BEYOND THE BEYOND
There are currently, from the limited perspective that I have, three concurrent storylines running.
One, the “main” storyline – branching out into three distinct “threads”. The one which most closely resembles the “main” storyline has page titles formatted as normal.
Two, the “mystery” storyline. I have identified this due to the commands being enclosed in parentheses, (like so,) which I have identified as such due to the usage of parentheses by the character Boldir Lamati from the Homestuck Universe, specifically the visual novels Pesterquest and Hiveswap Friendsim. Within these, Boldir appears to play a unique role, which also was identified by myself. Still not sure who “I” am, but we’ll figure that out either as we go, or in post. I suppose. Right now, feel free to call me “Doc”, and we’ll let that appropriated moniker (ha) serve us for the purposes of getting this information out. Of particular note is that John plays a central role in this storyline, and this appears to be caused by a connection between his identity as an audience surrogate, and the presence of The MSPA Reader, a previous audience surrogate, being elevated to a significantly higher status within the story of Homestuck due to previously mentioned visual novels. Now that I think about it, “visual novel” doesn’t really cut it, but “Friendsim” sounds weird, too. I guess it’s fine. Better than “dating sim”, and definitely better than “eroge”. Let’s not even talk about that one. Let’s definitely, definitely not talk about that one. I would like to not be tormented by those lemon-flavored memories. Next.
Three, the “Vriska” storyline. This one is related to Vriska’s “endless cycle of torment” as defined by, paraphrasing, “doing the bad thing and then punishing herself for it,” something which I certainly understand. More of a secondhand thing, however, which also puts me in a unique position to relay this story, I suppose? Regardless, this storyline is one that I have identified due to the use of curly brackets, {like so,} which relates to programming. Specifically, curly brackets relates to functions within scripts, which are specific sets of instructions, subroutines if you will, that can be “called” to perform specific tasks. Code libraries are built with script files, each containing functions, so that applications may be constructed which utilize function calls that defer back to the library scripts. We can get very complicated with this, but for simplicity’s sake, think of an application as a meal, with each script providing the recipe for a particular course within that meal. That way, you would have a baking library, with a library script within providing a general recipe for baking a loaf of bread, and a baker would then be able to craft an application using said library to implement specialized routines for baking loaves of sourdough bread. Following this, if the baker makes sourdough bread for long enough, perhaps they will create a script for the library on how to bake sourdough bread, and this generalized recipe can then be accessed by anyone with access to the library for applications, modifications, and so on. [UPDATE 02/17/25]: Well, shit. Guess that can of worms opened itself.
As you can probably see, story threads have a tendency to weave and bob, merging in strange and unique ways. Separating them as I have above is merely a contrivance.
Not to be silly or anything, but you folks did notice that DSB is a really funny abbreviation to me as the author specifically, right? I’m not sure if this means that I’ve accidentally pinned Davebot as my Hermes, but … coincidences just seem to pile up. [UPDATE 02/17/25]: Fine, fuck it. Terezi keeps trolling Dave because he’s also not a real person except through some reality-bending fiat committed by Dirk fucking Strider. That’s about all there is to say on the matter. Let’s move on from that stupid plot point, I guess. Punished “Venom” Karkat showing up the way he did sort of just solidifies it, doesn’t it? Though being tormented with a replica of his ex-boyfriend thrown at him by Tavros Crocker is very, very funny. No notes there, that’s perfect.
BEYOND CANON provides a similar beginning [33BC] of the “meat” of the story as the original work does in both Alpha and Beta sessions. All three of these locations can be considered “Earth”, as whatever distinctions separate the locations from one another become rapidly irrelevant in terms of setting compared to the characters which inhabit them. Whether these three buildings are the same house is likewise not a very relevant question, as the people who inhabit each “version” have connections to each other which essentially makes the difference negligible.
The inhabitants of this house are of the families Egbert and Crocker. These are John Egbert, Jane Crocker, and, in Beyond Canon, Jake EnglishHSBC: 33. All three are currently known Sburb players [as of 02/16/25]. Additionally, other inhabitants have been identified, namely Dad (John’s father), Nanna (John’s grandmother), and Gcat (Jane’s pet and the First Guardian of Session A.)
[UPDATE 02/17/25]: Fuckssake. Whatever. John isn’t canon anymore, I guess. Or maybe he is. Whatever. WHATEVER!!! That’s up to “canon” Vriska to figure out, or whoever in the fuck gets given “authority” over canon. Which, let me state for the record, would be really stupid to give to Vriska. Her entrance scene was fucking incredible, and I’m fucking pissed that things had to get here just to have me state, like an idiot, “the yuri pile keeps getting taller”.
With the First Guardians, and Guardians in general, some complexity is added to what can be considered the pantheon of Homestuck. Gcat is not prototyped in the course of Session A, which stands as a contrast to Jade’s prototyping of Bec. There is, however, a similarity between Jane and Jade in how they are both placed under direct control of the Condesce through means which emerge during the course of Sburb. There is also the matter of Sprites which are prototyped with feline-themed characters. Davepetasprite^2 and Jasprosesprite both represent important guiding figures towards the conclusion of Session B, and continue to provide guidance in HSBC. Especially important is Davepetasprite^2 assisting Vriska with moving from The Point … or rather, “grasping” the point. HSBC: 666
Elsewhere, beyond the horizon...
A spaceship tears across a starfield at warp speed. Each dot of distant light stretches to become a spear, hurtling in the opposite direction of the craft faster than any photon ever fired from its surface. The ship was brand-new when it departed from Earth C, and it doesn’t look a day older now, even though many hundreds of days have passed. It seems to be built to look somewhat like a shark, by a designer who wasn’t totally sure how many fins a shark hard, nor where exactly to stick them on the beast’s body.
Inside, a hot iron smooths the fabric of an elaborate garment, releasing a gentle hiss of steam. At a glance, it looks like the top to a god tier costume. But it clearly isn’t standard issue. This one is more stylish, more ornate, more... anime? Sometimes one finds there simply isn’t another word that will do to describe some sick gear. The iron eases the wrinkles out of the icon emblazoned on its chest—a hot-pink heart, bisected vertically, hollow in one half. A shiny, graceful metal hand puts the iron down, removes the garment from the ironing board, and reaches for the pantaloons.
