#stridorkable

“Problem solved. You see him?” He asked, his voice steady, but his breath and hands shaky, it was hard to keep the light from jerking all over the place.

There was a small flicker of movement from a cell that sat as part of a square over what was probably meant to be a break area, and unbeknownst to them had become affectionately nicknamed ‘The Killing Floor’. The light flickered over the bars and Dave backed away from them as something distinctly unpleasant crawled into his stomach and nested there. He remembered things Hal had told him and jumped slightly when his back touched the wall.They weren’t here for him, were they?

Karkat spotted that movement though and bolted for the stairs, within moments finding himself standing in front of Dave’s cell. He looked awful after over a week of capture, and bore clear signs of torture.

Karkat tried to put it out of his mind for the moment as he took a few deep breaths. “Hey, Strider. We see you there.” He almost choked on his words but tried to keep confident. “We have to get you out of here before things get too ugly, and this place won’t hold itself up forever.” Especially not with the monster rampaging upstairs. “Do you-…” despite himself he took a dry swallow that was like trying to choke down bricks. “Need help getting out of here?” He really did look like garbage.

Bro interrupted their little bonding time by stepping in and ramming his sword through the lock and slamming the door open, making Dave jump badly from where he was pressed up against the brickwork. He held his hand out to his little brother in anticipation, but didn’t enter the cell. Dave did not look Okay.

Dave hesitated, he wanted to whip up a Classic Dave ™ snarky comment for Bro and Karkat, but he didn’t have anything right now. He just really wanted to get off his island. He stepped out of the cell passed his brother, without saying anything. Dave’s dead eyes drifted to meet Karkat’s that were full of concern. How had they even gotten here? How did they know where he was?

“Where did…?”

Bro interrupted here too and cut Dave’s question off, gesturing at Dave and Karkat to hurry up though he tried not to show how tense he was. The fact he kept casting (definitely not terrified) glances up at the ceiling kind of bellied that though.

“Speaking of which, Karkat. Any idea how we’re going to get back up? Remember, you’re the brains of this operation, I’m just the pretty face.” He said, his mouth running as fast as his anxiety.

“You don’t.” Dave rasped. “Building’s empty. We go through.”

The cell block was almost completely empty, and the administrative section wasn’t required when they could just go through where prisoners were brought in. Anyone that hadn’t already escaped was in the midst of escaping, hiding, or just dying.

Dave robotically turned and walked away from the other two, leaning heavily on the rail as he walked along the catwalk in front of the second-level cells where he had been housed. He was navigating pretty well in the dark without Bro’s light.

“And find Hal.”

Bro and Karkat both reacted badly to that one.

‘Dave, we have to get out of here!” Karkat hurried after him, his own voice straining. There was no point in confronting Dave’s captor when someone was probably still loose and wild and carving a bloody path of destruction upstairs in the whole place. “It’s too dangerous to risk something like this, and we don’t got ton’s of-back up!”

Bro moved in front of Dave to stop him, raising his hand and standing tall. “Don’t make the same mistake I did, rescuing Ash and getting out of here is more important than revenge on Hal.” If Dave thought he was going to go fight Hal in this condition, he had another thing coming. But Dave just shook his head.

“There are stairs over there.” He interrupted, nodding towards the direction he had been heading before his mountain of a brother stopped him. “I don’t want revenge.” He glanced down at the floor, but didn’t elaborate on what he wanted.

Dave was more caught up in the first part of what Bro said. Ash was still alive…? Really, actually, alive?

Then what the hell were they doing down here?

He felt a small burst of irrational anger. “If you know where she is, just get herout of here.” He snapped, pushing off the rail unsteadily to his feet. “Just take her and run before he finds either of you.” How could they come down here forhim when Ash was still alive here and all alone with that maniac?

“It looked like the staircase was the only was down besides the elevator,” Bro noted tersely. The elevator was indeed right there, but was locked down due to the state of emergency. 

Bro stepped over towards it and drew his sword. “If I know one thing in my life, it’s that I’ve always been warned about stairs.” He slashed through the metal of the elevator doors and kicked them inwards, which was followed by the ear shattering rattle of steel bouncing down the shaft echoing up to them. After a moments consideration the elevator itself followed as he sliced through the cable and let it hutle downwards.

