Chapter 58

On her way back to her own world, Aranea decided to troll everyone that was available to talk to check up on everyone's progress. She had installed Trollian on her phone, but that hadn't explicitly been depicted because somebody downloading an app for a social network that technically no longer exists isn't exactly interesting for readers.

Arachne's Gift (AG) began trolling Armageddon's Associate (AA), Aztlan's Underling (AU), Unorthodox Advancement (UA), Anthropomorphic Complexity (AC), Critic of Generality (CG), Gender=Advocate (GA), Gamer Creationist (GC), Uncensored Terror (UT), Undergarment Crusader (UC), and Critical Appearifier (CA), and Cetaceous Catastrophe (CA).

AG: Wow, I'm such a 8oomer. I can't figure out how to exclude specific users from the app in conversations. I wanted to make this a group-chat of sorts for most of us, except for every8ody whose name is crossed out.

AU: 1'd help you, doll, but sh*t just h1t the cool1ng osc1llator.

AG: What cooling oscil8tor?

GA: Do+n't call her do+ll, AU. That's incredibly miso+gynistic.

CG: I c9ncur. Such language is incredi6ly degrading t9 female tr9lls, as well as th9se that identify as such.

GA: Kankri, I've to+ld yo+u befo+re: If you're going to be referring to women, the phrase "as well as those who identify as such" is understood. Isolating the phrase like that could lead to some unfortunate and unthinkable consequences.

AG: Everyone, please shut up for a moment. I don't want to clog the chat with arguments unless it's relevant to the mission. This whole thing is strictly for the mission, okay? How is everyone doing?

AU: Well, I was gonna tell you, but you didn't let me. I'm stuck in jail with Meulin and Horuss. He's watching Meulin right now so that she doesn't try anything funny. She's got these coins with her, and that's how I ended up in here with her. Also, why is Damara allowed in here?

AG: She's relevant to the mission. Her planet has the Cardinal Movement on it. So far she's been cooperative, but I expect a report and a thorough ass-kicking from Meenah if she misbehaves.

AU: Good thing we've got Meenah on our side, and Horuss is busy. He might get turned on by how "STRONG" of a woman Meenah sounds.

GA: And what, dare I ask, is wrong with a strong woman?

AG: No fighting, remember? Jeegus, it's impossible for us to have a civil conversation anymore. GA and GC, how goes the frog-breeding?

GC: It was fine for a little while, but the frogs aren't doing much now. I think we got the frog we wanted, though…sort of.

GC: Also, AU, is Mituna with you? I trust you to take care of him but he can't be alone. Sometimes he hurts himself, I think it's on accident but it could be real bad.

AU: Negative.

GC: LATULA OUT

AG: No, stay where you are. Mituna is on Prospit, right? He's safe there.

GA: She's already gone, AG.

Gamer Creationist (GC) has finished trolling the group.

AG: Gr8, we've lost another one. What was this a8out the Genesis frog she was going to say?

GA: We weren't able to make that frog, actually. Instead we had to make another one, called the Exodus frog. Stitch explained it to me and oversaw the process. This Exodus frog is doing fine, though. Why we couldn't make the Genesis frog is complicated, but it has something to do with defective genetics. I think the long and short end of it is that our universe couldn't bear a healthy child, now we have one with "birth defects" and a different purpose.

AG: What?!

GA: Don't be so dramatic with the punctuation. Listen, we're going to be fine. We just need to make sure that when that cardinal thing is scratched, we all get over there and have the frog warp us inside of itself. I'll put the frog in my purse, and the universe will be contained in there once everything else in our universe gets erased.

AU: I don't buy it.

GA: Stitch wouldn't lie to me, right? He's one of the good Felt, isn't he?

AG: At this point I don't remember, I can't keep track of them all. I remember one of them contacted us, but I don't think they're listening to us now. If you're a good Felt, speak now or forever hold your peace.

CG: I don't believe they're listening anymore, Aranea. I'm not sure why, but their communications have been very sporadic. I haven't heard Itchy for a long while, and a strange one called Clover ordered me to consume a marshmallow.

AG: Oh, yeah, that's right, Clover's one of the good ones. You can trust him.

AU: Lol, you said you wanted things to be relevant to the mission and now you're talking about our assigned voices in our heads. Mine hasn't said anything useful. Horuss sometimes talked about his, though, very fondly. I guess he's one of the good ones?

GA: No, you've got that wrong. Stitch told me not to listen to Sawbuck.

AU: Oh, so he's a bad one? Yeah, I guess Horuss would fall for a bad guy tricking him. He's not exactly bright.