She isn’t even sure how he gets these things so wrinkly. Perhaps it’s all the time he spends training in the hypergravity chamber, assuming they’ve got one of those onboard. Then again, there are times when he seems so high-strung, he could wrinkle a good anime costume sitting perfectly still in an armchair.
She drapes the pantaloons over the board, then pauses to reach for the candy bowl nearby. She doesn’t actually need to eat anymore. The entire concept of eating has been upended for her. It’s not about sustenance, or even necessarily about enjoying certain flavors. It’s more about staying connected to a vestigial habit reminding her of the humanity she’s been forced to abandon.
Not just any kind of candy would cut it. The sensors on her metal tongue are very particular. Weaker than taste buds and arranged differently. These would taste like some combination of battery acid and wasabi to a human tongue. But to her the flavor is mild, exotic, certainly worth snacking on to pass the time. Human teeth wouldn’t stand a chance of cracking these, but hers make short work of turning the candy into fine gravel. One of her more reckless shipmates chipped a tooth trying one, despite repeated warnings to stay away from the stuff.
The iron hits a snag on the pantaloons, putting an awkward crease in the ridiculous, billowing fabric. She curses and puts the iron down. She decides “laundry day” is officially over. The guy can just wear a wrinkly pair of pants today for all she cares. It’s not like he has an audience, despite his best efforts to behave as if he did all the time. She doesn’t really enjoy doing laundry or ironing silly anime ensembles, and she considers herself nobody’s maid. It’s just that there hasn’t been much to do on this ship.
It’s not like the old days of her long-range interstellar travels. That halcyon period riding a meteor across the abyss for years, with an atmosphere of camaraderie, feelings of optimism—a rewardingly transformative period in everyone’s young life. (She guesses this is just what things feel like on a long journey when you’re older, and with a much smaller crew.)
She turns off the iron, then wanders off down a corridor. It’s nothing like the meteor in here. Bright, futuristic. Skaianet does build a lovely ship, she has to admit. She turns a corner, and her foot kicks something. It’s a stray ruby slipper. The other is about ten feet away, down the hall. No sign of their owner anywhere. She’d sigh, except she doesn’t breathe anymore. She doesn’t consider herself to be her maid either, but she reaches down to pick up the slippers nonetheless.
She enters a room central to the ship, one that she visits now and then, possibly for sentimental reasons. Or maybe it’s just to creep herself out. Situated near the wall is something that looks like a rather elegantly designed iron lung. It’s mostly made of glass, with polished silver trim around the sides and base. There’s a digital monitor on the wall. She approaches and places her hands on the glass with a faint metal clink.
She used to live in this body. She’s dressed in the same clothes she was wearing the day she slipped into the coma. A special tiara replaces her typical hairband, lined with blinking transmitters. The device beams her awareness directly into her current mechanical avatar. (She presumes it utilizes the same technology that Jade’s grandfather once used to build a dreambot for her, which functioned similarly.)
She knows she’ll never be able to inhabit this sleeping body again. She honestly can’t decide whether that makes her feel sad or relieved. She ponders the future of her old body. Will it all work as planned? She has to believe it will. It is the only path to achieve permanence for these tenuous bodily accommodations.
A jarring sound snaps her out of her reverie. It’s an alert, beeping urgently from the cockpit. The robot leaves her entombed living body and runs quickly through the winding corridors. She sits down at the helm and examines the monitor.
A new planet is within sensor range. She studies the millions of statistics all pouring in at once. Her pupil-less eyes take them all in simultaneously, her head needing only to move a quarter inch from side to side to pan her vision across the data. It’s an M-Class planet. The right size, right age, right distance from the sun. There’s no advanced life yet. It’s exactly what they’ve been looking for all these years.
Her heart doesn’t beat any faster, because its pace is regulated by an internal chip. (She consciously accelerates it anyway.) It’s been a long time since she’s had the occasion to feel exhilarated. She’s missed the sensation of the old flesh-ticker acting of its own accord.
The thoughts in her powerful brain race. What will they name the planet? How long will it take for the ship to arrive? Once the new race has established an advanced enough civilization thousands of years from now, who will the lucky kids be? The ones who get the chance to play what will arguably be the most important session in the history of Sburb?
She holds her thoughts. They can wait, and there’s much to discuss. She taps a button, and lowers her head a little closer to a mic on the panel.
She supplies a courtesy pause, as if waiting for him to reply. He usually doesn’t.
Enough time goes by that she begins to wonder if he’s asleep. But no. It’s just the irritated silence of a man who knows he isn’t currently dressed well enough to attend to something important.
EPILOGUE – MEAT (CANDY)
> John: Fight Lord English.
All around you is pandemonium, a multichromatic cyclone of shrieks and clashing colors, as Meenah’s ghost army claws at the borders of Paradox Space. Wait, that is her army, right? It seems like it’s been so long since you’ve thought about any of this. But you’re pretty sure this is the army you, Meenah, Vriska, and the other Serket were trying to raise. So it’s true, then. The juju has finally unloaded you, exactly where you needed to be.
Every screaming body pitches down and goes white the closer it gets to the black hole above you. And below, front and center, is Lord English himself: the big deal version, pimped up, hulked out, and throwing a huge, universe-ending tantrum. Unlike his younger form, his eyes aren’t flickering wildly. They’re locked in place, an eight ball in each socket. You briefly wonder what that means, but your curiosity is interrupted by a massive outburst of technicolor dragon breath coming from his mouth. The laser show tears its way through a squadron of ghosts led by... is that... Tavros?
WHERE DO YOU THINK, DUM8ASS?!
I’M STUCK IN THE FUCKING PLOT POINT!!!
> Listen.
Upd8: made it out >::::]
> Don’t hesitate!
Behind you the juju disappears, sucked out of reality with a POP. You move your arms in a dumb little motion, sort of like jazz hands, and summon up a wisp of wind to keep your cracked glasses in place. You then pull one of your sickest hammers out of your strife deck. Your teen friends follow suit. You cast a glance back over your shoulder at them. They all look pretty cool. Rose knitting light around her with the Quills of Echidna, Dave with his sword Caledfwlch at the ready, trailing time distortions behind him that look, if you don’t squint, a lot like JPEG artifacts. Jade’s got her favorite gun cocked and ready, with her ears perked up.
