The Gods Have Horns

You gods are immortal, but as such you're also all alive. That's what "Living Gods" means.You all need to attend to the minutiae of living, such as eating,sleeping, and breathing, or else suffer just as a mortal would. Most of the others do not find this burdensome. Terezi, for example, likes to eat all sorts of things, traditionally edible or not, enjoying her general immunity to silly things like poison and infection. Overall,your fellow gods seem to enjoy, or at least not mind, taking time to attend to bodily functions.

There are exceptions. Feferi can manipulate her own biology past the need for sleep and oxygen, if she wants to. You have seen her turn green and leaf out like a bush,drinking in sunlight so as to not require food. Tavros sometimes just frees himself of these needs, though other times he indulges them.

You, also, are an exception. You find sleeping and eating an utter waste of time. So, you just carry on with your work, and work, and work, until you physically reach a point, like now, where any further work accomplished will not be of a quality worth keeping. By now, you know this point with precision,and don't even need to reach out into the universe to find the answer.

Fuck, you're so tired.

You can give yourself a proper reset in many ways, but these days you've made it a bit of a ritual, the way some people make a ritual out of washing and dressing in the morning or the evening. It's not entirely necessary, no, but it keeps you sane. Maybe.

You have a special room for resets,deep in your mansion and retina-locked to you. Inside it's lined with antiseptic stainless steel: easy to clean and with a drain on the bottom. You go in and decaptchalogue a simple folding chair,disposable. You sit in it and double check that you're wearing your godhood. Everything is where it needs to be.

Then you blow your head up.

-----------

The first time you ever "overclocked"your psionics on purpose it was for a different reason. You were very young, and sitting on your Quest Bed. It had been difficult and painful – took you a full minute to ramp up your psionic feedback loops until you hemorrhaged to death.

What an amateur. These days you can atomize your brain in less time than it takes to register any sensation at all.

You get up from the remains of the chair and pick your way through the fine layer of dirty yellow blood and splinters of bone matter coating the interior of the room. You feel pretty good. Refreshed. No hint of hunger or exhaustion.

You exit the room in your self-cleaning god tier robes, seal the door behind you, and use your tablet to activate the cleaning cycle. The interior will be bleached and shiny again in a few minutes.

Break's over, and it only took about five minutes.

See? Efficient.

It's too bad, since, well. You generally like Terezi.

You extend your senses of animal communion, easily spanning the entirety of the planet. The footfalls of ants and the wingbeats of pigeons tell you that she is in Times Square, New York City. She knows you're coming – there's no other reason she'd be in such a public, crowded place, with so few animals. She knows you don't like fighting like this, not in public. Still, you're not going to be dissuaded.

You Breathe, and you're there.

“ Ta-” is all she has time to say, before you hit her with a wall of wind like a freight train.

She's laying a distance away, surrounded by scattered debris, chunks of cars, and injured and dead humans. She's stunned. You need to act quick.

You make yourself a little bigger and older, so you have more physical strength. Then you decaptchalogue some rope, but she comes to before you can finish tying her arms. People are screaming all around, but she just says: “Tavros, you have better things to do.”

You know better than to let her bait you into a conversation. You loop the rope around her throat and pull tight, so you won't hear her talk. “Sorry,” you say, anyway, as she struggles and dies. “I think, Earth is worth it.”

You wish you had more arms. The clock is ticking, you need to finish tying her up, fast, before she revives.

Not fast enough.

A knife flicks out from her shoe. With a decisive kick, she buries it in your leg. Ouch. Good thing you don't need that shin to fly.

She's on her feet, and you're sitting on the ground. Her arms are tied, but not her legs. Before she can say anything, you send her flying with another blast of wind, and fly after her as she crashes down.

Terezi is bleeding, broken, but still alive, and conscious. You fix that quick with your lance, and, with shaking hands, tie a strip of fabric from your own godhood across her slack mouth, to gag her before she revives.

“ Really, really sorry,” you say to her furious face as she wakes up. Her glasses came off somewhere with all the wind, and she looks very upset. “But you're gonna destroy the world that we're all, um, using. So I need to do this.”

She tries to talk around the gag, kicks a bit – you dodge the knife-shoes — and then closes her eyes and seems to slump. You don't think she's actually giving up, but when she opens her eyes they're full of tears.

Oh no. “I-I know about the doomed timelines,” you say, words almost stammering, knowing you probably shouldn't be saying anything. “But, I mean, don't those last a while, even doomed? And also, we can work to find a way around this. We don't need to set off the um, game, right now. It'll be okay, if we wait.”

She's crying, head bowed, shoulders heaving with sobs. Your pusher twinges. You and Terezi used to be moirails, and other things besides, and those old feelings are bubbling up, despite the vast stretch of time since you two were in any quadrant at all. You don't want to see her like this, tears flowing down her cheeks. It's too pitiful.

Wait, she's not sobbing. She's laughing.

That's when she clocks you in the pan with the heel of a heavy, steel-toed boot. And when you reel and clutch your head, she stabs you in the back with her knife-shoe. It hits you right at the base of your cervical chitin, and you collapse.

You stare at her from the ground, shocked, as she contorts her left foot to cut the gag from her mouth. To get into the position, to cut free her arm, she had to dislocate her shoulder and shove it out of place. Her tears were from the pain, but she's grinning at you straight through them.

“ Tavros, don’t be a fucking idiot,” she hisses. “Skaia won't wait forever. The players have to play while they're still viably young. But I know better than to argue the point.”

With a snarl and a shudder, she pops her arm back into place. “You think that just because you can get the drop on me that you're a hard counter to my abilities. You're wrong. Still, I know I can’t contain you. Instead, I'm going to ask you to consider all the other worlds, all the other places, where you could be doing your work and helping people right now , instead of wasting your Breath on a doomed planet. The Escelvi people still need your help. The servants of the Hespekin are calling for you. Leave Earth. Let the game sort itself out.”

You wheeze from your position on the ground. You can't feel anything below your neck, and breathing is possible but difficult. Why does this shit always happen to you?

She turns, and flicks out her wings, and she's about to leave you here, but you can't just let her do that. You may not get a second chance to track her down.

You're not nearly as helpless as you look. The truth is, you've never needed your limbs, to fly, or fight, or—

A crow swoops down, and plunges its beak into her eye. She can't see anyway, but it must still hurt, since she screams, swinging up her arm and skewering the crow with a thin blade. Rats, cats, raccoons, pigeons—  every creature from the city you could call — come to the attack, some carrying in their mouths bits of glass, needles, nails, any sharp debris they could find, and fling themselves on her. She flies upwards with breathtaking swiftness, but you float up too, following her, keeping pace. You need to take her out one more time, to buy yourself just a single moment—!

She swats at the animals, claws them, flings them off, but a few of the rats chew through her wings, and crows tear at her ears and lips. She snaps at them, but pigeons force themselves past her teeth and down her throat, choking her on their feathers and their bodies.

You're not much more than a floating head, with a body that hangs limp and useless below you, but you don't need more than that. While she's preoccupied, you summon the wind, and blast her downward, back towards the ground.

