Karkat's Journey

The Final Battle

John kept the shrunken ship afloat a good distance away from the giant red battleship of the Condesce. Jade unshrunk Roxy who was the first one to venture off to the horrors of the battleship. The Rogue of Void quickly, and invisibly, flew over to the ship, doing as instructed earlier by Gamzee and destroying any and every camera in that general area. She finished quickly, destroying things didn't take much effort after all, and hastily returned to her shrunken friends. Jade unshrunk the rest of them, minus herself, John and the ship, then they all flew over to the battleship.

Dave's heart was beating so fast he thought it would jump right out of his chest. What was he going to do? He couldn't fight, not anymore. He was just the dead weight of this team, he'd probably end up getting them all killed. He'd end up being the one to ruin all of this, all of their hard work. All of Karkat's hard work. After everything Karkat did, preaching hour after endless hour and being executed to have his work destroyed by his own matesprit made Dave wince.

"Alright, this is what we're going to do." Dave accidentally flew into Jade, he didn't know Sollux had stopped their group to give instructions. "First of all, we're not gonna die." Sollux lisped out, Dave rolled his eyes behind his eyes. Obviously they wouldn't do that...though Dave couldn't help but feel...maybe he could intentionally throw himself in front of a sword or something... "Second of all this should hopefully be quick and simple. Roxy can do her invisibility shit and roam down halls ahead of us checking for any threats. Once we get every single little obstacle out of the way we can look for the fish bitch herself. When we get to her hopefully she'll be distracted enough to where I can just use my psionics to stop her in her tracks. Worse case scenario is that she's already expecting us we're fucking doomed."

The Knight of Time zoned out during the Gemini troll's short, instructional speech. His mind was still elsewhere. Dave was over thinking this all way too much. He kept picturing scenes in his head where he somehow manages to mess everything up and get them all killed. He imagined the Empress capturing the rest of his friends and killing them off one by one all because he messed up. He didn't notice when Sollux finished his instructions and the others floated away, leaving Dave floating all alone. A good five minutes later is when the Knight of Time realised that he was left behind and quickly flew off after his friends.

It was already chaos in the battleship and they had barely begun their mission five minutes ago. Trolls and humans alike were on the floor. No blood was found so it was more likely that they were all knocked unconscious. The albino make floated there awkwardly for a moment, he didn't know where to go. He floated down the hall hoping to see more unconscious bodies to lead him to the rest of the group, like some fucked up version of the age old bread crumb trail, but no dice. He flew around some more, hoping that maybe there was some sort of "you are here" sign around this maze of a ship but sadly none was spotted.

He was starting to get worried. What if someone walked by and spotted him? What if they already captured his teammates? The possibilities were endless and it was those possibilities that forced Dave to fly a bit faster.

He found more unconscious bodies and assumed he was heading I the right direction. As he floated up several flights of stairs he envisioned their victory. He imagined the Condescension being banished or imprisoned. He imagined everyone cheering and celebrating over their newfound freedom. He imagined them building a nice little memorial statue for Karkat and placing it where all could see. Picturing this caused a little smile to tug at the corner of his lips.

The shrill screech of a familiar Libra troll yanked Dave out of his happy thoughts of victory and threw him into the cold reality that his friends were in trouble. His smile faded as he slowly floated towards the sound of Terezi's terrified yelling. He thought of retrieving his sword to have some method of protection but something inside of him held him back from taking it out of his sylladex. More unconscious trolls and humans were scattered on the floor, weapons laid down besides them. No bloodshed so far.

Another yell, Roxy's this time, made Dave cringe. Shit was going down and it was highly possible that Dave was meant to be their saviour. The yells of all his friends intermingled as he drew closer, the cackle of the Condence was sneaking its way into that mix. His heart was trying to beat out of his chest once more as he turned the corner as floated down a hallway. He was so close, he could see the shadows of his friends dancing on the wall.

Dave didn't know exactly what happened. It was like something inside of him snapped.

The Knight of Time hesitantly peeked around the doorframe and into the rather large room. It looked like some sort of control room. His eyes slid over darted to the left to see Sollux quickly and horribly connected to the ship. The Gemini troll had streaks of yellow cutting down his cheeks and his jaw was clenched in concentration. This was the Helmsman room. Dave looked to the right to see the Empress battling off Roxy and Terezi with the smaller drone that had aided her in the execution of Karkat Vantas.

That was what triggered Dave.

His sword popped out of his sylladex and fell into his open palm. He swiftly and quietly floated in, pressing up against the wall. Luckily none of the others noticed he was here, he just kept quiet as he crept alongside the wall. Anger bubbled deep inside of him. It was like a personal "fuck you" to Dave seeing the Empress working alongside the drone that had aided in the murder of his now deceased boyfriend.

He silently flew a closer to the Condescension, her focus was set on Roxy who kept appearing and reappearing in different places. This was his chance.

It all happened so fast that no one saw it coming. Terezi never even smelt it coming. One second The Condescension was jabbing and poking the two girls who were fighting her, the next second her head is rolling away from her body which had collapsed to the floor.  Fuchsia blood streamed out of her stumped neck. Terezi and Roxy stopped fighting to look up to see Dave, holding his sword the had a fresh coat of fuchsia blood on it.

It was over, they were free.