Chapter Text
"Still the night, kill the lights
Feel it under your skin
Time is right, keep it tight
'Cause it's pulling you in."
“Alright, I’ve had enough!”
A sharp voice cut through the apartment, startling the two boys in the room. Karkat Vantas jumped and sent his romance novel to the ground in shock. His nearby friend, Sollux Captor was surprised as well, but simply paused his video game when he recognized the source (which, as he would snidely point out, he did immediately, as he is just that much smarter--and less inclined to dramatic reactions--than Karkat).
“What are we doing with ourselves!” A girl entered from the side hall. She was eclectic to a fault: bright red and pointed sunglasses adorn her narrow face, with similar spiky hair and toothy grin. She, like the past two characters, was not human, but a race from another planet that simply liked to go by trolls, thank you very much, no need for any of the pushy blah-blah the humans seem to have for themselves. These troll creatures each were varying shades of grey with a lovely (and very dangerous) pair of horns to match. They were, indeed, on planet Earth, for no other place had quite as great comics than theirs, nor better video games.
“We’re relaxing?” Karkat says to the sassy troll, his statement coming out as a question in his confusion.
“Speak for yourself, I’m busy kicking ass,” Sollux responds with sarcasm, and unpauses the game.
“Pause that game, Mr. Appleberry Blast, we have discussions to be had!” The newcomer walked forward and poked the gamer quickly, until he finally conceded with a groan.
“What’s the big fucking deal?” Karkat inquired while kicking his romance novel under the chair he was in.
“I am so close to beating my high score, TZ, this better be good.” Here it’s noted that the character Sollux Captor has quite the severe lisp, most likely due to the abnormally large fangs he has in his mouth.Though he has gigantic fangs, they are filled down to smaller and less sharp points, probably for his own protection or perhaps for ease of speech.
The character TZ pulls up a chair from a nearby table, and sits cross-legged in it. Her hand rests on her cane and she leans forward, her glasses slipping down her small nose and sharp grin growing. Her eyes are a violently vibrant shade of red, with odd shapes across the membrane as if something has burned them. (They had been burned a long time ago, by an old but notably dead friend.)
The two boys nearby lean back slightly, each finding a nervous knot growing in their stomach.
“We,” she begins, pulling out the ‘e,’ “are going to have fun tonight.”
Karkat Vantas escaped Alternia on the day of his sixth sweep. In human years, he had just turned twelve. It took him a year and a half to travel from Alternia to a newfound planet: Earth.
On this ship, he met a fellow low blood troll. Though the ship was actually full of low bloods, all trying to escape their doomed fate with the Empress, he and this troll both had something in common. They were both illegally on the ship, hidden by their friends and some forged paperwork to escape what would be torture and death on their home planet. This friend of Karkat’s was called Sollux Captor, and he was a yellow blooded troll, which meant not only was he supremely powerful but that he should have become the powersource of one of the Empress’s many spaceships.
The two reached Earth without a scratch, thankfully, and thus entered the public school system in a place called New York, in a state also called New York, in a country called The United bitchin’ States of America, on planet Earth. There, the two met another great friend named Terezi Pyrope and, as they say, the rest is history.
Trolls, unlike humans, have no true guardian. On Alternia, they would have a creature called a Lusus who could protect them. Alas, due to Alternia’s violent nature, the Lusii were found to be too volatile and dangerous, and were not permitted entry to Earth. So, as trolls arrived at Earth, they very quickly found that they were very much alone, on a cold planet that sometimes, even very often, disliked the trolls existence.
Thank fuckin’ god though, this wasn’t the case for Karkat and Sollux. The two had each other and were lucky to land on an area where aliens were pretty well tolerated. New York was a place that had a lot of cheap apartments. It was on the less safe side of town, but fuck it, Sollux could zap people or fling them into oblivion. The two were safe.
But then they had to go and start high school. It was there they met Terezi. It was also there that the three realized that they were all great together, even though each one had some obnoxious trait or another. After a while, Terezi moved in.
The rest is definitely history.
“No,” Sollux was the first to respond. He unpaused his game and resumed the level.
“I agree,” Karkat said in a deadpan. He went to retrieve his book, but found his attempts futile as Terezi threw her cane at the two of them. Somehow, she managed to hit them both, first Sollux who managed to careen the cane into Karkat. Both yelled.
“Terezi!”
“What the fuck!?”
“ENOUGH.” Without her cane, Terezi was forced to hop in the chair she sat in, letting a loud bang emit through the room like that of a judge’s gavel. “WE ARE GOING OUT TONIGHT AND NOTHING YOU CAN DO CAN STOP ME FROM MAKING YOU BOYS HAVE FUN.”