That probably won't be enough. You need something heavy, to drop on her. You flick through your sylladex. There's a pretty big card in the back, something you think Aradia must have given you, years ago. You decaptchalogue it and drop it after Terezi. It's a huge steel coffin.

Good, that should occupy her for a bit, long enough to fix yourself up. You drop a long straight lance out of your specibus and, spinning it with the wind, orient it tip up, and blow it straight through your own pusher.

Simple.

You come to, whole, lying face-down on the ground, with a raccoon licking the back of your head. You get the raccoon to leave, push yourself up, and look around. Human emergency personnel are running around with the noise of sirens. Some people are standing very near, staring at you.

“ You should leave,” you tell them, as you float to your feet. “Run. Don't get in the way, of this.”

Terezi must also be alive again, but when you find her she's pinned down by the coffin. You're surprised she hasn't called for help, by now. The other gods must also be busy.

“ Is this really worth it, Tavros Nitram?” She asks, sounding mostly annoyed even as she's half-crushed beneath the coffin. “You've already killed a lot of bystanders. I thought you didn’t want to do that?”

You pause a moment. No, don't think about it. She's just getting into your head. It's what she does. “You,” you say. “Need to stop, talking.”

You smash her head in with the blunt part of your lance, then shift the coffin off her body, with the help of the Breeze. Then, you drop her into the coffin, and close the lid. It’s a temporary measure, but it can buy you a moment to think.

Even if she's not packing explosives in her sylladex, she has allies she can call to get her out. She could pray to Sollux, or Feferi, who would find it simple to dismantle the coffin. Or Aradia, who would just wait for it to rust away to nothing. You need to stop her from doing that.

“T4VROS N1TR4M, YOU C4NT S1L3NC3 M3,” says Terezi, calling your name. You don't hear her with your ears, but with your constant awareness of prayers said in your name. “YOU KNOW 1M R1GHT. 1F YOU SUCC33D 1N CR34T1NG 4 DOOM3D T1M3L1N3, W3 4LL F4C3 D3STRUCT1ON, 4ND YOU KNOW 1T!! T4VROS N1TR4M, WHY 4R3 YOU DO1NG TH1S?? TH3R3 4R3 B3TT3R TH1NGS FOR YOU TO DO, MOR3 1MPORT4NT TH1NGS TO C4R3 4BOUT!!"

You ignore the teal. While she talks, you manage to maneuver a tiny insect into the coffin. That means it's not airtight, which means she won't suffocate, but also means... that you have another option, though you don't want to do it. You don't want to do any of this. It's fighting dirty, fighting cruel. You don't like it.

The Breeze blasts the coffin out to sea with incredible force. It skips across the surface of the ocean like a small stone, and then further still, out beyond the shallow seas and into the deep open ocean. There, it stops, and the fish watch as it drops into the depths, trailing bubbles.

It’s a beautiful day in Libra. You pause a moment at the doorway to the grassy knoll on which your home stands to appreciate the sea breeze and the sunshine and the calls of birds. It’ll be up to you and your friends to recreate this once you’re all gods.

Heart beating fast and breath full of purpose, you check the straps of your pack, then set off to find your grandfather’s buried treasure.

—-------

There’s a small clearing in the jungle. You never would have looked at it twice, if you hadn’t known something was here. Yet as you stand at the spot, you can’t help but notice that the ground looks recently disturbed. You would have written it off as Bec burying a treat or toy for later — he does that a lot, the silly boy— but…this is the spot. Grandpa’s spot. Why does it look like someone dug here recently? Like, sometime in the past day, recently. The soil has been patted down, deliberately, in an attempt to hide the disturbance, but it’s — it’s such a sloppy job. You don’t know what to make of this.

Well, might as well see if there’s anything there. You take the collapsible shovel out of your pack and get to digging. The soil is soft and easy to spade out, until your shovel hits something hard. 

Wow, it’s still here? You clear the soft soil away from the object with your hands, revealing a small wooden chest, a bit smaller than a breadbox. There’s no lock. Breathing hard, you open it.

Inside the box are two antique flintlock pistols, in perfect condition.

What? Guns? Why would Grandpa leave you these? It doesn’t make any sense.

You frown. Something here is wrong. You don’t understand. You sit down on a nearby tree root, considering. Your grandpa, in his last few remaining moments with you, made certain you would find these weapons. But he knew you had a rifle. He knew what a good shot you are, since you demonstrated for him on your shooting range, while he was here. But why would he be so desperate for you to have these guns in particular?

You inspect the guns. No bullets, no powder. Nothing in the barrel or the pan.

And, if your eyes are not lying to you, if someone went to the trouble of digging up this box before you got here, why didn’t they take the guns? Why did they put them back and fill in the hole and try to hide the evidence?

Who else would even know the box was here?

You feel cold. You don’t like it. There are only a few people in this universe who could know what your grandfather told you earlier today. They’re all gods.

You look at the pistols. You take a deep, shuddering breath. In. Out.

The pistols go into your pack. After a moment, you add the box, too.

The sun is low on the horizon by the time you return home. Fef is waiting. “Did you find what you were looking for?” she asks.

You smile for her. “Yep!” you reply. “Grandpa left me these old guns as heirlooms! I’ll put them in my room.”

You start to leave for the teleporter, but Fef calls to you. “Jade,” she says. “Before you go… I have a gift for you as well.”

“Oh?” you turn to face her.

The goddess nods, and smiles at you. The sharp points on her teeth have never bothered you, no more than Bec’s do. “Oh, Jade,” she says. “I’m so proud of how you behaved with J- with your grandfather, today. You’ll do amazing things in the Game, I just wish I could be there to see them.” She holds out her hand, and dangles a small, drawstring bag. “Someone else can, though.”

You take the bag, and open it. Inside are a set of small, yellowed human teeth.

“Uh, Fef? Are these my baby teeth?”

Fef’s smile doesn’t change, but her eyes turn sad. “Not yours. They’re for the kernelsprite, but try not to use them until the second prototyping, after you enter the Medium. You’ll see why.”

“Thank you.” You know she means well.

That night, your mind is spinning too fast for sleep to come. You don’t think it was Fef who dug up the box. And if it was Aradia, she would have done it ages ago, and not left any marks of her presence. Who else would have done it? And why? Just to make sure what your Grandpa left was safe? Did they not trust him?

“Wuf.” It’s Bec. He teleported silently into your room, maybe sensing your disquiet.

You reach over and tangle a hand in his fur. “Good boy,” you whisper. “Best friend.” He’s a good dog. You trust him completely.

It is very difficult to explain what it’s like to be you, but you’ll give it a try. Imagine that, instead of having two eyes and two ears, you had no eyes and trillions of ears, each one sitting inside the head of a different person. Each of your ears faithfully listens in on the person’s innermost thoughts, every conscious impulse to go through their brain, and the sound of their thoughts reflects against their choices, like sonar, creating an echoing impression of every action they will ever choose to take. These echoes become fainter with temporal distance, but are never entirely gone. You simply trace the patterns in the noise, and then it all makes perfect sense. They all make sense. In your ability to model the behavior of others, and to process different thoughtlines in parallel, you are more powerful than any supercomputer made by mortal hands. It doesn’t matter where you are. You are a one-goddess panopticon.

