Chapter Text
Karkat practically flies up the stairs to the meteor’s roof. He can’t hear anything over his own breathing, but he feels the snapping of blood from blood.
His powers are not what you’d call “useful.” More “irritating.” Or actually, try “fucking asinine”! More than once had he jerked away from resting his eyes (never sleeping) at Fuckno o’clock to his rapidly-expanding powers informing him that somebody was feeling a bit sad and bugged him until he found them and made them feel better.
But it means he has some insight. He feels when things are wrong. And oh fuck, are they ever wrong. He feels like he’s going to throw up, but he just forces himself to fall up the steps even faster. Don’t be late again. Don’t fucking do that, Vantas.
He’s wheezing by the time he reaches the top of the staircase, twists the doorknob desperately and basically collapses through the door. It’s dramatic, but that’s all you can say about it.
“What. Are you idiots. Doing.”
He stumbles out, heaving in breaths as he takes in the scene, brain working furiously to compensate for the terror thrumming in his veins and the pounding of his head.
Terezi half-turns towards him, knuckles wrapped tight on the grip of her cerulean-soaked swordcane. For the first time Karkat can even fucking remember since he met her, she isn’t smiling. Her face is a flat mask. Gamzee flickers in and out of sight, shadows lengthening, snapping back, contracting to dense lines, and dark chuckles rise from the general latitude of the clown. Vriska bleeds out on the hard regolith, pierced lung filling up with blood. Karkat can feel her dying from the staircase. Eridan and Kanaya are midway through circling each other, Eridan the closer of the two to Karkat.
“Karkat,” Terezi says flatly. “Good of you to join us.”
Eridan twists around, expression flashing equal parts anger and fear- Kar’s here? that fuckin peon. It’s not what it looks like! It’s almost comical, except not even a little bit. Too late, he realises his mistake and turns again, back to the real threat. By the time he does, Kanaya is mid-leap, snarling and chainsaw revving as she bears down on the violetblood. He makes to bring up his wand, but she pulls down sharply, and his right arm neatly separates just above the elbow, and she kicks him in the chest.
Eridan sprawls at Karkat’s feet, winded, violet splattering across the rock. Kanaya advances towards them, taking a step out of her way to bring her heel down on his wand. It snaps in half. For a second, the only noise is the roar of the chain saw, and then-
“Maryam, stand fucking down,” he screeches, scrambling forward to stand between her and the prone troll. He has an empty hand towards her, as if that can stop the teeth of the chainsaw.
She hesitates for a second. “He destroyed the Matriorb,” she replies curtly. Her face is hard, but she is shaking with rage. A laugh in the distance distorts to the limits. “He has doomed us.”
“We are on a cloning facility. Stop. Please.” Behind him, Eridan stares in muted horror at the new endpoint of his arm. Seadwellers are tough, but if Kanaya doesn’t finish him off, bloodloss might. “We can rebuild, trust me, but he has to live first.”
Kanaya purses her lips, still trembling slightly. “I’m not helping him,” she said after a moment.
Karkat almost sags with relief. Get her away from him; don’t let her change her mind. He jabs a finger to the side. “Vriska. See if there’s anything you can do.”
Her gaze sharpens and she turns to Terezi and Vriska.
Gamzee is visible now, tilts his head to the side and frowns as if something’s not gone the way he expected it.
Kanaya sprints towards Vriska, roughly shoving Terezi out of the way as she skids to a stop beside the girl bleeding out. Terezi stumbles back wordlessly. Karkat focusses his attention on Eridan. “You’re alright,” he hisses between breaths. “You’re fine, you fucking murderer, you’ll be fine, and I will tear you a new one.” He grabs the seadweller’s ridiculous scarf and winds it around the wound. The Pulse is feeding him information he has no idea how to use, but every time he does something right it thrums deep in his bones, and his shaking fingers yank the knot tight. By the time he’s done, the scarf is soaked in blood, but it’s no longer gushing out of him like a juicebox with a hole in the bottom. Karkat sighs and, as fucking stupid as it sounds, actually relaxes. Eridan might actually live at this rate. And then he starts shuddering.
The seadweller is delirious, eyes unfocussed and he rakes at the grit and the gravel with his good arm, beginning to arch his back and kick his legs. His remaining hand flails, almost catching Karkat in the face before it’s pinned under his makeshift medic’s knee.
Karkat doesn’t know what to do. He never had to deal with fucking seizures.
Eridan croaks something unintelligible, still shaking wildly as Karkat tries to keep him down.