GA: Yes, but he somehow managed to fill his quadrants briefly. At this point, though, I'm done with him. You can tell him that for me, can't you?

AU: Yeah, I'll tell him. But tbh…

AU: I'm done with him, too. He's just weird and creepy at this point. I only really went after him because he seemed cool at the time, and I was getting over Damara.

CG: I believe AG imposed a rule regarding the topics of our conversations.

GA: Sorry.

AU: Sorry

AG: It's fine. At this point, it seems like not much is going on that we really have any control over. It really sucks to be so powerless. But let's at least recap: I just gave Meenah the needles on Damara's world, and they're going to scratch it together…I think. Or Meenah and she will fight, and Meenah will win, of course, and Meenah will scratch the thing. Mituna's on Prospit and Latula's with him. How did she get there so fast?

GA: She committed suicide…sort of. She killed her waking self immediately to be with Mituna. I just got a message from her. Mituna's still in his room, but he seems to be having some kind of night terror he can't wake up from. She wants me to tell you she's sorry she had to ditch the rest of us like that, but Mituna needs urgent care.

CG: What happened to Mituna in the first place? Last I can recall before the session started he was quite intelligent.

GA: I don't really know. Latula said something happened. She doesn't like talking about it and said she didn't even know the full details. Kurloz was there, she claims, but he's obviously not going to say anything. All that matters now is whereabouts, as far as I'm concerned.

AG: Agreed. Rufioh, how are things in prison with your cell mates?

AU: Horuss and Meulin have quite fighting and are just chatting now. They seem to be getting along

AU: Oh Gog, they're hugging!

CG: What a strange display of affection.

GA: Why is that strange?

AU: Well, they were beating the cr*p out of each other here not long ago. That's how they got arrested, in fact. I ended up here because Meulin was flipping her coins or something.

AG: I remember her saying something about "shipping coins" during the party. Which, BTW, was an unmitigated disaster.

CG: It most certainly was not! It was an excellent party.

GA: Yeah, it wasn't our fault that some unwanted guests showed up.

AU: Yeah, Meenah made a great cake. That doll can cook!

AU: I mean girl

GA: Close enough, but say "woman" next time, Rufioh. "Female troll" is also acceptable. "Babe" is not, even if you do it with a typing quirk.

AU: Quit with the rules, just let me be free!

GA: As long as one person is oppressed, no one can be free.

AG: Anyway, so we know where Latula and Mituna are. Horuss and Meulin are accounted for in the prison with Rufioh. I suppose we can officially say that Horuss' mission failed, huh?

AU: Yeah, he said he couldn't find the…word I can't say in here because of Porrim's speech policing. I think he didn't really understand what his mission was, anyway.

GA: Your self-censorship is commendable, Rufioh.

AG: How are things with the ectobiology, Kankri/CG?

CG: I'm just about finished. I would have finished a few minutes ago, by my calculations, if you had not interrupted me with this group chat. Ectobiology is a very strange process, so I do not wish to go into detail. But, needless to say, our descendants are our ancestors and our ancestors are our descendants. Also, I got to play around with Skaia's defense portals…which are mostly irrelevant in this situation, as they cannot avert our failed session, only control the meteors on Beforus, which, from our standpoint, have already hit our planet in the first place.

GA: How about we all meet up in person again once you finish, Kankri? I'm not certain where the best place for us all is, but we'll figure it out. I'll let Latula know so she can get Mituna ready.

AU: I can't exactly go anywhere right now, but I think Meulin's weird coins can help. They make everybody swap places or something. Not sure how they work.

AG: You look into that, Horuss. Assuming that you don't get released by the time Kankri is done with the ectobiology, we'll see what we can do about rescuing you three.

AU: Are we sure about Meulin? I thought she was on the other team.

AG: There are no teams. At this point, we might as well try and get everyone out. Except for Cronus, I don't really care about him.

GA: Yeah, I've never liked him, either. But somehow, we'll get the rest of ourselves out using this Exodus Frog. When is this Lord English guy supposed to eat our universe, anyway?

AG: I'm not sure. I just know that we're resetting. Maybe we can escape…maybe we can't. From what I understand, the Scratch isn't very keen on that sort of thing. But we'll figure it all out when the time comes.

Arachne's Gift (AG) has ended the group trolling session.

Arenea sighed as she flew down to Porrim's world. The truth of the matter was that she had no plan, none whatsoever. Even if all of their tasks could be done, there didn't seem to be much of a point to them at all if it meant they couldn't escape from the doom they didn't even have a specified timeline to anticipate.

. . . . . . . .

