Chapter Text
Dave Strider found himself checking the message on his phone for what was probably the fifth time since he left the base. He wasn’t nervous or anything, hells to the no, he just didn’t want to end up going in the wrong direction and fucking up his first alone mission because he never even got to the right damn place.
He quickly scanned over the assignment before pocketing his phone once again. The whole thing should actually be relatively easy all things considered. A seemingly pretty weak spirit, it’d only been spotted a few times and should be a simple kill. He tried to ignore the fact that this was probably why they decided to let him take this one alone in the first place.
Nearing the spot they had determined the spirit was, he placed a hand on his concealed sword. He’d been through this a million times probably with either Dirk or Rose or that fucker Eridan, on targets that had been way more dangerous than the one he was after at the moment. There was no need to worry, if he was stealthy enough, it might even be a real quick in and out thing before the fucking beast could start trying to pull any god damn mind tricks.
Slowing down, he carefully peaked into the alley where Rose had pinpointed the monster. It was difficult to focus on at first, the thing was so transparent. That was a pretty good sign, looks like it was just as weak as they’d thought, and it didn’t appear to notice him any either. Its arms pulling its knees to its chest, head resting on them as it leaned against the dumpster next to it. The thing looked skinny and tiny and downright fucking pitiful.
No way was he falling for that shit.
Drawing his sword, he carefully took a silent step into the alleyway. The thing still didn’t seem to notice him any, not showing any sign of moving in the slightest. Taking an even breath, he sprinted forward; sword in front of him, hoping to end this before the spirit even realized what was happening. Fucking one shot kill the thing and get the record on fastest kill in their whole organization.
He wasn’t that lucky however, the creature having noticed him and jumped out of the way at the last moment. Although to be fair, that jumping was more of a panicked flailing forward, the spirit then having to roll away from him when Dave quickly turned to skewer it where it lay on the alley ground.
“What the hell shitting fuck!?” the thing practically screeched, desperately dodging his attacks. Dave could see its face now, skinny, with nearly sunken in cheeks and deep as hell bags under its eyes. It was still scrambling to get away from him, looking pretty fucking terrified all things considered. He pushed down any sort of pity the image of it attempted to stir in him, if there was one thing he’d learned it was never trust these things for a fucking second.
This was going to be over quick though, it had clearly not been around long enough to gather the energy it would need to actually attack him, and it wasn’t doing the best at dodging him either, especially since he’d managed to catch it so off guard. Dave could see where he’d managed to slice it a few times already. There wasn’t any blood, just tears in the creature, slowly dissolving outward from the actual cuts.
Dave could not comprehend what had happened for a moment, having been mid swipe when his sword was no longer in his hands and he was being held up tightly against a wall.
“Just what do you think you’re doing, attacking that poor, helpless guy over there?” Focusing on the thing pinning him with its arm up against his neck, Dave tried to keep himself from freaking the fuck out. Oh shit, this was not how this was supposed to go down; he was not supposed to get tangled up with this god damn guy, alone too.
“Fucking hell, let go you fucking trickster” he felt the words coming out of his mouth without any thought. The creature continued speaking as if he hadn’t said anything however.
“Attacking someone who can’t defend themselves like that is a pretty shitty thing to do, don’t you think?” the Trickster asked him, frowning slightly. Dave could feel the elbow pushing into his throat press harder against him as the creature leaned even closer.
“You’re a bully, and if there’s one thing I hate,” it started, its expression turning angry, and Dave tried not to flinch when its face shifted from one of a pretty dorky looking kid all things considered, with bright blue eyes and glasses and teeth too big for his mouth, to a mangled mess of blood and burns, small bits of metal sticking out of some of the wounds, “it’s a bully,” it finished in a growl.
Dave was pretty sure he failed on the whole not flinching thing.
Before the thing was able to inflict any lasting damage on him Dave managed to pull his legs up, kneeing the spirit and pushing him far enough away that he was able to twist out of his grip. Grabbing his sword, he caught sight of the other spirit still there, standing a few feet away and staring at them. It was holding onto a rather large gash Dave had made on its arm, and looked positively frozen in shock.
Quickly looked back over at the trickster, it was still in its hideous mangled form, offset by the huge as fuck smile on its face.
Yeah no, he was not getting into it with this thing. Sometime you just needed to cut your losses and get the fuck out of dodge. Not turning his back on either of those monsters, he flashed out of the alley, quickly starting away in the most crowded direction he could find. If there was one thing good about these things, it was that they didn’t attack in crowds.
Once he was a significant enough distance from the alley, he sighed, leaning against the side of a building and gently touching where the spirit had pressed against him, already feeling a bruise starting to form.
