Sailorstuck! Collision Of Fates

Oh no...

You've got to get out of here. Swift and without a trace. What would Huntress Longclaw do?

Well, she'd actually have her claws with her for one. And yours are at home in the back of the closet still, and your finger-claws have just recently been trimmed. You hope to god you don't have to use them and ruin the pretty nail art Equius did for you-- not when he was so careful and meticulous with it, would you really put such important work to waste??

And he should have just come with you in the first place anyways! You don't need him buying stuff for you all the time, even if he wants to!! You just wanted to see what the damn store had! NONE OF IT WAS EVEN GOOD ANYWAY AND NOW YOU'RE TRAPPED HERE WITH THAT!!

"Come out, come out~, little troll. Wouldn't you like some pretty jewelry~? Some lovely stones to replace your eyes when I rip them out!!?"

The shop attendant-- no, it, cackles, all kinds of ugly and chilling. If you had proper fur, it would be for sure standing right up the way your mecha-tail is.

It was all fine earlier too. And you even think you met someone famous!! No, you know for damn sure that you met a pretty important person. But then everyone started fainting, coincidentally all at the same time. You had just been looking at a stand of pieces when the girl next to you just collapsed.

And another.

And another.

Then there were a lot of thuds on the floor, and then you saw all the bodies, a-and the monster just ripped out of the shop lady's skin like a very bad, very shitty horror movie.

You hide, of course, but only after it had already caught sight of you. Not very huntress-like on your part.

It's moving somewhere behind your hiding spot, and you've got both hands over your mouth to keep quiet....really, reallywanting Equius a lot right now, you're moirail could've taken it down for sure, you confidently think so.

There's a crash that makes you jump, however, an accidental squeak pushes past your lips, then hands (also not very huntress-like). You're desperate now, trying to get your breathing back under control. However, gleeful caws of awful laughter say it might be too late for that.

"Kekeekeekee~!! Found you, you little rat!!"

Oh.

Oh hell no.

Fuck the nail art (not really, but a cats gotta claw what a cats gotta claw).

"I ain't a fucking rat--!!"

You had claws raised, but there are hard, cold and clammy fingers (bone??) blocking your airway (and you imagine this must be what a mummy feels like). Your own hands now scrabbling and scratching at balmy dead skin to free your throat, let you breathe, from a dreadful grasp. It's got it's ugly, decaying mug right up in yours, screechy voice and breath smelling like something rotted.

"Doesn't matter, you all die the same!! I'll send all of you to the other world together!!!"

You stare into blackened, beady eyes that feel like they're drawing you in, wanting to swallow you whole.

This is it, isn't it? You imagine this must also what it must be like to die-- how morbid for a last thought, and how unlike you.

(...You just wish you could've seen Equius one more time.)

.

✮☆★♋★☆✮

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Oh fuck, you're dead. You're so goddamn dead. You were thrown out the window by a fucking magical talking cat of all things oh god you're so super dead.

"Nice lungs. Such volume. Could wake up the whole city. It's okay, I didn't need my ears or anything. Heh, jk. C'mon, open your eyes, bud."

...Okay, so you aren't dead. Yet.  Just outside, behind your house, a little below the window. Still being levitated by the mentioned fucking magical talking cat.

"Agghck--!??"  It takes a bit to process (not like everything, since you woke up to this point, hasn't needed processing, but what's a guy to do in this sort of situation?). As soon as speaking normally is possible, you take the time to say, "Don't drop me, don't you dare fucking drop me!"

John just snorts, "Oh relax. I wouldn't anyway, you are quite a bit important, y'know? Kinda sorta need you alive and all that."

"Whatever," you groan. Need you alive his ass. He needs you alive to do his dirty work for him.

You finally make a touchdown with solid concrete and end up nearly meeting it with your face. However, John decides to literally sweep you off his feet with a strong blast of wind, and now you both are flying down the street, with you screaming the whole way like a sensible idiot. You hope to god, whatever god that there be that pities you, that nobody wakes up to see this.

★♋★

Unlike this afternoon, the shop is eerily quiet and empty. And dark. Not a single person is to be seen, even though the doors still have a flickering 'OPEN' sign upfront. It's....unsettling, to say the least about it.

"Ugh, it's creepy as hell out here," you grimace and rub the sudden cold off the exposed bit of your arms. John trots up next to you, nudging up against your leg, "Alright, you feel anything bad yet?"

There is only one answer you have for him and it's to deadpan-stare at the shitty cat (like seriously? Really?), "........"

"...What?"

"...Never mind. Remind me to get therapy later."

"No, really, what!?" He gives a little eyeroll (still fucking weird to see a cat do person things), "Ugh, oh my god, just forget it, go on in already!"