But Rose doesn’t get to finish what she was trying to say. Lord English’s mouth roars open and a wave of energy blasts through your group. Rose is the only one caught in it. She dissolves in slow motion. You can see the outline of her body in shadow. One arm thrown up over her eyes, shoulders pulled up defensively, cape billowing out behind her. She leaves an afterimage of shimmering light in her wake and then dissipates, drifting apart like a handful of salt tossed out to sea. You can almost hear the cosmic clock counting down, tick tock, and a chime to accompany her fate: Heroic.
Jade doesn’t wait to fire. Space splinters open around her so loudly it drowns out the fire from her rifle. Lord English raises one of his giant, fuck-off hands to deflect her anomaly-powered bullets, giving Dave an opportunity to attack. Dave raises his legendary blade and aims for the impressively beefy torso. It should be a sure hit, like slashing the side of an unusually broad, green barn. But he whiffs completely. It’s a wonder how such a big man can move so fast.
Jade inspects her rifle, and tosses it aside. What is she doing? With all the powers of a Witch of Space at her command, combined with the infinite abilities of a First Guardian, she’s still messing around with basic firearms? She makes two tight fists and strikes a pose befitting of a warrior about to power the fuck up. She focuses, and strains. A doggy snarl rips its way through her clenched teeth. A hazy aura envelops her, as space buckles and lenses about her form. And then...
Nothing. No crackle of electricity. No licks of chartreuse flame. She searches within, realizes her power source is completely unavailable to her. Then she looks up, and it dawns on her. That thing in the sky, the hungry black orb gobbling up everything in sight... that’s where the green sun used to be. It’s been swallowed completely by a black hole. The realization is horrifying. She feels suddenly, absolutely helpless.
Jade opens her mouth to scream for help, but she’s cut off. A razor-sharp fragment of reality slams into her back. It skewers her, exiting right through the center of the space symbol on her hoodie. She chokes and goes limp, encircled by a halo of her own blood.
> Get in there!
You’re barely a minute into the battle and both your tactician and your most powerful player are down. You summon a windstorm to momentarily keep Lord English preoccupied, and try to grab your sister’s wrist. Instead, you catch her by the hem of her skirt. Lord English struggles to emerge from the wind-prison you just whipped up. You can see one of his arms flailing just outside the circumference of your storm. Tavros has pulled himself to his feet and, recognizing English’s temporary state of vulnerability, directs the ghosts on his side to attack. No one is paying attention to him.
Jade is floating away from you. You’re having a hard time maintaining your whirlwind, your glasses, your hammer, and your grip on her. Lord English’s head has emerged from the apex of your storm. He looks directly at you, and his mighty jaw creaks open slowly, well beyond the reasonable capacity of any mortal mandible hinge. You stare directly down the dark barrel of his throat, which readies another terrible laser shot. There’s not much time to react.
> Make a decision.
You let Jade go. She floats in literal slow motion, buoyed by the billows of her skirt. You summon a gust of wind and push her farther away from the battle. You’re hit by a blowback from the current, and a line of her blood splashes across your face. But releasing her has created enough separation, just as you hoped. The laser breath passes between you, narrowly missing you both.
You reel back like you’ve just been punched. Your control over the storm goes haywire for a second, long enough for Lord English to free his gaudy gold peg leg from it and, more catastrophically, for you to drop your already broken glasses. You whirl around and swing your hammer to bop his horrible, deadly skull back into your storm. You can’t really see what’s going on, but you hear a gigantic CRUNCH. And then another. And another. It sounds like a cereal commercial is playing outside the periphery of your vision.
It’s a true outrage. This isn’t going to work, waging battle without your glasses. Lord English has just eaten one of your sickest hammers due to your blind folly.
You take a deep breath and dive down, right into the sea of ghosts. You land clumsily, palms first, and do an accidental handspring right into a bunch of alternate timeline trolls you don’t recognize.
Everybody shrugs. This gaggle of lost souls collectively personifies uselessness. It is inconceivable to you that a single one of them will survive this battle. Perhaps it’s for the best.
Behind you, the wind barrier tears open. Lord English explodes from his confinement and swings his peg leg through the army. Ghosts scatter like bowling pins, many flying into the cracks in space. Before the leg hits you, a troll leaps into action and blocks the blow. Her trident makes a satisfying ring off the round of the peg and sends it skidding backward.
Tavros appears behind you and hands over your glasses, still in two pieces. You return them to your face so you can take a quick assessment of the battlefield.
> Take a quick assessment of the battlefield.
Oh boy. Lord English, now free from your wind-trap, is stomping around, throwing an even bigger shitfit than before. The black hole above him is getting bigger. You can see the ghosts at the edge of the battlefield tumbling through space toward it: distorted, screaming, and helpless.
Also, Tavros suddenly is leading an admirable charge of about six ghosts to attack Lord English’s flesh foot. You wince, because you can see what’s coming before it happens. It’s a shame, because you didn’t have the chance to thank him for finding your glasses. English raises his knee and stomps three ghosts into oblivion. The other four, Tavros included, get vaporized in a beam. The ghost army seems to be thinning out pretty badly by now. Most of the ones remaining are either fleeing or getting sucked into the hole.
You whip out another hammer. A classic this time, the Wrinklefucker. Its boinging pair of irons are hot, hissing, and ready for action. You use the wind to propel yourself back toward the fray. Dave is slicing papercuts into English’s torso with glancing nicks from his blade, but the monster is spry as ever, making him a difficult target. You take advantage of his distracted cavorting to whack him on the side of the skull. Your hammer connects with a satisfying crunch, and he stumbles back, but recovers and lunges forward in a motion so quick you can barely follow it.
