It was the strangest feeling when Karkat woke up. He felt misplaced, well rested and somewhat younger, somehow. The misplacement cleared up soon enough; he was back in the central terminal room, resting against his desk. How he got there he had no idea. Being well rested seemed easy to explain; he had just woken up from who knows how much sleep. The third feeling was harder to explain. It was just something odd in the back of his head.
Ten other trolls were strewn around the room, all asleep and looking physically fine. This intrigued Karkat to no end, as he knew for a fact that at least half of them were supposed to be dead. Finally, he turned his head the other way and noticed that Sollux was wearing his anaglyph glasses again, the bloody trail on his shirt missing and his mouth full of teeth.
To say Karkat was momentarily very very confused was an understatement.
The first thing that came to mind when the confusion cleared was that these guys were all heavily armed, very dangerous and likely to be as confused as he was. So Karkat did what he never thought he would do -- he went around and took away their weapons.
One thing he noticed was that there were a whole lot less weapons to snatch than he remembered. A quick glance at his own inventory confirmed it; they only had the weapons they had started with in the first place. No more Homes Smell Ya Later, no more Regisickle... it was all gone. Karkat couldn't complain though, it made his task easier.
Finding a bundle of unused cables under the desk, Karkat made sure that Eridan, Vriska and Gamzee, the most insane motherfuckers he knew, wouldn't be able to go on a rampage the moment they woke up. He dragged them all to Equius' desk and tied them to the specially reinforced table legs.
Karkat pondered the stack of murder tools he had collected, sitting in the middle of the room, the Flourite Octet topping it off. What would stop these guys from running up and taking back their stuff? But if their inventories had reset, maybe their fetch modi had too, Karkat considered, and the only ones able to crack his Encryption modus within a minute or so were Equius and Sollux...
As Karkat placed his last remaining sickle on the pile, he focused on the trick. He had to captchalogue the entire pile as a whole, he considered. It was an awfully big pile, even if each of them only had one weapon to contribute...
Just as the others started to rise, Karkat snapped up the pile of weapons and deposited a large, heavy safe-like container in its place.
"Gamzee", Karkat started as he finished his little round, "you okay?"
Gamzee remained silent for a moment before answering. "Yeah buddy I'm okay I think", he slurred, the influence of sopor slime pies inexplicably present. "My head's swimming like a motherfucking indoor pool though, sup with that?"
"We all got a second chance, Gamzee. Remember those four human kids?"
Gamzee nodded slowly.
"They left us a way out of this place, dude. We can go now."
"Seriously, amigo?"
"What the fuck is an amigo, Gamzee?"
"Fuck if I know."
Karkat considered his worst best friend's state for a moment, then reached over and untied him, ignoring the pleas from Vriska and Eridan.
"Gamzee, do you still have some of those goddamned pies?"
"I think so, brother."
"Give one to Feferi and go to the alchemy room with her", Karkat ordered. He turned to Feferi, who was already standing by expectantly. "Feferi, get us as many pies as you can pay for and carry. We'll need them."
Feferi just glubbed in acceptance and skipped away, Gamzee following behind her.
"Alright, now that that's covered, we might as well continue down this road", Karkat exclaimed as the clown and the heir apparent disappeared. "Equius!"
"...Yes?"
"I need you to go around and collect as much building material as you can carry. Hell, get someone else to help. We need wall panelling, any kind of hardware that seems adaptable, scrap metal, tubing, whatever!"
"And you require me to do this, why?"
"Cos you're freakishly strong and can actually collect those things. I mean, have you even seen those goddamned wall panels? Anyway, I don't know where on Earth we'll end up, so I wanna be prepared and able to build some adequate fucking shelter, okay horse douche?"
Equius was, as he was wont to do, perspiring heavily. "Very well... leader."
"Hey Karkles", Terezi giggled. "Can I come with and help carry?"
"If you want to spend that long with a sweaty asshole, be my goddamn guest, Rezi."
When Feferi and Gamzee returned, Gamzee seemed troubled by something.
"Karkat, my man, I really appreciate all these motherfuckin' pies but something's been tickling my motherfuckin' mind, brother."
"What's that, fuckwit?" Karkat asked.
"What did you mean with 'we'll need them', bro? That doesn't seem like something you'd mother..."
Gamzee started to trail off in mid-swear, a sudden realization crossing his mind. He slouched towards the nearest reflective surface, one of the computer screens, and stared at his face. Slowly, he raised a hand and traced the three lines he had carved into his face before, with Nepeta's claws, after he had strangled Equius and he...
What happened next, nobody in the room had seen coming. They all expected Gamzee to go insane right there and then, but instead he sunk to his knees and started crying, clutching his face and ironically smearing the paint, sobbing about the horrible things he had done.
Carefully, Nepeta approached the crying clown, subconsciously rubbing the wrist that he had broken.
"Gamzee?" she whispered.
"Stay away from me chica", came the barely understandable reply. It wasn't so much a warning as it was a a plea.
"No, Gamzee. You're back to your usual self now and I'm not afraid of you."
"They're still in there, those two motherfuckers. What if it happens again?"
"It won't. That's why you and Feferi got all those pies, remember?"
"But what if they run out, chica? What then?"
Nepeta didn't have an answer for that, but Karkat had. "We'll cross that bridge when we fuckin' get there, now man your shit up and get ready to cross over."
Gamzee honked sadly as Nepeta nodded to Karkat's answer and carefully hugged the big lug. He blew his nose in a comically large handkerchief, ruining the last bits of face paint and slowly got back up.
"You're right, brother. I'll go get my stuff."
"We all will, Gamzee."
A meek voice interrupted the mood. "Uhhh, guys? I think I have a little, uh, problem here?"
Tavros was slumped against the wall, his legs completely organic and utterly useless.
"I, eh, kinda can't feel my legs, guys. What do?"
"I believe I woold be able to assist the lowblood with that", Equius said as he returned with his arms and sylladex full of stuff, and a big sack slung over his back with even crap. "Again. I noticed the boy's state as I left on my mission, which I trust to have completed most excellently, so I made certain to bring the required components to create a new pair of robotic prostethics."
"Yeah", Terezi groaned, pulling a hefty sack of her own behind her. "Had to go all the way to the other side of the meteor to get it though."
"But, uhh, I still have my old legs, guys. How can you give me robot legs when, uhmm...?"
"The same way we did last time. Cut them off."
"But didn't Karkat, umm, take away our weapons? I mean, he even got my lance."
"But he didn't get my lipstick", Kanaya interrupted. "I suppose he failed to notice that it is not just an ordinary tube of lipstick at all."
With a flick of the wrist, Kanaya's lipstick transformed into a very real and very functional chainsaw. "Vriska, if you would be so kind as to provide some anasthetic?"
Karkat facepalmed very harshly at his oversight.
"That's a little difficult with my hands tied", Vriska quipped. "But this is Toreadoofnak we're talking about soooooooo..."
Karkat was out of the room just in time. There was no better excuse to go pack his bags than that...