Right now, your physical body resides in the cloister of a legal seminary in Japan. There, you are having a dinner of A5 Wagyu beef and shrimp rolls, kneeling on a cloth mat at your table. You are alone, having just finished consulting with the Judiciary Prior of the seminary. He did not receive your full attention – you are here only to maintain appearances for a few more months until the meteors begin to fall in earnest. This is an event that you anticipate – that you contemplate – with neither thrill nor dread. Against the iron decrees of Paradox Space there is only one choice available to anyone, even the gods themselves: whether or not to accept – to embrace – what is, will be, and always was. 

What takes up your attention right now is four teenage humans hanging out by a beachside bonfire on a tiny island in the remote south Pacific. You can’t see from their eyes or hear from their ears; that’s not how this works. Rather, you get the gist of what is happening from their thoughts: their reflections and responses and recollections of the world around them. From these you can piece together, more or less, what is happening.

You’d think your reasons would be obvious. You’re trying to help them bond, encourage them to work together. Sburb won’t be successful if its players are strangers to each other. Everything you have been doing is in service to the Game.

That includes monitoring your fellow gods, whom you can keep track of just as you can mortals. Right now:

There’s a lot going on. There always is. Anyway, the Game. And its players – young humans – laughing at each other’s jokes and getting bits of marshmallow everywhere. None boast innate psychic powers. None of them have had to care for monsters that, in turn, cared for them. None of them have ever killed another human.

At first, you planned so carefully to mold them, like you molded the Earth, as they matured, but something went sideways, didn’t it? They aren’t nearly cutthroat enough, not by half.

And you. You’ve grown soft too, haven’t you?

Part of the problem is that this attempt is the first of its kind. The Game has not been played before in this universe. This first try may well fail. You need to allow for that possibility, though you’ve tried so hard to avoid it. It’s also possible that, in doing so, you’ve relied too much on Aradia, the only being in this universe that is capable of concealing secrets from you.

Time grows short. The children are growing older, and Sburb will be ready for launch in less than three months. But not all your efforts have failed.

Rose is doing well with Eridan, learning responsibility and detachment. Her loyalties will be torn, drawn as she is to secular humanist thinking, but you are sure that, in the end, she’ll come around to cooperation. Vriska’s moirallegiance will help. You wonder if Rose might share your aspect. Hard to tell, at this stage.

Nepeta helps Dave to loosen up, as she has throughout his life, but there’s still a part of him that he keeps hidden, a vulnerable spot that even he doesn’t want to touch or think about. You know what it is, of course… but it was a good move to get rid of his guardian, in any event. Dave mostly lives in the moment, which is fine for now, but he’ll have to learn to plan and scheme eventually. Hopefully, it won’t be too late. You have a suspicion that his aspect may be Blood.

Jade is unwaveringly loyal, but you are concerned about her heightened level of empathy for and identification with lesser creatures. Such inclinations are not fatal for a god-to-be (Tavros is fair proof of that), but this will be a difficult journey for her. Still, you’ve made some helpful arrangements with Sollux to take care of her. Will her aspect be Life, like Feferi’s? Perhaps.

Then there’s John. Your stratagem, to socially bond him to his fellow players, seems to be working well. Yet… you can’t help but be more alert regarding his actions than those of the other children. His unexpected choices have previously thrown wrenches into your plans - thankfully not irreparably but… you are cautious. You can’t even predict his unpredictability. Part of you is irritated by this. Other parts, long-slumbering in the corners of your mind, have never felt more alive than when facing him.

When Dave goes home tomorrow, he’ll first message Nepeta and tell her he had a fun time. He won’t bother to unpack his bags right away, but he’ll look through his photos. He’ll try to tamp down his emotions. His attention will linger on the pictures taken with Jade.

When Rose leaves tomorrow, she’ll not be going home, but back to Eridan’s manor. At first she will be restless, experiencing an ache of separation that she is not accustomed to. Eridan will chide her and Vriska will give what comfort she can, until she is able to distract herself with her studies once more. 

When John goes home tomorrow, his father will be waiting for him with an anxiety cake. Other than that… You aren’t sure! How exciting!

When her friends go home tomorrow, Jade will feel a very familiar ache, one she knows the name of well. She will hug the First Guardian and smile at Feferi, then help clean up from the party like a good child. That night, she will cry quietly in the safety of her room.

But for now, the children on the beach try, in their limited understanding of each other, to comfort, to confide, to connect. Dave will reveal Rose’s moirallegiance with Vriska, information on which the other two will pounce; Jade with delight and John with incredulity. Rose will playfully interrogate Dave on the nature of his own relationship with Nepeta, putting him on the defensive. John will bring up Harold and Maude , and the conversation will off-ramp into a discussion of whether human concepts of age gaps are applicable to gods.

They will be up late into the night. They will be angry, happy, confused, sad. They will eat truly unconscionable quantities of marshmallows. Eventually, they will drag themselves back to Jade’s house, and sleep in their sandy clothes on Jade’s guest mattresses. In the late morning, they will wake and eat scrambled eggs that Jade will not tell them are from sea turtles.

They will go home, and your predictions will come true. All of them. The game will not end, and your efficacy as a player will not be diminished, just because some of your chess pieces – mostly John – occasionally make an incorrect move. Small errors can build up, it’s true, but he’s going to leave this universe before any butterflies get to flap up a storm.

You finish your sushi at your leisure. You have this well in hand.

John snorts.

Rose looks you up and down, still smiling but also clearly staring at the bandages you hastily applied to the multiple cuts on your legs and arms. “Goodness,” she says. “What happened to you?”

It’s the Witch of Life who mentions the obvious. “What happened to the boat?”

The mind cop speaks in a monotone from the top of the gangway. “Ran into trouble.”

“Yeah, one of your pets slip its collar or something?” you speak up. You have no fear of her. You don’t think you’ve been brought here as a guest just to die, which to your mind works as a free pass for the fieriest top-tier sarcasm your teenage tongue can spin. “Don’t suppose you put out any posters offering a reward if you run into Fido the Monster Lobster?”

“How about calling it the Mobster?” suggests John.

“Sure. If you find our Mobster, please return him to this tiny secret island in the middle of nowhere. Reward: lifetime supply of butter and lemon sauce.”

Jade frowns. “A lobster?”

The goddess of Life doesn’t look any less cheerful. “Oh, dear. Well. Some creatures are not very well-trained. Let me see that.”

She takes you by the arm, and you open your mouth to object to the manhandling, but then your wounds vanish with a prickling, shivering warmth. No scabs. No scars. Just the slight tingling sensation, like pins-and-needles.

The Leviathan Mother smiles toothily at you. “While we’re here, want me to add anything extra? Fins? Spines? Tentacles?”

“Uh,” you say, thoughts flatlining (wtf tentacles ) and then she’s moving on to John, healing his cuts in seconds.

Then, when she makes him the same offer, he says: “Can I have wings?”

Wings? He’s got to be kidding.

