Constants & Variables - Act 2.9

[nobrandhero]

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Kanaya's denizen didn't attack her. As far as Jade could tell, it didn't do anything at all. She remembered all too well stepping up to confront Echidna and having to dodge a quill-covered tail almost as soon as she passed the threshold, but Kanaya received no such welcome.

Despite being the same denizen in a separate session, Echidna let Kanaya approach without harm. She even appeared to be speaking to her. Jade fast-forwarded through the timeline, almost afraid to look in case Echidna struck after all and she was about to watch Kanaya die a sudden, spiky death. Instead Kanaya turned away and left unscathed.

No sooner had she stepped outside than the volcano on her planet roared to life. The forge was lit and the water levels were already beginning to lower, yet Echidna wasn't even dead.

GG: what happened?? o___o
GA: We Talked Mostly
GA: It Was Surreal But Good I Think
GG: she didnt threaten you at all?
GA: No
GA: She Tried To Give Me Something Called The Choice
GA: But She Could Not Access It For Some Reason
GA: Her Words Turned To Static Every Time She Tried
GA: So She Gave Up And Just Lit The Forge Anyway
GG: all these buggy side effects in your game really dont bode well..... :\
GG: but at least it means you didnt have to fight her!
GA: I Wonder
GG: ?
GA: If Perhaps We Arent Meant To Fight Them At All
GG: hmmmmmmm maybe thats unique to sburb?
GG: cos the ones in sgrub were reeeeally aggressive
GA: I Will Be Cautious In Noting That Denizens Are Unpredictable In My Writings Then
GA: If We Cannot Determine What Causes The Hostility Present In Your Session
GG: yeah thats probably best
GA: I Should Let Karkat Know That The Water Is Going Down And We Will Be Able To Complete Our Frog Hunt Soon
GG: yay!!! :D

Managing her Trollian chat windows soon became a juggling act. It was bad enough that she had to choose when to hop in during the timeline and when to let it flow without her influence, but she also swapped between Kanaya's window and Karkat's. She almost forgot to pause the timeline on the unused chat more than once.

She'd known that the frog breeding overlapped with the beginning of the glitched up area on their timeline, but she hadn't expected that they'd be so close to finishing the genesis frog as the glitch neared. It made it all the more nerve-racking as they slowly but surely were running out of frogs they needed to collect.

It was almost painful to call the hunt off when they were almost done, but the timing was too close to risk.

GG: hey karkat?
GG: you should head back to kanaya soon
GG: youre about five minutes from the glitch and we still havent figured out what causes it
EB: YEAH, GOT IT, JUST LET ME GRAB THIS LAST DAMN FROG.

She almost argued, but he was already diving at the bright-colored frog before she could type a single word. She closed one eye, almost afraid to peek when he was moving recklessly soooo close to the edge of a hill. He snatched the frog before it could hop off the cliff and tossed it into his sylladex immediately -- he'd learned to do that after one peed on him when he held it too long.

Triumphant, he made a sharp turn and promptly fell down the cliff after all. Jade winced, but it wasn't too far of a fall and he landed safely on his feet, no sign of broken bone.

GG: clutz :p
EB: THAT WASN'T FUCKING ME. THE GROUND GAVE OUT.
GG: suuuure ;) that is definitely the story we will give the others!
EB: JADE, THIS ISN'T FUCKING FUNNY. I CAN'T MOVE.
GG: what?

Something did look odd, and he wasn't moving more than a couple inches at a time, but she hadn't thought anything of it until he mentioned it. She zoomed in on the viewport, her eyes going wide. She changed the angle just to be sure she was seeing it right.

He wasn't right against the hill as she'd assumed; he was inside of it, as if it was intangible.