English grabs the Wrinklefucker with his mouth. You hold on tight, but he starts shaking his head rapidly the way a dog with a rabbit tries to break its neck. He chomps down hard and shatters the hammer’s head, gobbling down the broken pieces. You watch incredulously as the giant dude eats yet another one of your favorite hammers. Unbelievable. He lunges for the handle in a ridiculously greedy attempt to finish what’s left of your weapon. You recoil, careening out toward the black hole, but manage to stabilize yourself. You look at the handle of your tragically masticated Wrinklefucker, shrug, and toss it into the hole.
Glancing back down toward your foe, you notice Meenah still appears to be hanging on, clinging to his left suspender.
Dave takes a step back to provide some space for whatever killer move she’s got up her sleeve. She raises her trident and jams it into the back of Lord English’s neck. English reacts as if he’s been stung by a bee. He howls and rears up, throwing Meenah off his back with a force that sends her hurtling out into space. You can’t track her into the void with your eyes, she’s flung so far and so fast. You can only assume the worst.
Glancing back down, you see English hasn’t wasted any time after ridding himself of the irksome Heiress. He has Dave pinned under his big green foot and is applying pressure. You’ve got to act fast. You flip out another hammer—you don’t care which one—and send it flying toward the monster’s face. English quickly whips his head in the direction of the sailing hammer, and swallows it whole. You rush after it, reaching for another hammer without thinking. The brief distraction, aside from providing English with another tasty hammer-snack, seems to have bought Dave just enough wiggle room to slip out from under the foot, regain his composure, and draw his sword.
Dave ducks a wide blow from English’s swinging fist. He backs up nervously, holding his sword out in front of him with two shaking hands.
You pop your strife deck open and just spam the hell out of your remaining hammers. A few excellent hammers that cost you a fortune to make, a bunch of shitty hammers you made as a joke, and everything in between. With another flick of your wrist you spin them around you so fast they form a perfectly impenetrable barrier of pure Shitty Hammer. Okay, the barrier’s probably not the slightest bit impenetrable, but you’ve gotta psych yourself up for this next attack somehow. In your hands is a weapon you haven’t thought about in a long time: the Pop-a-matic Vrillyhoo. It hums with both tricksy energy and the barely contained potential for mischief. You strike the baddest-ass pose possible to strike while wielding such a clownish-looking implement, and begin your advance.
However, you’re interrupted by a voice screaming out from behind you. It’s half familiar, half... cat?
You whip your head around just in time to see a bolt of orange-and-green energy racing by you like a bullet. It slams into Lord English and sends him stumbling.
Dave stands there with his sword, absolutely agog, his expression perfectly reflecting a blend of horror and the total inability to process who or what he is looking at.
Davepeta spreads their wings, sending waves of warm light through the battlefield. The light feels comforting, somehow, when it hits you. Behind them, Lord English is struggling to his feet again, roaring as he rolls from one side to the other like a kicked-over turtle. His muscles are so huge it’s hard for him to maneuver.
It would be hilarious, if only all of reality weren’t tearing apart at the seams around you. The sky shivers and shakes, raining needles of breached matter that burst and shatter at all angles, opening new voids where they land. Above the bedlam, Davepeta is finishing up an inspiring speech. You realize you tuned most of it out due to the surrounding chaos.
Well, that last bit was pretty good, you guess. At least you caught the end, which was presumably the most important and uplifting part. You and Dave exchange a look that silently says all that needs to be said right now. Davepeta is right. You three are the only ones left, and there’s no room for failure.
> Final Round.
The last leg of the fight proceeds like a well-oiled machine. Perhaps a well-oiled machine careening down a steep hill toward the edge of a cliff, but well-oiled nonetheless. You, Dave, and Davepeta: that’s what you call a team. And not just because, upon examining your surroundings, you three appear to be the last three living or dead beings left in existence. But dammit, you’ll take it. You turn your hammers into an efficient spiral, a carousel of ass-kicking, and direct its fury right at Lord English’s face. The butts of the hammers hit him over and over again, like racking up points in a slot machine.
Dave manages to carve a red line up Lord English’s side, drawing real blood this time. The slash snaps one of his suspenders in half, and must sever something else too, because the sword makes a gristly, meaty squelch when he pulls it out. Dave turns a half second too late to avoid getting sprayed by the wound.
English howls and swipes at Dave. Not wasting any time, you bury a hammer in his gaping mouth. Unsurprisingly, it gets swallowed, so you throw another one. Now you’re just throwing them into his fucking mouth like you’re feeding him Scooby Snacks. It’s a gluttonous display you won’t soon forget. You realize you seem to be stuck in a cycle and are in serious danger of running out of hammers.
Davepeta scrapes their cool Wolverine claws up Lord English’s back, and then kicks him in the back of the head. You time it perfectly and complete the combo with a well-placed Vrillyhoo undercut to his jaw.
On the snapback, Lord English grabs the head of the hammer in his mouth.
Maybe it’s the sentiment attached to the hammer, or maybe you’re just fed up with this gross pig treating your full inventory of hammers like an all-you-can-eat buffet, but the bullshit stops HERE, you think. Which is why you refuse to let the handle go when English wraps his tongue around it and unhinges his jaw with a sick, wet pop. You plant one foot under his nose and the other on his mandible and tug back. He makes a guttural sound at the back of his throat and sucks the Vrillyhoo deeper in. Your heel slips on some drool, and your whole leg skids straight into his mouth.
You twist, off balance, and fail to catch yourself. You only let go of the hammer when you feel the walls of his throat constrict around your ankles. The pressure sucks you in up to the knees with one gulp. Vrillyhoo is in his stomach, and you’re following it down quicker than you can even process. Is this the end? No, you think. This is such an unfairly stupid fucking way to die!
Davepeta flashes behind you and hooks their arms under your shoulders. They yank you out, clearing your head from the monster’s maw at least. But English rehinges his jaw and clamps down on your chest. Hard.
Davepeta reacts quickly, shoving their claws between his molars. You can hear them growling as they slowly twist their arm to pry the massive jaw open.
You’re not dead yet, but Lord English definitely got a big, sharp tooth in you. Your vision reels and goes blurry, then patchy, then dark, then—
> Don’t fucking die.
You pass out for... well, you have no idea how long it was. But it was long enough for Davepeta to get you out of Lord English’s mouth. You can see their face floating above you. They’re just a smudge of neon swimming in a sea of chaos.