Bro grabbed Karkats arm and jumped straight in to the shaft, ignoring Karkat’s cries “HOLY-” as they sped down wards. In a move that would not have worked if not for the fact physics gave way for Bro Strider, he slammed the sword in to the side of the shaft and screeeeeched downwards until they slowed enough that they landed on the bottom floor with a minimal of jarring, right on top of the pieces of the elevator that was still sparking.. The door down here received similar treatment as Bro let go of Karkat. “ARE YOU SUICIDA-” Karkat’s screams of rage were interrupted as he fell on his ass on top of a chunk of door, luckily not on top of anything sharp or electric.

 “Pretty sure he’s on this floor.” Bro said, much more cheerfully now that he wasn’t in danger of having his brain leak out of his ears. “Lowest you can get, up to you now buddy.” He gave Karkat an encouraging punch to the shoulder that was probably too hard and stepped through the door frame.

Karkat got shakily to his feet, this whole mission was shaving years off his lifespan. Only a force of will kept him from verbally ripping Bro a new asshole for that stunt he just pulled. Karkat grabbed the Blood Stone again and began cursing under his breath as he found that connection to Dave and followed it in to the darkened cell block.

Dave definitely heard that screaming, but before that he heard ear splitting catastrophic crashing of an elevator hurtling down several floors and pancaking in to concrete.

He squinted in to the dark, loosely gripping the rusted bars of his cell, but for the moment he didn’t see anything. Across the way though, behind one of the cell doors that segmented the actual jail part of this compound, he saw a faint red glow.

His heart tanked immediately and he felt himself go cold, expecting Ash to be standing there illuminated by some ungodly power- but no. The figure was bigger than his sister, even at this distance he could tell, and as he got closer and saw a flashlight flicker on, a lot louder.

Ash didn’t react to him, the strain of holding herself together was too much and she was afraid she’d lose her grip at any moment.

His tone changed as he spoke Karkat. “Yo!” He said cheerfullly, kneeling down on one leg and gingerly setting Ash down, at least if she was in one place they could attend to her later right? If she could managed to stay alive for the next little while. “Quickest way is down right?” He asked. Ash just curled up again, shivering and muttering “Down.” over and over.

Karkat looked back and forth between Bro and the girl that attacked them, his hands were still shaking and the world looked too sharp. He tried to shake off the fear and adrenaline rush even as he focused to force down this girls power.

Bro put his hand on the edge of the roof and swung down, crashing through the window of an administrative room, normally this was just a sheer drop so there was no need for bars on the windows this high up. That was kind of a dumb move though, as the glass sliced his arms to pieces and a jagged flying chunk scratched a line across his face.

He pulled the glass out of his face. “Ow. That looks much easier in movies.” Bro leaned out of the shattered window and gestured for Karkat to follow him.

Karkat made a face but he gripped the edge of the building and swung down carefully, kicking out the last few jags of broken glass and landing much more safely than Bro himself had. “That’s because movies are inaccurate.” He hissed to Bro, forcing himself to shake off the last vestiges of fear. It was a little easier when he wasn’t looking at the girl. Karkat dug the map out of his pocket and looked at it, but it was hand drawn, there was only so much it could tell him. “Any ideas where to go?” He asked before decidingit was pointless to ask. Karkat shook his head. Never mind.

“Promised I never would use this side of this shit, but…” Karkat raised the stone in his fingers and it began to glow, along with his eyes. He saw red wires wrapped around his wrist and fingers, thin, translucent, but there. He stared hard at them before he picked out the one he was pretty sure represented his connection to Dave, and wrapped it around his fingers to separate it from the others, and began following it down the hall, letting Bro watch out for guards and doors. This took concentration.

Above them though, Hal’s Reapers managed to track Jack down, not that it was hard after that blazing display of flying in to the air. They slammed open the fire escape door that Bro had used and there was a scattered applause of safety’s being flicked off.

Ash rolled over and looked at the group of terrified Reapers. They had witnessed the killing floor, and now Jack was more powerful than ever and every minute her sphere of control expanded. If the people left on the island were lucky, they’d get outside of her reach before they boiled, or she would finally finish dying before her reach encompassed the entire compound.

She stared at the Reapers with dead eyes. As the first terrified soldier began to squeeze the trigger, their guns all jerked to the sides, pointing at each other.

Bro continued down the hall, looking for his brother, but having a hard time concentrating on any enemy soldiers that might be running around in here, in favor of watching Karkat approach Ash. Would it really be okay? He knew better than to go down there and get near her himself though. Only Karkat could protect himself from her.