GG: youre clipping through the ground O_O
GG: umm
GG: ummmm that is definitely not supposed to happen!!
EB: NO SHIT! HOW DO I GET OUT?
GG: i
GG: i dont know?? this never happened to us
EB: WHAT
GG: you really can't move out of it?
EB: NO. IT'S LIKE
EB: FUCK, I DON'T KNOW, IT'S LIKE I'M STUCK IN JELLY OR SOMETHING.
EB: I CAN ALMOST MOVE, BUT WHEN I GET TOO FAR IT SNAPS ME BACK INTO PLACE.
GG: let me contact someone else for help!
EB: WAIT, DON'T GO

She moved her cursor to check each of the other ten remaining humans, even the ones who refused to talk to her, but none of them were close enough to reach him before the glitch activated. Even Kanaya was clear on the other side of the planet, working with the appearifier again. Jade wished she could go back in the timeline and warn Kanaya to stick closer to her frog breeding partner, but she didn't dare play with time and risk making another doomed timeline.

She scanned the area around Karkat and was relieved to at least find a Gate nearby. That opened up their options a little. Karkat's friend TC (she still hadn't caught on to everyone's names yet) was the closest distance to the connecting gate. Unless he was much faster than he looked, he'd still be too late, but it was better than nothing.

-- gardenGnostic [GG] began trolling terminallyCapricious [TC] --

GG: karkats in trouble on loraf!!
TC: WeLl ShIt. ThAt's A rEaL eAsY wAy To RuIn A mOtHeRfUcKeR's DaY.
TC: iS mY gOoD bRo KeEpInG hImSeLf AlL rIgHt?
GG: i dont know D:
GG: i hope so!!!
GG: but if you can scoot off and find the gate to loraf that would be a lot safer i think!
TC: AnYtHiNg FoR a BrOtHeR, mAn. :o)
TC: hOnK.

-- terminallyCapricious [TC] ceased pestering gardenGnostic [GG] --

To be safe, she scanned for the second closest human who could help as well. She thought this one was called Nepeta? She had been mean before (though it was understandable, now that she knew what Dave had pulled), but it was worth a try.

-- gardenGnostic [GG] began trolling arsenicCatnip [AC] --

GG: ok i know you want to eat me and probably dont want to hear from me
GG: but karkats in danger on loraf and youre one of the closest players who can reach him!
AC: :33 < *blinks* karcats in trouble?
GG: yes!! your game is about to be infected and he got caught clipping through a graphical glitch
AC: :33 < *ac paces a bit as she ponders the wisdom of trusting a wicked troll*
AC: :33 < *in the end, she decides karkats safety is more impurrtant than the risk she is being tricked*
AC: :33 < i will go to karcats aid! *she says bravely*
AC: :33 < but furst i have to scrounge up my brother or he will have a hissyfit that i went adventuring without him again

-- arsenicCatnip [AC] ceased pestering gardenGnostic [GG] --

Jade let out a sigh of relief. As frustrating as they were to deal with, at least the humans were good teammates to each other! For one final effort, she sent Kanaya a short warning that she should track down Karkat as well. With that, she hoped the rescue party was as sufficient as she could make it.

She returned to Karkat less than five seconds after she'd left him, from his point of view.