Despite being over a foot shorter than the tallest member of the house and blind, Terezi was the only one that Sollux sincerely thought could make him regret anything he did. He and Karkat exchanged a glance, then both sighed. Their shoulders slumped as they turned to look at Terezi in union. She grinned a smile that Karkat had once called a shark smile, for how similar it was to this one animated shark that almost ate the main characters in an Earth movie the trio had seen once.
“Glad to see we’ve come to an agreement! I will retrieve you at six, which leaves you four hours to dress yourself. We will be going to a surprise location, but be aware,” Terezi paused to pull herself out of her chair and retreat to the hall before turning back to the boys. A glint of light caught her glasses and shone brightly, similar to the gleam in one’s eye that showed a devious scheme up their sleeve, “you will have to dress quite… inappropriately.”
The boys exchanged a nervous look as Terezi retreated to her room.
“Really, Karkat, do you not own anything other than sweaters?” Terezi grumbled. It was half past six--the trio was already running late. They were stuck in Karkat’s room; Terezi attacked his closet while Karkat sat in his towel in a closeby chair, and Sollux laid uncomfortably on Karkat’s bed.
“That wasn’t grammatically correct,” Karkat grumbled in response. He was then promptly hit with a coat hanger.
“Did you never think to take a chance on fashion?” Terezi was deep into his closet, although it was only a foot deep and three feet deep.
“No, because I was always cold, so I never bought something that would make me cold!”
“I don’t see too many parkas for someone always freezing.” Sollux’s lisp ate the latter half of his sentence, but Karkat caught the meaning and scoffed.
“Please, bitch at me some more, Mr. I Own Multiple Pairs of Leather Pants. Please enlighten me with your knowledge of fashion.”
Another coat hanger hit Karkat, this time coming from the bed.
Terezi growled and reemerged from the closet, her hands suspiciously empty.
“I have had enough searching!” She declared in what appeared to be an uncharacteristic act of surrendering before leaving the room. The door slammed behind her and left the two boys shocked at the prospect, with Karkat’s mouth left agape and Sollux actually confused enough to sit up in his uncomfortable outfit. Before either could speculate, though, Terezi was back.
“Put this on!” And a bundle of fabric was flung harshly at Karkat, who fell off his seat at the force of the bundle.
“Stop throwing things at me!”
“Stop deserving it,” Sollux and Terezi responded in union. Terezi high fived Sollux as she sat next to him.
“You need a good outfit Karkat, and none of your current clothes will work with where we’re going.” Karkat rolled his eyes at Terezi’s words but undid the bundle of clothes. Then he froze.
“What am I holding?” he whispered in despair.
“If you’re that uncomfortable, I can try to find a sweater for you to wear instead of the jacket I had planned, bu--”
“Terezi, why am I holding fishnet tights?”
Sollux fell back onto the bed in a burst of loud laughter. Terezi waited for him to finish before responding, but let her own amusement show in a smart smile.
“They go under the jeans, they show up through the holes. First is the fishnet tights, then the crop top--”
“What!”
“--then the sheer shirt under that, the jeans over the sheer shirt which, yes, means you will have to tuck the shirt, and--”
“What the fuck have you done to me?” Karkat collapsed onto the ground, the clothes resting on his stomach.
Terezi finally let out a chuckle and began moving about his room. Karkat stared up at his ceiling fan and questioned what his life had become. His thoughts were cut short by a loud cackle from Terezi.
“Ooh, Karkat, I didn’t realize you had a thong!”
And there was the motivation to move. Karkat shot up and shoved Terezi away from the dresser.
“Get out of my stuff!” He began digging through the drawer to check for whatever damage Terezi surely had done.
“Why do you own a thong? It’s not like you have a reason for it.” Sollux said with smirk. Terezi burst back into laughter.
“I mainly just said that to get him up.” Terezi responded, back on the bed again. “All I could ‘see’ were some boxers and a few briefs.”
“Why were you going through my stuff?” Karkat whipped away from the dresser, turning his glare on the two. It lost impact when yet another bundle of fabric hit his face.
“God dammit , quit throwing shit at me!” Karkat grabbed whatever hit him and glanced at it. It was a pair of briefs.
“I was looking for something short enough to not show through the pants or tights, dumbass.” Terezi pointed roughly at the bundle in the corner where Karkat previously was. “You don’t want people to see your plaid undies, do you?”
Karkat hated it when she did something decent midway through a terrible plan.
“I hate it when you do shit like this,” Karkat said. The duo on the bed broke into more laughter.
“C’mon, Sollux,” Terezi said while reaching beside her and helped pull the tightly clad boy up. “We’ll give you five minutes, Karkat. If you’re not dressed by then, I’m barging in, bulge out or otherwise.”
