capitalh | EVERYONE HATES TIME TRAVEL PART ONE

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EVERYONE HATES TIME TRAVEL PART ONE

Who: Anybody stepping out of the TIME HOLE into present-day LA, anybody who wants to witness this going down – or to intervene
Where: Downtown LA
When: August 2nd (now!)
What: A bunch of time travellers arrive in the present to try to fix their dystopian future. See here for more details!
Warnings: time travel. everyone hates time travel.

It's late at night when the portal opens, an undulating patch of wrongness hanging in the warm summer air just a few inches above the street, bordered by shimmering multicoloured light.

A car swerves to avoid it. There's a scream or two, and people start to clear the area, eager to put some distance between themselves and the potential scene of some kind of Incident – others stay put, cell phone cameras at the ready.

If anything, though, when people start to step out of the portal, the onlookers calm down a little – this is, at least, not going to be another dinosaur incident. Cameras flash anyway. Another person screams, presumably because they're just on a roll with screaming at this point.

More than one person has called the Alpha Force hotline by now – but they might well not be the first heroes to arrive on the scene...

______________________
Everyone is cordially encouraged to make multiple threads here for either time-travellers, present-day people, or both. Feel free to NPC passersby etc. as well!
Remember that villains from the future who are following the good guys through are probably going to come through at a slight delay.

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Citizens reacting with alarm is something that, as technically a superhero, Karkat's supposed to react to, especially with all this time travel shit going on. He's kind of apprehensive about the idea of getting himself caught up in any of that – he feels like having to deal with any future Karkats is probably best avoided – but he figures he should at least check it out so he can call for backup or something, if he has to.

What he isn't expecting is that flare of familiar red and blue light.

He assumes it's just regular Sollux at first, and he's about to run forward to tell him to chill the fuck out before something happens when he realises that while it's definitely Sollux, it's not the one he's anticipating.

He hangs back, apprehensive and alarmed.

It's hard to miss Karkat, among all these humans. Sollux turns to look at him slowly, and after a wary pause, initially reacts with only a faint scoff.

"Typical," he says in English, with much better pronunciation than present Sollux ever could have managed. The age he has on his present self is obvious - he has all the markings of an adult troll, including the more threatening sub-vocalizations. He wheels on Karkat fully, and there is an anger there that just doesn't exist with normal Sollux - a type of barely suppressed hostility.

This Sollux has been obviously marred with further cybernetic additions - lights that are dimmed by his own psionic aura.

"It's been a while," he says in Alternian now, regarding the younger troll.

"Holy shit," says Karkat, staring up at him, round-eyed. He backs up a little, not quite conscious of doing so. "You're – shit. You're from the future."

Sollux just snorts. It's an unfriendly sound.

"What gave me away?" he drawls.

"Wow, I don't know, maybe the fact that you're a million feet tall and you're acting like even more of a jackass than usual –" He breaks off, his indignant expression softening a little – but warily. He isn't so startled by how different this Sollux looks that he hasn't noticed how angry he seems.

"What happened to you?"

There's sharp edge to his reaction, which speaks for itself. His eyes narrow into fiery slits.

"Nothing that couldn't have been prevented. Not that you'd care." He looks away, up past the rooftops, scowling. "But that's why I'm here."

Karkat bristles. "What the fuck do you mean, not that I'd care? Why the hell wouldn't I care -??"

"I mean that you weren't fucking there any of the times it would have mattered!" Sollux snarls in brutal Alternian, moving forward aggressively. "Think about it - where the hell am I now?"

Karkat takes a step back, opens and closes his mouth.

"With – your robot guys, I guess - I mean, right?"

Edited 2015-02-09 20:10 (UTC)

"Well, it's a good enough answer for you, isn't it?" Sollux snaps, like that response has proven his point. "Fuck, I just finished talking to you on the other side, and it's like you haven't changed at all."

"I – what?" His ears flatten against his head; he looks confused, upset, and mountingly concerned. "Wait, is shit going down with you right now??" His eyes are wide.

"It will soon," he says, voice turning distant for a long moment, though he no longer flinches. "It was a long time ago." He looks back at him. "Did you know that you tried to stop me from coming back, even fucking knowing that?"

Karkat stares at him, a look of incomprehension on his face – he shakes his head, although it's hard to tell whether that's an answer or just in confusion.

"What's – what's going to happen?" he asks. "I mean, I – can I stop it?"

"I don't know," Sollux says, his voice taking less of an edge as his answer is more sincere. "I've never actually done this before."

But he sure as hell is going to tear things down until he's satisfied.

Karkat opens his mouth, and then closes it – he shakes his head, helpless. "But – dude, if you're mad at me then there has to be something I could have done, right–? Please, man, just tell me!"

That may be a bold assumption. But then again, as far as Sollux can see, there must have been.

Karkat's plea makes him pause, with a sincere sort of curiosity. He's spent a very long time convincing himself that people from this time period had no interest in helping him, but for a moment, he wonders.

"He's going to try to take on TRIDENT sometime soon. It doesn't work out."

His face falls, and his eyes bug out a little in that way they do sometimes when he is faced with someone he cares about doing something appallingly stupid.

"On his own??"

"He's got a couple of the Cons with him," he says, darkly. "They're not going to be enough."

There's a flash of sadness in his eyes at that remark, but it's mostly just resentment at this point.

"Fuck," says Karkat, emphatically. "Well then – shit, we need to stop him! How soon?"

Sollux snarls.

"Do you think stopping him now is going to do anything?" he snaps. "Like he's just going to quit? This is all he fucking has."

Karkat makes a frustrated clicking noise somewhere between a growl and a hiss. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean? He's not completely fucking irrational, if literally him from the future tells him this is a horrible god damn idea –"

"And what, it just ends there? What about the next time, when he figures he's really got it, and the same thing happens?" The psionic aura flares around him angrily. "You think he's just going to let it go?"

"Well – no, but he might be a bit more fucking reasonable about it!" He stares at him, looking lost and bewildered and kind of angry. "I mean – what were you going to do about it?"

Edited 2015-02-24 05:53 (UTC)

Sollux gives him a surprisingly cold look, the light from his eyes sharp and impatient.

"I'm going to show him what I've already learned. That they aren't the only ones he needs to fight against."

Karkat hesitates. He doesn't like that look; it makes him uneasy.

"... What do you mean."

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nitrodamus - 2015-02-24 06:13 (UTC) - Expand

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10thingsihateaboutme - 2015-02-25 14:10 (UTC) - Expand

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