Concealing his weapon again, not wanting to draw any more attention to himself, Dave started back into the actual direction of their headquarters, not looking forward to explaining what had happened.
Well, there went his chance to do something on his fucking own for once.
Once he reached the base, he walked inside to find Rose sitting in the front room, going over a few papers on the couch they had set out. Overall their set up was pretty casual, they even had spare bedrooms set up in the place in case anyone wanted to crash there for the night. Well, it was either casual or the place was filled with an absolutely unhealthy amount of workaholics.
Dave crashed onto the couch next to his twin, not saying a word and just waiting for the inevitable questions. He did not have to wait long.
“So, how did it go?” Rose asked, not glancing up from her work as she did. Dave got out his phone as he answered her, starting to mindlessly mess around on the thing.
“Almost got killed,” he told her truthfully. The girl quickly looked up at that, finally giving him a once over to check if he was alright. Apparently deciding that there wasn’t anything serious, she continued her questioning.
“What happened? All reports showed it was an exceptionally weak new spirit, you should have been able to demolish it,” she told him, and Dave nodded in agreement.
“Yeah, yeah, all those reports were spot on, no worries about that. Nearly killed the thing in less than five fucking minutes, was totally smooth sailing until the god damn Trickster showed up out of nowhere,” he explained, and Rose frowned as she listened. “So yeah, I hightailed it the hell out of there because I’m not a fucking idiot,” he finished.
“That was a smart move, I’ll go let Roxy know what happened. Were you hurt any?” she asked him, and Dave shook his head.
“Nah, just a little bruised up, it’s all good,” he said, and Rose nodded before leaving the room to go inform the others about the gist of what happened. He’d have to fill out a formal report later, but no one was expected to do them as soon as they got back from a mission.
After a few minutes of laying around in their front room Aradia came in, flipping through a book that Dave was happier not knowing the contents of. Don’t get him wrong, Aradia was a great person, but she tended to be on the slightly creepy side. Oh who the fuck was he kidding everyone in this god damn joint was weird as fuck.
“Hello Dave! How did the mission go? I heard it was a weaker spirit so I’m sure you were able to take care of it in a jiffy!” she told him, and he sighed, rolling around so that he was stretched out along the couch as he answered.
“Nah, the thing got away, that fucking trickster showed up and I had to book it,” he told her, and she frowned, nodding slightly.
“Oh that’s strange, I hadn’t noticed any sign of him when scouting out this new spirit with Rose, it seems you just had some bad luck,” she said after a moment.
“Yeah, it’s all good though, the thing might end up dying anyway, it took a couple of pretty good hits. It’d be hard for the thing to trick anyone for gathering energy in its state,” he added.
“That’s good, I’ll try to see if I can get a read on it, if the trickster is gone we can send someone to finish it off,” she told him, leaving the room to head off to her office. Office might have been too professional or sane a word though, more like spiritual voodoo meditation room.
It was about a half an hour later Rose came back into the room, sitting down on his legs which were still stretched out along half of the couch. He groaned, quickly trying to push her off before resigning himself to his fate and flopping back down.
“You’ll need to file a full report before we try anything, but talking with the others I think we’re going to try to target the trickster soon. He’s grown very strong in the relatively short time since he’d first appeared, and it’s starting to get very worrisome. We don’t need someone else as powerful as Sugar or Bloodhound running around,” she announced, and Dave couldn’t help but nod in agreement at that. He’d been up against Bloodhound before with Rose, wasn’t fun. He’d never fought Sugar personally, but fuck it seemed like she’d been around forever.
“Yeah, that would be a pretty bad move on our part. Isn’t this whole thing supposed to be taking them out before we get to that point where they can easily fucking kill us without any of their damn mind games?” he asked. Rose rolled her eyes as she answered.
“Yes that is certainly a part of this; shouldn’t you know that by now?” she asked him back in a slightly joking tone.
“Just checkin, no worries,” he told her. That was pretty much the gist was what they were doing though, taking out these soul sucking monsters before they got out of hand. There was also the part where they tried to destroy the ones that already had, but those were the really dangerous missions they tried not to go on very often.
“Dirk back yet?” he asked after a moment, trying to remember if anyone else was currently out on work. Roxy and Aradia were here, Equius and Nepeta were off today, so that just left Eridan and Feferi MIA.
“Not yet, you weren’t out all that long,” she answered. Dave frowned, trying to tell himself again that Trickster was at least a two person job, no one was gonna dispute him on that one bit. If it was just that one spirit he was supposed to go after he would have had the job done no freaking problem. He almost did have the thing killed just like that.
