasted like metal.

“What the fuck,” Meenah said.

“You can copy magic?” the Handmaid asked, one of the only two people remaining in her seat unbothered, alongside Sabera, who only grinned at Karkat’s display of power. The others had sprung to their feet, surprised.

“Only for godtiers, apparently,” Karkat said, wiping his hand on his shirt.

“How does that even work?” Serket rounded the couch, marching towards Karkat to pace and circle around him like he was a museum specimen. Karkat leaned away from her, suddenly uncomfortable. “The ability to develop an immune response against magic, but the ability to copy it upon contact…oh, that’s fascinating.”

“It’s the mutation in our blood,” Kankri said, staring at Karkat intently, brow creased in effort. His eyes were aglow with red. Was he reading him with his Seer powers? Oh, that would be a good ability to phagocytize. “He can…weaponize the contents of…someone’s DNA, I believe?”

Sollux sighed. “Great, he’s turning into Kanaya.”

“Can you turn into a rainbowdrinker, then?” Porrim asked. Unlike Kankri’s discomfort, she actually looked intrigued.

“Never tried it,” Karkat said. He searched for Aethra in the crowd, and found the man glaring at him, a displeased curl to his lips.

“Clever,” the man said.

“Your move, dipshit,” Karkat said. “You either take me with you or…I chase you all over the place. I might even get lost and hurt myself, I don’t know. You’re supposed to be looking after us, right?”

The Handmaid looked like she was about to laugh, momentarily glancing towards Aethra to see what he would do. The man’s eyes narrowed further, before he sighed, and turned away, motioning for Karkat to follow.

“Come on, then,” he said. “If you get in my way, I’m blasting you back here.”

Karkat grunted, adjusting the coat he’d stolen around his shoulders as he ran after the man for the front door. Behind them, Meenah chased, but instead of grabbing onto Aethra, she latched onto Karkat.

“Hey, hey, hey, shouty, take me with you!”

#

NIGHT VALE

JANUARY 30, 2014

“We’re not going to New York to fight a kid who trashed a seadweller,” was Terezi’s response to Vriska’s suggestion that they ditch this musty place.

Vriska threw her hands up in frustration, turning around to stomp away. “Ugh, you’re so boring! Boring, boring, boring! I am going out of my mind just sitting around here doing nothing. How can you stand it?”

“Knowing this might be the last safe place on the planet? Really well, actually.”

“Boooooooo.” Vriska stopped by a couch, rocked on her feet, and then listed backwards, collapsing onto the seat with a huff. “Come on, it’s our chance to have some fun around here! And we get to save the world and everything; doesn’t that sound nice? Finally getting out of this stupid fucking town? There’s so much sand around here too, it’s irritating.”

Terezi merely listened to her, sitting across and patiently waiting for Vriska to tire herself out. She doubted she would given that she had spent too many days in this weird town rotting away doing nothing.

But now there was finally a clear objective! Now there was finally something to do, they just actually needed to head to New York, throw some people around and bam! The world was gonna be saved, everything was going to be set right, and there was going to be more to do aside from watch some dust devils form and dissolve.

Vriska had it all planned out too. If this Sylph of Hope girl was connected to the Heir of Blood in some way, maybe they could make her cough up info on where he was hiding. And if they could, the possibilities were endless. A frontal attack, meeting him head-on and stealing his luck in battle, nerfing a good chunk of his moves and lethality. They could do an ambush too, as the man was obviously not omniscient, if the Mage and the Heir could scatter people about the place in hopes of dividing his attention. That Sylph girl was the key to getting as much information as they could, and none of the idiots she was housing with had thought to take advantage of that fact.

Except maybe Terezi, but bluuuuuuuuh, she was being too cautious right now. She wasn’t always this hesitant with things, why the hell was she suddenly all worried? The Heir of Blood was no Jack Noir and no Lord English – those guys were part First Guardian, and this man wasn’t. If they could survive Jack and agree that she could face Lord English, then why on earth couldn’t she fight the Heir?