“Sure!” says the goddess. “I should let you know, though, that you wouldn’t be able to fly, even if I made them large enough. Humans just don’t have the aerodynamics or endurance for flight. And if I changed that , then you’d end up not looking very human-like anymore. Wings make fun decorations, though!”

“Oh, uh,” says John. “I was just joking.”

Jade speaks up: “Maybe just try them temporarily! I had wings for a few days once, it was neat, even if I couldn’t fly.” She makes eye contact with you, glittering green in your mirror shades, for just a moment. “I think you’d look cute with wings.”

Suddenly, your firehose of a gabber won’t open. Oh, godsdammit. Gods fucking dammit. Say something.

After several awkward moments of struggle, you work your jaw loose and- “Depends on what kinds of wings we’re talking about, here. Godly wings? I dunno dude, I guess those are coming eventually but I don’t think the whole gossamer tinkerbell look is for me. A little bit too ethereal in this hizzouse and that’s not my jam. Maybe bat wings, those’d be badass. Might have to change my name though. Be all like who’s this Bruce Wayne guy? Bam surprise, it’s me, time to kick The Penguin’s ass with my real motherfucking wings. Batman’s got nothing on this bitch. Nananananananana. D-Stri!” You turn to John. “Damn, will I need to dress all in spandex? With bat nipples?”

John looks gobsmacked, Jade is giggling quietly, and Rose rolls her eyes.

“You want bat nipples?” The Witch has an all-too mischievous glint in her eyes, and you cross your arms in front of your chest.

“Fef!” exclaims Jade in mock-offense. You don’t think she was going to do it, not really. You hope not.

Jade leads your merry band back up the jungle-covered hill to her house, while the Witch stays to chat with the mind-cop. And heal her, probably. Anyway, Jade has a lot to say about the island.

“There’s the shooting range and the garden and the observatory and the basement is full of these creepy stuffed animals, and we could also explore the ruins and the reefs and the jungle! There’s so much to show you! Are you sure you can’t stay longer than the weekend?”

“They haven’t even been here an hour, Jade!” says Rose. “Slow down a little.”

Jade’s eyes are shining. “I could show you my music! Oh my gosh, we should form a band!”

John snickers. “I can play keyboard. What should our band name be?”

You smirk. “Wait so like, you play the bass and Rose plays violin and John plays keyboard, and I guess I can mix it, but like what is our genre? Island metal wave? Ghost noise? Tentacle thrashback? Deified dubcore? House trap?”

“Do we need a genre?” asks John. “I like Ghost Noise as a band name though.”

“It could be a genre of one,” suggests Rose. “Fitting, that way.”

“How about the Dogs Gammit?” adds Jade. “As a band name. It’s like a spoonerism.”

“Is a spoonerism about dogs like a Snooperism about Doggs?” You ask, and John gives you a fist bump. 

“Oh right!” Jade grins. “You haven’t met Bec yet. I’ll call him!”

You pause a moment on the path. “Wait, you mean your weird radioactive hellbeast? The one you should’ve taken out behind the barn long ago?”

“I take him out back all the time, and give him cuddles!” says Jade. “He’s great.” She puts two fingers between her lips and whistles, and the weird radioactive hellbeast just appears , glowing an unearthly white-green and panting, green tongue flopping.

“Good boy!” Jade coos over the massive dog, burying her hands in his fur. “Bestest boy!” She looks back at you and smiles. “You can let him sniff you to say ‘Hi.’ ”

Rose is unperturbed and John looks awed by the creature, but… You’re unsure. Becquerel kind of gives you the heebie-jeebies. Not that you’d admit that.

You hold out your hand, and Bec sniffs it, breath hot and moist. The green tongue flicks out to taste your fingers. You wipe your hand on your pants as soon as the dog moves its head away. Gross.

John holds out his hand, too. Bec sniffs it, too, but then something about the dog’s body language changes. Its ears go back, it crouches its front legs, and it barks commandingly, then whines.

“Uh, hi?” says John. But before he, or any of you, can say anything else, it lunges at John, and both of them vanish.

“What the fuck?” you shout, alarmed. “Where’d they go?”

Rose turns to Jade. “Jade?”

Jade is frowning, but doesn’t look nearly as worried as she should be. “Oh, this isn’t like Bec at all! He only takes people away because he thinks they’re an intruder, or when he plays with me.”

Jade then puts her fingers in her mouth and whistles, but this time nothing happens.

“Did he think John was an intruder?” asks Rose.

Before Jade can answer, you interject: “Why John? Why would he think John is an intruder, but not me?”

Jade shrugs helplessly. “I dunno! But he looked more like he was happy before they went, not angry, so maybe he’s playing? We can look for them, though I should warn you they really could be anywhere.” She whistles again. Nothing.

“Anywhere… on the island?” Rose prompts.

She shakes her head. “No. Anywhere in the universe.” At your horrified expressions, she quickly amends: “Bec still needs to go somewhere with air! So John is probably fine.”

“Probably???” You echo her loudly. “What if he isn’t?”

Jade shakes her head. “I, I really don’t know! I’ve never had visitors who weren’t gods before, so this was never a problem…” She pauses. “I’m going to ask Feferi for help.”

“Already here, dear.”

You jump and turn, and the goddess is directly behind you, pink wings fluttering and looking completely unconcerned.

“Fef, Bec took John somewhere and we don’t know where!” says Jade.

The Witch just smiles. “I’m sure they’re both fine. In fact, I just got a message from a good friend that informs me they’re still on the island!”

A good friend?

Jade, however, seems to get it immediately. “Oh, was it Terezi? Did she say where they are, exactly?”

“No,” says the Witch, and shrugs. “But consider this: finding them will be an ex-shell-ent team building exercise!”

Jade bites her lip. “Okay, Fef,” she says, but Rose is frowning.

You voice your opinion: “I thought this was supposed to be a low-stress vacation?”

“I promise he’s safe,” says the goddess, still smiling. “So, no need for stress.” And with a flutter of her wings, she is gone.

“She could have asked the Seer where exactly they are,” comments Rose. “And not left before we could question her about withholding information.”

Jade shrugs and smiles. “That’s just how she is. Anyway, it might still be fun! I can show you around the island while we look.” -----

After visiting Jade’s garden (the lemons have faces and it’s fucking you up), Jade’s room (she uses a literal teleportation device to get there), and Jade’s basement (that’s a big-ass snake), you trudge back out to the beach, no nearer to finding John than when you started. You’re getting a little tired of this.

Jade is gazing at the mountain with a thoughtful expression on her face, and no, no fucking way are you climbing a mountain today. You are about to say so, when Jade speaks up instead:

“You know, there have always been areas of the ruins I couldn’t get to, either because Bec always teleported me away from them or I couldn’t figure out the puzzle locks… maybe John is there?”

“These ruins aren’t at the top of that steep mountain, are they?” you gripe.

Jade smiles. “You’re not scared of a little hike, are you, Dave?” she says, and giggles at your expression. "It’d be easier if we could fly, huh?”

Huh. “Nah, a hike is fine, I just uh, don’t really feel like doin’ it in these comfy-ass flip flops.”

Rose looks like she’s considering it. “I have boots.”