“Terezi,” he calls, turning to her. She looks almost awkward, hovering nervously a few feet from where Kanaya is furiously tending Vriska’s wound. “I need you to knock Eridan out so he doesn’t hurt himself.”
For a long second, she doesn’t move, doesn’t turn from Kanaya uncaptchaloguing bandages and a medicine kit, mumbling “You’re okay, you’re okay, you’ll be okay” on front of her. She’s staring at the hole in Vriska’s chest.
Karkat would be the first to admit he’s a shitty leader. None of his plans ever go off without a hitch, his style is best described as abrasive with a side of asshole, and he micromanages like a fiend. But he knows his team. He knows what they need. And he knows her.
Terezi eventually looks over at him, still not moving. “I’m not strong enough to knock him out myself, dickhead,” he says through gritted teeth.
Terezi needs something to do.
Her gaze flickers from him to Eridan for a long moment, and then her shoulders fall from their tense stance, and she begins to stumble across the empty rock towards him.
Gamzee is shaking his head, agitated. Terezi kneels down and decks Eridan in the face. The seadouche’s head snaps back and hits the ground, his eyes fluttering closed and his limbs finally, mercifully, stopping. Karkat can feel the damage it does, but he’s got Blood powers, not fucking body powers. They’re trying to keep the asshole alive long enough to be worried about brain damage.
Karkat leans on her in exhaustion and gives her an awkward pat on the back as he sits up straight. “Look after him. If the scarf starts bleeding through, call me or Kanaya.” He stands, feeling like he’s run a marathon, and sighs in relief, trying to ignore the roiling knot of fear in his stomach.
“This ain’t fucking it,” something growls. With a start, Karkat realises it’s Gamzee. The clown is shaking, the flickering flashstep around him stretching and moving further and further. “This ain’t how it goes, motherfucker.” Juggling clubs drop from his sylladex.
“Gamzee, what the fuck are you doing?” Karkat demands, even as he feels through his blood like the whole universe had tipped onto its side and his stomach flips. Something is cosmically wrong. “Stop fucking about, you idiot.”
He pauses, stabilising for a half-second, glancing at Karkat.
There’s something like a jump-scare in chemical form as they make eye contact, and Karkat feels carbonic acid fizzing in his veins.
“…Nah.”
He flickers to nothing and reappears above Vriska and brings his club down. Kanaya’s reflexes are quick, and she yanks the stabilised troll out of the club’s path just before it cracks into the meteor, sending flecks of stone flying up with the force of the blow. “This bitch is supposed to be dead.”
Kanaya snarls, dragging Vriska in a circle behind her and pulling out her lipstick. Gamzee bats it aside, swinging a club almost lazily through the air and aimed at Kanaya’s head. It makes contact with a sickening crunch, and Kanaya falls to the side.
Karkat rushes to the fight, Terezi hot on his heels. Karkat barely has time to register the gathering glow coming from Kanaya before he has to duck as Gamzee swings again. The sickles fall into his hands, and he slashes twice at the purpleblood’s chest, biting nothing but air. A split second later he flinches as Terezi blocks a blow that was about to crash down onto his skull.
“Fuck, Gamzee,” Karkat screams, twirling around and going back-to-back with Terezi, guard up. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
He keeps his eyes scanning across the dark-grey stone of the meteor. Three seconds pass, and he can hear Terezi’s quick breaths behind him over his own.
“You alright?” He murmurs.
She exhales a shaky, humourless laugh. “I don’t think Vriska killed Equius and Nepeta,” she replies.
Karkat’s eyes widen. “Shit.”
“Yeah.”
Gamzee flickers into visibility to Karkat’s right, and he tenses, ready for the gangly fucker to try to rip him apart again, but he’s gone as soon as he appeared. Karkat feels Terezi tense in response, and he scowls. Gamzee could be well beyond everybody still alive on the meteor combined. Or he could be just a little stronger than Equius, just a little quicker than Kanaya. Karkat had never kept track of the stoner’s actions until he’d fucked up the King, and after that he’d been busy. Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid.
Karkat grips his sickle tighter to stop it shaking. Are they totally fucked?
Kanaya groans, stirring. “Think three of us can take him?” Terezi asks.
Karkat snarls. “If we die to that stoned fuck, I’m going to kill myself.” It’s not the most sensible answer, but it’s one Terezi apparently understands, because he feels her steel herself just a little bit.
There’s a rush of air and he feels rather than sees as Terezi slashes wildly to keep Gamzee at bay. Karkat twirls, barely catching his club with the inside of the sickle, yanking down and around so the bash goes past them harmlessly. Terezi scores a small cut across Gamzee’s forearm before he disappears again. This time, Karkat can track him as the Pulse attunes him to a quiet plip-plip-plip as drops of blood hit the rock.