She finally succeeded in pulling the other up, and the two exitted, leaving Karkat to grumble and stare at his own clothes.
“I hate her,” he said with finality, and began to put on his outfit.
Four minutes later, Karkat felt more exposed than when he was wearing only a towel. Looking in the mirror, the boy wanted to vomit.
A sheer, iridescent red shirt laid loosely over a black, tightly cropped tank that showed most of his stomach. It was tucked into a pair of ripped up skinny jeans that were a deep red with black heathered in around the edges. Under those were the black fishnet tights. He barely had sleeves, no jacket, and no shoes yet, and Karkat already wanted to die rather than be seen in what he was wearing.
“Terezi says it’s time-- woah.” Sollux swung the door open and froze, looking Karkat up and down. Karkat glared back before turning back to the mirror.
“I’m not going out like this,” he said, his lip curling in disgust.
“You look hot though,” Sollux said. It was Karkat’s turn to stop dead and stare at his friend.
“What--”
“Karkat, c’mon! It’s…” Terezi appeared behind Sollux. Her nose was up in the air, sniffing for the subtle changes that only she could detect via nose that others saw instead. A smile grew on her face: a genuine, sincere, mostly non-threatening smile. “You smell delicious, Karkat.”
“He looks it too.”
“That’s an odd thing to say Sollux.” Terezi entered the room and went over to Karkat’s dresser again. She searched along the top and Karkat left her to it, less concerned than before.
“He looks like a goth babe.” Sollux’s smile was the only way the Karkat could tell he was joking.
“You’re starting to sound flushed Mr. Appleberry,” Terezi said then whipped around. “Aha! Karkat, come here, now.” In her hand was a black kohl liner.
“No, not letting the blind girl do that!”
“Terezi, maybe I should do that instead?” Karkat and Sollux said at the same time. Terezi pouted but held the pencil out to Sollux nonetheless. Karkat was no less frightened.
“Stand still and this won’t hurt a bit,” Sollux said before a soft zap hit Karkat. Karkat yelped, and Sollux smirked.
“We are in serious mode, Appleberry Blast!” Terezi reprimanded from behind Sollux. Sollux rolled his eyes but obeyed. This time, when Sollux’s powers touched Karkat, they didn’t sting but instead locked him into place, a reassurance that Karkat wouldn’t move and, therefore, hurt himself by mistake.
“There,” Sollux said, stepping back to observe his work. Terezi put her hands on his shoulders and poked around him, her eyes ‘staring’ at Karkat’s face and nose twitching at a speed Karkat could only barely follow.
“Ahh, he smells lovely. Good! Now ruffle his hair while I get his boots.” And like that, Karkat was vigorously attacked by a noogie.
When Terezi returned, she had a thick pair of black socks, a slightly platformed pair of boots, and two jackets thrown over her shoulder. After putting on the shoes, Karkat was handed a black denim jacket.
“We are now an hour late, and our ride is probably furious!” Terezi let this be the prompt to shove them out of Karkat’s room and to the elevators, only going back to lock the door when the down button had been pressed.
Outside, an old baby blue Volkswagen sat in a no parking zone.
“Holy shit,” Sollux said, whistling as Terezi tossed him the keys. “How’d you convince EQ to let you borrow it?”
“I blackmailed him!” Terezi said cheerfully as she climbed into shotgun. Karkat took the back and quickly buckled up.
“Where to then?” Sollux asked as he started the car. Karkat glanced up at the rearview mirror and caught a glance of a smirking Terezi.
“To the club on fifth.”
Karkat’s groan quickly turned into a screech as Sollux gunned it down the road.
Three years prior, two high school students from the same high school as Karkat, Sollux, and Terezi graduated early. Apparently, the family had some money left to the kids that was accessible after graduation, so the two used their new wealth to open a club that drew in late teenagers and young adults. It didn’t sell much alcohol and mainly relied on the stupid rave culture that was currently the latest hype for kids, but it worked. Most of the humans and trolls that went to their high school went at one point or another. Somehow, Karkat had managed to weasel out of that torture. That was until Terezi took him there.
CLUB TRICKSTER glowed in different neon colors across the street. There was quite the line out front of the joint, but Terezi walked by everyone and buddied up to the bouncer. Karkat wasn’t sure, but he assumed there was a list of people allowed in for the night, since Terezi was able to pull them in almost immediately.
Outside, it looked like another brick bar even with the neon lights that lit up the entire block. Inside, it was a whole new world, unlike anything Karkat had seen before.