Jade shakes her head. “I wasn’t going to hike up the mountain anyway.” She points into the jungle. “There’s ruins in the bay that I’ve never quite been able to fully explore - let’s try there?” -----

Your jaw actually manages to drop when she summons giant lilypads by playing the bass guitar. Is this whole island set up like a fucking video game?

So yeah, you jump across the lilypads like it’s fuckin’ Frogger, and then Jade shows you the door to the stone tower which… has a giant frog statue on the top. Okay. Cool. Absolutely rad.

“I’ve never been able to get in because of the pressure plates,” explains Jade, pointing at some hand-sized depressions spaced out near the tower’s entrance. “They’re too far away to reach all three at once. I’d have to have three extra-long arms! And when I try to come up with a solution, like with my robot, Bec just teleports me away.”

Rose frowns. “Maybe he takes you away because he smells something dangerous? Not that his opinion on what’s dangerous is necessarily a sufficient reason.”

Three depressions. Three of you. “Maybe it’s all a setup,” you say, and Rose meets your gaze for a fleeting moment.

“Let’s give it a try!” prompts Jade.

With all three of you pressing the plates, the door opens with a grinding and screech of clockwork.

The inside of the frog ruins are surprisingly nice-looking. Like, you’d expect lots of dust and spiderwebs and crumbling walls and shit, but it looks more well-kept than your apartment. Not that it’s a high bar.

At the top of a long stairwell is a round room, the walls covered in weird inscriptions. The room only contains two objects. One is a desk with an old gas lantern, and lots of drawers and papers scattered around. Fancy-ass fountain pens wait in their fancy-ass holders. There’s even a coffee mug imprinted with a faded decal of a mountain. If you squint, you can even maybe make out the writing on it: I ♠ Mt. Everest.

The other object is a platform with a digital counter on it, and a giant pink flower bud on top. The counter has three minutes on it, counting down.

Also, John is there. And the dog, laying down next to the door and panting. John looks up from the papers he’s reading and smiles sheepishly. “Oh, hey guys. Bec wouldn’t let me leave.”

“Hey man, glad you see you in one piece,” you say. “We were worried you’d fucked off to outer space or some shit.”

Rose smiles at John. “I, too, am relieved that you’ve merely been held hostage in this old ruin, rather than left in hazardous circumstances.” 

Jade squeals and throws her arms around him. “Found you!”

John returns the hug, if awkwardly. “Yeah… Hey Jade, what is all this stuff?” He holds up the paper. “It’s like, science notes??”

Jade shrugs. “I haven’t been here before. Bec always kept me away from this part.” She turns to the dog and kneels to pet him. “But you were too busy with John, weren’t you, boy? Beccy boy! Best friend!”

“May I see them?” Rose asks, and John hands over a sheaf. You peek over her shoulder. The handwriting is all in fucking cursive. As if you can read that.

While she pores over the illegible papers, you glance back at the flower. Two minutes. “Uh, guys? The fuck is that counting down to?”

Jade looks up from cuddling her hellbeast and shrugs again. “I’m sure Bec would take us away if it was dangerous.”

But you just said he always did before, is what you think. And he brought John here. You don’t trust that dog one bit.

Still, Jade walks up to the weird digital flower.  The dog accompanies her. She pokes it, looking thoughtful. Nothing happens. “It can’t be that dangerous. Maybe it’s something Fef made?”

“That doesn’t exactly mean it’s not dangerous,” you point out. “She makes giant fuckin’ monster lobsters for fun.”

“Your grandfather was studying it,” says Rose, not looking up from the pages of handwriting. “As well as the ruins themselves.”

“He was??” Jade looks over Rose’s shoulder as you do so on the other, but the cursive is just as bad as the first time. “Oh my gosh!! That’s so amazing!”

You glance back at the bud. One minute. Why the fuck is no one else concerned about this?

“Yeah, he wrote that he thought it was, like, a time capsule!” John adds. Guess he can read cursive too. “But he couldn’t figure out how to open it.”

Gods dammit. No way in shit you are gonna be the first one to look scared. You kinda wish you had one of your shitty swords, though. A little.

“Well, it looks like we’re going to find out on his behalf. Very shortly.” Rose puts the sheaf of papers down.

Jade claps her hands excitedly.

John stands up.

Becquerel pants.

Five seconds. You tense up.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

And the flower blooms, opening in moments to reveal… a manilla folder. A regular-ass Manilla folder.

“Well, that was anticlimactic,” you say, to distract everyone from your shiver of relief. Jade steps forward and picks it up. As she flips it over, you can see what’s written on it by hand:

  2 ♊

A moment later, the flower wilts and withers to dust, revealing a new, tiny bud beneath it. The timer also resets, to a full 400 years in the future. Weird. And creepy.

“It’s for the Mage!” exclaims Jade, eyes huge behind her glasses. “We should get this to him!”

John frowns. “How?”

“I’m sure he’ll come over if I call his name,” Jade says. “I’ll show you: Sollu-”

“Wait, hold on,” you interrupt her. “You don’t want to even look at it yourself first? Not even a peek?”

“The contents seem rather slim,” observes Rose. “But it must be important.”

“Er, right!” says Jade, looking at Rose in apparent relief. “It’s important, so we should just…”

“We can still give it to him in a minute,” you press. “But come on, let’s look at it. Secret god business is our business too, ‘cause we’re like, gods in training.”

“I don’t think there’s a special tool or anything in there, right?” says John, stepping up to look more closely at the folder. “It’s probably just papers.”

“Papers can hold information, and information is power,” Rose reminds him.

Jade glances around at the three of you, surrounding her. She holds the folder tight. “But… It’s not ours…”

“He will forgive us,” says John. “I’m sure of it. Since we are the special destiny god kids or whatever. I think we can flip through his mail once or twice.”

Jade sighs, and relaxes her grip. You snatch the folder in a flash and open it.

The document inside shows a picture of… something. Like a surgical table? And surgical implements? Scalpels and saws and pins and shit under harsh lighting. But the... patient being cut up is just a dark blot that your brain refuses to process, refuses to see. It’s leaking purple fluid onto the table. And even though you can’t seem to focus your eyes on any features, you can tell it’s dead.

Rose frowns and takes the top page, considering it. You, on the other hand, just feel a headache coming on. You glance away, thankful for your shades.

“Whoa, what the fuck?” says John, voice rising in pitch.

You glance at Jade, who is shaking her head rapidly. “That’s… I don’t know what that is. I don’t like it.”

Rose looks fascinated by the image. “I almost feel like I could make it out if I look hard enough,” she says softly, and her eyes are wide, unblinking, and dilated. She looks weirdly gray.

“Nuh-uh,” you say. “No way. That’s some eldritch bullshit there.”

“Yeah, you should probably put it down, Rose,” Jade adds. When Rose doesn’t respond, the island girl forcefully plucks the image from her hands. “Maybe take a little break?”

Rose blinks, and you can practically see the color return to her cheeks. “Hm? Jade, I almost had it!”

“Maybe “it” isn’t something we should have,” says Jade, looking solemn. “This could be dangerous.”