Davepeta holds something up to your face: your glasses. They tuck them into the front pocket of your hoodie and pat you on the head before darting through the air back towards the battle.
You’re woozy and don’t have the energy to stop yourself from drifting. There’s blood floating up around you, dilute and bubbly in the air like cooking oil in water. It’s yours.
> Examine wound.
You lift your chin and see it: Lord English’s gold tooth cracked off at the base and embedded in your chest. It must be stuck between two of your ribs, you think, because it hurts like a bitch when you try to breathe. You keep your head up and watch the battle, but it’s all so indistinct and far away, playing out like shadow theater on a wall.
Dave finds his moment. He rams Caledfwlch into Lord English’s chest, all the way up to the hilt. It penetrates his flesh like nothing else has to this point. The wound around the blade sizzles slightly. The weapon—the unusual material it’s made out of—is poison to English. He cries out in a cracked, broken staccato. It’s an earsplitting wail that cleaves the last of the Furthest Ring apart. Reality falls away from the mooring of the all-surrounding white light like a peeled eggshell.
Dave’s trying to get his sword free but he’s stuck. English’s shriek morphs into a sinister, predatory rattle as his jaw creaks open. His mouth envelops Dave’s head and snaps shut. He twists once, then twice, then again with a CRACK. A disaster of blood instantly coats his skull and upper torso. He swallows the disembodied head whole with a triumphant gulp. The limp torso goes spiraling lazily in the direction of the black hole.
Davepeta is yelling something indistinct. Or maybe they’re just yowling at the top of their lungs. That’s what you feel like doing right now, but you can’t move. Your limbs feel like lead. You consult your strife deck, but you’ve got nothing left. No hammers, no nothing. It’s up to Davepeta, who appears to have plenty left. If not in the strife deck per se, then in the heart.
During the beast’s grisly moment of gloating over the younger Strider’s death, Davepeta stands twenty paces behind him, crouches low to the ground, wiggles their behind, and pounces. They cling to English’s back, wrap their legs around his midriff, draw back their arms, and plunge their claws deep into the behemoth’s armpits. Their gloved hands end up knuckle-deep in the upper serratus muscles on either side. Davepeta then spreads their wings in an awe-inspiring display. An unwitting spectator viewing Lord English from the front might suspect the garish orange-green wings belonged to English himself.
Davepeta then, with all their might, lifts Lord English into the air and flies toward the black hole, trailing ribbons of blood and neon. English resists fiercely, but they’re both already locked into the gravity well, beyond any threshold of escape. He cannot do anything about it, no matter how much he screams and cries. This victory, this final sacrifice, has always been the destiny of Davepeta, as they have sensed from the moment they were created. And to die on this day, in this way, has always been the destiny of Lord English.
The black hole—the gaping, implacable, cosmic embodiment of the dead cherub, his long-departed sister—finally welcomes Lord English home.
English and Davepeta are sucked in with a subatomic whimper. The reunion sends shock waves across the pitiful remains of Paradox Space. And then everything is wholly, utterly, and categorically silent. It’s over. Lord English is dead.
But it doesn’t feel over, somehow. You don’t feel like you’ve won. You can barely feel anything, actually. All you can think about, for now, is...
Davepeta. How they were so unfettered and brave. How they sacrificed themselves by flying right into the black hole like...
Like a fucking piece of garbage, you can almost hear Dave saying. May God rest his soul.
You collapse against whatever is passing for the floor at this moment of utterly null corporeal conditions surrounding you. It doesn’t feel possible. You’re not sure you can even trust your perception well enough to believe it. But it seems to be over. You’ve convinced yourself of this truth well enough to allow yourself to exhale. Enough to allow yourself to suddenly acknowledge the agony coursing through your body, emanating from the gold tooth lodged in your chest. Enough to allow yourself to succumb to the overwhelming urge to sleep.
> Close your eyes.
Rose is speaking with her eyes closed. She is weary, but standing for now, near one of Dirk’s work tables. She has both hands resting on the chassis of his recent project, Sawtooth 3.1. The energy humming inside its mechanical heart warms her palms. Dirk snorts, but in a good-natured sort of way. That’s the closest he usually gets to laughing.
He leans his elbow on the table and stares at her over the rims of his shades. The weight of Dirk’s scrutiny is potent. She looks away.
Rose steps back, trailing her fingers over the rivets that line Sawtooth 3.1’s chest. Eyes closed again, she passes in front of the window. With the sunset behind her she’s a shadow ringed in yellow light that turns white at the tips of her hair.
She turns to look at him.
She runs a hand through her hair, fanning it into a halo that is suspended in the air for a moment, trailing spiderwebs of gold that dissolve into dust. She’s smirking now, just a little.
Dirk settles in against the wall beside Rose, shoulder to shoulder. She seems to take some measure of comfort in the physical proximity. When she finds herself leaning against him—probably without thinking about it, Dirk imagines, because neither of them really “do” that—he doesn’t pull away. If it’s her, it’s all right. He won’t begrudge her a small weakness now.
Rose looks up to Dirk with the ghost of a smile that she inherited from him. On her face, its blankness is as enigmatic as the Mona Lisa’s.
She doesn’t seem to have another riposte to return, but her gaze lingers. She stares into his shades as if convinced she could see past them. Dirk allows their eyes to meet.
Her gaze drifts towards the ceiling.
She shoots him a look. It’s the kind of look Kanaya gives her sometimes.
DIRK: I mean, some of us have stopped using our powers completely. Not a whole lot of need for emergency resurrections or complex timeline manipulation on a planet that’s never had a conflict more serious than a sportsball riot or a rumpled hat shortage.
DIRK: But even aside from how often they’re used...
DIRK: Some powers don’t lend themselves to the infinite expansion of one’s mind, the way ours do.
ROSE: I see.
Rose sways suddenly.
She jerks away from the wall in a tortured, rag-doll motion, one hand snapping out vainly for something to brace herself against. She staggers forward a bit.