GG: no one is close enough that they can reach you before the glitch starts up
GG: tc and some others are coming though!!
EB: GREAT. THAT'S EXACTLY WHO I WANT TO SEE IN AN EMERGENCY. A HIGH JUGGALO.
GG: i thought you were friends?
EB: GAMZEE IS MY BEST FRIEND AND MY SURPRISE ECTO-BROTHER. THAT DOESN'T MEAN HE HAS A FUNCTIONING BRAIN.
EB: HAVE YOU ASKED HIM WHAT HIS FUCKING CLOWN OBSESSION IS ACTUALLY ABOUT LATELY? HE CAN'T FUCKING TELL YOU, BECAUSE HE'S TOO GODDAMN THICK TO NOTICE THE "IRONIC HIPSTER BIGOTRY JK IT'S FUNNY SO IT'S NOT OFFENSIVE" CULTURE THAT CROPPED UP AROUND IT. HE JUST SAYS "hAhA kArKaT wE dOn'T aLlOw ThAt KiNd Of MoThErFuCkInG bEhAvIoR iN tHe DaRk CaRnIvAl" IF I TELL HIM WHAT THE SHITBAG JUGGALOS AT MY SCHOOL HAVE PULLED.
EB: THAT'S THE KIND OF IDIOT YOU CALLED TO BE MY SAVIOR.
GG: um :x sorry i guess?? i dont really know what that means
EB: IT MEANS YOU FUCKED UP, BUT WHAT ELSE IS NEW? YOU'RE NO LESS INCOMPETENT THAN THE REST OF US.
EB: WHAT KIND OF SHITTY GAME IS THIS ANYWAY? DID THEY NOT PLAYTEST THE DAMN THING? WE'RE ALREADY WAITING ON ANOTHER GLITCH TO ACTIVATE, HALF THE ENEMIES ARE BORKED, AND NOW THEY CAN'T EVEN GET THEIR DAMN ART ASSETS TO STAY SOLID.
GG: sgrub didnt have glitches! i do not know why sburb would be any different!
EB: WHAT IF I CAN'T GET UNSTUCK?
GG: dont be such a cynic you grump! why wouldnt we be able to pull you free??
EB: I WAS JUST THINKING ABOUT THE TIME I GLITCHED INTO THE SCENERY IN ONE OF GAMZEE'S XBOX GAMES. THE ONLY WAY I COULD FREE MY PLAYER WAS TO RELOAD THE WHOLE DAMN THING FROM THE LAST SAVE STATE.
EB: JADE, WE DON'T HAVE FUCKING SAVE STATES.
GG: and you are not digital! it will be okay karkat shoooosh just give your friends a few minutes
EB: BUT IT'S STARTING TO HURT. :(
GG: how bad? :x
EB: REALLY FUCKING BAD. YOU THINK I'D WHINE FOR A PAPERCUT?
EB: HURTS LIKE IT'S SERIOUSLY GETTING HARD TO GODDAMN BREATHE LEVELS OF BAD, OKAY?
GG: D:
EB: OH GOD OH FUCK
EB: I THINK IT'S SOLIDIFYING
EB: WHERE THE FUCK IS AN IMP WHEN YOU NEED ONE?
EB: I DON'T WANT TO DIE TO A FUCKING HILLSIDE
GG: calm down! it will be okay just hang in there!

She paused Trollian and dug her palms into her eyes. There had to be something she could do that didn't involve wrecking the timeline. There was less than a minute on Karkat's end before the glitch hit and there was no telling how much time he had left if the graphical error really was going to harm him. But if none of the other humans could reach him in time, what did that leave?

She swallowed. Maybe... She'd never tried to use her Space powers through another dimension, but if they still worked, freeing Karkat from a pesky graphical glitch would be a cinch.

It was probably pushing her limits, even as a God Tier, but there was no reason not to try.

Her powers normally came to her like second nature, but as she tried to focus them on the screen in front of her, they felt murky and just beyond her grasp. She bit bown on her bottom lip as she concentrated on targeting Karkat, on shifting the space around him enough that he could slip free.

The hillside glowed, then broke open in a spark of static, leaving a gaping hole in the ground. Instead of giving Karkat the chance to break away, the lack of hill holding him in place only resulted in him falling through the ground, into the inside of the planet. Static overwhelmed the viewport as the camera tried to follow him into the depths of LORAF.

GG: karkat?!?
GG: oh noooooooooooo D:
GG: karkat are you there???
EB: WHOEVER THE HELL DESIGNED THIS GAME...
EB: THEY HAD BETTER HAVE BEEN FIRED, BLACKLISTED FROM THE INDUSTRY, AND HELD UP AS AN EXAMPLE TO ALL WHO FOLLOWED: HERE STANDS THE BIGGEST DOUCHEBUCKET TO WALK THE EARTH, SECOND ONLY TO THE E.T. ATARI GAME.

The add-on Dave had collected from Terezi activated as Karkat sent his messages, the static letting up. Visibility was still iffy at best, but at least she could see Karkat through the static.

He picked himself up off the... ground, she supposed it was, even though there was nothing beneath him but an endless expanse of whiteness. LORAF's ground was above him; otherwise, the only deviation in the empty scenery was the constant flittering mass of glitching static.

