Chapter Text
Though his story ended with a green suit and a black sword, lying drenched in his own blood next to a red slab, that didn’t mean he had to stop living. The dream bubbles provided a way for even the most disenfranchised of Daves to live out some semblance of an afterlife.
At least for a time.
Striders are so difficult to please.
It started innocently enough. An expedition into another dream bubble was nothing new, and he had done countless jumps before. He got bored cooped up in his own bubble, with only his own memories to entertain him. As the intersections between bubbles became less and less frequent, it became obvious that he had to do something to stay sane, to keep himself from getting stuck in a rut and becoming addicted to reenacting old memories.
So he started testing. HIs inner Strider balked at the idea, but there could be no success without failure, and what the hell else was he gonna do?
First he tried to find the barriers to his bubble world. No matter how far he walked or for how long, he could never find anything. The world seemed to stretch on forever. So he tried something else. He tried to force the content of his little micro-verse. He realized that he could recreate anything he could remember well, but nothing else. This little world was entirely focused on him, and thus depended on his input.
So he tried to remove everything. He concentrated, like his brother taught him. As he got into position, he could feel the bubble morphing, reenacting the memory of first learning to meditate.
“Okay dude, now pull yourself inwards. Concentrate on one thing, and start removing everything else. Ignore everything your senses tell you, they’ll lie to you anyway. Feel the way your breath comes in and out of your nose, and focus only on that.”
“but bro” he could hear himself respond, in a voice that was at once his own and yet only an echo.
“what is this shit supposed to teach me man”
Dave could feel the sting of the smack delivered by his brother and sensei.
“Idiot. When you can learn to remove the unimportant, you can focus on the important. Distractions are just a host of other assholes that are trying to keep you down and fuck you up. A true swordsman can become one with his sword, using it as an extension of himself. It is only then that will be worthy of the Strider battle techniques.”
Dave remembered sitting in silence for a moment before speaking up again.
“hey bro
how much of that was total bullshit”
He remembered how his brother laughed and laughed before responding again.
“Most of it lil’ dude. The ability to figure out what’s bullshit and what’s good advice is another essential element of the Strider identity. Now get to practicing. I’ll be back whenever.”
As he began to meditate in earnest, Dave could feel the elements of the dream bubble begin to fade away. But he didn’t stop. Instead, he concentrated even harder on ignoring the sensations of the dream bubble, until he felt nothing.
When he opened his eyes, Dave felt covered in a thin, plasticine film. He had finally reached the true barrier of the dream bubbles.
From there he was just a few breathing exercises and well placed jabs away from total freedom in the void. But once he had finally pierced the thin membrane between himself and everything else, he realized his real problem.
Nothing he had ever done had prepared him for existence outside of any reality, pretend or otherwise. HIs vision was almost totally consumed by visions of the Highest Order of HorrorTerrors, their tentacles undulating to the rhythm of their psychic screams. He felt his body pulled in a thousand different ways as every other reality attempted to suck him in.
But a Strider never gives up.
Dave propelled himself through the void, towards anything at all. As he flew through the negative space between universes, he was at once confused and almost nauseated by the drastic flux in time and space. Somehow, movement through an inch of space seemed to take thousands of years, while a million miles could pass by in what seemed like a second.
But through at all, Dave kept his cool, until he finally collided with a bubble, which wrenched him from the profane space of the void into the safety of a pretend reality.
----------
The transformation was gradual. When Equius first arrived in the void, everything was okay, comfortable even. He felt at peace drifting through nothingness, summoning figments of his memories at will to appease his every whim.
And of course Nepeta was there too. At least, she usually was. Without the need to protect Nepeta or keep Equius from accidentally killing anyone, their moirallegiance was less out of necessity and more out of mutual admiration and respect. And while that meant fewer worries, it also took a huge toll on the relationship. Since every conflict had already played out, and every memory had already been addressed and soothed, there were fewer feelings to talk about. And while Nepeta relished the ability to let her imagination run wild, Equius was far less well endowed in that area, and far less inclined to participate.
And so their moirallegiance drifted. And while they eventually agreed it was all for the best if they separate, Equius never really believed that. Nepeta promised she’d visit, but Equius had heard that a thousand times from a thousand failed moirallegiances before. The feeling jams were gone.
And Equius felt empty. He missed the feeling of wholeness she gave to him. He missed the way she could soothe him, softly and slowly, by rubbing up against him oh so gently. He missed everything about her, from her stupid cat tail to her little round horns.
And while he’d never admit it, he had always needed her far more than she needed him.
So with no moirail to stabilize him, Equius began to fall apart. His darker vices took ahold of him, and he could feel himself slowly devolve. Soon, the only thing he knew was pain: both the joy of inflicting it and the perverse delight of receiving it. He would reenact killing imps and destroying robots until every surface of the dream bubble was covered in grist and robot parts, and then when his anger could rise no higher, he began to punish himself.