Dirk doesn’t reach out to steady her. Anyone else might have had the empathetic reflex to do so. Maybe it says something about him that he lacks this reflex. And maybe it says something about Rose that she prefers it this way. Try as she might to convince herself otherwise, through marriage vows and occasional banter about adoption with her wife, she is still a solitary creature. She gasps, sucks breath down her throat, and squeezes her eyes shut so hard that a tear rolls out. She slides back down the wall, sitting on the floor to save her energy. She’s mostly composed when she raises her head. There’s bitter laughter at the edge of her words.
Dirk stands over her, adjusts his hair, crosses his arms. He makes no motion to bother joining her on the floor. He looks very together. He says the word “crazy” with the same intonation with which he might say “good morning.” It’s hard to believe he means it at all.
Rose wraps her hands around her upper arms like there’s a winter chill rattling through the workshop. She shivers.
Her voice is lost at sea, swallowed by the swell of darkness lurking in her imagination.
This time, Dirk does reach out to steady her. He kneels in front of her, curls a knuckle under her chin, and lifts her face up to his level. Then, in a deliberate motion, he pulls off his shades.
Rose’s eyelids flutter, heavy. She meets the intensity of his naked gaze aloofly, like she’s not aware this is the first time he’s ever let her see it.
Rose laughs softly. She’s not scared of this abyss she’s staring into at all. She doesn’t even think to look away.
Rose’s eyes have grown distant, almost mirrorlike. Dirk can see himself reflected in her vacant stare.
She says this in a hollow tone. It’s the disarming voice a puppeteer ventriloquizes for a marionette. Her head falls toward her shoulder slowly. Dirk catches her cheek as she slides into sleep. It’s difficult for the untrained ear to spot the exact moment in their conversation when the words she was saying stopped being hers and started being his. Or maybe they were her words. Does it really matter? In many respects, they’re basically the same person, aren’t they? Kindred spirits in blood and perspective, the puppet masters of the respective games they like to believe they’re playing.
But you already knew that, right?
None of my friends have noticed it yet, but you have. You have the ability to read between the lines, to understand that our lives are blighted by this undercurrent of subtext, of narrative significance. Anyone paying attention could have guessed by now who’s really telling this story.
You’re not so innocent either. I’ve caught you leering at some pretty personal moments. Are you having fun being a voyeur? Just violating the shit out of everyone’s privacy? Are these teenage romantic entanglements panning out the way you wanted? They never do. Maybe it helps, being able to see everyone’s thoughts described in plain sight. Broadcasting the internal conflicts, the compromises, the doubts... Does it make it easier for you to accept the emotional faltering, the missteps, the basic inability to reach out and seize the opportunity for happiness repeatedly dangled in their faces? Knowing their thoughts are transcribed by a third party, does it fill you with a sense of unease, of sickness, sensing that the observations made of their mental interiors may be tainted?
Who the hell do I think I am, I can hear you wondering. You know who I am, of course. The better question is, who do you think you are? What exactly is so special about you? Nothing, of course. I am specific. I have a name, an agenda, a vision. I am a monolith of concentrated narrative authority, relaying events to you, and swaying them as I see fit. Whereas you are pointedly nonspecific. You are the generalized, impotent witness to all this. You are essentially as beholden to me as those whose lives I describe. I even have the ability to decide what “you” actually means. I can take the “you-ness” away from you, and put it inside another passive mark, such as John Egbert. You didn’t even notice when I did it, and you had no objections then. Why would you object now?
So what makes John so special? The answer is something I’m sure you’ve suspected all along but would rather not face, which is: probably nothing. He isn’t special. He’s quite ordinary, I assure you. Boring, even, and getting less interesting by the minute as he’s forced to confront his absolute lack of heroic purpose except as a pawn to be manipulated by a fatalistic reality.
But I’d also like to make it clear, he’s not even that remarkable in his unremarkableness. He’s simply convenient for it. Anyone can be endowed with this you-ness, if I think it achieves a certain goal. Even if the objective is merely to demonstrate the gambit’s potential, to reveal the effortlessness behind it. To make a show of who matters and who doesn’t, and even if they do matter, for how long and for what purpose, as dictated solely by the allocation of this faculty. You-ness can be stripped from the lowly Egbert just as easily as it was given, and then bestowed upon the mighty Serket, but even then only long enough to dismiss the vainglorious spotlight hog from the narrative forever. Good riddance.
But I haven’t revealed myself to you just to boast about the abilities arising from the gradual obliteration of the constraints on my consciousness. I’ve only taken a moment to answer a few questions. Not ones I heard you ask—because again, you are nonspecific and therefore do not matter—but ones I imagined you asking. And by imagining these questions, they became less fake, and as such, demanded similarly non-fake answers. No, in truth, the time has come to make my presence known in order to start bringing my plans to fruition. It’s time to get down to fucking business.
John needs to wake up.
You wake up.
You open your eyes. Actually, you’re not sure they’re open. Everything is intolerably bright, like it was inside the juju, but worse. Did you go blind? Are you dead? Is your... ghost dead?
You spend a couple seconds filing through miserable worst-case scenarios, but then you see it: your own blood, floating around you in a nimbus of shiny, taut bubbles. You reach out to touch one and it bursts around your finger.
You finally process the true magnitude of what has happened. The Furthest Ring has been completely destroyed. And you’re all alone.
Everything hits you all at once. The light, your memories of the battle, the untethered sensation of weightlessness. It’s a hammer stroke that hits you in the center of the head. It splits like rivers through your gray matter. That pain and disorientation goes all the way down your throat. You double over and...
Well, you’re vomiting up everything in your stomach. Rest assured, it’s pretty gross, and I don’t think anyone needs an explicit account of the way you’re disgorging your entire gut in zero gravity or the way it’s coating your entire torso in puke, from your long blue hood to your silly yellow slip-ons.
You seriously need to get it together. You look like absolute shit right now, my man. In fact, you really should strongly consider issuing an apology for the mess you’re making.
Who are you talking to, dude? Nobody’s around for miles. Everyone’s dead. Well, almost everyone.
But certainly the vast majority of what qualifies as “everyone” in your current frame of reference. Every single person and every single thing, nearly literally, has been sucked into that monstrous black hole up there. Including every single fragment of black, empty space that used to provide the canvas for this bleak continuum. And most of your friends—Rose, Dave, absurd Cat Dave, and hundreds of ghosts, who all valiantly contributed to a victory which you’re only now beginning to question the functional necessity of.