GG: o__o that was kind of unnecessarily vulgar
GG: but at least youre ok!!
EB: GLAD SOMEONE THINKS SO. I WAS PRETTY SURE I MUST BE DEAD.
EB: WHAT THE HELL IS THIS PLACE?
GG: im not sure
GG: it looks like... an area of a game that was never meant to be reached by players
GG: like out of bounds
GG: and thats why there are no graphics down there maybe?
EB: IS THAT WHY IT'S SO DAMN BUGGY TOO?

The cloud of static billowed about the area, as if pushed by wind. It swirled around Karkat and kept slipping in close, but a dark red barrier the same hue as his Blood aspect glowed around Karkat every time the static got too near. It repelled the cloud back somehow, just before it could make contact.

The more she watched the static's odd behavior, the more it looked... familiar.

"Rose?" she said.

"One moment," Rose muttered. "Eridan's being a major pain in the-"

"Rose!" Jade said, barely daring to even blink, let alone glance away from her monitor. "I need you to confirm something, because if this is what I'm afraid it is, it's really, really serious!"

At that Rose was by her side in an instant, eyes narrow as she studied the viewport. Her lips went thin. "Oh god. Jade, tell Karkat to get the fuck away from it."

Jade's bloodpusher plummeted. She'd hoped she was making unnecessary connections -- after all, clouds of glitchy static probably looked alike and it seemed rash to assume this was the same as the one she'd seen before -- but if it made Rose panic that easily, it really was the same static cloud that had exploded from their endgame door. It was the same thing that was controlling Daveglitch.

GG: karkat you need to get out of there!
EB: ...
EB: OKAY WELL LET ME JUST SPROUT FUCKING WINGS AND PRACTICE MY FLYING TECHNIQUES RIGHT BACK UP TO THE SURFACE OF THE PLANET LIKE A MAGICAL BUTTERFLY
EB: OBVIOUSLY THAT'S A THING I CAN DO.
GG: this is serious!!! i am pretty certain thats the exact same glitchy stuff thats mind controlling my friend and trying to kill us!
EB: OH WELL IN THAT CASE
EB: I'M *STILL FUCKING SCREWED*
EB: SEEING AS THE WAY I FELL IN IS ABOUT TEN GODDAMN FEET ABOVE ME AND I CAN'T EVEN TOUCH IT IF I JUMPED, LET ALONE CLIMB OUT OF IT ENTIRELY
EB: AND I'M STILL NOT GETTING ANY RESULTS ON THAT SUDDEN WING SPROUTING PLAN
GG: do you have anything in your inventory that could help???
EB: YOU THINK I ALCHEMIZED A FUCKING LADDER?
EB: HOW LONG UNTIL GAMZEE GETS HERE? OR AM I TWELVE SECONDS FROM A VIOLENT MIND CONTROL-INDUCED DEATH?
GG: well its not harming you so far which is a good thing
GG: maybe it doesnt work on humans?
GG: but when it possessed our friend it happened right away :(
GG: so i dont know why it is taking its time! hopefully your friend gets there fast enough!
EB: HE PROBABLY STOPPED TO COMMENT TO HIMSELF ON THE COLOR OF THE SKY OR SOMETHING.
EB: "WhAt a bEaUtIfUl mIrAcLe tHaT ThE SkY'S So mOtHeRfUcKiNg bLuE, wHiCh iS CoMpLeTeLy nOt sCiEnCe-rElAtEd oR AnYtHiNg iN AnY WaY."
GG: i will see if i can still check on him :\

She expected Gamzee's viewport to be glitched out like Karkat's when she switched to it, but it was clear. When she peered closer, the glitched up markings on the timeline bars started on Karkat's a smidge earlier than on any of the others. She didn't like to hypothesize what that implied.

Gamzee wasn't moving as fast as she'd have liked, but he was on LORAF at least and getting near.

GG: he is almost there!!
EB: WATCH ME DIE TWO SECONDS BEFORE HE GETS HERE JUST SO THIS GAME CAN SPITE ME ONE FINAL TIME.