But the way she’s holding it, you can see the picture, and you notice something odd. Or, well, odder. Sort of. Odd because it’s so normal?

There are little pixelated squares near the edge of the surgical table, and around some of the tools. JPEG artifacts. JPEG artifacts on the eldritch photo. Like in SBaHJ. What the fuck even. You look back at the folder, at the next document.

It’s- What the fuck. Math??

“I think this is the Mage’s handwriting,” says Jade, putting the disturbing photo back into the folder. She holds the weird math page out so you all can see it. “That’s how he texts.”

You all lean in close, bumping shoulders. Your shoulder bumps Jade’s. You attempt to decide whether to remain in contact or pull away a bit, but she doesn’t seem to mind, so you leave your shoulder in place.

“What does it mean, then?” John asks.

Jade shrugs. “I don’t know. It has the number of space and time dimensions here, but that’s just geometry and I don’t see how that connects to tachyons. Maybe it has to do with multidimensional matrices?”

“Ugh, math sucks,” you state. Your opinion is absolutely objectively correct, even if you haven’t been to school since seventh grade.

“Look at these symbols,” Rose says, pointing at the wiggly “U” and the doodle of what looks like three grapes on a toothpick. “The “U” here is Ophiuchus, the heretical 13th Zodiac sign. And the other one… it might be a caduceus, but it lacks the sigil of Hope. Maybe this is a study about the gods that came before ours?”

“Weird,” says John. “But tachyon-two - or does that mean tachyons? - are about faster-than-light travel, right? That’s what they were in the movie K-PAX starring Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges. Maybe this is about space travel!”

“Wasn’t that the one panned for the exoticism in its portrayal of extraterrestrials?” Rose asks, raising an eyebrow, and John grins sheepishly.

“I still liked it,” he admits. “It really doesn’t deserve that bad of a reputation.”

The three of them turn to look at you. You take a deep breath.

“I mean, I don’t know anything about tachyons or Ophi-whatever, but this bit,” — you point with authority at the part of the chart labeled “unprediictable / ultrahyperboliic” — “That sounds pretty cool. I mean, ULTRA-hyperbolic. Those must be crazy insane moves. No one can predict it."

Jade smiles, but when she speaks she does not sound impressed. “Do you know what ‘ultrahyperbolic’ means, Dave?”

“It’s ‘ultra’ and ‘hyper,’ so it must be a fuckton of bolic. So much bolic. So much.”

Jade gives an uncertain smile. “Um. Kind of.”

John grins. “That sounds like “ball lick.”

“Ew!” exclaims Jade. “Gross!”

“Excuse my intrusion on this…highly intellectual moment,” says Rose. “But perhaps we should save copies of these pages for ourselves, before we hand them over to their intended recipient?”

“On it.” You whip out your phone and snap a pic of the weird math. Jade won’t let you at the other one.

Once both papers are back in the folder, you all leave the frog-shaped chamber, dog beast trailing behind you.

“Sollux Captor!” Jade calls, and you brace yourself. “I think we have your mail!”

It’s a fair few seconds before he appears, and damn, he looks a mess. Hair sticking out everywhere. Shades aren’t even on straight. Face drawn, almost emaciated. He’s a rumpled, hunched-over beanpole of a god, clutching onto an ipad like he’s Gollum and it’s the One Ring. He kind of smells.

“Fuck. This is a bad time, Jade. Is it important?”

“Yeah,” says Jade. “There was this time capsule that looked like a lotus flower that we found in the frog temple, and inside there was this!” She holds out the folder.

“Dude,” says John. “What happened to you?”

“Hello again to you, too,” says the god sourly, taking the folder. “I’m at the end of a work cycle. Gimme a minute to reboot myself and I’ll be all better.”

You wonder when John had ever met the Mage of Doom, but Jade’s the one who replies.

“I don’t like it when you do that. It’s sad.”

“It’s the most efficient method of managing bodily needs,” snaps the Mage. “As we’ve gone over before.”

There’s something in the set of Jade’s jaw that makes it look like she’s up to actually argue with this weirdo, but Rose steps in instead. “Actually, we have some questions about the contents of the folder.”

“Yes. I imagine you would, after you all looked through it.” 

Aw, damn. He doesn’t look furious, though. Only slightly annoyed. He opens the folder and takes out the chart, scanning it swiftly. His expression is neutral.

“So, what does it mean?” John asks, finally.

The Mage peers at the lot of you, red and blue blinking in steady appraisal. Finally, he speaks. "I know that none of you have a strong background in physics, so I'll explain this in simple terms: By substituting real-number variables, what we might call 'real time' can be rotated through Minkowski space into a corresponding imaginary time (not because it is unreal, obviously, but because the real numbers have been substituted by imaginary numbers) and then —"

“Oh no,” groans Jade.

“Wow, what the fuck, was that English or like… Latin?” You’ve never heard of any of this shit.

“If it was Latin, I might have understood it,” comments Rose, looking a bit lost, herself.

“Time is… imaginary?” asks John warily.

The Mage grumbles. “Fine, let’s try again. Imagine that instead of three dimensions in space and one dimension in time, there were four spatial dimensions, one of which was merely timelike (and possibly seven hyperspatial dimensions, for the record, but these are curled up so tightly that you could only notice them if you were very small or very, very attentive, and perhaps one or two large extra dimensions —" 

This time, Jade nods along, but the rest of you protest again, still lost.

"You could at least wait to interrupt me until I had finished my parenthetical. The unbalanced parens is going to bother me all week. Anyway, now we know why the papers were addressed to me, then, and not a couple of fourteen-year-olds." 

"We're fifteen, actually," says Rose. 

"Shit, really? No wonder I thought the Callipoline Diplomacy Project was ahead of schedule." The Mage sighs, and flicks his yellow wings. “I appreciate you delivering this to me. Now, I need to go run some tests on the other image. But it was a pleasure as always, Jade.”

“Wait a minute,” John says. “What was with the other image? It was all fucked up!”

But he’s already gone.

“Ruff,” says Bec, and teleports all of you back to Jade’s garden. 

You kind of wish you knew what was going on.

⇒ Be Terezi

She’s no fun.

What is kind of fun is that you’re in Honolulu, Hawaii! Vacation paradise! Land of hula and coconut bras!

…You don’t really know much about Hawaii. You’d buy a guidebook, but you’re not going to be in Honolulu for long. It’s really just a stopover. So instead you rifle through some free travel brochures.

You start pacing back and forth between the two nearest gates. It looks very sunny outside. You can see palm trees out beyond the runways, about the same size, at this distance, as the palm trees on the brochure in your hand.

The brochure also has surf boards and luaus and ladies in bikinis and fancy hotel spas. All sorts of stuff you’re pretty sure are not going to be happening to you on this trip. Unless Rose and Jade decide to wear bikinis. Um.

They don’t mention on the brochures how Kauai was overrun by the Witch’s monsters and abandoned about five years ago. That doesn’t count as “knowledge about Hawaii” — everyone knows about that… but chin up, John! Jade never mentioned monsters on her island. It’s probably fine.

Oh! You hear an announcement over the intercom. The flight from Houston has arrived at the gate! FINALLY.