The whole room was painted black but was splattered with various glow-in-the-dark and blacklight paints. The room glowed, giving it a mysterious and adventurous aura. (Or maybe Karkat only thought that because it was so foreign to his couch.) Along the far side was a bar of sorts: painted pitch black like the room but lined in multiple strips of different colored LED lights. Near the bar were a few tables and hightops, and a stairwell that was only accessible from behind the bar. Everything that could be wrapped in various Christmas and LED lights was done up brightly with them. But even as incredible as that was, it didn’t compare to the dance floor.
The dance floor had to take up at least three quarters of the room. The floor itself was some sort of screen, or a number of them, and the images switched from muted colors to gears, then to nature scenes, then to what looked like the sky so everyone looked like they were floating, then space. Karkat could barely pull his eyes from the scenes. Above the beautiful screen was a disco ball that of fucking course had to be at least five times bigger than Karkat. There were no lights pointing at the ball; instead, the lights came from within, each color coming out of one of the diamonds that from the distance looked small but had to be bigger than Karkat’s hands. Sometimes the diamonds would shine different colors, and the dancers would look like they stood within a translucent rainbow.
It was the most beautiful place Karkat had ever been.
“Holy fuck,” Sollux said, agreeing with Karkat’s unspoken sentiment. Terezi turned back to them and grinned.
“Well, boys, it looks like I was right yet again!” she yelled over the music. Karkat suddenly understood the need for what clothes the trio was wearing: Sollux’s leather pants and shiny red and blue shirt reflected the light, and Terezi’s teal dress was made of little diamond sequins that almost blinded Karkat at her every turn. Even the shirt Karkat had hated shimmered enough to catch a few wayward glances. Their clothes were meant to reflect and draw attention. It was horrifically noticeable, but at least none of the trio would get lost.
“I guess so,” Karkat yelled back. The music finally hit his ears--some upbeat techno remix of Mr. Brightside was blasting, competing with the shouts of the dancers on the floor.
Terezi tugged the boys forward so they stood next to her, then shoved them towards the dance floor.
“Go get started having fun! I’ll grab us some drinks first, plus I need to go greet someone.” Karkat could barely manage to hear what Terezi said, but before he could respond, Sollux had ahold of his arm.
“Like the humans say, when in Rome, do as Romans do!” he said and dragged Karkat out onto the dance floor. Karkat didn’t even know what the fuck he meant, but pretty soon, he didn’t care.
Karkat wasn’t sure how he looked when he was dancing, but he knew he couldn’t look worse than Sollux. Sollux towered over most of the humans and trolls around them and as gangly and bony as he was, he had to be some sort of stabbing hazard to the people around them. But nonetheless they danced, Sollux unconcerned about his elbows and angles and Karkat not worried about his dancing skill or how people saw him.
Being on the dance floor was different than looking at it. From the outside, it looked like a group of people dancing on space surrounded by a rainbow, but inside it looked like a kaleidoscope. Karkat and Sollux should have been dizzy or at least sickened by all the colors, but instead, the two found themselves bordering on drunk with their adrenaline and joy.
He had lost track of how many songs had passed when Sollux suddenly grabbed Karkat’s hand.
“Have you seen TZ yet?” he screamed over the music and voices. Karkat shook his head, clearing his mind and suddenly realized that their third partner was nowhere to be seen. Though, a lot was left unseen; dancers were smushed together tightly and Karkat wasn’t tall enough to see over them.
“Should we go look for her?” Karkat yelled back. He knew Terezi could take care of herself, and she had said something about greeting someone anyways. A strong part of Karkat didn’t want to leave the dance floor.
Sollux nodded and started pushing through the crowd. It took them a few minutes and an uncomfortably close brush with a troll couple that had been dancing way too close together, but the duo finally made it out of the throng. Sollux had led them to the side of the club with the bar where it was far less packed, though the club was still full.
A wash of cool air hit Karkat and he felt himself gasp in relief. Despite his enjoyment, he was glad to get away from the mashed bodies and their heat. The dance floor had been hotter than hell.
“Thank fuckin’ gog we’re out of there,” he said to Sollux, his screams lessened to a shout. Sollux’s shoulders bounced and he turned back to grin at Karkat.
“What, weren’t you enjoying yourself?” Sollux called over his shoulder, leading him to one of the hightops. The two sat at the first empty table they could find, resting for a minute. Sollux was the one facing the bar and Karkat could tell he was searching around for Terezi. Karkat started looking around the dance floor for her, but even at one of the hightops, he could barely see anyone.
Except…. He squinted and looked back at the far edge of the dance floor. There was a small second floor that wrapped around the wall and looked over the dance floor. Perched on the black railing was a small human boy. Karkat couldn’t tell much about him; his hair and face glistened in the light, which made him think that the boy had light hair and some sort of glasses on. He was wearing some red, maybe on his chest, but mainly black. The boy was still as a statue, looking out to the dancers. It was probably one of the club owners, but something kept Karkat’s eyes locked on him.