Jade let out a sigh of relief as Gamzee poked his head down into the hole Karkat had fallen through. Karkat jumped and spun on him, probably screaming obscenities at him for startling him. Jade chuckled, but when she glanced up, Rose's face was still covered in a grim expression that sent a chill down Jade's torso pillar.

With a careless smile, Gamzee reached as far down as his arm could go and lowered one of his juggling clubs into Karkat's reach. Once Karkat had a hold of it, he started to pull him up and out of the static.

The glitch curled tightly in on itself until it was a mass of static so dark it almost looked black. As Karkat caught Gamzee's hand for the final pull to freedom, the glitch shot up like a giant, dark bullet. It burst out of the hole with such ferocity that Gamzee fell backwards, while Karkat flew up a few feet, glowing red again, before landing safely on the ground next to Gamzee.

Once outside, the glitch exploded.

Static spilled across the air like a dark cloud, expanding every direction so fast that Jade couldn't see any unaffected land within two seconds. LORAF lit up in sparks and static, and game objects that had previously been stable turned to graphical glitches, warping and disappearing for short moments.

It reminded Jade of the worst storms her hive had endured: wind whipping rain at the windows, tearing at tree branches, obscuring visibility so she couldn't see even five feet outside... But instead of rain and lightning, there was static and glitching coating all of Sburb.

Gamzee sat up, the movement jerky and stiff. The usual ease on his face was missing, replaced with a grimace.

She hadn't noticed at first with the environment as distracting as it was, but Gamzee had taken the full brunt of the hit as the glitch broke out of its little out-of-bounds cave. He was coated in static, his limbs glitching into impossible contortions, just like Daveglitch.

"Oh no," Jade whispered.

She couldn't hear them, but Karkat was clearly yelling at Gamzee again as he got to his feet. His furrowed brow and deep scowl lessened at whatever Gamzee said. He took a step back, his eyes going wide. Gamzee followed each step, his weapons dropping into his hands from his specibus.

Karkat scrambled backwards until he almost stumbled on a glitched snag in the ground. He grabbed one of his sickles, holding it up towards Gamzee with a shaking arm. Despite the attempt at an offensive position, he refrained from striking even as Gamzee grew nearer.

Gamzee raised a club and Karkat clenched his eyes shut.

"No!" John yelled.

Jade jumped. At some point, John and Dave had joined Rose in watching Jade's viewport from over her shoulder. If Dave had a reaction, his shades hid it, while John looked almost panicked.

Just before Gamzee could land the blow, Nepeta blurred into view. She slashed her weapon at Gamzee's face, landing a direct hit as she made deep cuts across his features. Gamzee didn't even stumble from the hit, but he stood in a startled daze just long enough for Nepeta to snag Karkat's wrist and run away.

Nepeta's brother -- Equius? Was that what Karkat had called him once? -- hadn't been far behind her and they ran past him in their escape. Instead of following them, he stood his ground, acting as a deterrent to their pursuer.

Jade assumed he was bracing for a fight, but as Gamzee approached, Equius... didn't do anything. He stood in the way, but he wouldn't raise even a fist. Nepeta and Karkat came to a halt to yell at him, either to hurry up and follow them or to raise a weapon -- it was difficult to tell which. Whatever was going on, he refused to lay a hand on Gamzee, even as Gamzee's arm shot out towards his neck.

Gamzee pinned Equius against the hillside -- right next to the hole where Karkat had been stuck -- and pressed down on his throat. Nepeta abandoned her escape attempts and dove at Gamzee, her weapons going for the kill, but even one-handed Gamzee was ready to block her attack. He countered immediately.

Jade had to look away at first glimpse of the blood splatter. She could handle gore and death -- she'd survived for six sweeps hunting at Bec's side -- but these weren't wild fauna meant to sustain her. They were sapient creatures, aliens she was trying to help, and there wasn't anything she could do to save them.

Rose cringed and even Dave's mouth twitched.

"We gotta be able to do something!" John said, eyes darting between the three of them but holding on Rose in particular. "Right?"

"From a universe away, I'm afraid our few options are less than efficacious," Rose said quietly.

"All we can do is watch?" John said, crestfallen.

Rose visibly swallowed. "Call it documenting and studying events in hopes we can prevent a repeat."