Damara glanced nervously at Meenah when she noticed her former opponent looked like she was about to pass out. Her sword's poison had a tendency to work too well. The creature that stood before them, on the other hand, was ready to fight, even though it didn't look very threatening. It was a large, slimy blue tadpole with stubby limbs that didn't look strong enough to hold up its disproportionately huge head. Damara wondered if this was the true Genesis Frog—but what would it be doing inside of a music box? She knew she'd likely never have all the answers to this strange game, and for once in a very long time, she felt alone, as if her Lord wasn't present with her right now. He wanted to watch her fight, to see how she did without his harsh, guiding voice.

The tadpole suddenly rushed at her, practically sliding on its slippery body with surprising speed. Damara dashed out of the way, but Meenah's unconscious body was pushed forward. She flipped and fell like a ragdoll to the edge of the clock platform. Damara took advantage of the tadpole-thing's momentary distraction to stomp on its tail with her spiked heel. Repeated stabs into the slimy blue flesh caused it to bleed, but the tadpole quickly spun around and knocked Damara off her feet. Before she could get up the tadpole had turned around completely to face her, and it charged with a screech. Damara hadn't noticed before, but this creature had a small, circular mouth like a lamprey's, full of razor-sharp teeth that almost seemed to point forward slightly as the creature lunged for her. Intimidated but not scared, Damara realized this fight would be more about dodging than a simple battle of endurance and striking the enemy when its guard was down. Damara was still holding one of Echidna's needles in her left hand, so when she dodged to her right she tried to stab the tadpole as it rushed past her. Without having time to aim her attack, she ended up hitting empty air. The tadpole's shriek made her realize it was turning around again and charging at her from the opposite direction; its mobility on land was absurd for an aquatic creature. Damara held her needle out in front of her like a lance and charged to meet the tadpole, whose speed and fury didn't change in response. She poked the weapon into the monster's skin from the side, which seemed to make it pause for a brief moment. It was just enough time to slash at it with her blade. Hopefully the poison would have some effect on it.

The tadpole's earsplitting scream made her realize it was in fact a very effective weapon to use. But instead of writhing in pain, the tadpole whirled around again, this time thrusting its head at Damara and reaching for her with one of its short arms, grabbing her by the waist and lifting her to itself. It had grabbed her so quickly that her weapons ended up being pressed against her sides, although her blade of bitterness was pressed on the opposite side from where Meenah had slashed at her earlier with her own weapon. Damara had some immunity to her own poisonous weapon, but too many cuts with her own blade could eventually lead to her succumbing to its effects. The teeth of the tadpole creature jutted outward from its jaw, ready to grasp at Damara like stiff tendrils, and the troll realized that this thing intended to eat her. But suddenly, it roared in pain as blood spattered one of its sides. Damara couldn't see where the wound was until the creature dropped her in pain. As Damara got her bearings again she noticed that Meenah's 2X3dent was lodged into one of the creature's gills.

"Always…go for the gills," Meenah shouted as she limped over to where Damara and the tadpole were. She was still too weak to fight, but at least Damara had gotten some valuable information out of her.

Meenah could not even bring herself to walk all the way over to Damara before the latter troll had managed to stab her needle into the other set of gills the creature possessed.

. . . . . . . .

"Vwhy do you say that I don't lowve you?"

"Love isn't possessive, Cronus. Love is self-sacrificing and seeks to serve the other person. Love is an action, not a thing you produce."

"Vwhatewver. I can lowve you if you giwve me a chance."

"I never wanted you to be anything other than my moirail. You would have been the best at it. Pale feelings were unspoken between us back then, remember?"

"Is that all of our talks vwere to you, then? Just pale romance?"

"I can't really call it that. It was more like a…like a bond between two trolls that hatched at the same time and even though they lived miles apart later on, they understood each other more intimately than most others could. Kurloz will never have the bond you had with me, Cronus. Latula will never have that, either. She will instead have to selflessly serve me in a way I can barely fathom, even now."

"Vwho cares vwhat she thinks about you? I'd take care of you if you'd let me."

"You'd satisfy yourself because you'd feel bitter and feel like you'd need to make up for everything you lacked. You were hatched as a sea dweller, Cronus. You were meant to be special, living in a world the rest of us couldn't. But you weren't hatched as a Psiionic because you'd never be able to control yourself. You'd consume and consume that mind honey. I just know it. You'd never be able to stop if it meant you could finally have something you could control. You've always liked the idea of being in charge over people. And if you were responsible about it, you could be a leader. There are timelines where you're a leader, did you see those?"

"I vwasn't paying attention."