Jacks body was glowing with her power that was bursting out of control. IV tubes were still hanging from her arms, monitor pads stuck to her forehead and chest with wires ripped from the machines that were supposed to keep her alive. The rocks had sliced her feet, but Jack didn’t notice. She couldn’t feel anything, nothing except the burning in her veins and skin.

Jack didn’t bleed, not the way a natural human should. Her blood peeled away from her wound in drops and ran against gravity up her skin, and her whole body seemed to ripple, turning from its healthy bronze to gray, back to a more human color. Ugly greenish veins crept along her skin, up from her right arm over her body, across her shoulder and throat, and the veins seemed to be invading one eye with the pupil blown unnaturally wide, while her other kept shifting from an orange sclera and a slitted pupil back to white and a human’s round pupil. She was out of control as her body fought against itself.

She saw Karkat as he approached her cautiously, but she immediately dismissed him out of hand. Jack had no interest in any Reapers that weren’t immediately hostile. Her target was Hal.

That changed though as Jack felt her body jerk backwards a few steps, shocking her mind clear for a moment.

What the hell-

Her eyes snapped back to the intruder, he glowed with a power the same as hers. It was him.

She whirled around and the red energy she was throwing off blazed as she slammed back at him. Jack gave an utterly inhuman roar from behind unnatural fangs.

“Leave!”

Karkat’s eyes widened and he threw his arms up in reaction as Blood Aspect out of control hit him like a truck and braced himself against it with one of the smaller Stones. It probably saved his life and prevented him from being torn apart. A long distance controller? That wasn’t going to be easy. She instantly overloaded his Blood Stone and it turned black and smoking.

She was going to be a lot tougher than Karkat initially expected- whoever this…person… was. He didn’t bother mincing words with her, tossing the tiny stone away and switching for a slightly larger one and began building up his own power.

His opponent seemed to be going through Rejection, but unlike any Rejection Karkat had ever seen. No one that Rejected the LE cells survived to this point of degradation, usually their nervous systems fried themselves or the resulting fever fried their brains. And for that matter nobody that went through rejection already had any powers. For that matter where was her Stone? Was it inside her body? What the hell was happening here?

Without warning though as Karkat’s mind scrambled for explanations and tried to guess her next attack, she pulled off a move he had only ever seen Dave or Bro manage. The girl seemed to flicker out of sight and was instantly on him and in his face, covering several feet within a blink of an eye. Her hands dug in to the collar of his combat vest, and at first Karkat thought she was picking him up with impossible strength even for a girl as tall as her- but no! Not only was his feet leaving the gravel, hers were too. They were flying. That wasimpossible for anyone that wasn’t a Space or a Breath Compatible, and yet.

The strain of it seemed to be hurting her though, the veins creeping along her skin ripped open and sprayed blood as they whirled through the air higher and higher above the compound and Karkat was very much aware of how high up they were and his chances of surviving this drop. If she dropped him, or if shedied from her body ripping her apart, he was probably going with her.

Shit.

“Hal won’t stop me this time.” She gnashed to Karkat to his surprise “I remember! I remember everything!” She extended her arms away like she was going to drop him, since Karkat was working his powers in over-drive to keep her from tearing him apart or boiling him, but thankfully something seemed to stop the red girl. She faltered as her eyes fell to the SKAIA patch on his vest and she seemed to recognize it.

They both plummeted out of the air like a lead weight. The girl didn’t let him go and Karkat was too disoriented by falling to his death with her to make her. But there was a sudden lurch and a jerking motion that he was pretty sure would give him whiplash until the day he dropped dead, and he hit the concrete rooftop at a much more reduced speed than he expected. He banged his elbow something fierce but at least he was still??? Alive???

Karkat gasped for air and pushed himself up on shaking hands. What thefuck was that?

He looked up and the girl hovered there in mid-air, curling in on herself and digging her nails- no they just shifted in to yellow claws- in to her arms and he could sense her struggling to restrain her ability, the glow she was throwing off in waves flickering and pulling in closed to her body.

“D-Dave.” She growled from behind gritted teeth, making Karkat go still in shock. What the hell? She knew about Dave? “Dav-vvve…s….inside. Inside at the bottom…with the ce-cells.” The girl hissed. “Go!”