Jade nodded, forcing herself to look again. Rose was right; they had to do this no matter how uncomfortable it was.

Nepeta and Equius were both collapsed and unmoving on the ground, blood pooling out from Nepeta's lifeless body. Tears streaked down Karkat's cheeks (John let out a whimper) as Gamzee advanced on him again, but he held his sickles with more purpose; his grip didn't look slack and half-assed like last time.

They exchanged blows and that was all it took to see that Karkat was completely outmatched. He managed to block the strike aimed for his head, but it was undoubtedly a lucky break.

Jade was pretty sure that, if Karkat died in the game at all, it at least wasn't this early in the timeline, but she still feared for his life all the way up to the moment that Kanaya reached the scene. Kanaya darted over and struck Gamzee with such a ferocious kick that he actually fell back, going so far as to hesitate when she lunged towards him again.

No sooner had she equipped her lipstick, its blade whirring with such ferocity that Jade could almost hear the roar of the motor, Gamzee hightailed it. He snatched Equius and Nepeta's corpses as if they weighed nothing, taking any chance of reviving them, and he left behind a trail of static as he disappeared through a flickering, glitched Gate.

Both remaining humans dropped to their knees. Kanaya wrapped her arms around Karkat's shaking shoulders, holding him close, and he clung to her.

Trollian apparently decided it had been too long since they'd received a fresh signal, as the add-on timed out on that image. The viewport gradually filled with static until both humans were obscured from view.

They still stared at the monitor in silence for another moment.

"Holy fuck," John whispered. Jade hadn't noticed before that he was clinging to Rose's hand. "So that's where the glitch came from?"

Dave scoffed, running a hand through his hair as if he could actually hide his agitation as indifference. "And we still don't even have a goddamn explanation for it."

Rose frowned deeply. "Jade, it was just... waiting beneath the surface of Kanaya's planet this whole time?"

Jade lowered her head. "Well... I accidentally broke the game's graphics open when I tried to free Karkat from clipping out of a hill. That's when he fell out of bounds and we found the glitch there."

"Shit," Rose muttered, rubbing her temple. "We may need to go backwards in the timeline if we can expect to find any explanations for why there's a fucking mind controlling glitch sitting in the background programming of their damn game. If there even is an explanation and it's not a completely random eccentricity."

"But that doesn't even make sense." Jade groaned. "What's so different between our versions of the game? Why is theirs covered in bugs when ours was fine? What's wrong with Sburb that it houses a giant glitch deep in its bowels when the only glitch we ever found in Sgrub was-" She stopped suddenly, eyes going wide. "Oh no."

"What?" John said.

She slowly held her hands over her mouth. "Oh nooooo." She turned to Dave. He'd been there too, so if she was wrong... if she had it wrong, he'd know. He could correct her. She hoped so much he was going to correct her. "Dave... Dave, the frog glitch... We made their Genesis Frog out of a glitch."

The other three went silent.

"Oh god." Rose collapsed onto the nearest chair, staring at the floor. John put his arm around her, papping her half-heartedly as if he wasn't even aware of his own actions.

"Wait, c'mon, it was just a harmless shortcut," Dave said, his emotionless facade giving way to the same guilty nervousness Jade suspected they were all feeling. "There's no way this was our fault."

Rose shook her head. "It wasn't harmless. How many times have any of us exploited a bug in a video game and watched our system freeze? Our inventory lock up? Our save file turn corrupt?"

No one could find the words to argue. Jade's stomach felt like a boulder. She should have done her Space player duties properly. She should have traipsed around her planet with Dave in search of the frogs like Kanaya and Karkat had done.

"But you're sure that's what caused it?" John said quietly.

Rose sighed and stared up at the lab's large viewport, the one with the countdown ticking over a wide shot of Sgrub. Their Genesis Frog was visible in the distance. It used to be the one comfort in the midst of the session that Daveglitch was steadily destroying. "We all know what a seemingly minor glitch can do beneath the surface of a game." She rested her hand over John's. "This one resulted in a Genesis Frog that houses homicidal monsters."

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