Dave shifted, managing to get his legs out from their prison and standing up, pocketing his phone as he did so.
“I’m gonna go fill out that report now,” he offered, walking back to where they kept the forms. It always weirded him out a bit how they had such normal shit like little cubbies full of official looking forms when they were literally freaking monster hunters, but fuck, it that’s what it takes to get the job done.
He quickly started going through the paper, making sure to detail everything that had happened. It was kind of tedious bullshit at times, especially when a plan went off without a hitch, but it was important in these kinds of scenarios, when targets either got away or other contrive fuckery went on. This probably counted as both of those things. Hopefully Aradia would be able to track that thing down again and they could finish it off as soon as Trickster left the scene.
If Rose was right they would go after him soon, which was probably a smart move. The longer they waited the more they chanced him becoming even stronger than he already was. Thankfully these things didn’t seem to need to eat as much as a human, not in the slightest, but the fact was Trickster was one of the more active spirits. They needed to take him out, and soon.
It was only a matter of time.
---
He had no idea what the fuck had just happened to him. Not a single god damn clue. In fact, this was the most confused he’d been in quite some time, which considering what he’d been going through recently was really fucking saying something. He wasn’t even capable of getting his brain to function enough to move at this point, it far too occupied with trying to replay the scene of what had just happened as well as process what was going on in front of him at this very moment.
He’d been moping in an alleyway like the god damn sack of shit that he is when suddenly he was fighting for his life from some absolute maniac with a sword. Well maybe not for his life but the point still stands. He was fucking toast too; he could barely keep himself from getting skewered let alone attempt to get away or hell fight back.
But then there wasn’t anyone attacking him anymore and before he could process if it had all been a fever dream he saw that someone was pinning the sword wielding lunatic against the wall and threatening him.
Which was certainly appreciated but then this Good Samaritan had to go and add onto the fucking nightmare fuel ruling his life for the past couple of days (or really fucking years but who was thinking that far back right?) and turn into a god damn charred bleeding body, still attacking Mr. Stab-Happy over here.
Then the guy who’d been attacking him managed to get away and his very bloody hero didn’t make any move to go after him.
Karkat kept his eyes locked on this guy now, ready to start running at any point if this fucking freak show so much as looked at him the wrong way. He doubted it would do him much good, since he’d managed to overpower the dude who had clearly wreaked Karkat in pretty much no time flat, but fuck it would be worth a try.
The person still there turned back towards him, his appearance shifting back to what he’d looked like when he’d first entered the alleyway, which is to say a pretty normal looking guy all things considered. He had a large smile on his face still, but it didn’t look anywhere as gut wrenchingly terrifying as it did when he was an animated mutilated god damn corpse.
“Hey, are you alright? It looks like he gave you quite a beating,” the other person said, coming towards him slightly. Karkat practically bristled as he took a step back for every one the other guy took forward. He knew there wasn’t anything even remotely threatening about himself, all fucking skin and bones, sickly as hell and looking like he hadn’t slept in a good month at the very least, but fuck that he wasn’t going down without a fight.
“What the hell was that?” he asked, not even entirely sure what he was talking about at this point. The other boy’s smiled turned to one of concern as he finally stopped walking towards him, apparently getting the hint about keeping his distance and personal space.
“A hunter, they can be pretty dangerous if you don’t watch yourself,” he explained, although if that was supposed to make any sense to Karkat it sure as fuck failed in that respect.
“A hunter of what? What the hell are you? How did you do that?” he could feel the panic start to grip at the edges of his mind and tried desperately to push it back. If anything, he at least wasn’t feeling any shortness of breath or racing heart, but then again how the fuck would he? The other boy’s expression quickly switched to one of realization before offering Karkat a sad smile.
“Wow, you’re really new aren’t you? Have you eaten at all yet?” he asked, and this would have just managed to confuse him further if Karkat didn’t already have a sickening feeling as to what he meant. God he didn’t want to think about that, he’d been hoping it had been a hell drenched nightmare, but fuck it was real wasn’t it, it had felt way too real.
“Yeah, I have,” he finally managed to say, cursing himself when his voice shook slightly. He didn’t even know this, this whatever he was in front of him, he was not supposed to be showing weakness like that. It just looked relieved though as it answered him.
“Oh great! That wouldn’t have been a fun thing to have to explain. You should really eat again soon though, it looks like you got hurt in that fight,” he advised, and Karkat had to keep himself from actually growling at the guy he was getting so pissed. He still had no clue what was going on and this dude was not helping in the slightest.