That’s because it’s not.
You’ve finally noticed.
No, not me. You go back to ignoring the fact that I’m the voice in your head. You noticed how it hurts when you breathe. Suddenly you remember: Lord English’s tooth is still embedded in your chest. You panic, wrap your hands around the base, and give it a little tug. It’s excruciating. The tooth makes an awful grating sound as it grinds along one of your ribs. You gasp and lose your grip, biting the inside of your mouth so hard that you taste blood.
Can’t blame you for trying, but I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Without someone to administer proper medical care, you’ll bleed to death pretty much instantly. On the other hand, the tooth is poisoned. So you’re pretty much fucked either way, and that’s really all there is to say on the matter.
You sigh in painful resignation, and wonder what to do next. English is dead, so you suppose you can go home, right? It’s tempting. You consider zapping back to Earth C, being done with this nightmare for good, and never breathing a word of it to anyone ever again. But you can’t yet, can you?
Why not, you wonder? What’s the harm? You’re right, it would probably be a harmless decision, in the grand scheme of things. Certainly the easiest thing to do. But what about your friends? You saw Rose and Dave die with your own eyes. You saw countless ghosts getting swallowed whole by a voracious singularity. How about Jade though? She could still be out there somewhere, injured, alone, scared. And it’s your fault, isn’t it?
You decide that no matter how terrible you feel, you should look around first before you leave. You were the one who dragged her here. You owe her at least that much. Plus, there’s someone else on your mind, isn’t there?
You proceed to wander for a long fucking time. Time passes differently here than it does for everyone else. Here, I’ll simulate it for you. I just left to go take a piss. Then I microwaved myself a hot pocket. Then I came back. In the time it took me to do that, you just spent hours drifting around the entire circumference of the black hole thinking sad-sack thoughts about the years of inaction that led you to this point, intermittently humming the Ghostbusters theme to yourself. You get so worked up about one of your GB freestyles that you almost miss it.
There. Eleven o’clock. Do you see it? It’s that tiny dot floating over there.
You scramble to catch it before it drifts any closer to the event horizon. Got it. What the hell?
It feels familiar, but you want to make sure you’re not imagining it. A wallet. Your dad’s wallet. You chew your lip and press your fingers into the soft leather. Space is an infinitely large expanse and a wallet is a tiny, insignificant object. Sure, there have been crazier coincidences in the course of this wacky adventure you’ve been having for the past ten years, but this one feels very precisely aimed at your heart.
You take a deep breath, unfold the wallet, and open it.
[MEAT #19]
[440BC – TEREZI HAS WALLET]
Elsewhere, below the horizon...
The distant sounds of war travel above the canopy of a forest. The artillery fire fades to a series of muted knocks and thuds as the sound waves cross beyond a thinning patch of the forest and arrive in a clearing of grass and shrubbery. Above, the sky is dramatic, colorful, menacing. The way it looks when a storm is coming. The clouds are wild, whipped into a sort of spatial frenzy, as if they know what’s imminent is no earthly phenomena. Aradia stands in the field, her mouth gaping wide. But not at the sky.
It’s unusual she isn’t grinning, and she slowly corrects this. She smiles brightly at the girl crouching on the ground ten paces before her. Aradia’s never seen anything like what she just saw this girl do.
Jade was sixteen years old when she showed up, and she doesn’t look a day older now, though many hundreds of days have passed. There’s a hole piercing the Space symbol on her shirt, but no sign of whatever it was that made it. Her legs are covered by the same striped tights as usual, but her feet are shoeless. Her knees are pressed into the mud of the field, and her hands braced against the ground to support her hunched figure. She is covered in blood almost from head to toe.
Fresh blood and viscera surround her in an uneven ring on the field. It soaks her clothes, coats her skin, still gleaming and wet, running slowly down her limbs and face, dripping from her mouth, glasses, and the tip of her nose. Her hair is matted, savage-looking, filthy. She looks up. Behind the rim of her glasses, her wide eyes are solid black. Her lips are parted, revealing her canine fangs. The meat she’s chewing is stubborn, raw, full of gristle. Almost supernaturally tough. But she is a determined beast of prey. She swallows once, hard. The last bit of her meal slides down her throat. The deed is finished.
She stands up and closes her eyes. An aura of darkness gathers around her. The blood begins to dissolve, as if being absorbed into her skin. She makes two fists, plants her feet firmly, and releases an otherworldly howl. A shock wave emanates from her body, knocking Aradia down. It rushes outward, blowing the surrounding trees back as if they’re weathering hurricane-force winds. In a moment, calm is restored. She opens her perfectly black eyes again.
Aradia staggers back to her feet and brushes herself off.
Jade looks down at her hands as if they belong to an alien. She can feel it now. Abilities have been awakened inside her that no being has ever commanded before. She raises her hands and looks up at the sky. Above her, an immense vortex opens. It swirls many miles upward into blackness, and lightning crackles within.
Jade does nothing for a while. She seems to simply study the construct she’s summoned, this great occult trumpet beckoning her into its abyss. Her face is expressionless. Her glasses flash white as they reflect the lightning that arcs sporadically inside the wormhole.
Jade silently holds up a hand, as if telling her to wait. Aradia closes her mouth, looking embarrassed.
Nearby, a red haze gathers in the air. It condenses into concentric rings and spheres of ruby light. The luminous shape of a man fades into the center of the special effect. When the light subsides, Aradia notices the man is made of polished metal. She recognizes the gear symbol on his chest, identical to her own. She also recognizes the sunglasses the robot is wearing. She knows who this is.
He doesn’t look in Aradia’s direction. His eyes, glowing bright enough to be visible behind his shades, are fixed on Jade. He looks her up and down. She’s still so young. He knew this Jade many years ago, but by this point their paths have diverged in ways that he couldn’t begin to describe even if he wanted to.
Jade says nothing, and looks up into the wormhole again. She begins to levitate, gradually picking up speed. Without looking back, she rockets into the vortex, vanishing into the darkness. Davebot turns to Aradia.