“Found her!” Sollux said. His hand reached out and before Karkat could protest, Sollux shifted Karkat’s head to the opposite end of the room, where the bar was. There, sitting on a stool and chatting with the bartender, was the teal-clad third member of the group.
Sollux hopped down from the stool and motioned for Karkat to follow. He did, but not before giving the boy he had seen one last glance. To his surprise, the boy was gone without a trace.
“Are you coming?” Sollux yelled, already a few feet away. Karkat scrambled down and raced to catch up with his friend.
Terezi leaned halfway across the bar, barely seated on the stool and held in place by her legs wrapped around the metal leg of said stool. The bartender, a dark haired human male with deeply tanned skin and a bright smile, laughed at whatever it was he said.
“TZ!” Sollux called when the duo was close enough to be heard. Terezi turned around, a wide smile on her face, and motioned them to some shockingly empty stools.
“Finally, I thought you two’d never stop dancing!” she said, then leaned back over to the bartender. “Get these boys something good, Mr. Sour Apple! Make it something red for the short one and red and blue for the bony one!”
“Will do, Missus!” he said with a loud laugh, then turned to his work station behind the bar. Sollux leaned around Karkat and stared at Terezi.
“Is this your friend?” he asked loudly.
“No, this is just someone I knew,” she replied, taking a sip of a teal drink that perfectly matched her dress. “My friend left ages ago!”
“Who were they?” Karkat asked. Terezi raised an eyebrow at him.
“What’s it to ya?” she said. Karkat felt himself start to blush when, thankfully, the bartender returned with their drinks.
“One cherry colada and a two toned raspberry daiquiri, both virgin!” he said, flourishing two large drinks. Karkat’s had a tiny umbrella straw in it, which he poked disdainfully.
“Excuse me, what the fuck did you call us?” Sollux said. A quick glance showed that Sollux looked frozen in his seat, a frown etched on his face and his eyes starting to gleam.
“Not like that!” Terezi leaned across Karkat with her body almost fully in his lap. “It’s a human drinking term, not like actual virginity.”
The bartender caught Terezi’s words and grinned sheepishly. “‘t means no alcohol, good chap!” he said to Sollux and pointed at his drink. “Wasn’t sure what sweep you were and figured I’d play it safe. This lil’ lady here told me she was underage, so I figured you both were too!”
“What?” Karkat asked, looking at Terezi. She shrugged.
“Some humans drink this thing called alcohol, which apparently is like sopor but not at the same time.” She took a long sip of her own drink before glancing back to Karkat. “Don’t ask me, I’ve never had it.”
“It’s a drink that people add to other drinks to make them all woozy in the head,” the bartender added. He leaned in close to Karkat and addressed the two boys. Upon a closer glance, Karkat noticed the bartender had a slight overbite, wide black glasses, and was wearing what might be the shortest shorts Karkat had ever seen. “Some people like it because it helps them relax, but too much of it can lead to a problem.” The man pulled back and picked up a glass and a nearby rag and began to polish the former.
“This is Jake English, the wonderful bartender here,” Terezi said to her group. “He’s here from somewhere named England.”
The man, Jake, beamed at the group.
“Where the fuck is that?” Sollux asked. Karkat could tell he wasn’t impressed and, worse, he already hated the innocent guy. Karkat sighed at the argument that was bound to happen with them.
“Try your drink, it’ll be great!” Terezi said, choosing to ignore Sollux’s animosity and pulling on Karkat’s arm to get his attention.
Karkat looked at the drink and frowned. He personally held no ill will towards Jake and assumed his drink-making skills were probably decent, but something about the bright red and orange umbrella straw made him wary. An elbow in the side from Terezi decided it for him.
“Ow, you fuck,” Karkat muttered before grabbing the drink and sipping down some.
….Okay, so what if it was the best drink he had ever had. It’s no big deal. Karkat was definitely not going to chug the drink--oh, shit, half of it was already gone.
Terezi snickered next to him. “You actually are enjoying yourself! Look at that, the hermit finally left his little shell and he’s happy! It’s the end of the world as we know it!”
“Go fuck yourself!” Karkat shoved Terezi almost off her seat, but even he knew he couldn’t be angry at this. Shit, he was even smiling. Another laugh off to Karkat’s right revealed that Sollux had heard Terezi’s comment as well.
Terezi hopped back onto the seat and grinned her signature shark smile, a happy front with a frighteningly sinister interior. Karkat’s heart swelled for a second, which was a feeling he hadn’t felt in a little while. Terezi had been right to drag him out of the apartment; Karkat realized that life had been very boring since high school ended. He grinned brightly at Terezi.