“What is happening?” Kanaya asks. She sounds dazed.
“Gamzee’s gone mad,” Terezi replies tersely. “Can you fight?”
Before she can answer, Gamzee flickers to solidity on front of Eridan. He seems to be working something out, staring at the unconscious seadweller with a puzzled expression.
It’s too far for Karkat to make out the words Gamzee mutters, but somehow, he knows exactly what they are: He ain’t supposed to live either. The club raises.
Karkat doesn’t think- he flings his sickle as hard as he can at the clown with a scream.
Gamzee sways out of the way, and instead of slicing his head in two, it nicks his ear. He quarter-turns, and Karkat can just make out blazing purple eyes as the weapon clatters to the ground twenty metres away. Karkat is drowning in the Pulse, barely able to hear over the sound overlaying his vision. A quiet glow filling Kanaya, knitting her fractured skull back together, Vriska possibly stable but asleep, and Eridan, weak but alive. For now.
Then there’s him, Terezi, and Gamzee. Terezi’s blood looks like battle lines and manoeuvres, compared to the nonsensical lines and trap whorls and mad spirals in Gamzee’s. Karkat’s own crashes in his ears, and he reaches for his weapons sylladex to pull out something, anything. He lands on one of the daggers Spades kept berating him to carry, reverses his grip, and advances on the troll.
Gamzee turns, smile widening until it fills his face. “Shit, brother,” he says slowly, captchaloguing a club and touching a finger to his ear gently. “I’m just doing what needs to be done.” He gives a modest shrug, and the club returns to reality. The finger roams over it, trailing the small amount of purple blood onto the weapon. Purple on olive. Karkat chokes. Gamzee grins. “But now I get to make a motherfucking rainbow.”
Kanaya groans, rolling onto her front and trying to prop herself up on her hands- they give out, and she sprawls to the ground again, until she manages to make it up into genuflection, steadying herself with a hand against the pitted rock. “What just happened?” She repeats, raising unsteadily. Karkat puts out an arm and she grabs it to steady herself.
“Kanaya, get your chainsaw,” Terezi says, crouching slightly and preparing to move towards the clown. Karkat borrows the conclusion: she’s preparing for a difficult fight. Terezi can’t use her speed to the fullest advantage in case she ends up too far away from Karkat, and Gamzee can pick them off one at a time. Karkat is getting defence buffs from protecting Vriska and even some from Eridan, but if he starts to move too much onto the offensive, he’ll lose that.
“Try not to kill him,” Karkat says, wondering if they could even if they wanted to. “Limbs are okay,” he adds.
No response. Karkat glances at Terezi, and she sniffs, clearly not sold. After a moment, she nods. They begin to creep forwards slowly towards Gamzee. Kanaya stands beside the bodies for another moment, still shaking her head clear.
It doesn’t look like flashstepping, he notes distantly. Gamzee just laughs and shatters into bits. Karkat ducks as a club goes whistling by his head, lashing out with the dagger. It comes back dashed in purple. They’re getting hits in, but they would have to keep doing that for the next two days to take down a purpleblood. They have to keep getting lucky. Gamzee only has to get lucky once.
Kanaya revves her chainsaw, hefting it and joining their defensive huddle. “Do we move towards Eridan?” She asks.
Karkat almost laughs- a minute ago she was ready to kill him. Maybe she just wants the pleasure herself. “Fuck if I know. This is worse than the Black King. Maybe one of us drags Vriska over and the other two guard them.”
Neither of the other two say anything, but Kanaya- well, she glances at him expectantly.
“Wh- right.” Karkat crouches and grabs hold of Vriska’s hood. “Don’t you dare die, you fuck,” he tells the comatose figure as he begins to drag. He flinches as above his head chainsaw meets club and there’s a horrific woodchipper noise. He doesn’t look up (it might cost him his fucking skull), just keeps yanking Vriska along. Another few droplets of purple sprinkle onto Vriska’s outfit, and Terezi snarls in victory.
It takes twelve nerve-wracking goddamn seconds, but they haul the two injured trolls into a pile, and Karkat stands up and rejoins their now expanded triangle. He thinks he sees Gamzee to his left and flings his dagger as hard as he can towards the spectre. To his right, he hears Terezi grunt as she blocks a club to her leg with her cane. Kanaya bears down with the chainsaw, but Gamzee’s already danced back, flickering steps taking him back a few metres. Karkat reaches into his sylladex again in desperation and comes back with-
Thunk.
Why didn’t he think of this earlier?