Your escort holds up the “DAVE STRIDER” sign, and you scan the faces as they pour in, searching for the only one who will be wearing sunglasses inside the airport.

There! White-blond hair, dark shades, too-cool-for-school expression (never mind it was mid-summer!): Dave Strider, the one and only, just like on video chat.

“You’re so short, dude!” you blurt, and laugh. “I thought you’d be taller!”

“The webcam adds ten pounds,” he replies, not missing a beat. “Mine are vertical.”

“No way!” You grin. “I don’t think pounds can be vertical.”

“It’s just science, Eggy-B.” He raises one fist for a bump. “Pound it.”

“Pft.” You roll your eyes, but you can’t leave him hanging. You pound it. “I know this sounds sappy, but it’s good to meet you, man.”

He cracks a small smile. “We already met like eleven months ago, nerd! Hell, I meet you every day in fucking cyberspace. But I guess coming here and making a home run has got me all sappy too, ‘cause uh… Yeah.”

“Aw!” You beam at him. “I’m glad you think so too!”

———

“Dang.” You run your hands along the interior wood paneling of the yacht that will, over the course of the next three days, take you to Jade’s island home. “Fancy boat.”

“It’s alright,” says Dave, looking around the inner cabin of the yacht. “Don’t see why they couldn’t fly us there. Not like they can’t charter a plane. They have like infinite money. Scrooge McDucking up in this shit.”

You shrug. “Gods work in mysterious ways, who knows?” You grin. “But look at this snack bar, dude! There’s Gushers! You can’t get this on an airplane, come on. And there’s a couch and plush seats and, check it, a widescreen TV!”

“Is there a crew?” Dave wonders. “Or just that Mind-cop following you around?”

“I think she is here cause I uh, tried to run away, that one time,” you mumble. “But hey, I think there’s an Xbox attached here!”

“Mhm,” says Dave. “Hold that thought, I’m gonna go put my shit downstairs.”

Dave goes behind the counter and downstairs, his luggage rattling metallically as he drags it to the berth. You wonder briefly what he’s got in there that rattles so loudly, then go back to exploring the yacht.

This boat is unbelievably fancy. It’s got a minifridge and a bar (stocked with soft drinks, you checked), a DVD library (oh heck yes, they have Con Air and you’re absolutely going to force Dave to watch it). There’s a cupboard full of board games and another full of what looks like snorkeling gear. You’ve gone swimming in pools and once a lake, but never in the ocean before! You’re excited to try it, but also thinking a little bit about sharks. You’re not planning on telling Dave that part.

It’s nice that the yacht has a fair amount of space, so you probably won’t go too stir-crazy. The main indoor cabin has all the amenities, and the bedrooms are on the lower floor. There’s also a front deck and a back deck and an upper deck where there’s like, a captain’s room with lots of fancy looking monitors and buttons and stuff. You poke around the lower deck and find a locked room (maybe where the Mind-Cop is staying?) and also a cargo room, with a bunch of crates. They’re labeled with Jade’s name so you don’t mess with them.

Once you’ve explored to your satisfaction, you go to the upper deck, letting the wind blast in your face for a bit. It feels nice.

You turn to look back towards the boat’s…. You don’t remember what the back is technically called. The starboard? Anyway, you look towards the boat’s ass, and you see that the Honolulu shore is already barely visible in the distance. You’ve never been so far from home before. You swallow dryly.

“Hey,” says Dave from behind you.

You jump, just a little, and he smirks. “Pft, don’t jump off the deck, ectobiologist. They’ll have to stop the boat and waste hours fishing your ass out of the drink. We’ll be like, halfway to New Zealand or whatever and the Mind-cop steering the boat’ll be all: ‘Oops, we lost the less-cool one,’ and instead of kickin’ it with shirley temples and virgin mojitos we’ll have to go all the way the fuck back, only to find you dying of hypothermia in the unforgiving waves, and we’ll be like “I’ll never let go, John!” but we’ll have to let go cause you’ll be totally dead. Who did you think it was, fucking slenderman?”

You blink at him, just a moment, then smile. “It’s Hawaii. The water’s not that cold.”

He puts a hand on your shoulder and leans in like he’s whispering.  “One word, Eggy-B: jellyfish. Invisible, boneless sea-jello with poison that makes your flesh turn green and peel right off.”

You shove him lightly. “Fuck off, I am not gonna get stung by jellyfish.” You’re still grinning like a loon, excited at the prospect of spending nearly three days with no parental (or even any adult??) supervision. Anyway, fuck jellyfish.

“They can smell fear from miles away.”

You snort. “No way, man! You are definitely lying.”

“If the Witch changed ‘em, they could. Anyway, it’s not like you’re a marine biologist.” He pauses. “You’re an ecto-biologist, whatever the fuck that means.”

“It’s ghosts. So like, ectoplasm?”

“Okay, well ghosts are like the jellyfish of the graveyard.”

“Pfffaahahaha!”

This trip is gonna rule.

------

That evening, you wander into the cabin, thinking about food.

“Yo check it,” says Dave, then launches himself off the wall and does a backflip over the dining table. The mind-cop, who is putting out a few platters of reheated pizza for you, frowns at him but says nothing.

That was the sweetest flip you’ve ever seen, and you let out a whoop. “Dude, you should try out for the Olympics.”

“Fuck that, can you see me in one of those leotards? Skin tight with sparkles and shit and a national flag? Doing a triple-spin reacharound with a forward pirouette off the uneven bars? No fucking way.” Dave sits down at the table. “Anyway, I’m out of practice.”

You shake your head in amazement. “Dude. Did the Rogue teach you that?”

“Uh.” You can’t read his expression behind the shades, but Dave’s posture shifts slightly, turning away. “Not really.”

“Oh.” You wait for him to elaborate. “Okay.” He doesn’t elaborate.

“What about you, Bob the Builder?” He nods at the hammer looped around your belt. “You’re always going on about the Seer. You gotta have something to show for it.”

“Oh. Uh.” You frown and rub your arms. Phantom bruises. “I guess. Nothing like that.”

The Seer has told you, in no uncertain terms, to never go anywhere without your hammer within arm’s reach. She even punished you once for not keeping it by your bed at night. These days you barely even notice the handle’s weight against your leg.

Thankfully, Dave drops the subject, inspecting the contents of a little box on the table. Tea bags, apparently. “This tea is shit,” he mutters. “Lipton, seriously?”

You smirk at him. “You’re a tea snob?”

“Jolly right pip pip,” he replies, doing a terrible Dick Van Dyke impression as he picks up his pepperoni slice with his pinky stuck out. “Fancy a cuppa yourself, good chap?”

“Whatever.” You roll your eyes.

“Bollocks. Bloody hell.” He wiggles his pinky in your face.

“Stop it.”

“Arse,” he continues, pronouncing the word with a hard ‘r.’

“What the fuck kind of accent is that? You sound like a pirate. Arrrrrrrrs.”

“Avast,” he concludes. “Shiver me timbers. Booty.”

You lift your foot up and shove your shoe in his face. “Booty yourself!”

