> Be John again.
It seems as if you’re attempting to be John
again, with the expectation that we might spend a little more
quality time with him in his cubicle of misery and self-loathing.
You guessed we might really start to unpack his depression issues.
Get to the bottom of all that. Well, nice try. John can’t be here
right now, because he’s stuck somewhere in the harrowing nexus
between canon, post-canon, non-canon, outside canon, and fanon. He
also can’t be here right now because, for the time being, we’re
done wasting our breath on such a sad loser. It’s well overdue for
the true hero of this tale to take center stage.
> Be Vriska.
Lord English stands before you in all his
time-eating, universe-ending glory. You rode in here like a total
badass, and now you’re presiding over a whole host of ghosts ready
to throw themselves once more into the maw of this final battle.
You know that this isn’t your battle to win, but you are definitely
the sign of the tide turning. Hell, you ARE the tide. This whole
thing would have been pretty dismal if you hadn’t shown up with the
treasure chest containing the ultimate weapon, not to mention your
flawless defeat of an obstructionist, hectoring, orange man, who
for reasons you cannot begin to comprehend seemed to be obsessed
with you.
You have already executed what is probably the most important
tactical maneuver ever performed by a hero in the history of
heroism: you deployed the white, house-shaped juju from the red
chest. It grew to an enormous size, slammed down on whatever was
passing for the floor in this esoteric battle environment, and a
door materialized on its surface. You now stand off to the side
looking especially pleased with yourself, waiting for the legendary
weapon to unload itself toward the hulking tyrant.
You’ve now got two bitches of either gender at your side: your
main girl Meenah, who you stole from that embarrassing past version
of yourself that you owned so hard you bet she’s probably
still crying. And Tavros. Not just any random ghost copy
of Tavros, of which there appear to be thousands. Your
Tavros, specifically, who’s been pathetically trailing after you
like a lost barkbeast since you showed up.
You’d be hard-pressed to describe what’s happening right now. If
they sent a poet, maybe he’d do better job of it. But they sent
someone who’s actually useful instead, so you’ll give it a
shot. It looks to you like the complete obliteration of space and
time, the end of all things, the disintegration of literally
thousands of ghosts. And no doubt your admirers out there would
love it if you described it all in painstaking detail, but you’re
not an executionist. You just call it like you see it, and what
you’re seeing right now is pretty awesome.
> Observe Lord English.
Kind of an overworked character design, you
think to yourself. If someone showed you a drawing like this on
their FLARP sheet you’d probably be obligated to immediately kick
their ass. There’s a lot going on, from his vein-popping muscles to
his eight-ball eyes to his pirate leg and his ostentatiously
bright, gold pimp cane. Years ago, you brutally criticized Terezi
for adding a dragon-head staff to her Redglare cosplay. The
argument that ensued was so bad she didn’t talk to you for an
entire week. Now that you’re seeing this, well... you wouldn’t
apologize to her, o8viously, but in retrospect maybe her
accessorizing wasn’t so bad. At least she understood the basics of
having a simplified silhouette.
MEENAH: im goin back fin
MEENAH: you comin vris
VRISKA: Of course!!!!!!!!
VRISKA: But give me a minute.
VRISKA: I want to SEE.
Meenah gives you a grin and a salute and
leaves you to it. This is what you always felt you were destined
for, somehow. Standing at the end of the universe and seeing how it
all goes down. Tavros is clinging to your arm like a little
crybaby, while crying, you assume, and probably soiling his dumb
little pair of shorts. But not you. You’re fearless. Your eyes are
so wide that it feels like you’re eating all the light through
them. That’s what you are, after all. The Thief of Light.
You crane back your neck and:
> Watch Lord English put a crack in
reality.
It’s beautiful. You thought maybe he’d do
something stupid, like punch the sky with his gross, throbbing
muscle arm? But all it takes for him to shatter the roof of
existence is a single, ear-splitting roar. Around him, the ghost
army scatters. Tavros flinches and hides his face in your shoulder,
and probably pisses himself again for good measure. But you...
Get smashed in the head?
It was so fast and dark you didn’t see it—the shard of
space-time that split off from above and hurtled toward you. Your
body rocks back, whiplash fast, and you nearly keel over. You’re
still standing though, and laughing. That’s what you were doing
when Lord English put a split in the fabric of reality. You were
laughing, not crying. It doesn’t hurt at all.
TAVROS: vRISKA,,, aRE YOU OKAY?
VRISKA: Shhut up!!!!!!!! I’m... I’m
You stagger back and put a hand to the head
wound. Your eyes spin. All eight of them. It’s not a big deal
though. Just a scratch. It’s fine fine F8NE.