The glass door opens noiselessly, and all the lights stay off, as if nobody's there. John's little paws silently pad onto the tile, his ears flicking as he turns his head, probably scouting (okay, it's...that's fucking adorable, Karkat can give him that). There's a little click of the heel of Karkat's kickin' red boots on tile when he enters, feeling a sudden shudder the more in he goes, "Hey, you remember when I said it was creepy outside? I take it back, this is hells of creepy."

"What's that on the floor?" John walks towards some lump of shape on the ground. Investigating whatever it is, gasping, "Oh my god, it's a body."

"What!?"

Suddenly, there are many more slumped forms on the floor, all of which you can now clearly tell are in fact bodies of people, humans, trolls and others. Well, you immediately start to backtrack, "Okay, shit, mm nope, that's it, I'm leaving."

"Karkat! C'moooon, we gotta save your friend!!" John practically whines, dashing behind you and shoving surprisingly hard further into the creepy building, ends up moving in anyway so that you don't trip over the damned cat.

"Okay, okay, okay!! I wasn't actually going to leave, god...," you want to, though. Fucking maggot-balls, you really wants to. The way this place makes you feel is just...eughh. There aren't any words to describe it, other than feeling the dread creep and crawl over your skin and it's getting worse. (It makes you shiver and tenses your spine and you really hate that feeling.)

"Let's go, I smell something waaay off over here!" The cat runs off towards the back doors that say 'Employees Only', with you going blindly after him. Not the smartest choice for a guy who has no clue what he's getting into.

The doors are thrown open with a nice bang!, and you comes across a for-real fucking corpse of a monster, holding one of your dearest friends by the throat. A warped, blade-like appendage that extends from where a hand should be is poised to stab straight through Nepeta. A mix of desperation, relief, fear and frothing rage begins to bubble forth inside of you. There's a bit of some unnamed urge to get to her as quickly as possible, get her out of there (the drive to protect), but your body isn't as confident or strong as that mental force. At the very least, for a reluctant hero, your voice is still luckily able to make up for the lack of action, sucking in a huge gasp of air in your sudden brave fury.

"YOU GET YOUR FUCKING HANDS OFF HER!!!"

It, the monster, freezes almost comically, and the head turns all the way a-fucking-round like something out of a Demon Ritual™ movie (they've got to be fucking kidding, it looks like someone tried to revive a corpse and forgot every other step and skipped right on to 'Make it alive~!', topping today's creepy cake that nobody wanted).

"And who are you?"

"That's my question, what the fuck is you, corpsefucker!?"

John actually tries to facepalm, which in his current state of being is just mashing a paw to his little scrunched up mouth.

"I, uh...I mean...," Dammit, you just had to open your big mouth, didn't you? There's no reason for you to be here and doing this, putting yourself in imminent danger, but you might as well play along until you finally wake up from this pipe dream (right, because you totally didn't already clarify to yourself that this isn't a dream); if you can't beat 'em then join 'em. So, you clear your throat and somehow the first things that tumble out of your mouth are,

"I...am the Lovely Sailor Warrior of Romance and Passion, Sailor Cancer!" What really gets you is when your body decides to move without permission, motioning into a pose (oh god no one had better see this), "In the name of the previous world before us," as the last of the magically spontaneous word dribble leaves, you start getting control of your own mouth again, with some embarrassment, "Let the weight of the Irons drag you back to where you belong!" You end with your middle finger pointing in its direction, unbelieving of the sudden boldness of what you've just said and did (you are totally writing that down later, that was some good word vomit right there).

"HAH!! Sailor Cancer!? I've never heard of such a stupid thing!" It does drop Nepeta at least-- thank god, she's still in one piece --then turns it's whole body to align with it's neck, bones and skin cracking and shrinking back into place (ugh, disgusting). Arms raised, it screeches, "That's just fine, you both can die!! Rise, dear foolish puppets who were taken in by the brilliance of gems and gave up their energy for materialistic greed! Rise for the sake of our Lord who slumbers! I'll send you all down to the Dark World together!!!"

There is a mass shuffling from all over, and all of the previously unconscious bodies are uncannily struggling to stand. Some even crawl and drag themselves towards you. They all have the same dead, blank-faced look and empty eyes, and they zombie-stalk to you and John. Disturbingly exactly like puppets on strings and you don't think your brave streak could have died any faster, stepping back apprehensively as the crowd shuffles forward. 

"O-okay, what the hell, John? This is one hell of a nightmare."

"BECAUSE IT'S NOT A DREAM. Don't just stand there dummy, run!!"

You move out of the way just in time as a troll staggers at you, end up pulling some kind of free-style dance move to knock them back while somebody else makes a lunge. They end up forcing you into the hands of someone on the ground and you have to kick them off quite hard (oof, somebody is going to have a nasty bruise later, you can guarantee that). It becomes an awkward game of dodging and trying not to have anything or anyone touch you (maybe you even start to enjoy hitting people, although a little too much, but if anything is going to be a perk of this made-up job then that has to be it). And it would have kept on working just fine if you hadn't backed yourself up into a corner. A human turns up with a broken bit of glass, coming at you far too quickly to move fully out of the way, and manages to get away with a nice cut along the side of your leg. It's barely a nick, but there is still blood welling up and threatening to drip down your knee into the boot.