His gaze remains fixed on her. She blinks and looks away, unsure what to say next. He’s standing perfectly still, presumably waiting for her to say something. She met him... what was it? Once, twice before? She can’t remember. But she knows this is a very different Dave. Aside from the metal skin, he seems implacably confident. But then, people go through changes. She’s been through more than her share. She cocks an eyebrow, recalling her own stint with a metal body.
He holds out his hand. She looks around, and assumes he means for her to take it, so she does. She didn’t know someone could fly this fast. He nearly yanks her arm out of its socket. She considers reminding him that maybe this isn’t necessary, since she can fly too. But she doesn’t want to risk saying more embarrassing stuff around this outrageously cool dude. Besides, they’re through the wormhole before she can even finish the thought. It vanishes the moment they’ve crossed.
The hole leaves behind an absence in the sky so calm that continuing to call it a sky wouldn’t seem to do it justice. It’s a perfectly neutral expanse into which anything one can imagine might be summoned. And for a while, anything was. But not anymore. Where the hole gaped just moments ago, there now exists an imaginary line.
Above this line resides all that matters.
Below exists all else.
Never again the twain shall meet.
BEYOND CANON
T4ST3S L1K3 HORS3SH1T.
She'll have to keep wondering for some time. Though her strength as a Seer is commendable, her unascended limitations won't allow her to-
[Terezi’s phone explodes.]
"Wait, what's with the ocean?" you might ask.
A while back, it became apparent that while my Deltritan offspring were to be terrestrial, Rose's were going to be aquatic. Back when I figured we'd have a more active role in their development, it felt appropriate to me that our base of operations should straddle land and sea, existing impartially at the precipice between the two competing worlds. I elected to transport (via Bullshit, of course) our humble grotto and the wreck of the Theseus to these cliffs overlooking the sea, that we might watch over our children from a locale more suitably dramatic and liminal than some fucking plain in the middle of nowhere.
Now, however, the effort (insofar as it was one, which it wasn't) seems to have been mostly in vain. No seagulls cry here, anyway. Rose and I made a lot of other filler-fauna to help our species integrate into the local biosphere while working through our respective game-plans, but I never got around to replicating or approximating seagulls. I guess I'm not gonna bother. It doesn't particularly feel like much of a home, anymore.
As we sit side by side, watching the horizon, Rose is even harder to read than usual. I begin to feel the twinge of a vexation that I've been all too aware of over untold trillions of iterations of myself, a dread that's reared its head again recently. The fear that my plan isn't understood, my efforts aren't appreciated. That I'm alone, again.
I worry that she's slipping away. Growing disinterested in our time together. And I'm not willing to lose her, so as much as it feels like admitting a kind of defeat, I prepare to make her -
......
Relief pulses through me in an immense wave. Relief and unfathomable, indescribable pride. It's almost paralyzing; I just sit here for a while, grateful for my shades and their ability to protect me from making eye contact with my daughter, who is in this moment as brilliant as the aspect that adorns her hood. I should tell her.
To my credit, I am also an incredible engineer.
At any rate, Rose might be beating my ass on the emotive front, but I'm still capable of articulating myself well enough, and I'd better start soon or I'm going to begin to look like a real fucking dork.
I'm doing this for all of us.
(BIGGEST KAHUNA: Return to base.)
CHERUBS
Calliope and Caliborn's mother was a benevolent cherub that had spent several eons roaming her galaxy before she eventually began searching for a mate. She was the good half of her body, and successfully predominated her brother before reaching maturity. Though she experienced personal growth after her predomination day, she would always live with a sense that her other half was missing. Aranea states that she was once similar to her daughter, but was hardened by her long years of solitude and combat.
She began tracking a male cherub's scent. She followed his path of carnage, the debris from civilized worlds and star systems he left behind. His long path of genocide made her extremely furious. She knew her quest for a mate was not just about the propagation of her species, but the liberation of billions from a monster. Once she defeated her mate, it can be assumed she took over his territory. What happened to her after is unknown.
In the files it is revealed her name is Calamity, and implied that she originated as the protector for Earth's universe, rather than being native to Universe C. Pre-scratch, she gains the nickname Calamity Jane as a frontierswoman, and she meets the Condesce in 1863 in Missouri. She fights and defeats HIC, and advises her to "stop fooling around and get to work" before riding away. In 1876, she interrupts a heist by Jesse and Frank James and takes them to jail. In the 1890s, she begins funding Karno's Army of vaudeville assassins while under the alias of the baking baroness Little Debbie. In 1957, she appears in front of Charlie Chaplin fighting Jake Harley, and watches him take Jake's son away before leaving. Calamity then appears in front of the dying Condesce in the B2 Sburb session, where she informs the Condesce that she was making sure that the conditions to fulfill the birth of her children would be fulfilled before flying up into Skaia.
Calliope and Caliborn's father was a particularly destructive malevolent cherub. He destroyed several planets, including the one on which two particularly doomed trolls resided. In terms of personality, Aranea thinks that he was most likely motivated by little other than to conquer and destroy.
He eventually lured Calliope and Caliborn's mother to a massive black hole where the planet he was hatched on once resided. After losing the fight against his mate, he slithered away in disgrace, and deposited the egg containing Calliope and Caliborn onto the now dead and barren planet Earth. After depositing the egg, he flew away and never returned. Aranea muses that perhaps his son even went on to exceed him in violent tendencies.
The relationship between the two resembles in many ways that between the Peregrine Mendicant and Jack Noir. Both involve a benevolent female with white wings following the trail of destruction left by a malevolent male with black wings whom she believes to be her kismesis. Aranea's description of the two parents respectively as hardened 8y o8sessive pursuit of justice and seemingly motiv8ted 8y little other than to conquer and destroy could also equally well apply to PM and Jack.
SOURCE
https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/three-moons-initiative-hub
https://siivagunner.fandom.com/wiki/The_Central_Canon_Continuum_(FILE-INT-PAINT)_-_Haltmann%27s_Archives
https://siivagunner.fandom.com/wiki/Triple-Q
https://siivagunner.fandom.com/wiki/Can_of_Nothing