He would reenact moments of personal pain and suffering, from the harsh slap of Aradia’s robot hands to Gamzee’s graceful strangle, and everything in between. He would imagine the Black King of the troll’s session tearing him apart a thousand times until his blue blood had stained his entire reality.
It was never enough.
Somewhere between the purest moments of pain and pleasure, Equius lost himself. He lost the troll who had once felt pity for the silly cat girl. He systematically destroyed himself until there was nothing left but hate.
And it was somewhere between the third and fourth eternities of infinite hate that something changed.
Dave Strider appeared.
----------
As Dave slammed through the barrier separating Equius’ dream bubble from the outside world, the two of them felt the same curious feeling: the dread that something had just gone completely and totally wrong.
Dave’s actual arrival occurred with very little fanfare. It was as if the bubble had simply forgotten that Dave wasn’t there, and so he was.
As Dave looked around, it took him only a few moments to confirm that he had entered the dream bubble of a troll. Though he did not recognize the specific locale, everything was familiar enough, from the strange flora to the dark, oddly colored and foreboding sky. But everything in the bubble seemed darker and tainted, as if something was twisting the landscape.
Though it was of no surprise to him, Dave couldn’t influence this bubble like he could his own or the communal bubbles that were created when two or more bubbles intersected. He was in for the long haul, at least until this bubble intersected with another.
As he explored the bubble, Dave couldn’t help but feel uneasy. He knew that the owner was present, he could almost feel the troll watching him, ready to strike. And then he heard it, that inhuman noise.
It was like the moo of an angry bull and the neigh of a wild stallion, combined with the tortured screams of a thousand trolls. This was the noise of a creature that had gone so far past pain that the term no longer had a meaning.
Dave spun around, trying to locate the source of the scream, but he couldn’t. The scream rippled through the very fabric of the bubble, seemingly coming from every direction at once.
So Dave just stopped paying attention to his senses. He reached out with his very being, feeling the fabric of the bubbles. It was then that he finally pinpointed the source of the chaos and pain. Dave could feel it approaching him at full canter, it wouldn’t be too long until it was upon him. Dave waited in tense silence, frozen in place. As he felt the final leap that could very well seal his fate, he struck out, slicing towards the creature as he sidestepped its attack.
As he felt the creature land, Dave allowed himself to open his eyes. He immediately regretted that allowance.
What he saw was neither troll nor beast, but instead some profane mixture of the two. It towered over Dave at close to twelve feet, somehow remaining deft and graceful while being monstrously muscled. It had a body like a horse, complete with mane and tail, but its torso and haunches were so terribly muscled that the creature was instead round like a bull. Its hooves were giant and sharp, but the front two had fleshy protrusions, as if they had still somehow remembered being hands.
But the most horrid part was the head. The head was the part that had remembered being humanoid the best. And though both of the sharp, straight horns of the beast had been broken, and the creature’s face had been disfigured by countless poorly healed scars, there was no mistaking the identity of the bubble owner.
For a split second, Dave lost his cool. It neither the grotesque nature of the thing that Equius had become, nor the cloud of void that was seemingly eating away at Equius that bothered Dave the most.
It was the eyes. Somewhere in the eyes of the beast Dave saw some semblance of humanity (trollmanity?). But whatever remaining intelligence remained inside Equius was devoted to one thing and one thing entirely.
Hate. Pure unabashed delightfully lewd hatred.
As Equius dripped a few drops of royal blue blood from his haunch, Dave realized the very worst part of his new home.
“oh fuck
hes enjoying this”
Equius broke eye contact and bared his torn, jagged horns for a charge. As Equius gathered speed, Dave only gritted his teeth and prepared to dodge. As Dave sidestepped the attack, he could feel the tendrils of void coming off of Equius’ tormented body. He could feel them dig into him, creating a chill that touched his very soul.
But Striders don’t lose their chill easily.
As Equius skidded to a stop and prepared for another go-round, Dave saw his chance to attack. He leapt towards his opponent, jabbing his katana towards Equius. Unfortunately for Dave, it didn’t do very much. As another trickle of blood dripped down Equius’ side, Dave knew he was doing nothing but somehow pleasuring the beast.
And so the two became locked in a deadly dance. With every dodged attack Dave became not tired but more determined, and with every scratch and wound Equius became not hurt but more engaged. What had started as a struggle for survival became another ritual, another offering with the intentions of pleasing the Horrorterrors above and the beast inside Equius.
The ground was soon soaked in the sweat and blood of the two combatants, but they had no intention of stopping. It was an eternal bullfight with no winners, save for those who delighted in the perversion of eternal combat.
Luckily for Dave, Striders make fucking awesome matadors.