Your hand comes away coated in thick blue. Your hair is soaked
with it all the way down on one side. Why is broken space-time so
sharp? Like splintered obsidian. Feels like it barely
grazed you, and yet...
Everything around you begins to spin, and you’re not sure if...
you can’t quite...
A stream of blood begins to leak in under your glasses. Noise
whirls around you: Lord English losing his shit, ghosts shouting,
moving, the broken-glass sound of the ceiling of space splitting
into hundreds of shards of potentiality. There’s a hum beneath all
of it, a deep, dark reverb, a black hole sucking everything into
the dark maw of infinity. You wipe your bloody hand on the leg of
your jeans and sneer with rage. You won’t go down so easily.
Tavros tries to steady you, but you slap his hand away.
VRISKA: Fuck 8ff!!!!!!!!
TAVROS: uHHH OKAY, iT LOOKS REALLY,,, kINDA,,,
eXTREMELY BAD,,,,,,, tHOUGH,
VRISKA: You’re so intolera8le! I... I need
to........
VRISKA: Tavros, g-go. Find... f8nd Meen8h.
TAVROS: i,
VRISKA: N8W T8VROS!!!!!!!!
Tavros scurries off into the fray to find
someone less worthless. You try to catch your bearings so that you
won’t miss a single instant of the battle, but you’re distracted by
something in the corner of your glasses. Your Trollian alert is
blinking. There’s a message from Terezi. How long has that been
there? Hours, days? You suddenly wonder if it’s been years from her
perspective, waiting for you to respond, given how time moves
differently out here. Were you too preoccupied with your incredible
heroic exploits to notice?
Focus, Serket. This is no time for sentimental thoughts. You
need to get a grip. Keep your head in the game, keep both feet
planted firmly... whoops.
Your feet slip. Without Tavros to keep you steady, you lose
balance and begin drifting. You try to regain your footing, but you
realize you aren’t in danger of falling over. That’s not the
problem. You can’t seem... to get your feet back on the floor? You
feel light. You’re... floating. You flail your legs, scraping the
tips of your shoes against the floor, but it’s no use.
You understand what’s happening. It’s the black hole.
It’s starting to lift you up.
You glance wild-eyed toward the glowing juju. Its four chambers
and peaked roof are pulsing with the energy of raw imminence. This
is it! Everything you’ve been waiting for, whatever it is, is about
to happen. Where’s Meenah? You desperately try to
stabilize yourself, slow your ascent, anchor yourself back to the
floor in some way. Any way. But there’s nothing to grab on to.
There’s blood in your eyes and your depth perception is fucked.
Your hand goes wide and your fingers close around empty space as
you reach impotently toward the glowing symbol of everything you
ever believed you were meant for.
This can’t be how it goes. As you continue to levitate, gaining
speed in the direction of the insatiable cosmic body, you can see
your blood trailing behind you in wet, cerulean blobs. The juju
glows brighter. You need to see what happens next. You NEED to
SEEEEEEEE! You’re so frantic, grasping for purchase in the empty
air, that you aren’t ready for it. Another black shard of
space-time hurtling through the void. It collides with your chest,
right at the place where your ribcage connects, and sends you
spiraling ever faster toward the deep, dark maw of infinity. A
black hole is something not even a god tier player can survive, you
suspect. And even if one could, you highly doubt there’d be any
clawing your way out of its event horizon and back into relevance.
Not this time. It’s a fate worse than anything you can imagine, and
as it truly sinks in—what is happening to you, how this is
ending for you—finally you lose all sense of composure.
You flail, spin, and flip in helpless little circles like a bloody
rag doll, and you begin to scream.
—
> JOHN: Emerge from the juju.
The first thing you hear is a tiny scream
getting sucked into oblivion. The voice is familiar, but not as
familiar as the second thing you hear, which is a
crack.
It’s not just a crack in your ears. This crack goes all the way
down your spine. You almost don’t react to it because it’s so
familiar. Around you, a cacophony rises up like steam.
DAVE: oh shit
DAVE: its really popping off out here
Dave’s voice reminds you that your teammates
have emerged from the house along with you. You survey the group.
Everyone is account for. Three confused, frightened teenagers.
You can’t see anything but big, bright smears all along the
horizon. You fish the two halves of your broken glasses out of your
pocket and hold them up to your face. The scene comes into focus:
the eye of a storm, a black hole so massive it stretches as far as
you can see. An army of ghosts swirling and screaming, whipping
around you like leaves in the wind, and at the center of it all is
Lord English, just like in your dream.
You can feel it now. The moment reality yawns too wide and snaps
in half.