Chapter Text
John took the whole “Dave can stop time” thing really well, with the added promise they’d talk more about it once all of this was over. For some reason Rose looked at Karkat when he said that. There was something Rose had been trying to tell him after Dirk’s assassination attempt. Something about his headaches. But that could wait for later, too.
“You okay, Karkitty?” Roxy asked, nudging him lightly with her elbow. “You look like you’re about to vom.”
Karkat rolled his eyes. “I’m fine.”
“Seriously, Kar, I know you’re not into this whole aspect-y shit, but I swear I know what I’m doing, John probably knows what he’s doing, and Dave and Rose hopefully won’t be doing anything. It’s going to be a piece of cake!”
Karkat frowned at her. “Are you trying to jinx us?”
“Didn’t realize you were superstitious, Kat,” Dave said, apparently taking a break from being glued to John’s side to join in on needling Karkat.
“I’m not, but I don’t see a reason to tempt fate.”
Karkat didn’t like the looks Rose kept giving him. Her aspect was all but exhausted — her eyes weren’t even glowing — but it felt like she was Seeing something he couldn’t, and it didn’t seem good. He did his best to shrug it off.
“Everyone ready?” John asked, a little too cheerily considering the situation.
Everyone nodded.
Roxy clapped, though her gloves dampened the sound. “Alright! Now everyone get with your invisi-buddies and let’s get to sneakin’!”
They got into formation, wrapping a cord around their wrist to connect them together. Karkat at the front followed by Roxy, then Rose, then Dave, and John at the back, giving the base as much time as possible to not be noticed.
And then Karkat felt the world twist and collapse around him — No, he twisted. Collapsed in on himself. Like he was both the quicksand and the man struggling to break free. Until he was gone. Down beneath the sand. But to be beneath something was to still be there, and Karkat was not anywhere.
He was on a river. One whose shores looked so familiar. Like he could feel himself standing there and where he was now, being pulled under the currents simultaneously
He tried to swim toward it; merge the two hims that seemed to exist. But as he reached out toward dry land, the air grew thick like mud and glimmered an eerie mixture of pink and green and white.
He struggled through it. Struggled to push just a little farther.
Only a few more inches.
If he stretched just a little more, kicked just a little harder…
Almost…
A snap of fingers in front of his face shocked Karkat out of his stupor.
His eyes focused on Roxy’s worried face in front of him. What looked like a dark blue pinwheel spun in her eyes which Karkat found almost as unsettling as the shimmering red aura barely visible around her. “You okay, Karkat?”
Karkat blinked until the aura disappeared, then looked around him. The others had similarly worried expressions, though Dave and Rose’s were distinctly more queasy than John’s. Otherwise they looked normal. But the rest of the world looked… Could something look both sharp and blurry at the same time? He was aware of the physicality of the grass beneath his feet and the castle in front of them in ways he never had been before, but it was like he was seeing the world through a smeared window. From the outside.
Karkat looked back at Roxy, careful to not turn his head too fast in the process. “Yeah, though I could have used a warning for whatever the hell that was,” he grumbled.
Roxy grimaced. “I always forget how much that weird twisty feeling can fuck with people for the first time. But you get used to it!”
“No, not the ‘twisty feeling,’ the…” The… what? There had been something else. Karkat waved his hand like he could knock the thing out of the air. “You know, the…”
Roxy waited, head tilted in the epitome of confusion.
Karkat huffed. “It doesn’t matter. I’m fine. We have a job to do and no time to waste.”
The corner of Roxy’s mouth twitched down just a smidge, but she quickly replaced it with a smile and gestured in front of the group. “Lead the way then, Kar!”
The way to the castle went according to plan. John had the underlings’ patrols memorized, and while there was no way they would have been able to sneak through the gaps normally, the combination of Roxy’s provided invisibility and John’s… Windy thing? Whatever he was doing to help keep them unnoticed worked. As soon as they had all made it into the hidden back entrance of the castle, crammed together in a long abandoned foyer, they let out a simultaneous sigh of relief. From the sound of it, Karkat had a suspicion some of them had been literally holding their breath throughout a lot of the walking. Even he had had to fight the urge to do so.
Still, as relieved as he was that the first step was done, he felt uneasy.
Dave, ever attuned to the Vantas mood shifts, gave him a look of deep exasperation. “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Kat.”
“I didn’t say anything!” Karkat hissed defensively.
Dave waved him off.
“It’s good to not let one success lower our guard,” Rose said quietly. “This was the easiest step.”
“As much as I hate to agree with our blindingly optimistic duo here,” John said with a wink in Rose and Karkat’s direction,” we can’t afford to pat ourselves on the back when the Captain will be starting her part of the plan any minute now.”
Dave rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I get it. No time to appreciate the small victories or whatever. Let’s get moving, then.”
It was Roxy’s turn to lead. Though it had been years since she lived in the castle, she was the one who spent the most time sneaking around in it, and knew all of the servants’ passages and hidden stairwells and shortcuts like the back of her hand.
The way she was taking them would bring them to a secret entrance in the throne room that was directly behind the throne. Apparently this used to be for servants to discreetly bring things to the rulers without crossing the entire room, and possibly for rulers to make a quick escape. Considering what they were using it for now, Karkat made a mental note to have it sealed shut and filled in once all of this was done.
For his prince. Whom he was still loyal to. Because he was a knight. It was a consideration any knight would make.
Karkat blinked away the distorted red aura trailing off from him and out and out and out to the north. He did not think about how he knew it went north when all he could see was a few feet in front of him and they had taken too many turns for him to know what direction he was even facing. But it was gone now, and that’s what mattered.
A few twists and turns later, Roxy came to a stop in front of a wall. She turned back to them with a finger to her lips, then pressed her hand and ear to the wall.
Now Karkat held his breath along with everyone else.
After a few tense moments, Roxy turned back and nodded, then tapped some pattern into the stonework Karkat couldn’t make out, gestured something to John that Karkat also couldn’t make out, then slowly, ever so slowly, pushed the wall open.
Karkat braced himself for the grating of stone on stone, but there was a shift in the air as it opened that dampened the sound almost entirely.
Karkat’s eyes darted around as they carefully creeped out into the throne room. A basilisk paced in front of the entrance, barely visible around the dais. And there was someone on the throne. Not Gamzee — the hair wasn’t right — but Karkat couldn’t make out much more than that from the back.
Karkat reached for his sword, readying himself to sneak up and slit the usurper’s throat or fight if they were alerted as he approached.
But he could not have readied himself for what he heard next.
Clapping. Coming from the throne.
“Very good, Rose, my dear,” said a voice that Karkat almost didn’t recognize for how twisted its tone was from what he was used to.
Prince Felix stood from the throne and walked behind it, looking over where they were standing. It was clear to Karkat they couldn’t see them, but they could see something. They reached in front of them into the air and pulled. Rose stumbled forward, suddenly just as smeared and sharp as the rest of the world.
Roxy cried out and lunged for her protectively.
Karkat felt like he was being thrown through a thick glass pane as suddenly he was real again, and the world returned to normal with a sickening snap.
The prince’s grin grew wide as they surveyed them. “And you’ve brought all of your friends, too! Well, besides Dirk. Though I suppose he isn’t your friend anymore, is he?”
The mocking pity stirred a fire in Karkat’s veins that he couldn’t understand.
Prince Felix shrugged. “Well, if he tired of playing with you, then I suppose it’s my turn.” Their grin returned, somehow wider and darker than before. “And what fun we shall have!”