“I knew you were happy,” Terezi said, reaching over Karkat to pull Sollux closer to them. There, in a rare move, she held both of them and Karkat, feeling unusually bold, wrapped his arms around their shoulders. Even Sollux patted Karkat’s shoulder and smiled a bit.
“It really is the end of the world, isn’t it?” Sollux asked with a chuckle.
Then, the lights around the room flickered. Jake, cleaning glasses and pretending not to watch the trio, froze and glanced up.
“That’s never happened before,” he said, setting the glass down.
The trio separated and glanced around. It appeared that no one on the dance floor noticed anything, though the nearby tables seemed confused.
The lights flickered again, this time taking a few seconds before resuming. It wasn’t total darkness; the disco ball and the dance floor stayed lit brightly.
Jake frowned and reached forward to grab a phone. Hitting only one number, he held the phone and glanced around.
“What’s going on? Isn’t New York impossible to turn off?” Karkat asked the occupied bartender, who shrugged before putting the phone up to his ear.
“That’s what she said,” Sollux said quietly. Terezi cackled.
“Hey, boss? We have a problem with the lights down here,” Jake said loudly into the phone. “They keep flickering and--”
The silence that comes after loud sounds is the most shocking. When the music stopped, the whole room went silent in shock all at once. Shouting and conversations stalled in less than a second.
“Annnnd now the music’s gone. Can you check the breaker, see if we fucked something up?”
The lights flashed again, and every LED and string light went out at once.
“Yes, get on that asap!”
The disco ball started flickering.
“Hello? Hello? Can you hear me? Boss, I’m--” Jake sighed and sat down the phone. At the trio’s curious gaze, he shrugged. “The phone cut out. He’s just upstairs though and this all should be sorted out in just a second.”
Terezi turned to look at Sollux and Karkat. “Do you boys smell something off?”
Sollux sniffed the air then nodded. “Smells rotted. Did you leave something out?” He turned an accusatory glare at Jake, who shook his head.
“I don’t smell anything. Besides, there isn’t anything down here that could smell rotten. It’s all artificial stuff, or too fresh to be bad.”
Karkat took a whiff of the air, though he knew it wouldn’t do him any good. He had a mutant blood type--something that didn’t bother him much on Earth anymore, since he was surrounded by people with his blood color, but did impact several of his troll senses.
He did notice something though. In a small mirror on the bar, Karkat saw something along the far end of the dance floor rush by in a flash of green. Karkat whipped around, straining to look over the now murmuring crowd for the flash he had seen. Fed up with his lack of visibility, he stood on his seat, and sighed when he realized that he could see over the crowd but that there was nothing to see.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Sollux asked him.
“Please be careful, I don’t want to have to peel your ass off the floor,” Terezi said cooly with a sip of her drink.
“I saw something move along the edge of the dance floor,” Karkat said, straining his eyes to try to see the back wall. All there was, it seemed, was a door painted the same shade as the walls with a neon yellow M painted on it. Karkat assumed it was maintenance, and discarded it’s importance in his quest. “Or I thought I saw something.”
“How did you see the back of dance floor when you were facing us?” Jake asked. His accent deepened when he spoke in a rush, causing Sollux to snicker quietly at him.
“The mirror behind the bar caught the green light,” Karkat responded and began to pull himself down. He glanced over at Jake, who was giving him a strange look.
“Whaddya mean, the mirror behind the bar? There’s no mirror back here.” Jake pointed behind the bar, and Karkat took a long look. Sure as shit, the mirror Karkat had seen was gone. He frowned.
“I swear I saw something,” he muttered, leaning across the bar to look at the back wall harder.
“There’s something in here.” Terezi’s voice broke Karkat’s concentration and the group turned to look at her. Her nose was twitching in a familiar way, a clear signal she was smelling something, but her face was off putting. She clearly looked distressed and confused but what was worse was the stiffness to her joints.
On cue, both Sollux and Karkat began mimicking her. Their joints tightened and muscles relaxed, ears and nose and eyes straining. It was a sign of danger for trolls; when one troll went stiff, the rest followed.
Unaware to them, nearby trolls began to stiffen too.
“Wait, what do you sense?” Jake asked, the worried frown on his face growing with the second. When none of the trolls responded, he bent under the table and pulled up something. With a start, Karkat realized it was two guns.
“Which was is it?” Jake asked while cocking the guns. Karkat only had to worry for a second.
Then the dance floor’s lights went out. The trio of trolls stiffened and pulled together, sides touching. Karkat’s back was against the bar. Behind them, Jake cursed and something on the bar shattered.