"Of course you weren't. Crap, I'm sorry, Cronus. It's just that all the times we spent trolling each other, I learned so much about you. I loved it when we could just talk about your music—"

"Vwhich sucked."

"Yeah, but knowing that I knew the guy who made it made it special."

"So you admit it sucked, huh? I thought you vwere all nice and perfect nowv."

"I never said that. I only said that I see a lot more now and understand things. But it seems that even when I try and put myself away here in this transcendent dimension, I still manage to insult a good person."

"Stop trying to flatter me. Just tell me vwhatewver you need to tell me so that I can kill you aftervwards."

"So I guess this is that timeline, then?" Mituna sighed. "Cronus, playing this game was a mistake, for all of us. I realize that now. Beforus was not worth destroying just so we could escape. Life was good there, at least compared to this. Things are only going to get worse from here, and now that I know all of that I have two thoughts that keep coming into my head: the first is that it's all my fault that we've lost our home, and the second is that it will take so long to rectify all of the mistakes that haven't been made yet, but will be made by other people. And what really hurts is that no matter how much power I used to have, or however useful any of us are in this session, we're all on the sidelines. And most of the time, I can't even see you or any iteration of you there at all, Cronus. You're rejected, discarded, and hated—not because of who you are but because of what you do and what you become, and what you make yourself out to be. So I'm just warning you to please try and better yourself. Please try and learn what I apparently can't teach you. Having the knowledge of how to help people and them not listening to you hurts, Cronus."

"It can't hurt any vworse than you shutting me out of your life all because you found a matesprit."

"What are you talking about? I never shut you out."

"Are you kidding me? You always changed the subject vwhenever I really vwanted to open up to you vwhen vwe trolled each other. You alvways lied and said you liked my music vhwen you didn't. You alvways talked more about yourself than you asked me about my problems. So don't go around vwhining about howv I'm the selfish one and you're the good one. Look into your past, Mituna. Stop looking at a bunch of shitty futures."

"I can't do that, Cronus."

"Vwhat do you mean, you can't? Just fuckin' think!"

"There's so much in my mind and so little time to sort through it all before you kill me and I lose all of it forever because I'm stuck with a broken brain for eons. Why would I waste the little time I have left looking for memories when I could warn people like you about what's going to come in the future?"

"You knowv vwhere they are. You're too lazy to admit it. I knowv you. I do remember, unlike you, apparently. And do you knowv vwhat else? I vwas kind to you then, Mituna. You vwere a vwreck and I helped you out. I thought it vwas good that a sea dvweller vwas helping a lowver-blooded troll. But you hardly ewver gawve back, except for all of the lies and jokes, and, well…dammit, Mituna. I decided I'd still lowve you after all that because I vwanted to giwve happiness a chance. I chose to be happy and you vwanted me to stay sad, at least back then. Nowv you're telling me to be happy that I don't get to hawve you and I'm supposed to just be ok vwith it?"

"Happiness isn't a choice, Cronus. It's a pursuit. Even without me, you can keep pursuing that. You have a future ahead of you. Me? I don't. This is the last time you'll ever see me again, at least the way I am now. Do you get it now?"

"I get it. And I'm glad about that. I'm tired of your excuses, and I'm tired of all the shit I got from all of you."

Cronus whipped out a small, lavender-colored dagger and got up from the table.

"You didn't even finish your tea."

"Fuck you, I don't vwant it."

"You're black for me now, huh? Well, I don't feel the same. It's not really possible for me anymore."

"Shut up and stop acting like you're better than other people. I svwear, you're ewven vworse than Meenah or any of my kind ewever could hawve been back vwhen being a sea dwveller meant something. Nowv hold still."

Mituna bent his head down and pointed at the back of his head. "Sever the brainstem," he urged Cronus. "That's fitting for me, I believe. Now, if I can just say one last—"

Cronus did as he was instructed by his victim.

"No, you stupid little piss-blood. You're not getting any 'last vwords'. You're not ewven really dying, anyvway. And you knowv vwhat? I may hate you now, but I'll newver kill your brain-dead body. That's a promise I'm keeping forewever. You'll be stuck in that miserable body forwever, unless you can use your omnipotent god powers to fix it. Vwhat a vwaste of my time you hawve been in my life, Mituna."

The white light around the trolls, both living and dead, enveloped them both so that Cronus could see nothing anymore.

AN: Originally I had wanted Mituna to be more moral and Cronus to be more clearly immoral, but as I wrote this I realized that Mituna needed to be more guilty of something. Apologies for the long segments of dialogue in this chapter; it's not very becoming of me and my "skills" as a writer. But hey, Homestuck was full of dialoguelogs, right?