"Are you kidding me...!?," It starts to bleed, as shallow as the cut is. The fact that you're not even here of your own will, being forced by that shit-fucking cat to be in this get-up and try to take down some random monster that just suddenly appears today, with almost z e r o fighting experience, and realize that maybe this really isn't a dream, all makes you very upset, tenfold as fast as before, this officially having to be the worst night of your life.

They're all closing in on you to attack and there's hardly a thing to do that doesn't lead to being caught and to that extent, probably killed. You can't believe it, your body is going to be found in the morning, wearing this damn costume, of all things. OR worse, nobody will find you after this thing does whatever it wants, and then your lusus will go fucking feral and then the Naturae Control will have to catch him and put him down. You didn't ask for this shit! Why are you being put through this!? What have you ever done to deserve this!!? Are you really not that great of a person??

Well guess what? If these are going to be your final moments, then for damn well sure you're going to have some final words.

"Hey, it's just a scratch--"

"'Justa scratch?'" Karkat glares murder down at him, "You wanna know what's 'just a scratch'? 'Just a fucking scratch' is YOU getting a really good swipe at me with your claws, that's 'just a fucking scratch'. This, what is happening right now, IS NOT 'JUST A FUCKING SCRATCH'! THIS IS A WHOLE FUCK LOAD OF SCRATCHES THAT ARE ACTUALLY ONE BIG, HUGE BLISTERINGPUSTULE INFECTED MASSIVE SHIT-SCAR THAT WE ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF RIGHT NOW. I DIDN'T ASK FOR ANY OF THIS. I DIDN'T WANT ANY OF THIS HAPPENING. YOU BROUGHT ME HERE TO FIGHT THAT-- THE FUCK ARE YOU ANYWAY!?" Karkat throws his hands in the direction of it, slamming his leg with all the force his anger magically summons up, not even being able to enjoy how it sends the body back through the throng of zombified people, "YOU'RE A HALF-DEAD CORPSE WITH BITS OF FLESH FALLING OFF, I COULD LITERALLY BREAK YOU WITH A STICK. THE ONLY THING KEEPING ME FROM DOING SO IS THAT YOU LOOK ABSOLUTELY SICKENING TO THE POINT WHERE I WILL VOMIT OUT MY INSIDES IF I SO MUCH AS TOUCH YOU! You know what!? Sometimes, you just gotta fucking ask yourself, you ask 'what the FUCK am I willing to put up with today?' And you know what the answer is, John?? Not FUCKING THIS!" Your final word is punctuated with a loud punch, the receiver's jaw nearly cracking, but do you care about it? Hell no.

The appalled shock on the monster's face would be so funny if you weren't so set on giving this much-needed allocution. 

"AND THE FUCK ARE ALL OF YOU DUMBASSES DOING!!? WAKE THE FUCK UP!!!!!" Full on panting after expelling all that air and words at once, tired from having to avoid being hit or grabbed at, and on top of that mad at yourself for listening to a damn magical cat of all things, you must have accidentally taken something. You sigh hard and heavily, a headache coming on quick. Your voice seems to reverberate off the walls, getting louder and louder with each rage-filled syllable, but now the room is disturbingly quiet; even your lungs and vocal box have most likely-- finally --tired out. Everybody is busy groaning,  trying to cover their ears, most of the bodies start falling back to the ground, once again limp and unconscious. The monster growls and raises an over-stretched limb high, screeching, "Stop making that terrible racket, and hurry up and DIE!!!"

And then that rotting appendage comes straight for you, warped and shifting as it flies. In your mind, you can see exactly how it will strike right through you. Spike your heart like a pincushion, and leave you impaled on this hideous thing's pike of a limb. And after your little tantrum fit, the only thing left after the boldness is fear (like in your dream when everything was consumed by the deepest, darkest pitch, until you could not even breathe or see your own hand), not even enough sense to try and move out of the way or continue standing. You cringe with your eyes shut, bracing against the wall and waiting for the impact to kill you.

(You wish you were home, that you hadn't even given John a chance to get you caught up in this. So, why did you?)

This...huh, so this is how you go down...This is it for Karkat Vantas, an idiot kid who got led along to play vigilante.

This is it.

.

.

.

But the piercing pain you're expecting never comes, instead, when you take a careful peek, the clawed hand that was right in front of your face is now pinned to the ground, pierced through with something thin, a needle-like blade.

"Right on time, aren't I...," A new voice echoes off the walls. (Don't you know them? Haven't you heard this voice before?)

"Who's there!? How dare you interrupt me!"