His eyes took a second too long to process the dark. Karkat heard the screaming before he could see the source of it. The trolls adrenaline spiked at the sound. Sollux hissed quietly, then a soft light filled their small corner of the room.
Sollux’s psionics emitted a red and blue light that was similar to emergency lights whenever he used them. They lit the bar and some nearby tables. As if drawn to the light, the nearest tables occupants pulled closer. Karkat was more than somewhat relieved to see that more than one of the new trolls had makeshift weapons on hand.
Sollux’s psisonics could only reach so far so seeing the dance floor was out of the question. A second scream began and Karkat, Terezi, and Sollux were still clueless as to what was happening. Another scream, and Karkat nearly pissed himself when Jake hopped on top of the counter. His guns were trained on the darkness near the dance floor.
Something shattered on the dance floor, then there was the sound of chaos. Uncountable screams. The THUMPS of people hitting the floor. A terrifying ripping sound that Karkat hoped was just clothes, ruined in the thralls. A table in the darkness collapsing. A screech of metal as it was destroyed quickly.
Terezi and Sollux were vibrating with fear, and soon Karkat knew why.
Quietly, under the chaos and in the darkness, came a deep, gurgling growl.
The trolls around the trio bristled and prepared themselves.
Something came into the light of Sollux’s psionics--a half-dead human, with numerous cuts to their face. Their clothes were covered in cherry red blood. Sweat dripped from their hair. Terezi gagged from the scent of the human’s injuries.
A troll near them took a step forward, reached down to grab them. Their arms had barely wrapped around the humans when they were tugged into the darkness. The two disappeared. For three long seconds, there was nothing on edge of the darkness.
Then there was a growl.
Then a face.
Then something with a mutated, skin-boiled-and-melting-off face, launched at them.
Karkat screamed. Terezi grabbed Karkat.
Jake’s gun cut through the silence and the creature.
Sollux’s psionics caught it before it hit the ground.
A nearby troll vomited at the sight of the creature. It was human, Karkat thought. It had that same uncooked dough color to it’s skin that some of the humans had, only it was far more transparent than usual. Blue veins stuck out all along it’s face and neck. It’s skin dripped along the body, like it was made of wax and was placed to close to the fire. It wore no clothes but had no body markings--the things humans called belly buttons and nipples were absent, as were it’s genitals. Also missing were the creature’s eyes, nose, and ears; there were slits for the two former features and gashes for the latter. It was not something normal, nothing like Karkat had ever seen or heard about. The blood that dripped from the gunshot wound was pitch black and thicker than troll or human blood. It reminded Karkat of tar, complete with the occasional small chunk of asphalt mixed into the slurry.
Something leapt into the light and Sollux dropped the creature, preparing his psionics to grab whatever was new, but froze when he realized it was an injured troll girl. Her dress had been ripped in the front and it was clear her stomach and sides were badly cut.
“They’re attacking us!” she screamed. With all of the screams from behind her and in the darkness, Karkat was surprised he could hear her at all.
Another troll shot forward and grabbed her, pulling her into the light. Jake reached down and grabbed her, and the two lifted her over the bar.
“You all get over here!” he commanded, holding the injured girl against him. She was convulsing, Karkat realized sickly, her eyes rolling back into her head and her body trembling.
Karkat and Terezi were in the air alongside a few trolls before they realized what was happening. Sollux picked them up and dropped them on the other side of the bar with his psionics. Jake grabbed Karkat and a nearby troll and wrapped their arms around the injured girl.
“Those stairs there,” he said with a pointed index finger, “will lead you upstairs. Take her up there, and tell the owners to get their asses down here with their weapons stat. Tell them to restart the generator as well! We need light!”
The trolls began to move before Karkat could process the commands. Jake leapt over the bar and began to shoot. When Karkat looked to where he aimed his gun, he stiffened. More of the creatures were coming.
A quick glance back reassured him that Terezi was behind him. Karkat, with the injured girl on his shoulder and the other troll helping pull her, began up the stairs. The walk felt long with his heart pumping a thousand times faster than usual. Another troll--he thought it may be Terezi but wasn’t sure--was pushing the girl, helping the trolls carrying her go faster.
At the top of the stairs was a black door without any neon paint on it. Someone ahead held it open for the three trolls helping the girl to struggle through. A few more trolls rushed in, then the door slammed shut.
A long hallway awaited them. There were no lights here, but the trolls could see relatively well in their darkness. Karkat glanced around, observing what was around them. There was a door directly to their right, but something told him it led to the opposite place he wanted to be right now. There were two doors closeby on the left, and several more that Karkat couldn’t see ahead. No one was moving towards them, and the injured girl still laid heavily against his arm.
“Well, get to the damn doors!” he yelled at the other trolls, who each side eyed him momentarily. “Don’t just stand there, find the fucking owners, you bulgesuckers!”