There was a reason that man was in hiding. He only ever played by putting pawns forward, rarely attacking head-on by himself; the strategy was cowardly, and luckily for Vriska, pointed to a deficiency she was willing to take advantage of. Whatever the man’s powerset was, he was hesitant to use it in a straightforward battle. It must be lacking in something. Physical use, maybe.

He did usually resort to blood leeches, which targeted emotional, conceptual parts of the victim. Maybe Blood just wasn’t suited to hard power combat, and knowing that, he stuck to the shadows and waited for people to fall to despair.

Tough luck, she was a sturdy girl.

She just needed to convince Terezi. She sighed, watching as he moirail stood and walked upstairs, probably to go check on the robot, who was still asleep, despite her claim that his…uh, moirail? Matesprit? Whatever. She just knew that dead human was close with him and had apparently promised to wake him up soon from a weird dream space he’d tricked himself into believing.

It was part of some stupid plan, which Vriska was even hard-pressed to acknowledge a plan. Anything that involved dying without insurance was a losing game, and that kid’s endgame had been martyrdom. Ampora had been quite taken by the idea, though, when Terezi had explained to him why there was a comatose android in the house. He’d looked melancholic, actually quieting in respect, and had similarly made a habit to check on the robot every now and again.

The Orphaner Dualscar was still passed out. From the amount of blood he’d lost, Vriska wasn’t surprised; he appeared to have taken the brunt of Eridan’s attacks – it should have been Cronus to get that beat up, but the asshole had been so cowardly as to engage mostly with the Sylph during the whole fight.

Hmph. Wimp. If Eridan’s powers depended so much on his walking ambulance, then a surprise attack to take her out should be enough to halve his offensive prowess. In a sense, he was lucky she was around, right? Vriska could just take that luck and see how he floundered without it.

She stood, heading for the backyard where she’d seen Cronus go earlier; he had been searching for the taller red-haired human, Benzedrine or something.

Vriska found them discussing something quietly under the shade of a tree, Ruben gesturing as he spoke while Cronus nodded, fins flicked down as he listened intently. From where she was approaching, Vriska could only hear something about recordings and messages.

She opened her mouth, intent on calling for them, when –

A burst of silver and green magic arced through the air; Vriska’s hair stood at the sudden charge in the atmosphere, and she jumped back, away from the light, her fists up. Her eyes scanned the area, trying to locate any threat making to spring towards her, but found instead that several people were stumbling out of the lightning that was bouncing across the backyard.

The currents condensed and spat out three people in the flash of a second: a tall human-looking man with dark hair that had a strip of blue on its side, and two young trolls, one with braids and fuchsia blood, and another with short hair and…nubby…horns…

Oh, what the fuck?

The fuchsia blood slapped a hand onto her mouth, gagging. “I’m never gonna get used to that.”

The one with nubby horns snorted, straightening out his coat, looking around the yard. He see the trees ahead, the plain fields, and as he turned towards Vriska, his eyes widened.

“Vriska?” he asked.

…did she know this twerp? He had nubby horns, sure, but she didn’t know anyone who looked like a walking skeleton and had such a weird combination of nails and irises. Instead of only one color reflecting his blood, his nails – claws, really – were silver, and his eyes were a bright atomic blue.

Vriska frowned. There was something about him that looked familiar, though. She just couldn’t quite place it. There was a sense of déjà vu to seeing him, but –

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he yelled, looking over her shoulder to see the house, and then whirling around to where a shocked Cronus and Ruben were. He jerked his thumb towards them. “Is that Cronus?”

The voice rang familiar. Oh, no way. No fucking way. Since when did he look like that?

Vriska’s jaw dropped. “Karkat?!”

“Hey.” Karkat raised a hand – one that had a massive hole through it – and looked at her over his shoulder. “So who else is here?”