“You still haven’t told me what the fuck you are or how the hell you did that or who the fuck that sword wielding maniac was!” he yelled, and this guy just smiled at him as he answered. Fuck no, people were not supposed to smile while he was screaming at them, that was not how this was supposed to go down. At the very least show some fucking nervousness when you did it.
“Oh well, I’m the same thing as you. You’ll be able to change your appearance once you get stronger too, and yeah I did tell you, that was a hunter, it’s not like I know his name or anything like that, I don’t really get all that chummy with people trying to kill me,” he told him, and Karkat had to take a deep breath to continue.
“Alright, fair enough, but if that’s the case, what the fuck am I?” he asked, trying not to show how relieved he was that he actually had someone to ask this to.
Ever since he died he’d been in a state of confused panic and anger that he wasn’t sure was ever going to get any better. He’d never been religious but god damn he did not expect fucking Ghost Busters to be the ones right about the afterlife. The other being had started over towards the dumpster, quickly jumping on top of it as he turned to look towards the entrance of the alleyway.
“You’re a ghost! A spirit! A specter, ghoul, apparition, whatever you want to call it, you name it! I know it can be a pretty big shock at first, but you’ll get used to it, don’t worry,” he reassured. Karkat found himself falling in a heap on the alley ground, gradually losing the strength to stay standing and yell at this guy at the same time. Fuck he was tired, you think being dead would fix that problem but no.
The other spirit was in front of him in a heartbeat, concern clear on his face. Karkat wondered slightly if that was his real face, since apparently he could change it however he wanted. He decided at the very least those eyes had to be altered, they were practically glowing they were so blue (the teeth were probably real though, he couldn’t think of any reason why someone would give themselves buck teeth. Kind of worked for him though, maybe he knew that but why the fuck was he thinking about this god damn it he was getting distracted).
“Oh gosh, we have to get you something to eat soon, you’re really weak,” the other boy insisted, starting up away from him. Karkat tried to keep himself from grimacing as he thought about what he must have meant, but tried to tell himself that he didn’t know if he was right for sure.
“Fuck, when you say eat, do you mean what I think you mean? Like, you’re not gonna just run to the nearest Wendy’s and get me a god damn chicken sandwich are you?” he asked, and the spirit was laughing slightly as he answered.
“No, of course not! Although that does sound pretty good, but we need energy from people’s souls, yeah. You said you’ve done it before,” He answered, and Karkat couldn’t help the shudder that ran through his body.
“I didn’t know what I was fucking doing though! It was just god damn instincts and suddenly they weren’t moving anymore and just fuck!” he yelled, hands tangled up in his hair and he folded even farther in on himself. He was having an honest to god panic attack right now and those weird ass wounds that fucker had inflicted on him were getting bigger and more painful and weren’t helping him in the slightest. How the hell do you even cut a fucking spirit with a sword in the first place? Shouldn’t he have like phased right through that or something? The other spirit sighed slightly as he started talking again.
“I’m sorry your so upset about it, but that’s the only way you’re gonna survive this,” he told him, and Karkat’s head snapped up and he practically snarled at the other boy.
“I’m not a fucking killer!” he insisted.
“I’ll do all the hard stuff okay, you wouldn’t be able to in your state anyway. Just eat what I bring you, alright?” he said, and after a few moments Karkat let out a sigh. He wasn’t saying yes, but he supposed he wasn’t saying no either.
Guilt was pooling around inside of him that he quickly tried to snuff out, because fuck he did not want to die. Again, he supposed.
“That guy called you Trickster?” he muttered after a moment, watching the look of relief on the other’s face as he took his change of subject as permission for him to do whatever it was he was going to in order to get him something to eat. Which Karkat supposed it kind of was.
“Yeah! Pretty cool huh? You can just call me John though, if you want,” he told him, and Karkat sighed as he nodded.
“Alright, sure, John, that’ll work. I guess you can just, go do whatever it is you need to,” he muttered, and John smiled brightly as he nodded, walking towards the entrance of the alleyway.
“Yeah sure thing! Just stay here alright, I’ll be right back, and then we should probably leave before those hunters get it in their heads to come back and finish you off,” John told him, and Karkat couldn’t help but nod in agreement. Fuck he did not want to have to deal with that guy again, especially if it was just going to make him have to eat more, hell no.
Once John was gone, Karkat completely hunched in over himself, trying to rationalize everything that had just happened, but fuck if that wasn’t nearly impossible. Fucking hell, he was waiting for that guy to come
back after killing someone so that he could devour their god damn soul like some shitty Disney demon.
He didn’t fucking want this, it wasn’t fair god damn it!
But then again, when the hell had anything been?