The trolls shot forward, their hivemind kicked into overdrive. Karkat watched as every troll except Terezi, the other troll holding the girl, and himself rushed forward and flung apart doors.
Something caught his attention in the corner of his eye. The third troll who pushed the girl upstairs moved to his right, too quickly for Karkat to fully process. The troll put his hand on the doorknob, and a horrible sensation filled Karkat’s stomach.
“Wait!” Karkat tried to stop them, but it was useless. The door opened and with a screech, one of the creatures flew into the room. It launched itself over the first troll and knocked the second to the ground. The hurt girl crumpled, though she was the least of Karkat’s worries now.
The creature laid atop Karkat heavily and screamed at him. Karkat shoved it and took a swipe at it’s neck when it finally moved back far enough. It screamed again and threw itself at Karkat, pinning him down.
The thing opened it’s mouth. It’s breath smelled rancid. The few teeth the thing had were razor sharp in a way different from a troll’s teeth. Karkat struggled but found himself pinned, unable to move.
It leaned back, the side of it’s mouth and jaws ripping apart as it opened it’s mouth impossibly wide, preparing for the bite; Karkat got a too close look of a thick, pointed tongue and black mouth--
Then it collapsed atop him, dead. The tar-like ooze dripped onto Karkat’s stomach before he shoved it away from him. In the creature’s back was a sword. Karkat barely had a chance to look at it before it retreated back to where it came from. Karkat stared up.
The boy from the balcony stood above him, one hand holding a long sword and the other extended to Karkat. Karkat took the strangers hand and stood.
“What the fuck is that?” the boy asked. He was close enough Karkat could get a decent look at him: he had straw colored hair that was pushed back with a pair of aviator sunglasses, a long sleeved shirt and skinny jeans (now stained with a few drops of the creatures blood), and seemed young and close to Karkat’s own age.
“It’s been attacking the people downstairs,” Terezi said before Karkat could respond. “Jake from the bar said to get the owners and tell them to get their asses down there now, and get the power back on.”
There was a moment of silence. With the door now open, Karkat could hear the occasional gunshot from what he thought was Jake. The boy looked at Terezi impassively for a moment before nodding.
“Alright,” he said, before yelling, “DIRK, ROXY, ROSE, ASSES OUT HERE NOW! WE HAVE A BIG FUCKIN’ CODE RED ON OUR HANDS.” He paused to take a deep breath, then addressed the trolls around him. “Y’all need to go to the third door on the left. Now. It’s a spare room with medical supplies; it should keep you safe. There’s a girl in there, she should be able to help with you and her.” He pointed at Karkat and the girl crumpled on the ground. “I’ll send whoever I can in with Jake. Don’t come out unless you hear it’s me or Jake, alright?”
The trolls around him nodded.
“Get in there and get to helping those two, stat and pronto.” With his words, the trolls shot forward. Terezi helped Karkat get the girl as well as help the other two fallen trolls up.
Karkat ended up being the last to enter the room. He turned back and caught the eye of the boy he had seen on the balcony and stopped.
“What’s your name?” Karkat asked.
“My name’s Da--”
“What the fuck was this about a code red?” a voice overlapped with the prior, and Karkat’s view of the boy was blocked by a man coming out of the next room. In his hands, he held a similar long sword.
“There’s somethin’ attackin’ people downstairs and the lights’re out,” the first boy responded with a sudden heavy Southern accent. The second moved forward and started out the balcony door, but froze when he saw the corpse in front of it.
“Jesus,” Karkat could barely hear him mutter before he was gone, out the door with a step so fast it didn’t seem real.
From the same door emerged two people. One held what looked like spikes at her side. The other had a big ass machine gun strapped to their back. The two didn’t say anything, just followed the lead of the man before them. The spiked girl went out the door to the balcony, while the other started to open the door to the stairs. Then, they turned, and locked eyes with Karkat.
They smiled. Their teeth were so bright they reflected light even in the near complete darkness.
“Don’t dally, honey,” they said, their eyes still locked on Karkat but their words meant for the boy left standing. Then, they opened the door, and disappeared to the other side.
The boy and Karkat stared at each other for one last second before he turned and followed the human with the gun.
“Dave Strider,” he said as he opened the door. His voice was plenty loud enough for Karkat to hear.
“Karkat Vantas,” Karkat managed to spit out before the boy shut the door behind him.
“Yeah, that’s who you are, now can you shut the damn door?” Terezi growled from behind him. Karkat jumped, but did as he was told, closing the door behind him and sealing the group in the room together.
There was a minute of darkness, where the trolls all grumbled and tried to find their boundaries, before the lights burst back on.