You both laugh as the sun sets over the waves.

--------

After two days on the yacht, motoring smoothly through tropical heat, the interior is basically trashed, with dirty dishes and food wrappers everywhere. Your cabins are in a similar state. Why did Dave put a real godsdamn sword in the shower stall? It is a mystery for the ages.

You pass the time with Dave playing Marvel vs. Capcom and chatting about whatever. You manage to convince him to watch Con Air, and his commentary is both hilarious and scandalous. You love it. The Mind-Cop stays in her cabin or sometimes goes to the captain’s cabin, presumably to make sure the ship is still on course. But other than those occasional glimpses, you and Dave have the run of the yacht.

The lack of adults is normal for Dave. He doesn’t have parents. In fact, you’ve been specifically advised by the Seer to not bring up family-related topics with him. Because he’s traumatized or something. You’re not sure about that, though. He doesn’t seem traumatized.

It’s the morning of the third day, and you are scheduled to arrive at Jade’s island that evening. Some combination of your time zones changing and no fatherly supervision has messed up your internal clock something fierce, and when you wake up you have no earthly idea what time it is.

“Blargh,” you say, and stretch, and shuffle out of bed. You glance in the mirror. You look like a mess, and you could maybe use a shower, but there’s a sword in there, oh well. You decide to just pat your hair down. Good enough.

When you manage to slouch upstairs to the main cabin, Dave is already there, writing in his notepad in the sunlight. “Sup, sleeping not-so-beauty,” he says, not looking up from the pad of paper.

“Does that make you prince not-so-charming?” you shoot back. He smiles, just a little. You’ll take that as a win. “What time is it?”

He doesn’t glance up. “Noon or something. I dunno.”

“What are you doing?”

“Sketching some comics.” He waves the notepad around, and you get a glimpse of what looks like a stick figure of Hella Jeff being keelhauled. “No internet out here, it’s fucking barbaric. I feel like a goddamn caveman, making comics with a stick and paper. We’ve moved past this. Fuck. At least it’s ironic. Acoustic S.B.H.J.: ten times shittier and one hundred times slower. Read it and weep, Charles Schulz. Pee these nuts.”

You lean over to peer at the sketches, but other than the keelhauling, you can’t tell much of what is going on. “Is that the yacht? Is this autobiographical?”

“I fuckin’ hope not. I’m not-”

That’s when the Mind-cop rushes in, and there’s something about her body language that makes you both shut up. “Boys,” she commands, and you blink in surprise, not having heard her voice since the first day. “Get down in the cabins, there’s-”

WHUMP. The boat shudders and rocks, nearly throwing you off your feet, reminding you very viscerally of the fact that you are out at sea, hundreds of miles from the nearest shore, with only a thin aluminum-and-fiberglass hull separating you from briny doom.

“The fuck was that?” Dave voices the same question you were thinking, and you both rush to the window.

“Boys!” the cop snaps, but you don’t really care: you can see the water frothing outside.

“What’s-”

That’s when the thing erupts out of the water, immense, like a semi-truck heaving up from the waves, with what must be hundreds of clicking, skinny, chitinous limbs instead of a grille. Seawater glistens on its crusty back, pouring off the dark maroon sides of what looks like a shrimp the size of a whale. It remains there a moment, then lunges at the yacht, heaving itself up onto the deck and lifting pincers like twin excavator buckets.

“Gaugh!” you scream, lurching back from the windows of the cabin as the horrible crustacean bashes them with its claws, making spiderweb cracks. The mind cop unholsters a gun as the second blow shatters the windows entirely.

Dave is retreating down to the berth as the yacht rocks under the creature’s weight, lurching back and forth. Is he going to get his swords? Maybe he’s just running away.

“John! Get down, get a-!” The mind cop fires one shot, a harsh bang ringing in your ears, and then the creature knocks her over with a flailing limb as thick as a tree trunk. It turns, slightly, and then you’re looking directly into a giant eye, big as a soccer ball, black and glittering and sunk into the prow of what passes for the creature’s face.

The mass of writhing limbs on its front are reaching for the fallen cop. Maybe it’s going to eat her.

Your hand finds the handle of your hammer. The hammer finds the creature’s eye.

The problem with fighting a giant monster with a hammer, you quickly realize, is that a hammer’s handle really isn’t that long, so you have to get pretty close up to hit it. So close you’re practically on top of it. So when the creature shudders at your attack and flails its massive limbs, you scream and hold on to its carapace for dear life, hammer hooked into its ruined eye socket. Your feet scramble and slip, trying to steady yourself to lift your hammer and hit it again, but it’s bucking under you like a mechanical bull.

Then Dave makes a reappearance. “Fuck!” he shouts, seeing your predicament as you hang off the side of the monster. With that as his battle-cry, he thrusts at the creature’s side with a katana.

The fancy anime sword breaks right in two against the monster’s shell. Fuck if it even noticed the attack.

Dave, seemingly undeterred, leaps onto the back of the beast just like he had the cabin’s furniture, then grabs your arms and helps pull you fully on top, to a more stable position.

“Augh! Shit!” you scream. “What are we supposed to-”

The creature lifts its heavy front claws and bends them back towards you, like it’s trying to grab you or scrape you off its back.

You lift your hammer and thwack the creature on the top of the head as hard as you can, making a sound like smacking a solid brick.

THWACK! THWACK! CRACK! Are you making a difference? Is any of this doing anything? You don’t know, you just need to hit it and hit it and hit-

The creature lurches backwards, and it’s only when Dave tackles you bodily from behind that you realize it’s retreating, and it’s about to take you both with it, through the window and into the ocean.

You land hard on the floor of the cabin and, nerves still ringing with adrenaline, scramble to your feet. The monster is gone. The surface of the sea outside is placid, with no sign anything had ever been there. 

Splinters of wood and shards of glass are everywhere. The cabin is ruined. But, you’re all alive. The mind cop is getting gingerly to her feet, holding her side and breathing heavily. Dave is standing behind you, gripping your shoulders hard, almost hugging you to him, in the same position as he was when he threw you off the monster’s back. He drops his hands quickly when he sees you glance back at him, and laughs nervously.

You join his giggles, a wash of jitters sweeping your skin as you realize the danger has passed. “Oh fuck, dude.”

“Rode that thing like a bronco.”

“Fuck.”

Dave calls to the cop: “Hey, you okay?”

“I’ll live,” she grunts, then lifts a hand and points at you. “You two, stay belowdecks until we get to the island. Try not to step on the glass.”

You glance down, and see the small shards of broken glass embedded in your forearms, shins, and knees. “Oh, shit.”

Down in the berth, you get to work on picking the shards out, while Dave does the same. “Sorry about your sword,” you offer.

“It was just a shitty katana,” he replies flatly. “Not a big deal.”

“The fuck was that thing? Was it a Witch-monster? I thought the Witch wanted us to come?”

Dave shrugs. “How should I know? Maybe she doesn’t control them that well. It’s not like she had it out for the island of Kauai in particular.”

That’s a distressing thought.

Hopefully, Jade’s island will be welcoming. You pick out a particularly nasty shard and wince. You wish you were there already.